For the Class of 2022 and a World in Need of Repair

Isn't time wild? The seasons just keep changing and the kids keep growing and once again it's the end of spring and summer awaits. It's graduation season again and this life in a modern pandemic carries on. Here is my offering to my eighth graders this year. 

To the Class of 2022,

I’ve never had a school year when I was unsure we would make it. This year I wondered how we would come back, step inside, breathe together, learn together. But look at us now. Here we are, still in-person. Still here. Still breathing. Together. I’m proud of you. I’m proud of us. It hasn’t been easy. 

I’ve cried more this year than I have during any other school year, and not for the usual reasons. Like my other years of teaching, my emotions have often simmered to the surface, ready to bubble over, but this year, so many of my tears have been tears of apology. 

I’m sorry for all the ways we have failed you. I’m sorry that two years ago we sent you home for two weeks and kept you home for over a year. I’m sorry we couldn’t figure out faster that we could come back safely with masks and testing protocols in place. I’m sorry we let you languish in silence and anonymity, that we didn’t support you and your families more, and that you might still feel alone. 

I’m sorry we reopened our doors and acted like things were the same, that we didn’t give you the time and space to process it all. I’m sorry we didn’t give you the time you might have needed to heal, and instead we dropped you right back into systems that don’t work for so many of us. 

I’m genuinely sorry, but sometimes apologies aren’t enough. Reparations are defined as making amends for a wrong one has done, or the act of repairing something. When my father was your age, a young teenager during World War II, he was incarcerated along with his entire family because of his Japanese Ancestry. In 1992, he was paid reparations and offered an apology. It didn’t heal the trauma of our family’s history or forgive our country’s actions, but it was a step toward justice. 

In the shadow of these unprecedented times, we need to do more than just apologize. We need to repair. Indian author Arundhati Roy says, “How has the United States survived it’s terrible past and emerged smelling so sweet? Not by owning up to it, not by making reparations, not by apologizing to Black Americans or native Americans, and certainly not by changing its ways.” 

There is much we need to repair in our nation, in our cities, our families, our schools, so let us start here. Let’s repair the relationships we have with one another, by apologizing for the times we’ve done wrong, by showing gratitude and thanking those around us for sharing this space with us, let’s offer kindness to one another with a greeting, a pleasantry, a wave or a smile.

So before you head off to high school, I hope you will take a few last moments with the people you came back to school with: these friends and classmates, these teachers and staff. I hope you can offer a smile, a greeting, a thank you because even if these relationships have felt the strain of these uncertain times, of the trauma and grief we are all still carrying, we have shared this experience together. 

And when you start at your new schools in the fall, I hope you will show up to school ready and willing to learn even though these same schools may have let you down. I hope you will be there for one another, that you will take the risk of learning, of building new friendships, and that you will heal and repair. Please forgive yourself and others, remember kindness, and see how if we start reparations here and now, even on this seemingly small scale, we might open up new possibilities for repairing a broken world. 

American author Maya Angelou says, “People will forget what you said. People will forget what you did, but people will never forget the way they made you feel.” I will remember you, Class of 2022, as the ones who helped me step back into the world, who made me feel brave even though it was tough, and optimistic even through despair. Because we’ve started making reparations already.  We’ve spent these months getting to work on a world that is in serious need of repair and we are moving forward. And as Beyonce says, “If you feel insignificant, you better think again / Better wake up because you’re part of something way bigger / You’re part of something way bigger.”

Click here to read graduation speeches for other Emerson classes. 

This Year's Speech for the Class of 2021

How do you let go of something that you never held to begin with? That's how I feel about this year. Still, tomorrow is the Emerson Middle School culmination and here is my speech for our eighth graders. I am so proud of them. They got through the eighth grade during a global pandemic. Wow. 

Class of 2021, 

This past August, we opened the school year like no other. Instead of opening my classroom door, I opened a Zoom and instead of meeting you all in person, I met you through these screens. It was the first day of eighth grade, and I worried you might not come. But you logged on, and you said hi when I called your names. And then, to my surprise, you kept coming. On Zoom. Day after long day.

Back in August, we were still feeling our way through this pandemic. We were hoping for the best and we learned not to look too far ahead. It was too hard to think about the possibility of disappointment, so I didn’t allow myself to think about today, your graduation day. 

But now it is June, and time has a funny way of just carrying on. 

This past November we took time to write novels and it seems like so long ago. Fast forward to April, we paused to write poems in little four-minute increments. Minutes, class periods, days, weeks, months. A school year. 

