Saratoga News

Photograph by Robert Scheer

Jennifer Chin breaks into a smile as she learns she has won the Lion's Club speech contest.

Don't judge others by their color, student speaker urges

By Tim Persyn

Four Saratoga High School students brought their best rhetorical talents to La Hacienda Inn on Feb. 5 to compete in the annual Saratoga Lion's Club student speaker contest. The topic for this year's contest was "Affirmative Action--Past, Present and Future."

Sophomore Jennifer Chin, an honors speech student, won the top prize, which included $50 and the chance to move on to the next level in the Lion's Club's 59th annual Multiple District Four contest. The overall winner of the competition for Multiple District Four, a region that encompasses California and northern Nevada, will win $17,500 in scholarships.

Chin said she found the topic thought-provoking. "When I first heard about it, I had to stop and think. I looked back over my personal experiences," she said.

Each of the four contestants prepared a five- to 10-minute speech that was judged by City Council members Anne Marie Burger, Gillian Moran and Don Wolfe.

In her speech, Chin argued against affirmative action. She began her presentation by asking the audience: "How do you see me: as a color, gender or person?"

She argued: "Affirmative action reduces people to color or gender and is blind to merit. We must see people for who they are, not what they look like. . . .The democratic way is to establish a level playing field where people succeed on merit."

Chin concluded her speech with an appeal to the ideal expressed by Martin Luther King Jr. when he asked to be judged not by the color of his skin but by the content of his character.

Only one of the other three speakers, Wayne Kao, argued in support of affirmative action. He asserted that the public has a misunderstanding of affirmative action and that racism is prevalent in society. "Discrimination is a sad fact
of life," he said.

Jennifer Shih spoke against affirmative action, and Michelle Batra argued that the programs should be reformed.

Chin came across as a natural speaker, eloquent yet not self-conscious. "I love speech," she said as she smiled and gripped her awards.