Photoessay #138 - Commencement Commemoration

Today I worked Commencement as the University of Washington as event staff. Which was exhausting and I have another to do tomorrow.

I think back of a Patricia Hampl essay we read in class where she felt a strong need to commemorate the events in her life. Somehow it hit me that I feel that same way. That the things see in the world should be commemorated, marked and understood.

Goes with commencement which is odd in its own way. Commencement is a beginning but the commencement ceremony really marks the end or graduation of college and the awarding of degrees.

I heard that the UW awarded over 11000 degrees, they were expected 4800 student participants and about 40K people. I think they were close to the numbers. The upper decks were closed, I worked the lower deck, tunnel 20 on the south side equivalent to the 20 yard line. The first shot shows the graduates filing in from my vantage point near the beginning. A strange feeling of movement with students going down the four aisles at the same time. The second shot shows the bachelor students filing through, ki9nd of a cool purple W they use which has people coming and going at different angles.

Tunnel 20 was very very busy, totally filling up. My main issue was keeping the stairway clear which was pretty hopeless. Every time I looked there was a big extended family group standing there blocking the stairway speaking Chinese or Eritrean or Russian or something with grandma and great aunts and all of the kids, etc. I would get it cleared out and I would feel quite satisfied but it would only last about 10 seconds (or less) when another family group would arrive. and on and on.

What struck me was how so many attendees were people of color. Lots of muslim headscarves. The whole family would come and it was a huge deal. I think of my own kids (and my family is white, kinda, not really, actually not but we're not recent emigrants, except some of my kids). Anyway at University of Oregon, Susanna just wanted to do the departmental graduation (College of Education) and not the one in the big stadium. Though we did do the fancy one for the student athletes. Ilana also wanted to do just the departmental one (History) and not this big one. Which would not have worked out anyway because Naomi was graduating from High School at the exact same time. Maybe it's cultural. Naomi says, nope, she's not doing the big one wherever she graduates. But the minority families were out in force, you could tell they would not miss it and they turned it into a huge celebration.

The pride was palpable when the graduates filed in with these families. I could feel it almost made me weep