Recently, I donated a shedload of money to my alma mater; in return, my alma mater sent me a shedload of paper. The only paper I have retained is a pamphlet entitled “Great Grads 2020.”
According to the pamphlet, these graduates are “poised to make great contributions in fields as varied as structural engineering, Early Childhood Education, landscape architecture and medicine.” What struck me most about the graduates were their national origins and ethnic backgrounds. Here’s the list:
Benjamin Akhavan—Jewish-Iranian
Propa Akter—Bangladeshi
Gina Bravo—Mexican
Kereen Brown—Jamaican
Yardelis Diaz—Unspecified Latinx
Alexandros Gloor—Greek-Italian
Sabastian Hajtovic—Turkish
Isabella Joseph—Indian
Mahmoud Khedr—Egyptian
Marija Krstic—Serbian
Terrell F. Merritt—African-American
Mathiu Perez Rodriguez—Ecuadorian
Rossmery Almonte Tejada—Dominican
And most exotic of all:
Daniel “Cash” Langford—Texan
Who cannot not love a school that offers such a diverse populace an opportunity to succeed? Who cannot love a country that has opened its doors to such a wide-range of nationalities?
Oh wait. I forgot the wall-builders, the excluders, the bigots, the hate-mongers.
But aren’t we better than they are?
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One of the graduates was awarded the Barry Goldwater Scholarship, “America’s premiere award for undergraduates majoring in math, science and engineering.” The take-away from that: Even Republicans can benefit society, if they put their minds to it.
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