While shopping for dresses at the Boys & Girls Club Prom Dress Extravaganza, Jummy Loaye saw her dress and fell in love. “I just knew that’s what I wanted to wear,” she says. Though she didn’t have too many plans, she just wanted to enjoy a special night with her friends. “We’re all leaving high school and won’t see each other as much,” she says. She’d been envisioning her own American prom since before moving to Dallas from Nigeria. “I always knew what prom was, especially because of the movies,” she says. “I wanted to experience it. I’ve shed tears a couple of times over this.”

In high school, she was chosen to participate in the Leader in Me Program. “They take students that they believe can lead others and train them,” she explains. “Being chosen for that gave me a reason to be great. It became clearer that the younger ones are watching me; even my little siblings are watching.” This fall, Loaye plans to attend the University of North Texas and study business. She wants to run her own business one day, like her father, who sells Nigerian clothes. Though all the cancellations of senior events have made her sad, she’s trying to draw positive lessons from the experience. “I have learned that most times our plans don’t go through and that even when the plan doesn’t go through, it’s just a setback,” she says. “We get up and raise our heads to achieve higher than planned.”

For his Eagle Scout project, Nathaniel Lambert built flower beds for a local elementary school. He couldn’t wait to gather with fellow scouts for his court of honor, the official ceremony where he would receive his Eagle Scout neckerchief and badge. But, due to COVID-19, the court of honor was cancelled. “I ended up going in front of the board and presented everything and they were like, Congrats, you’re done now,” he says. “I didn’t get the formal stuff. It’s upsetting. The badge is the thing that people recognize.”

In addition to his court of honor, Lambert will be missing out on prom, graduation, and an art exhibit scheduled at the McKinney Performing Arts Center, where was going to showcase his fashion design. (For prom, Lambert was planning on designing his own suit.) His International Baccalaureate (IB) exams were cancelled, too. “A lot of kids are probably like, Ugh, exams,” Lambert says. “But I was looking forward to that because that’s the thing that all the IB kids talk about internationally: ‘Oh, I went through the struggles of the exams.’” Next year, he plans to attend Baylor University to study entrepreneurship with a minor in fashion and apparel merchandising. Though he’s disappointed about all the missed experiences of his senior year, he’s still proud of the hard work that got him to the milestones, especially as an Eagle Scout. “I feel cheesy saying it, but I learned a lot going through it. I learned a lot more than survival skills.”

Makayla Woods picked out her dress at the Prom Dress Extravaganza, an event hosted by the East Dallas Boys & Girls Club, in early March. “I absolutely love my dress,” says Woods, who has been active with the Boys & Girls Club since seventh grade. “I was super excited about prom because at my school, prom is exclusively for seniors, so I’d never experienced a prom before.” On Pinterest, she and her friends had exchanged ideas and hopes for how their day would look. “But unfortunately, with everything going on, we didn’t get to make it that far in the prom planning process.” For now, her school has postponed prom from April 18 until the end of June. “Hopefully that still happens,” Woods says.

Trying to navigate the end of high school during a global pandemic has been “overwhelming and disorienting.” Her summer plans before she heads off to college are up in the air, too. “It’s been really confusing for me and a lot of seniors out there,” she says. “It’s hard trying to plan for something when there are so many variables that you can’t control.” Regarding what she can control, she says she’s been trying to use this moment in a constructive way. “It’s been a good time for me to do a lot of self-reflecting on who I really am. I guess that’s a good thing to do before you go to college.”

To Jesus Segovia, prom meant “the last time that you get to celebrate with your whole school. Seeing them for the last time. Something special.” He planned to throw a small party with close friends and all go to the dance together. But, like so many proms this year, Segovia’s was cancelled, and his graduation (for now) has been postponed until July. Next year, with a scholarship from the Boys & Girls Club, he plans to apply to St. John’s University in Minnesota to study business and entrepreneurship. 

Growing up, Segovia says his parents, who are from Mexico, were always working, so he lived with his grandparents and spoke Spanish at home. “Every time I speak English, I doubt myself, because I don’t want my Spanish accent to come out,” he says. “I’ve tried to perfect it, but nerves make it worse.” Segovia says things improved when he transferred to Uplift Luna in seventh grade. There, Segovia stays busy running cross country and track. “I love running,” he says. “It helps me feel alive. I also volunteer a lot. Giving people hope makes me feel good.” 

MeMe Khai had heard from friends who went to prom last year how much fun she was going to have. “I’d imagined a lot of stuff going to prom,” she says. “I prepared a lot. We don’t have these kinds of prom in my country. I’m sad.”

In 2012, Khai moved to Dallas from Burma. “My parents decided to move to the United States because in my country there was no free access to education and because it was not safe for us,” she says. Khai worked hard to improve her English and prepare for college. “I couldn’t go to pep rallies and basketball games because I was busy taking college classes,” she says. “I wanted to challenge myself. I doubted myself because my English wasn’t strong.” Next year, she plans to attend Texas Women’s University and major in nursing. Then, she wants to take her skills back to her country. “In my country, there’s no healthcare available to lower income families, so I want to go back and help as much as possible.”

Every time the jasmine plant blooms in their backyard, Twa Bee’s mother picks the flowers and weaves them into a crown. “We’ll wear it on our heads, or you can wrap around your bun or braid it in your hair,” Bee explains. Jasmine reminds them of Thailand, where Bee was born, though her family is originally from Burma. “There’s a lot of jasmine in Thailand, so it’s really, really pretty. My mom and other people from Thailand have it here because it makes them feel at home and it smells really good.” When Bee moved to Dallas, she started participating in Eagle Scholars, a college readiness program, where she discovered that her passion was to become an immigration lawyer.

