The Speech Team @UCLA secured multiple competition wins in its first year in existence.

The team secured its first-ever national recognition March 22 at the 2025 National Online Forensics Championship, where Alisha Hassanali, a Daily Bruin News contributor, won first place for informative speaking. Team members also placed at the Tabor-Venitsky Invitational – which included about 10 competitive teams from Southern California – with Ernesto Perez placing first in poetry, Brielle Asakawa second in poetry and Adrian Reyes Navarro second in persuasive speech.

Founded last spring, the team consists of general membership for students interested in public speaking in a casual setting and a competitive team, said Emma Fernandez – a second-year political science student.

The competitive team competes in dramatic interpretation, poetry interpretation, duo interpretation, prose interpretation, persuasive speaking, informative speaking, impromptu speaking and extemporaneous speaking events.

“It makes me very proud to see their smiles,” Fernandez said. “We go to competitions – when they get a medal from it, it’s showing them their hard work matters.”

Perez, a second-year Chicana and Chicano studies and political science student who aspires to be an immigration lawyer, said his speech focused on criticisms of the immigration and customs enforcement system in the United States. He added that other club members spoke about topics including mental health, science, religion and conflicting belief systems.

Fernandez said she and Perez, who are the club’s co-presidents of team membership, spend about eight hours a week facilitating one-on-one coaching sessions outside of regular club meetings to improve each member’s speechwriting skills, diction and pacing.

“At the end of the day, we have to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable,” she said. “That’s why we always push with our members.”

However, the team finds it difficult to fund its transportation and participation in tournaments as there are school and individual registration fees, Perez said. He added that the club held an online bingo fundraiser in winter quarter to cover registration fees for the Tabor-Venitsky Invitational but said the presidents had to pay for transportation fees out of pocket.

Perez said he and Hernandez are trying to navigate ways of attending tournaments so they are fully funded by UCLA.

Holding training sessions in various locations on the Hill, Fernandez said the team members started preparing for the competitions early winter quarter. The co-presidents timed and recorded the members’ individual speeches during sessions, then provided feedback to refine their delivery, she added.

Asakawa, a first-year neuroscience student who performed a poem titled “Storm” by Tim Minchin, said her coaches helped her choreograph the speech as she had to portray multiple character voices, memorize stage positions and assign more emotive body movements to particular parts.

“The way it’s written, I find it’s very easy for me to find a voice within,” Asakawa said. “It makes performing it a little bit more straightforward for me.”

Asakawa said she often practiced her 10-minute speech while walking from the Hill to her classes, adding that the Tabor-Venitsky Invitational was her first collegiate-level speech competition.

The team members can choose to participate in their preferred events, drawing from originally written speeches or the club’s script database, Fernandez said.

Asakawa added that the most memorable part of competing was the community she found with college students from other teams.

“It’s one of the best communities I’ve found on campus,” Asakawa said. “Everyone in the club and everyone on the team are just incredibly supportive and there for you.”

Perez said he is working to take the speech team to more out-of-state and international competitions in the future. UC San Diego’s speech team is a resource for the club because of its success in coaching its members and being active in competitions, he said.

“I’ve learned through public speaking, especially through speech, that we have voices that we need to utilize, especially when we talk about certain topics that we’re deeply passionate about,” Perez said.