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Recommended: Report on international students' experience
Good evening everyone. My name is Toyota Moko, and I am an international student from Japan. As the first-ever international student speaker on commencement, I am very honored to be here tonight to be given this opportunity to speak on behalf of the graduating class of the 2003.
Born and grew up in Tokyo where speaking English was absolutely absent in my eighteen years of life, one day the life-changing experience came to me. When I was fifteen-years-old, the summer of 1998, I came to America for the very first time for the home stay program through my high school. The three weeks I spent in Snohomish have brought me a wonderful encounter with my American family. John, Margo and Jennifer Turner have truly become my second family away from home. Despite the fact that I was a stranger from Japan, the Turner family treated me as if I was a part of their family, even though I had spoken broken English. During these three weeks, I was exposed to many cultural differences between America and Japan, and I was especially moved by the American people and its society where one is able to not only accept, but mutually respect and honor multicultural background and heritage. Coming from homogeneous country of Japan, this to me was a very fresh insight, and I still remember how it struck me.
After I came back to Japan, I kept in touch with my American family via e-mail. And they invited me to stay with them if I were to study at the college. I spent years preparing for my study abroad, and with the great help of the Turner family, Ms. Joy Fitzpatrick who is the international student program coordinator, and my parents, I entered America as an international student on March 11, 2001, only one week after my high school graduation in Japa...
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...y just few weeks ago on May 17. My grandfather was full of ambition and care for his family, and he especially loved me as his granddaughter. I was able to make this speech because I do believe that my grandfather will be sitting in the first row and listening to my speech at this very moment. He kept his promise to be alive until I have become twenty years old, so it is now my turn to promise him to carry on his spirit and all the knowledge and wisdom he had taught me. And more than anybody else, this honor goes to my dearest Turner family and my parents and family in Japan for making it possible for me to experience this incredibly astounding journey in America.
Congratulations class of 2012! From the bottom of my heart, I wish all of you a shining future! Thank you for having me this special moment.
Arigatougozaimasita! (Japanese: "Thank you very much.")
‘The Harmful Myth of Asian Superiority’ by Ronald Takaki and ‘Growing up Asian in America’ by Kesaya E. Noda are both essays that depict the state of Asian immigrants in America. The authors are both Asian Americans themselves and their words bear fruit from a lifetime of personal experiences of being a viewed upon as an alien in their own land. Ronald Takaki was Japanese- American whose forefathers had immigrated to Hawaii to work in the sugar plantations. Having grown up in Hawaii among other Asian Americans and Hawaii Islanders, Robert never felt out of place. Why would he?
In this article, Eric Liu presents his life as a native immigrant to an Asian American individual. He shares his experience through his reflection of ideas and emotions. Along with his story, it relates to the ideas of people’s journey from adolescence to adulthood. Eric’s inspirational experience is directed towards minority groups who try to adapt to the American culture and lifestyle. His parents emigrated from China to America, before he was born which he later became exposed to the freedom and diverse society. This results in beneficial effects for his individuality, career opportunities, and lifestyle. Although his parents have lived in a different culture than him, his life in America has made him assimilated into the American society
As a minority, coming from an international country to a foreign nation has been the most crucial decision that my family has concluded to live the possibility of the "American Dream". However, growing up as an Asian-American student wasn’t simple; I was faced with the challenge of malicious racial slurs, spiteful judgment, and unjustified condemnation that attacked my family's decision to come to America.
Good evening. Some of you out there may not realize this but those of you who attended Suntime Middle School have been with this guy for the last seven years. I would like to ask you all, not just Suntime Middle School grads and who all else, to join me in thanking Mr. Weather for his patience and dedication to the success of our education over the years. We are the Class of 2000. The first graduating class of the new millennium. The past four years have been pretty wild. We started out as a bunch of rats in a small cage, but as time went by we learned and matured and became big rats in a new small cage, but in any case, the cage door is now opening; the handlers turning us wild things loose. As we leave "Where the Wild Things Are," home to some of the best cat fights, fist fights and food fights this side of the Cascades, I have a little surprise for all of you sitting in front of me here tonight in your caps and gowns … we ain’t seen nothing yet!
