An hour before the Berkeley High School Latine Unidos graduation ceremony began, the space buzzed with seniors and families lining up for food, listening to the event\u2019s eight-piece mariachi band, and catching up.<\/p>\n
The ceremony began with a bilingual introduction by Doreen Bracamontes, the district\u2019s Program Manager of Counseling & Wellness, who thanked the organizers of the event. She gave a special appreciation for BHS Spanish teacher Susi L\u00f3pez, who worked with this year\u2019s BHS Latinx Unidos club presidents to expand the club.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year, we have 60 students participating here tonight. Last year it was 40,\u201d Bracamontes said.<\/p>\n
After a biligual speech by club presidents Marcia Gonzalez and Jaslene Sanchez, BHS Principal Juan Raygoza took the stage.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you arrived at (BHS), you brought with you the dreams of your families, your cultural pride, and your lived experience. You did it in an educational system that hasn\u2019t always reflected who you are. With too great a frequency, school asks Latinx students to leave their identity to the side to be successful, but you did not allow that,\u201d Raygoza said, in Spanish, \u201cthis night is not an ending. It is a reflection of everything you are and have accomplished, and it is also a new beginning.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
After Raygoza\u2019s speech concluded, local mariachi group Flor de Oro took the stage for the second time of the night, playing until it was time for graduates to walk the stage and receive their graduation sashes. As Raygoza and BHS Spanish teacher Itziar Aperribay presented students with their sashes, L\u00f3pez read out appreciations written by the seniors.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cBerkeley is better thanks to you and what you have done here the last four years,\u201d Raygoza said to graduates, \u201cYou did it as individuals … but you never walked alone.\u201d<\/p>\n
Note: In light of recent Immigration Enforcement activity in the U.S., organizers have asked the Jacket not to publish any information regarding time or place of this ceremony.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An hour before the Berkeley High School Latine Unidos graduation ceremony began, the space buzzed with seniors and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":348559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[143,145,144],"class_list":["post-348558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=348558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/348558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/348559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=348558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=348558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=348558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}