Each year we ask our classmates a straightforward, simple question taken from the lines of a poem by Pulitzer Prize-winning author, Mary Oliver. We share with you intimate and candid responses to this question, "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" Concept and photography: Tony Deifell, MBA 2002.
Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?
I revised my first resume at age nine.
Red ballpoint pen in hand, I was my parents’ editor of last resort — delighted to mark up misplaced modifiers, oblivious to the quiet tragedy of fifteen years’ English practice rendered inadequate. Every email required copious proofreading; every presentation, hours of rehearsal in front of a camcorder. We replayed those recordings until their magnetic tape frayed, our own immigrant genre of home video.
What does Webster’s say about our Asian-American Dream? Lacking language fluency, my parents spent their careers held captive by the soft bigotry of invisibility — huddled masses yearning to speak, unwilling inheritors of the legacy of 1882.
Ten years ago, I was elected to represent one of the largest and most diverse school districts in America. When I placed my right hand on the Bible, I was no longer a stranger in a strange land, subtly corroded by someone else’s Yellow Peril. I signed my oath of office wielding the collective hopes of a generation of immigrants, forcing us ceaselessly forward into a more inclusive future.
Representing my community is my moral imperative. I have to speak for those who cannot, carrying the ink-stained dreams of my parents, deferred no longer.