The musical Rent asks how we measure time: “In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee. In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife. In 525,600 minutes - how do you measure a year in the life? Seasons of love,”

Last summer, we stayed home to try to keep our city safe. In fall there was an election and then in winter an insurrection as cases in LA surged, I learned not to ask too many questions of you. Students and families were dealing with COVID, and so many of us were grieving loss.

It has been a long year, four long seasons, but spring is here and the waves of vaccines have begun. Doors have started to crack open again and we have continued to show up in little fits and spurts, to learn, and to be together in these strange learning communities. We made it through this year together, and in ways that are completely unique to this class of 2021.

And now, it’s over. A few of you have come back in person, but most stayed home, and as we reflect on this wild, wild, year, I hope you all measure this year by all you have learned. Maybe your English hasn’t developed the way it might have had we been in school in person, maybe your math feels a little shaky and your science lab skills uncertain, maybe you feel a little soft from no PE running days, but you have made it through a year we will never forget, even though we might like to.

What your learning reflects is a deep compassion. You seem to really understand that the struggle is real and everyone single one of us is struggling through. You know if someone’s camera is off, they probably have a good reason, and that even though someone else's struggle isn’t your own, you can still empathize with their circumstances. 

There is no room for regret for what this year might have been, and as Ralph Waldo Emerson says “It is about your outlook towards life. You can either regret or rejoice.”

With this next season and in all the seasons to come, you get to choose: regret or rejoice. Thank you for teaching me how to see and feel regret and to still choose joy. Today it’s your day. And as Charles Bukowski says, 

“Your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.”

For the Class of 2020

For the past five years, I've written graduation speeches for my eighth graders. This year's graduation speech was a little different, mostly because the end of this year has been so different. But here it is, my model for my current eighth graders. It has me thinking so much about all of the graduates and all of the graduations worthy of celebrating. So before Obama and all of the other amazing graduation speeches get made, here is my offering. 

Class of 2020 Graduates,

You made it. You are here, but I’m not ready to let you go. 

You didn’t get all of the moments this year had in store for you; didn’t get all of those lasts: last Academy Day, last projects, last dances, last field day, last classes, last days of school. Well, we had these lasts, but we didn’t know them while we had them.

Instead, we’ve had something else. We traded in classrooms for Zooms. We learned how to connect with one another through a screen instead of face-to-face. We searched for the motivation to get up every morning to head to school without even opening the front door, and to complete assignments that you might learn from but that couldn’t hurt your grade if you chose not to complete them. You had to get used to so much change so quickly.

High School Graduation: June, 1992. 

Greek philosopher Socrates said, “The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

You are here, and you have helped build something new.

It isn’t what we expected, but it is ours and we are here to celebrate because you have earned it. You put in two and a half long years on campus: days learning and growing, struggling with teachers and classmates, watching the clock and waiting for that 3:00 bell. And each and every one of those days in all of those classes count.

And now you’ve survived something new. For twelve weeks you have shown up in so many new ways. You found your way onto on screens and into chats. You turned in assignments, checked in with friends and teachers in new ways and adjusted to new ways of being at home with your families.

You read the news and felt anger, anxiety, fear, and loss. You witnessed tragedy from near and far. You worried about friends and classmates and endured constant change and uncertainty.

American author Maya Angelou says, “If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”

You have done this. You have taken this unprecedented situation and learned about yourself as people and as students. You’ve learned what to do with hours upon hours upon hours at home. You have grown up in these few months and learned more than we could measure inside the halls of our schools or the walls of our classrooms.

Our school’s namesake, Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “The way to mend the bad world is to create the right world” and you, the class of 2020 are truly making your own path. You are carving out new experiences and are already shaping a new, post COVID-19 world.

I might not be ready to let you go, but you are ready. You know how quickly everything can change and your adaptability during this time has inspired me. You have brought me hope. So thank you. Thank you for sharing so many of these long-short days, your thoughts and dreams of what tomorrow might bring. 

You have helped mend the bad, and I cannot wait to see the new, right world you help create.

Publishing Round-Up for 2019

The year is coming to a close, and it has been a busy one. With the publication of I Tried completing the Through Eyes Like Mine Trilogy, I'm ready to shift my focus to other writing projects. This is where my words found homes over the past year:

On the other end of our UTLA strike, Cultural Weekly published "Lessons from the Picket Lines" about my experience as a teacher and mother during our work stoppage and demand for the schools our communities deserve.