Immigration and assimilation is a divisive topic that has been heavily debated in America ever since we became a country. There are two stories that explore the assimilation issue from different viewpoints’; in Mary Pipher’s story; “The Beautiful Laughing Sisters – An Arrival Story”; provides the viewpoint of immigrants leaving a hostile home for America. Elizabeth Wong details her journey to break with her culture and become Americanized in, “The Struggle to be an all American girl.” and (McWhorter, 2010 pp522-529). At debate today is whether immigrants and their families should blend into American culture even if it means breaking with their past. Once cultures intermingle, they are forever changed.
The Asian Americans came to America with a common goal: to seek work and make money. In the article The Centrality of Racism in Asian American History, Takaki tries to frame the Asian American history and describe the hardships and unfair treatment absorbed by the Asian American. Takaki asserts:
This speech is bigger than me... bigger than this graduating class... and the world surrounding us. It is an epiphany. This speech is for the little guy, the middle man and the guy who is always behind the scenes... For the past four years, we have seen stories, read newspaper articles, and have heard announcements about our star athletes, scholars and over achievers.
Class of 2012, as we sit here this evening, I would like you to take a look at the classmates sitting around you. Many students have given countless hours of time, energy, and passion to worthy cuases that they have been a part of throughout high school. However, those aren't the only students deserving of recognition this evening. We have students here tonight, who have taken a stand for what they believe in, not even hesitating to compromise their reputations.
The gleaming sun caressed my squinting face as I glanced up at the magnificent blue sky decorated with white, fluffy clouds that resembled white cotton candy. I was outside exploring the vast backyard. It was only my first morning in the United States. My stepfather, my siblings, and I had just arrived from the Philippines to our new home in Rhode Island seven hours ago from the T. F. Green Airport at around midnight. Last night, was my first time seeing my mother after a year has gone. I was finally able to live with my parents! Since I was two years old, my grandparents had raised my siblings and I. When my biological father had divorced my mother, my mother and stepfather later sought work in the Middle East to support our private education.
Class of 2012, I pray that you will become people with passion - passion for pursuing your dreams, and passion for the One who can give you hope.
I would like to begin this evening by welcoming all of my classmates, staff, parents and guardians, the school board and superintendent, friends, and relatives to the commencement of the class of 2012.
Good Morning everyone! Welcome friends, family, teachers, God our Father, and most importantly the St. Timothy graduates of 2017. I would like to start by saying thank you for the opportunity to stand here and address you all this morning. We sit here today on the precipice of the future. It is not a distant reality anymore.
I'd like to start out by saying that I am truly honored to speak here today and thank you to my class for choosing me.
As-salamu alaykum wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuhu (Arabic: السلام عليكم) to all the lovely people that are witnessing this very special, spectacular, and noteworthy day. Words cannot and will not be able to describe how thriller, honour, and more importantly proud I am to stand in front of you all to present this speech. I am delightful to have such a great opportunity to speak from my mind today and I wholeheartedly thank you for that. Ladies and gentlemen, you are all part of a history making moment. This is a history, I shall say.
Good evening parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, and friends. I would like to thank you all for coming to this very special day. I know how proud you must be. As we have grown over the years, there are many stages we all have gone through. From learning our shapes and colors, to getting our first kiss in middle school, or how about explaining to our parents why we skipped school because the principal called home. As we remember these days, things that we've done will be with us forever. But this is only the start of our journey. The day has come where we say goodbye to the big yellow buses, assemblies, assigned seating, and attendance policies. Are you really gonna miss it? For some of us maybe not right away. But eventually we will so for us to be here it is not necessarily an achievement, but a privilege. All of us have been in school over half our lives. To graduate is one more step we've taken in our lives.