This was as much their day as it was hers.
Sure, Khatira Rustami put in those late nights studying for Advanced Placement courses. She figured out how to fill out college financial aid forms. She became the vice president of the Student Government Association and the Muslim Student Association. She earned straight A’s.
But her parents had given up their language, their culture and their extended families to bring her here. If they’d stayed in Afghanistan, she wouldn’t have received an education. She wouldn’t be going to George Washington University this fall on a full scholarship. She couldn’t dream of becoming a diplomat.
And she certainly would not be valedictorian.
So on this May afternoon, as she walked the graduation stage, she wanted her parents to truly understand what they had made possible.
She was surrounded by teens with similar stories. Every student at her Prince George’s County high school is an immigrant or the child of immigrants. It was a small senior class — less than 100 students — and they knew each other’s stories as well as their own.
There’s the student from Sudan going to Towson University. There’s a classmate from El Salvador enrolling at Trinity University, and there’s the teenager from the Dominican Republic heading to Morgan State University. Some, like Khatira, will be the first in their family to earn a high school diploma and attend college.
Many parents in the auditorium wore headphones that translated the ceremony into Spanish, Dari, Pashto, Arabic and French.
“This is not just a personal achievement; this is generational victory,” said Melissa Nankin, the principal of International High School at Largo. “As you leave here today, remember this: You belong in every room you walk into. You are what makes America great.”
Khatira, 18, of Hyattsville, sat behind the principal and waited for her turn at the microphone. She spent seven hours writing and rewriting what she wanted to say. She would be the first Afghan female Hazara valedictorian in her school’s history. Mostly, she hoped to make her parents proud.
She walked to the lectern, sparkly heels peeking out from the bottom of her graduation gown.
As she scanned the auditorium, she smiled. Her dad, sitting with her mom and younger sister, already had his phone stretched in front of him, ready to record his daughter’s big moment.
Finding her voice
As Khatira began drafting her speech, she thought back to elementary school, when she would come home from class crying.
She didn’t understand anything anyone said. She missed her grandparents, aunts and uncles in Kabul. She didn’t have any friends.
Soon, her teachers in Maryland connected her with a private tutor, who helped her learn English and introduced her to a local Girl Scouts chapter. But the transition seemed even harder for her parents.
In Kabul, her dad said, he was a driver for a U.S. company that worked with the American military. That job, he said, allowed the family to move to America through the Special Immigrant Visa program, which grants lawful permanent resident status, commonly known as a green card, and a pathway to citizenship for Afghans who worked for the U.S. government.
Once in America, he worked nights at a bakery for a year before becoming a stocker at Walmart.
Her mom stayed home to raise her and her six siblings. Khatira could hear the muffled sounds of her mom, missing her parents and four sisters, crying every day for the first year.
At first, she and her siblings kept asking to go home. Khatira didn’t understand why her parents brought her to a country where they seemed to know nothing. But her mom and dad explained it would be worth it.
Her mom never attended school. Her dad went until third grade before he dropped out because he was afraid of teachers who hit him when he answered questions incorrectly.
As Khatira’s English improved, she became her parents’ translator for bills, doctor appointments and teacher conferences. She tutored her younger siblings and cooked them Afghan macaroni on the weekends.
She found out what it took to be valedictorian and focused on getting the highest GPA. When she saw classmates struggling, she helped them, too.
“Khatira is one of the reasons why so many of the kids are here today,” said Joshua Davis, the adviser for Peer Forward, a support group helping students with college and career goals.
This year’s graduation data is not finalized, but last year multilingual learners statewide had a graduation rate of about 60%. Students at International High School at Largo achieved a 90% graduation rate.
At times, Khatira felt guilty about having a green card. She thought of all the girls in her home country whom the Taliban has barred from going to school. The least she could do was try to be an excellent student, she thought. She didn’t have to feel guilty, she told herself, as long as she worked hard and helped people.
As a sophomore, she gave a keynote speech at a girls’ leadership retreat at the University of Maryland, College Park. She focused on women’s rights and the importance of education for Afghan girls.
She wanted people listening to know that “Afghan girls are not weak or incapable. They are intelligent, talented and full of dreams. They simply deserve the chance to learn and have their voices heard.”
Making them proud
On the graduation stage, there were many people Khatira wanted to thank: Allah for giving her strength, her counselors for answering her many questions and her college adviser for life lessons she’ll carry with her.
But the people who topped the list were her parents.
She had been speaking for more than two minutes already, and she wasn’t sure how much of it her parents could understand.
“Mom and Dad,” she said, “if you can, please stand up.”
Her dad looked at his wife and smiled. He’d hurt his back recently while working at Walmart, but he carefully got to his feet as the crowd cheered.
Locking eyes with her parents, she spoke to them in Dari, their language:
مادر جان، و پدر جان.
ای کامیابی تنها کامیابی مه نیست بلکه از شما هست. همه اش زحمات شما هست که من فعلان اینجا قرار دارم .
شما همه چیز خود را قربانی کردید تا مه زندگی بهتر داشته باشیم.
شما. کشور, خانه, و خانواده خود را, را ترک کردین تا مه بتوانم رویاهای بزرگ داشته باشیم
“This success is not only my success but yours. It’s all because of your efforts that I’m here right now.
You sacrificed everything so that we could have a better life.
You left your country, your home, and your family so I could have big dreams.”
As she spoke, their eyes welled. Their headphones, meant to translate the speech, hadn’t worked properly, so this was the only portion of the ceremony they had fully understood.
Then Khatira looked out at her classmates.
“I know I am not the only person sitting here with an immigrant story,” she said. ”Some of us translated for our parents before we even fully understood ourselves. Some of us carried responsibilities that made us grow up too fast.”
Just recently, after her dad got hurt, Khatira joined him at a doctor’s appointment. With him out of work to heal, she’s searching for a summer job to help support her family and build savings before college starts.
On this day, though, she pushed past the impending stress to celebrate her achievements.
“Today, as we walk across this stage,” she said to her classmates, “we are not just carrying diplomas. We are carrying our families.”
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