I attended AWP this winter. I'd avoided this conference for writers and writing programs ever since my MFA, but I wrote about my first AWP experience in "Attending the AWP You Want to Create" for Breathe and Push at Women Who Submit.

I was honored to have my essay, "Threatened Abortion" selected for the Santa Fe Writers Project's Abortion Ban Special Issue. I encourage you to check out this essay, but also the other important stories in this issue. This essay was first published for Breathe and Push at Women Who Submit.

My first fiction found it's way into the world this year. These two shorts from Rice Paper Superheroes appeared in *82 Review and What Are Birds journal respectively: "Andy's Alliance" "A Family Photo"

Other essays published this year were part of the Breathe and Push column for Women Who Submit:

"Tsuru for Solidarity" describes the activism occurring in the Japanese American community this year to protest family separation and injustice in camps at the border.

"Stay Cool and Keep Writing" provides resources for writers in resistance during another difficult summer of injustice.

"When Just Breathing is Enough" is about breathing during stressful times.

"Taking Attendance" captures a Women Who Submit workshop with Rocio Carlos and Rachel McLeod.

"5 Ways for Writers to Celebrate" finished off the year for Breathe and Push.

*edited for accuracy*

Folks, I left a couple of essays off! Two more essays for Breathe and Push made their way into the world for Women Who Submit. Jeesh. How could I forget writing about SAD and the end of the strike?

"Writing Through the Storm" captures the post-strike exhaustion teachers in LA felt this past winter.

"Getting Through Winter" describes my own struggles with seasonal affective disorder.


Despite lots of poetry submissions, no poetry publications this year :(, but there's always 2020.

Culmination Address for the Class of 2019

Each year I write an original oratory hoping my students will take the form and write speeches of their own. Some years the process is a struggle, but when I sat down to write this speech, I knew exactly what I would remember about this year. I will miss this group of students so much. Remember, y'all, everyday is Newday. And to all of the students, teachers, and families who lived through the strike of 2019, congrats! We made it!

Stand Up

It was raining in Los Angeles. Not just a misting, like we often get in May Gray and June Gloom. No, it was pouring down rain, and it wasn’t just for a day. For a whole week, it was torrential. Roads washed out. Canyons cut loose with mud and debris. Shoes and clothes drenched in the time it takes to walk from the car to the house. This past January, it really rained in LA.

photo by Sophie Sanchez

Maybe you remember this rain. Or maybe you remember something else. Maybe you remember swollen crowds of red flooding into the streets, or driving past school after school where educators stood in red raincoats and beneath umbrellas, holding signs, chanting, and even dancing. Or maybe you just remember being home, or at school, where in addition to the rain, things were not as they usually are.

This year, we all went on strike. We prepared for the strike, went on strike, and recovered from the strike together. It wasn’t just the teachers union, it was all of us. In pouring down rain, for more than a week we all were on strike. We stood up for our schools and our city and the students and families in it.

In the days before the strike, many of you asked, “When are we going on strike?” And during the strike many of you stood in support by staying home, or passing out high-fives on the picket line, or by joining us and saying, “We support our teachers; we deserve better.”

When resolution came and victories for our schools were won, we all came back. We got back to work in our crowded classrooms. We worked because what else can you do while you wait to see smaller classes, nurses everyday, and libraries staffed with teacher librarians? You keep working.

But I’m not here to tell you work hard. You’ve finished your days at Emerson, so you know something about hard work. You already know that, as Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “Without work one finishes nothing.” And after the strike, you came back to class and read To Kill A Mockingbird. We discussed all the ways we can stand up in the world and do what we believe is right, even if it is unpopular. That is what I hope you will take with you to high school.

Emerson's line stays strong!

For a few rainy days in January, we had the chance to stand up for our schools, but opportunities like this don’t come around every day. The next time you can, will you stand up for what you believe?

Atticus Finch says, “Courage is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.”

The world will need you to stand up against prejudice and pollution, for refugees and respect, and in a millions ways we cannot even imagine. But I believe in you, Class of 2019, and I hope when the world asks who are you? What do you believe? You will have the courage to stand up and tell the world your truth.

Culmination Address for the Class of 2018

Each year I write an original oratory in the style of a graduation speech for my students. Here is this year's version. 

What Will You Do Now? 

Now: a family car ride. 

Yesterday, I was stuck in traffic. You know what that’s like. I was trying to get my kids home from swim lessons after a long day. We were tired and traffic was West LA-horrific. I was seeking out some magic path to get us home a little faster while Gabe screamed from the back seat, “Go, cars, go!” and Kiara complained about “Too many people.” I was anxious to get us home, but took a deep breath, knowing we would have to wait it out. I could’ve complained along with them, honked the horn, or continued to find another way. Or we could sing along to “Un Poco Loco” with the windows down. We could do our best to enjoy the drive.

