Gracious Beauty

Gracious Beauty is the third episode of Power Rangers Rebirth: Origin. This episode focuses on Maria's origin and also her relationship with her parents and her time in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic at the age of seven. This will also explain how Maria got her love for journalism.

Plot Synopsis
We open up in the Bronx on August 21st, 1999, where Maria is awakened by her mother to get ready quickly, because it is the day that she, her parents, brother and sister are all moving to Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic to start a new life over there. Maria is only a girl of 7 at the time. The family then heads to the JFK Airport nonstop to the Las Americas International Airport in Dominican Republic. Although she is sad to leave her neighbors and school friends behind, her parents tell her that everything will be fine and that she will be happy, all of them.

Maria enrolls in a Catholic school called St. John Bosco, near the presidential palace and there she would be baptized, confirmed and receive her First Communion. Maria's father works as a sports journalist at the Diario Libre newspaper, while her mother works as a teacher at a different school. When Maria meets her first group of friends, she immediately adapts and becomes very happy for years.

By the time she's 10, Maria would constantly see her father working on the computer and asks him about journalism. Her father explains to her how a good journalist must do his work, knows when to stay silent and when to talk, unlike some who prefer to spread ugly rumors about people, especially celebrities. Since that day, Maria decided she wanted to follow in her father's footsteps and become a journalist, despite her mother wanting her to be a teacher when she grew up.

On her 15th birthday party, Maria's parents are driven to tears at their daughter's beauty and grace and has the time of her life with her friends. The next day, Maria and her siblings talk with their parents and learn that Mr. Santiago accepted a journalist job in Angel Grove and the family has to move. Maria becomes saddened by this news that she would leave all her friends behind once again, especially the prayer group that she loved very much. Goodbyes are said, but never forgotten as she leaves on August 10th to Angel Grove.

Once arriving on Angel Grove, Maria goes to a high school and starts to write for the school paper. Two years later, she becomes the school's editor in chief and during her summer vacation she would work with her father, but her job would be in the entertainment section dealing with the glamour and celebrities, but Maria wanted to write about more than that.

In 2010, she graduates from high school and obtains a scholarship to Princeton. Upon arriving to Princeton, she meets her new roommate and the two become fast friends at once, sharing their dreams of being in the newsroom.

Trivia

 * Maria having a prayer group at the St. John Bosco school is a reference to the author living in the Dominican Republic and assisting his prayer group every Saturday.