About 260 students are projected to graduate Friday from Hilo High School. The commencement ceremony begins at 6 p.m. at the Edith Kanaka‘ole Multi-Purpose Stadium.
The following are profiles of two graduating seniors selected by school administrators.
This is the first of six articles featuring soon-to-be graduates from public high schools within the Tribune-Herald’s coverage area.
Kazmyrr Neichelle Alcon
Kazmyrr Neichelle Alcon still remembers her first day of second grade.
She was a new student at Haaheo Elementary School and barely spoke English. Her family recently had moved to Hilo from Ilocos Norte, a province in the Philippines.
“It was a very scary first day,” the now 18-year-old Alcon recalls. “I’d learned some English in the Philippines, but very minimally. I had to use what I knew to introduce myself (to the other students).”
On Friday, Alcon will graduate from Hilo High School with straight A’s. She is one of the school’s 21 valedictorians and plans to attend Seattle University in the fall to study biology.
But that academic success hasn’t always come easy, particularly in those early years when she faced a language barrier. She struggled to understand her classmates at Haaheo and to keep up in English and history, two subjects which required a more firm grasp of the native language.
She said she was frequently pulled out of regular classes in order to take English Language Learner courses.
“It was frustrating and really hard,” she said. “English was a really big part of learning how to live here. So it was a great help, when one of my ELL teachers would take us to Filipino activities and incorporate both Filipino and Hawaiian and American culture. That helped me to assimilate in this culture.”
Alcon also began reading. Her favorite books were the “Magic Tree House” series and various nonfiction titles. She also began watching English-language television shows and movies.
She gradually became fluent in English. Through time, her grades also improved. By third grade, she was taking English classes with fourth-graders. Once in intermediate school, she took the Gifted and Talented test and eventually was placed into an Honors program.
This year, she’s enrolled in multiple Advanced Placement courses. She now plans to pursue a medical track in college and aspires to become a pathologist or physician. Several members of her family pursued similar career paths which she said motivated her to strive for a similar job.
She encourages other young kids learning English to “put yourself in situations where you have to speak or know English.”
“Even if it’s broken English, just try, and people will understand, and you will learn through your mistakes,” she said.
Looking back, she said those early challenges have taught her she “can persevere through anything.”
“I thought it would be a lot harder to get to where I am now because of the language barrier,” she said. “I didn’t know anyone and I was starting over in this new country and this new school. But because I had a lot of help, it was easier.
“I now believe if I have to go through a problem, I can know that if I work hard and try my best, I can overcome it.”
Langston Hamilton
Langston Hamilton is accustomed to being the “new kid.”
Hamilton has moved repeatedly because of his father’s job. First, it was a cross-continental relocation from Alaska to California. Then, his family moved to Arizona. Next, it was Oregon, then Japan and then South Korea.
Last year, he moved to East Hawaii. He started his senior year at Pahoa High School (his family was renting in Puna while their Hilo home was being built) and is finishing at Hilo High, where he’ll graduate Friday at age 16 — at least a year younger than many of his classmates.
“I’m a military kid,” Hamilton said. “I’ve never lived in a place more than eight years, (which was) the first eight years of my life.”
Hamilton said moving has positives and negatives but the “good usually outweighs the bad.” Living in multiple states and countries introduced him to new cultures and places which he said bolstered his confidence, helped him become more outgoing and taught him to buckle down quickly to catch up on work when starting at a new school in the middle of the year.
But there also have been challenges. Particularly as a young kid, he recalls, in adjusting to new teachers, new education systems, widely varying dress codes and numerous new classmates.
“(When you move constantly) it’s harder to make friends,” Hamilton said. “And it’s even harder to make good friends (who you keep in touch with) after you move on. It’s possible, but it’s much more rare.”
Hamilton said the most recent move — from South Korea to Hawaii — was particularly difficult. He’d forged strong friendships at his high school in South Korea and even planned to join the school’s football team, which he’s never been able to do because he moved so much.
“This time, I was finally strong enough to join, I had the capability to do well,” he said. “And then we find out we move just as I start conditioning for it in the summer. And it goes out the window.”
At Hilo High, he managed to join the wrestling team. He began conditioning at Pahoa and moved to Hilo two days before the tryout cut-off date.
“If I moved two days later, I wouldn’t have been able to join,” he said. “So that was really lucky.”
Hamilton plans to attend Hawaii Community College in the fall to obtain resident status. He then plans to transfer to the University of Hawaii at Hilo to study biology.
He eventually wants to pursue a career studying diseases for an organization such as the World Health Organization or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“I think out of all the military kids, you either become really outgoing and really friendly, or you become reclusive and sheltered,” he said. “But I think I was one of the people who became more outgoing from it. And I think moving has benefited me. It’s allowed me to expand my world view and appreciate other cultures and learn about different types of people.”
Email Kirsten Johnson at kjohnson@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