Time is a strange thing. I remember when you all were in the sixth grade. You were smaller then, and your eyes hadn’t yet seen many of the things they’ve seen now. The world seemed different, then: a little bit simpler, a little less divided, a little less complicated.

Now, three years later, I have had the chance to teach and coach many of you, to read your stories, essays, novels and poetry, and you have three years of learning from teachers, time with friends on field trips and in classrooms. But what will you remember most?

Author Ruth Ozeki in her novel, A Tale for the Time Being writes, “I have a pretty good memory, but memories are time beings, too, like cherry blossoms or ginkgo leaves; for a while they are beautiful, and then they fade and die.”

That is what I’m thinking about today.  How we can cherish memories of middle school, or moments stuck in traffic with my young children, knowing their beauty will quickly fade away? How can we find peace in the moment and still hold our memories close?

Ozeki also writes, “In the time it takes to say now, now is already over. It’s already then.” Now. Now. Now. Three moments just passed from now to then, and with each breath, each now, our lives are transformed into memories.

In all of these nows, how can we make the most of our lives? Do we procrastinate by playing video games or scrolling through an endless Instagram feed? Do we go for a run, shoot a few extra shots, rehearse that speech a couple more times? Do we put finishing touches on a project before it is due or buckle down to study for a test?

The answer: I don’t know. That is up to you. Your nows, all of the moments of your life, are yours. Hopefully you used a few of those nows to think about who you are, what you believe and love, and what truly makes you happy. Not what pleases your parents or teachers or friends, but what will you give you joy in the end.

Steve Jobs says, “Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.”

I hope that is something you spend your nows doing, because that is something I have learned from all of you. I love the Class of 2018 because you come from so many different perspectives, so many different experiences and there is no way I could tell any of you how to live your lives. The only life I can live is my own.

Charles Bukowski says, “Your life is your life/know it while you have it./You are marvelous/the gods wait to delight in you.”

Culmination Address for the Class of 2016

Last year, after working with Lily, our school's speech and debate coach, I wrote a culmination speech for the class of 2015. We were using speech and debate guidelines and I like to model what I ask my students to do, so when we introduced the speaker competition this year, I started writing another sample. But I kept getting stuck. But when our eighth grade field day lined up with a shooting at UCLA landing my students and I in lockdown for hours, I sat down to write again.

I shared this with our speakers, and Lily paved the way for me to deliver this speech at our graduation. I wrote a graduation speech in 1988, when I graduated from eighth grade, but my speech wasn't chosen. This was my first opportunity to speak at a culmination and it was an honor to share the stage with our graduates.

To our students in the class of 2016,

I have been trying to write this letter to you for the last couple of months. I’ve started drafts, finished some, and even shared one with some of you, but here I am, once again, thinking about how to put our year into words.

What is the story of our year together?

At first I thought about writing about feminism, because this year more than any other, we have fierce young women who speak truth to power, and I have some young men who have learned about misogyny, privilege, and prejudice, and hopefully have thought about how to be advocates for justice. I thought about our study of refugees from World War II and the Vietnam War and the current refugee crisis. I thought about Black History Month and what you taught me about what it means to be an ally. And I thought about Harper Lee’s death and how with her passing we lost a mockingbird who used her voice to give us the story of Scout, Jem, Dill, Atticus, Boo Radley, and Tom Robinson. I thought about all of the poetry you penned where so many of you found your voice leaving me in awe.

I am writing about all of this, but I’m also writing a new story because now we had field day together.

This year’s field day is a day I will always remember. It was a day when all the work we’ve done together diminished in the face of a crisis.

As we sat together in silence, I called each of your names, or I skimmed over your name

if you weren’t on the trip with us, and in the quiet of that room, where the tension was still thick with not knowing, I wanted to say your names over and over again. I wanted to see each and every one of you. I wanted to hold each of you close and tell you that you were safe, and that I loved you, and your family loved you. And even though I couldn’t say it with 100% certainty, I wanted to tell you everything would be okay.

Instead, I simply called your names and hoped.

But that night, after field day, from the safety of my home, I realized we have shared something: we have shared the space of fear and it reminded me of Vietnam veteran Tim O’Brien who wrote about truth and storytelling in The Things They Carried. He wrote, “By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others.”

