When Clarissa DeLeon was four years old she dreamed of working a Broadway stage. She learned to sing before she could speak, it was in her blood to sing. Her aspirations were short-lived after she became paralyzed from the neck down in a jungle gym accident. She recalls doctors saying she would never recover.

DeLeon was traumatized by what she heard, but it only inspired her to work harder in her recovery. Her grandmother, aunts and nurses would sing with her throughout her therapy and she made a full recovery.

“We would just spend our day singing songs,” DeLeon says.

DeLeon is a senior McNair Scholar at St. Edward’s University studying Environmental Science and Policy. A lot of her research has involved the relationship of plants and music.

“When you do work — at least when I do work — having music kind of calms my anxiety,” DeLeon says, “even when it feels like everything is against you finding that one song or one artist can help you get through it over and over again.”

DeLeon has struggled with anxiety from a very young age but has found solace in music. When she first started her college education in 2015 she was thrilled to find St. Edward’s had a mariachi band. She was raised in a Mexican Catholic family and has always had a special place for spanish music and none of her previous schools had offered a mariachi program.

She joined the band and picked up the trumpet with no experience but quickly learned. Unfortunately, DeLeon had to quit mariachi for personal reasons. She was not sure she would be able to find a similar experience again.

That was until she ran into the director of the folklórico team Rosalinda Valdez. Valdez asked her why she had quit mariachi and asked her to sing at a folklorico event.

“She took me under her wing,” DeLeon says.

Since then DeLeon has been performing with folklorico in between sets as the dancers change and prepare for the next dance.

“I’m kind of like Dr. Strange,” jokes DeLeon, “I create time for the girls.”

DeLeon relies on her music to not only get her through the day, but also the highs and lows of her life. She is a second year RA at the Pavilions and was heavily affected by the pipe burst earlier in the semester. She credits her resilience to music.

Flipping through her vinyl records DeLeon makes a playlist of her life.

“Midnight Train by Sam Smith because I’m at that point in my life where I need to figure out what I need to do,” DeLeon says.

“My second one would have to be You Don’t Bring Me Flowers, This Is Me from The Greatest Showman soundtrack, Half Breed by Cher, obviously, Amorcito Corazon and I Was Made For Loving You by Kiss,” DeLeon says mixing genres and artists as she reminisces through different points of her life.

“[Music] really helps you get your mind straight,” DeLeon says, “it defines your mood.”