Bridgeport High School might not have landed President Obama as their graduation speaker, but they are getting Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis. Not a whole lot of people at the school knew who Solis was when the announcement was made this morning.
The daughter of immigrants from Mexico and Nicaragua, Solis is the first in her family to go to college. It’s easy to see why the White House picked Solis for Bridgeport. Most of the students at this tiny school in north central Washington have a similar background. Despite the challenges, every single student from Bridgeport’s graduating class has been accepted to college. The school was one of three finalists for the Commencement Challenge which was started to encourage higher graduation rates in schools after a report from the College Board found that the U.S. had gone from being number one to 12th in terms of adults with college degrees. The country that now holds the first spot? Canada.
Obama picked the winning school, Booker T. Washington High School in Memphis, Tenn. According to a Seattle Times interview of Bridgeport’s principal Tamra Jackson,
Some students, though proud, are upset at what they’ve read about “the politics,” such as the school not being chosen because Washington state would likely favor Obama in the 2012 election, and Tennessee is a state considered in play.
And, Jackson said, the students have been reading disparaging comments on Internet about their Hispanic background. “It affected them. I think they expect better from adults,” said the principal.
The students are going to love Hilda Solis. Once they get over the disappointment of not landing the President himself, they’ll see that Secretary Solis not only has an amazing, relevant story of her own, but also that she is a dynamic and unusually frank speaker for a politician.
If these kids “expect better from adults” who are right-wingers commenting on newspaper sites, their education is far from complete.
Hopefully Ms. Solis will tell them “there are jackasses out there who hate you and want to make your lives as miserable as theirs are. Do not pay any attention to them. As you move through life, meeting some failures and many successes, with this awesome head start you have achieved, you will meet fewer and fewer of these losers as you leave them further and further behind.”
As a man of Nicaraguan descent, I am proud of Hilda and her accomplishments. Her parents (mom?) are from the same rural region as me. Jinotega. She makes Latinos proud.
2 thoughts.
Tennesse is not in play. Its GOP land.
Booker T Washington is an inner city school just as deserving and with a student population as disenfranchised as this one.
@3: you beat me to it. I don’t know who made a decision based upon TN being in play but they should be fired. TN was one of the few states to vote for Kerry by a higher margin than Obama.
I seriously doubt that people will remember a commencement address in Memphis by the time the elections come around. It probably has a lot more to do with the fact that a good chunk of Memphis is flooding, and this would be a goodwill gesture.
Good choice. Fresher and hotter than Sec’y Salazar.
Hilda Solis is an excellent Labor Secretary. I’d be honored to have her speak at my commencement. Also, what Fnarf said.
“…because Washington state would likely favor Obama in the 2012 election, …”
Don’t you just love being taken for granted?
Just like the “Well, who else are the liberals going to vote for?” dismissal of progressives.
@3, it’s exciting to hear you are from Jinotega. You made me look it up. You always have something interesting to say. I was interested to read that “Jinotega” is derived from a Nahuatl word. Nahuatl is of course heavily associated with Mexico; the Aztecs spoke Nahuatl. They are one of the Three Cultures I saw in evidence in the Plaza of the Three Cultures in Mexico City, where somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand students died in the massacre of October 2, 1968. I know your part of Nicaragua has suffered more than its share of violence as well.
I knew that Nahuatl speakers spread throughout Central America, but I didn’t know they were as far as Nicaragua. In the current season of “Survivor”, they are playing in Nicaragua, near San Juan, in Rivas department. The art department of the show has created a whole bunch of props for the show based on a ludicrous pseudo-Mayan theme, but I don’t think there could have been any Mayans there. Maybe in Jinotega. What do you know about the indigenous people of your area? It’s so fascinating to me; far more than most of the bushwa that takes place on Slog.
Did you see the recent Anthony Bourdain episode that takes place in Nicaragua? He didn’t quite make it to Jinotega, but he visited Esteli, in Condega next door. He does an amazing job of really showing not just the food but the people and the situation in the country. I wish I could hear it from your perspective.
Dear Bridgeport High Students,
Please learn not to read the comments on stupid right-wing sites. You kids are awesome and each of you has a bright future ahead. The people who write hateful things about you on the Internet are resentful, bitter jerks who can’t stand how brightly you all are going to shine. I’m not going to tell you to ignore the hatred that is out there, but please know that you don’t have to give a shit.
FNARF thanks man, yes indeed Jinotega has suffered more than most. It is the region where Sandino fought the first Somoza as well as the US Marines who helped Somoza, it is also the region where the last Somoza carried out its massacres and it is the region where the heaviest fighting of the contra war took place. It is also the most beautiful region of Nicaragua.
Nicaragua gets its name from Chief Nicarao, the leader of the chorotegas.
The chorotegas and the Diriangenes were the Nahualt speakers, and they were the archers during the OLMEC empire but direct descendants of the AZTECS, for some reason they fled to what is now Nicaragua and northern Costa RIca. Jinotega’s indigenous were mostly the Matagalpas, and in the northern region SUmos ( who are still around and of course Miskitos who came up from the caribbean coast.
San Juan del Sur is a big tourist trap, its a beautiful beach but I think they filmed most of survivor just outside the playa to make it look like they were deep in the booneys but in fact they were really close to the resort of San Juan del Sur. They should have stuck them deep in the jungles of the San Juan River. But no, I did not watch it, nor have I watched Bourdain’s special on Nicaragua, though I ve heard he gets to eat garrobo ( the male iguana) which is a very typical dish in Nicaragua. Its funny when I see a iguana I see stew not pet. My family moved from Nicaragua to Philly where I grew up. I went back in the 80’s and came back to the States in the 90’s.
Oh yeah.. i forgot, they were no Mayas in Nicaragua. They got as far as Honduras. I dont get why they would use Maya imagery.