What I Learned
How a fruit vendor’s daughter got into Harvard-
and the most important lesson she learned along the way.

There it was: I walked into Harvard Yard accompanied by the dawn of the morning sun and the beat of the ceremonial drum. I had walked into the Yard many times before, but not like this. Not like this day. On this day I stood in my graduation cap and regalia, with eyes wide open and a hand on my beating heart, slowly understanding what today meant. But for me to fully recognise the enormity and expanse of this singular day, like any good story, I have to go back to the beginning.

Where it began was not my own beginning, but rather, my grandmother’s. My grandmother was born on the island of Panay in the Philippines- just one tiny island out of over 7,000 islands to choose from. My grandmother, who had a fifth grade education, was a fruit vendor. At the crack of dawn, she would walk for miles across stretches of farmlands, looking for new harvest. She would negotiate with farmers for their produce and bring the harvest to the nearest town. My mother, from the time she was five years old, helped transport and sell fruits at the market with my grandmother. My mom would recount to me the joy she would feel hauling harvest over the roof of a jeepney, riding into town by daybreak, selling fruits the entire day, then going home with just enough to put food on the table for the rest of the family. What struck me with this memory is how my mother remembers it: it was not about what she didn’t have; it was about what she gained. To my mom, this was a gift. This was the first spark of what was inside her and she willingly received the gift of spending time with her mother who taught her how to work hard for what you need.

So there, at that market, my mother’s story began. Her entrepreneurial drive continued as she sold candies to her classmates at her elementary school. She was the fifth child out of nine children, but the first to go to college. She earned a scholarship to study at the nearby college and worked at the library to earn extra money. As soon as she graduated, she got on a one-way boat to the capital and never looked back. When my mother first arrived in Manila, she lived in the most dangerous slums at the time, Tondo. My mother was unfazed. She pushed forward, working multiple odd jobs at a time, until she found her footing in this new city. She called on her inner strength, buoyed by her own mother’s silent and steely courage.

I realise that, for me to be able to fully understand my own story, I have to first understand and honor the lives of these two most important women in my life. I was raised by my mother, in a single-parent household, who gave me the world. My mom would save her hard-earned 500 pesos, or 10 US dollars, at the end of every month so I could go to the bookstore and buy books to read. I didn’t have much growing up, but I had a treasure trove of books, my most prized possessions, and I felt I had wealth because of them. While my own early schooling may not have been sufficient, my mom fiercely believed that reading- and education- was the way for me to have a better life. My mom persevered, working up to three jobs sometimes, to make sure I didn’t grow up in the same slums where she lived. Every parent dreams of a better life for their child, and my mom didn’t just dream it; she did it. Month after month, with her hard-earned ten bucks, she gave me the world through books where my mind opened up like an unfurling canvas on which I painted my own destiny.

The trajectory of my life changed because of two things: the unblinking bravery of the women who raised me and my merit scholarship to an international education at 11 years of age. It is not an overstatement to say that education can change a girl’s life; it changed mine. The gift that education gave me continued throughout my teenage years and my twenties, informing the work I do and choices I continue to make. To some, it may be called a moral compass. To others, the calling, or part of the path made clear. It is all of those things, and in addition to those, I also like to call it by its true name: Grace.

Grace, to me, is the quiet, powerful force that weaves the intricate threads of our lives- the ebb and the flow, our light and our shadow, our triumphs and our tragedies- into a masterpiece of a fabric greater than ourselves. Grace is how God sees us: beautiful, whole, powerful beyond measure. It is this understanding of the power we each carry that has been the greatest lesson I have learned in my time at Harvard. I have expanded myself in a myriad of ways, including knowledge and tools I have learned, but the one greatest truth I have learned is that I already have everything I need even before I had set foot in the hallowed halls of an Ivy League institution. My education simply shone a light on those parts of myself that were there all along. In a turn of poetic beauty, my mother’s name is Luz, which means light. She had been illuminating the greatest parts of myself all along.

There was something deep within my own grandmother who would walk for miles collecting fruit and do it again and again and again, until one day, one of her nine children was finally able to step foot inside a college. There was something in my grandmother that she passed on to my mother who then passed it on to me. It’s not an inheritance. It’s not an Ivy League diploma. It’s more than that: it is the sheer, undeniable power of faith. And that same unyielding faith, that spanned exactly 100 years since my grandmother’s birth, travelled from the rice paddies of the Philippine islands to the slums of Manila to finally, here at Harvard.

When I set out to write this reflection in an attempt to encapsulate my time at school, I thought it might result to a summary of my personal and academic achievements, knowledge and skills I learned, or even a socio-political-economic commentary of the state of the world today. But it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel like any of those things could do justice to the fullness of the Grace I received. Instead, what could was to tell the story, at least a glimpse of it, of the phenomenal women who raised me: the grandmother who persevered and the mother who triumphed.

You, my friend, might be reading this at this very moment and think how unlikely a story this was. After all, when my mother arrived in Cambridge for my graduation a few weeks ago, I couldn’t help but appreciate all that we have done to get to this point in our lives. It does boggle the mind, even mine. Yet, in moments of gratitude and reflection, as I would sit on my favorite bench next to my favorite tree along the Charles River at sunset, I realise that the deepest parts of me are not surprised at all. It actually feels that the Universe was patiently waiting for me to simply be ready. At a glance, one can say that it is indeed unlikely that the granddaughter of a fruit vendor from one of the 7,000 islands in the Pacific would graduate from Harvard. I agree- it is improbable. But when I look back at my life thus far, through Grace-filled eyes, I see past the hardships and the struggles of our daily living. What I see is the deepest love, the unwavering faith, the indefatigable courage of my family. When you look at those, you might understand that our story may not be so unlikely after all. It may have been, quite frankly, inevitable.

When we start looking at our lives this way, I promise you that you will begin to see those illuminated parts of yourself that have been there all along. What I know for sure is that, wherever this path takes me, I carry with me the people who have raised me, believed in me especially on days I didn’t much believe in myself, and supported me through a multitude of goodness. I am blessed to be on this enchanting journey where I have had the privilege of crossing paths with each and every human. Most of all, I feel blessed because I bear witness to the unfolding capacity of my life to be of service to others. Equipped with a new degree with which to navigate this world, I am at my most capable self to bring about work that contributes to ensuring that every child believes in their own power, regardless of background, class, or circumstance, and that every adult recognizes their own power to change the world.

I leave you with my favorite story from one of the books my mother gave me as a child. It’s from The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy realizes that the wizard was mere smoke and mirrors and that she had the ability to go back home whenever she wanted all along. Puzzled, she asks Glinda, the Good Witch, why she was not told that before. Smiling, Glinda tells Dorothy: “You’ve always had the power, my dear. You just had to learn it for yourself.”

Here’s to learning,
Rosie