Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Fremont Union High School graduates have their feet on the ground and their eyes on the future.
Class of 2000 takes its final bow
By Sam Scott
Natalie Ahn, a member of the Class of 2000, made one concession to the normal sentimentality of the moment. After beginning her valedictory speech by telling the gathered graduates how she loved music, the Fremont High School valedictorian ended it by saying she held them still dearer.
"As much as I love music," she said, "standing here, I love everyone of you so much more." The crowd responded with whoops and hollers.
It was, as she said herself, her one sentimental moment. The rest of the speech was more like a clear-eyed, directive to her fellow students to take control of their lives and meet life's challenges.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Parents and friends were asked to stay in the bleachers until the end of the ceremony. The students then joined hands and began walking toward the crowd that rushed the field to greet the new graduates.
"The truth can be what you want it to be," she said. "You may have heard that too many times. You many not have heard it enough times. Once you decide what is best for you, don't let anyone talk you out of it."
Ahn's was the last of six of student speakers--young adults with the enviable talent of addressing a high school stadium crowded with family, friends, and their entire class without nervous mumbles or, for the most part, the crutch of cliche or saccharine sweetness.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Students received hugs and encouragement along with their diplomas.
Saudia Hameed, the third speaker, offered an image of the goodness of her classmates.
A scarf covering her head below the cap, Hameed told the crowd of her old fears, starting at a new school, wearing such an obvious flag of cultural difference.
"Wearing a scarf to school was the toughest thing I've ever done," she said in a statement that would sound absurd if it weren't that everyone understood how vicious peer pressure can be in high school.
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Friends and family members of Antriana Green-Young cheer for her when she steps up to receive her diploma.
The Fremont students, she said, were different. From the get-go, to her surprise, she said her classmates accepted the difference. She ended her speech by thanking them.
And when then the speeches ended, with a breeze ruffling the gowns, making the oppressive heat of the previous day before a distant memory, the some 330 graduates, men in red, women in white, both golden in the evening sun, got their diplomas.
Sunnyvale, California Since 1994
