nhiều chuyện, by angel lin

this past june, I graduated as valedictorian of the class of 2023!! just a first-generation woman of color doing things right… no biggie.

after some reflecting, I realized that this was an event I wanted to celebrate, document, and immortalize on this silly little blog. here’s a link to the video if you are so inclined to watch how the speech played out. aside from a majorly embarrassing hair malfunction that doesn’t get resolved until about halfway through, I thought it went pretty well. definitely a moment I’ll be telling my kids about 🙂

Hellooo, Class of 2023!

Can you believe it? We’re here! I mean, finally. It’s hard to believe that we stepped foot on this beautiful campus four years ago? I don’t know about you, but in 2019, I was still rockin with an obscene side-part and skinny jeans. And you know when you’re a teenager and you think you have the whole world figured out? And it’s cool to act like you hate everything? And then, all of a sudden, you’re off to college and you’re all like see you never mom and dad!

Well, then you go to campus and then you meet these orientation leaders that are smiling a little too widely and everyone’s like super nice and the professors are actually the sweetest people ever and the flowers are blooming and the sun is shining you can’t help but start to suspect that the Jesuits might be pumping laughing gas into our water supply. Maybe it was just me, but as a jaded Seattleite who was used to overcast days and good old fashioned seasonal depression, Santa Clara just felt like a big love fest. 

Now, I don’t mean this with a drop of irony. Here at Santa Clara, we’re just really nice to each other. We hold the door open for strangers, we collaborate to help each other study for tests, our classes are small enough to know everyone by name, we share internship and job opportunities like they’re falling from the sky—and, trust me, you and I both know that they are not falling from the sky… I mean, come on—all this lovey dovey business all this on top of the perpetually sunny skies and palm trees? At some point, it gets a little corny, right? You start to wonder, what’s the point of all this? 

And, to be honest, I dont think I ever really understood it. At least until it wasn’t there anymore. You see, before we even had a chance to finish our first-year meal points or attend our first spring quarter dayger, the pandemic hit. And, well you know what happened next. It was a time of isolation and tremendous loss. It was a time that revealed the worst in our institutions. But it was also a time that revealed the best in our community. 

Yeah, maybe the zoom classes were life-draining and you spent more time watching your professor figure out how to screenshare than actually learning. But do you remember those few times when you were assigned into a breakout room and it was actually really nice? When someone cracked a joke and everyone laughed and you all got to chatting and, for a brief moment, you were connected to these people and Santa Clara again? Or when you attended a MCC gen meeting over zoom and you got to meet all these new and eager first-years who wanted to be involved so you were like, why not play Among Us for the thousandth time? 

You know, a statistic came out from an SCU wellness survey that year that showed that, during the pandemic, student-run RSO’s were the main source of creating feelings of belonging for SCU students. When we couldn’t find community in our classes or our residence halls or in Benson, we found it in each other. We were the ones dedicated to staying connected and stoking the love that fuels our community. Distance makes the heart grow fonder, I guess.

But the really inspiring thing was when we came back to campus. After finally joyfully reuniting with my six beautiful brilliant best friends, I looked around and saw something familiar that we all shared in our faces. We were a bunch of overgrown first-years who had spent the last two years cooped up inside and, all of a sudden, we were juniors who had all of these underclassmen now looking up to us. To be directors hosting events we had never even attended before, to make huge decisions for the future of our student organizations, to lead research projects despite having major imposter syndrome, to be student body vice president. 

But the thing is, we did it. We rose to the occasion. And we did it so well. We rebuilt the communities that were once separated. We showed the underclassmen what it meant to be a Bronco. We honored the legacy of traditions left by the upperclassmen who came before us. We burned some couches. 

But, to me, what was most inspiring, was that we became advocates. When our campus was struck with tragedy, we demanded better mental health resources. When our school voiced a commitment to DEI, we called for more resources for students of color. When our communities were torn apart by violence, we developed better student safety and violence prevention methods. We were leaving the campus even better than how we found it. 

Well, after spending some time warming up to the idea, I think I get what all this lovey dovey business is about now. You see, black feminist theorist bell hooks wrote in a little book called All About Love about this very specific type of love that I think I’ve been seeing here at Santa Clara. 

She talks about the importance of fostering love as the impetus to radical action. What does that mean? Well, think about a love that is generous and far-reaching. A love that makes you smile at the people you don’t know when they pass by. A love that makes you excited to see your friends or your favorite professor in class the next day. A love that makes you more empathetic to yourself and others. bell hooks says that, when you let this type of love generously into your life—when you learn to love your friends, your neighbors, your community, and, most importantly, yourself—when you really let yourself love in those ways, you begin to be more attuned to the needs of those around you. Loving your community means being an advocate for your community. You want the best for everyone and everything around you so you’re willing to do what it takes to make sure that everyone is well taken care of. Growing up, my mom would always say this one phrase to me at the dinner table that I think reflects this well: “con ăn, má đã no rồi.” Watching you eat makes me feel full. And here at Santa Clara, we want to make sure everyone eats. 

That’s why we advocate. Radical love is what makes us work so hard to build a legacy that makes sure that SCU students will continue to be taken care of, long after we are gone. 

I’m a first-generation college student. I’m from a city where we have overcast skies three out of four days of the year and, before this, I had never seen a palm tree in my life. Four years ago, I would have never thought that I would have found the loving home that I found in Santa Clara today. But that’s what we do—we build loving communities. Communities where we can be cherished in our most authentic selves. Communities like LEAD where I met my beautiful brilliant best friends who teach me every day that I can expand my capacity for love. 

My hope is that we grow only more abundant in our empathy, to the point where we can extend this love beyond the scope of this community. That we can love indiscriminately so that every single person and creature and life form on earth is something that we feel compelled to fiercely advocate for. I mean, that’s the Santa Clara mission after all, isn’t it? To use our education—our radical empathy—for good. To take care of one another. 

Things look a lot different than how they did when we first got here. We have a woman president! Our student body is so much more diverse than it once was. I’m not wearing my hair in a side part anymore! We have new organizations and leaders and traditions. Our campus is a lot better than how it was when we first came to it. And I like to think that we played a big role in that. 

We’re older, kinder, and more empathetic than we used to be. And, now, we’re prepared for the worst of it. Because, at a certain point in your adult life, bad things will happen. Possibly even unprecedented, pandemic, global-lockdown bad. But probably not. Just make sure that, when they do happen, you have someone to hold onto. Make sure that you’ve loved generously and created the relationships that will get you through it. 

Live in community authentically, laugh loudly, love generously, and advocate for the ones you love fiercely. Congratulations, Class of 2023.