Though Bee wasn’t planning on attending prom, she couldn’t wait for her school’s graduation. “I worked so hard to graduate, and now it’s cancelled,” she says. “They’re having this virtual thing, which isn’t really a graduation. I wanted to walk the stage.” She hopes to attend the University of Texas at Arlington and major in political science before attending law school. Due to the coronavirus, however, “Some scholarships have been reduced, so it kind of sucks because there’s less money for us.” But surrounded by jasmine, Bee expresses gratitude for the education she’s already had. “I’m really blessed to grow up with both cultures”—South Asian and American—“and learn how different things work. It gives me a different viewpoint of the world, and I think that’s really amazing.”

After her school’s homecoming dance was cancelled earlier this year, Zar Khaing was especially looking forward to her first prom. She tried on a bunch of dresses, but none spoke to her until she saw another girl carrying the black and white dress pictured here. “I was hoping it didn’t fit her so that I could try it on,” Khaing says. “Man, God was on my side. I saw the dress was on the hanger, and I took the chance to try it on. I loved everything about it.” At prom, she’d envisioned dancing to slow songs with her boyfriend. But now prom has been postponed indefinitely, and she and her boyfriend have broken up. Still, she hopes to attend eventually with friends.

Originally born in Burma, Khaing’s family fled to Thailand shortly after her birth to escape ethnic cleansing. When she was five, they moved to Dallas. “We didn’t understand English, and we had to go to school,” she says. “When we had homework, my parents had to run to other people to get help because they didn’t understand it. It was hard.” At her high school, she plays tennis, golf, and chess. This fall, she plans to attend Texas Tech University, where she will study interior design. In the meantime, she hopes prom will happen. “Prom to me was the ending of my high school years and how I have to be an adult now,” she says. “It’s like a baby bird leaving its nest.”

As a first-generation college student and her school’s valedictorian, Emily Carlos couldn’t wait to deliver her speech in front of her classmates and family. When her graduation ceremony got cancelled, she wrote a proposal to the school suggesting that they organize a drive-in graduation. “We could decorate our cars with the schools we’re going to in the fall,” Carlos explains. “We could honk. We could have a parade.” Instead, the ceremony will be virtual, which, she says, won’t be the same. “It was a shock, and I was just upset about it. My mom and I would always talk about me being on stage,” she says. “I wanted everyone to be there.” 

This fall, Carlos plans to attend Dallas Baptist University and major in business, with the goal of becoming a lawyer. As disappointed as she is to miss out on senior year events, she tries to maintain a healthy perspective: “It’s a good time to reflect upon the experiences you had and to be grateful. Like, I can’t take everything for granted or think that [an] event will always be there or that I’ll always have my family around. You just have to be really be thankful that everyone is healthy in your family and that parents still have their jobs, things like that.”

Erin Trojan has been dreaming about prom since she was little. She and her friends had already gotten a hotel room, and she was going to go to the dance with her best friend who attended another school. Though she’d been eyeing a dress she loved for a while, she hadn’t bought it yet. “I kind of have not accepted the fact that all of this isn’t happening—graduation, prom, and whatnot,” Trojan says. “My brain is just repressing it at the moment.” But at the same time, she and her friends want to make the most of situation. “Once the quarantine lifts, we’re all going to do a mini-road trip or make our own prom,” she says. “Like, get dressed up and go through the Whataburger drive-thru or something.”  

This fall, Trojan plans to attend the University of North Texas, majoring in Interior Design. “I’ve been doing art since I was little,” she explains. “My dad would try to get me to do sports and stuff, but I would fake injuries to get out of it. I just wanted to draw and paint.” She continues, “I love the messier mediums. All of my clothes have paint on them.” She likens her high school experience to a roller coaster, the slumps being freshman and sophomore year. “I’d just been diagnosed with anxiety and depression so those first two years were figuring out medication and all that,” she says. “Junior year I found my friends and my group of people and they forever changed my life. They’ve made me so much happier and more confident within myself.” 

The week that classes were cancelled was the week that Jacob Clarkson and his classmates were asking their dates to prom and arranging tables for the dance. He planned to take a friend, the same one he’d asked to homecoming. “I was most excited to see all of my friends together outside of school for the last time,” Clarkson says. “I was hoping for an opportunity to say goodbye to Ursuline friends that I don’t see often.” His graduation ceremony is still on, but it’s postponed until July. “I’m hoping that still works out,” he says. “While I ultimately understand why these cancellations are taking place, I’m still very disappointed by them.” He adds, “It’s hard to make sense of all of this, but I’m learning important lessons on how valuable life is and how meaningful the time I spend with my friends and family is.”

This fall, he hopes to be a freshman year at Fordham University, where he wants to study finance. “It would be the most disappointing, if, like, not only if all these senior events were cancelled, but if it delayed going to college as well,” he says. In the meantime, “School really feels optional right now, even though it’s not. Being a senior, it’s hard to find motivation to do the online learning.”

Until Mohammad Faroz moved to Dallas from Afghanistan in the seventh grade, he’d never heard of prom. “But we watch movies and shows, so we kind of learned what it’s all about and why people value it so much,” he says. He planned to go with a group of friends. “I didn’t attend a lot of these events my first three years, so I was looking forward to it. I wanted to go and see my friends before we all head off to college and probably not see each other for the next five years.” But, Faroz continues, “Unfortunately, due to coronavirus, our graduation and prom and all the other senior events we were supposed to have were cancelled. Health is more important right now, so we’re staying home. But I’m kind of sad about it.”

By far his favorite extracurricular is chess, which his father taught him to play. “Chess club was the first thing I actually felt comfortable going to and playing with people and showing my moves and learning from them.” Next year, he hopes to work and continue his education at the University of Dallas, majoring in computer science.