And I think that is why it has been so hard to tell the story of this year because there is so much we have carried together. It is many stories and many truths. We have mourned Johnny and Dally in The Outsiders, and Ha’s Papaya Tree in Inside Out and Back Again. In To Kill A Mockingbird, we grieved for Tom Robinson and for Scout’s innocence as she stood on the Radley porch on Halloween night.

But more than just reading stories, we shared our own, in essays about poverty and taking a stand and in novels about friendship, family, immigration, and struggle. You have been funny, sentimental, ironic, and profound, and all of these stories have been ours.

Now we have a new story to tell. A shared story. And as each of you leaves for high school, college, and ... life, so many more stories will unfold for you: stories of perseverance and triumph, love and growth, and sometimes fear and death.

Nigerian author Chimamanda Adichie says, “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story, the only story. Stories matter. Many stories matter.”

So, as I send you off, as we read your names again, this time in a space of celebration, I hope you will tell your story. I hope you will share your truth. I hope you will share your many stories because your story matters. All of your stories matter.

I hope you will use the voice you found this year and that you will sing because the world needs to hear from you. You are our mockingbirds and the world needs your stories.

Tim O’Brien also says, “The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, and hope that others might then dream it along with you.” Keep dreaming and your story will follow.

Culmination Address for the Class of 2015

"Make each day your masterpiece."
Coach Wooden and the Class of 2015

Over the past couple of years, a dedicated teacher at my school has founded and grown an award-winning speech and debate team. This year, she and I worked together to select speakers for our eighth grade graduation using the speech and debate guidelines for writing an Original Oratory. I have been awed whenever I hear these students speak and prepare for competition, and after seeing the expectations for this particular speech competition, I decided to try to write one as well. I haven't made an attempt at a graduation speech since I was in eighth grade, so it was an interesting exercise. I read it to my students this past week because they all helped me through a difficult time in my life. They have, and so have you, so I thought I'd share it here as well.

Today

Just over a year ago my mom underwent surgery. It was eighth grade field day and I received text updates from my sister as I watched my students soaking in the sun and pools. I stood with my feet in the grass enjoying a few final hours with these students, but my mind often drifted to my mom, hoping for the best.

Over the next few days, Mom’s condition worsened so I flew up to Oregon to be with her and for the first time in fifteen years, I missed Emerson’s graduation. I sat in a cold hospital room while my students crossed the stage, making their way out of my classroom and into the world.

That is when I began months of missing, missing the students I never said goodbye to, and missing my mom who never recovered and crossed over a few days later. In these months of missing, I lived in the memories of the past. I remembered many moments with my students from the school year, and I remembered a lifetime of moments with my mom.

I was still remembering and missing when this school year began. My drive home was always the hardest part of my day. I used to call my mom each day as I drove home and as I navigated the busy LA streets, those streets bore witness to many tender moments of grief. At school, I missed the familiarity of my former students and thought of them as they started at high schools all over the city, hoping only for the absolute best for all of them.

But as the days and weeks passed, as summer gave way to fall, I started to move into the present. Instead of grieving for my mom as I drove home from work I began to think about what she might say to me today. As I got to know my new students, they brought with them joy, curiosity, and new stories to share.

Great American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “Finish every day and be done with it. You have done what you could.”

I needed these words to remind me to let go of all my yesterdays and begin again to live: today. I needed these words to help me remember my mom and my former students, to allow them to continue to teach me, but I needed to stay grounded in the present, to be here: today.

Emerson also says, “Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.”

Today this might be easier to do than every other day because today is your graduation. Today we celebrate all you have accomplished; all of your hard work and perseverance but isn’t that what every day is? Hasn’t every today been built on all of the hard work of every day that came before?

Yes. I am the sum of all of my days, as are you, but I will try to let go of yesterday and live in today, in the present, in the moment, with you, the people who with me share these days, these experiences, these moments.

While I was with my mom in her final days, I read Ruth Ozeki’s novel, A Tale for the Time Being. In it one of the narrators states: “A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be.”

My mom was a time being and because she continues to be with me, she is forever one of my time beings. You, every one of you, is a time being, as are all of my students from last year and the year before that. You are all my time beings as are all of my students yet to come.

So as you cross this stage and graduate into a new chapter in your life, I urge you to live each day. Let go of yesterday, be done with it, and make space in today for all of your time beings. Stay present in your life. Remember the past, learn from it, and then let it go. Coach John Wooden says, “Make each day your masterpiece.” I cannot wait to see what you create in your lifetime of todays.