College-Bound Seniors Defy Expectations

“When I came into this world 18 years ago, it was decided for me that I wouldn’t be anything more than just another undereducated, promiscuous, dependent Latina woman.”

That’s what Joselyn Bassat, a senior at Achievement First Amistad High School, heard repeated for two decades. For a girl raised in her circumstances, Bassat said, it seemed like just a matter of time before she’d fail.

“Fourteen years ago, when my father was incarcerated, society forgot about him and directed their microscope onto me, waiting for me to throw myself away too,” she said.

“Five years ago, freshly pubescent, society decided that I would follow my mother’s footsteps, would eventually have to drop out of school and work for others her whole life. Two years ago, when my then-14-year-old sister had a baby, it was my family who pressured me to believe that I would be next. I was surely genetically engineered to inherit the family trait of stunted potential.”

But last year, Bassat said, she decided her life wouldn’t fit the trajectory that seemingly everyone else thought she was destined to follow.

“I will be damned if I let somebody write my story for me, before I have the chance to learn how to write it for myself,” Bassat said. ​“I fought through school, through my crippling insecurities, through the statistics.

“I stand here today, daughter of a felon; daughter of a young, unwed mother; daughter of a city that knows no compassion; daughter of a system that believes in nothing but her failure,” Bassat concluded. ​“And yet, here I stand.”

Bassat delivered that declaration to a roaring crowd of supporters last week at Amistad High School’s annual signing day, when seniors revealed which college they’ll be matriculating to next fall. At the end of her short speech, she held up a pennant for Eastern Connecticut State University.

During the two-hour Wednesday afternoon ceremony in the charter school’s gymnasium, as underclassmen rooted on the graduates, many of the 116 seniors in Amistad’s graduating class told how they had overcome.

They spoke about how they had defied what society called their ​“broken families” to achieve more than expected. How they defied homophobia to publicly announce a love two girlfriends shared. How they defied the clash of ethnic identities to find themselves in their in-betweenness. And how they defied even the demands of their own school to start changing a culture one called oppressive.

Members of this year’s class — the first in which New Haven kids could’ve stayed all the way through, K‑12, in the charter network’s schools — said they’d been dreaming about last week’s event from their first days on the playground. They remembered their teachers telling them about climbing the years-long mountain to college. And they remembered chanting, ​“Ooh, ah, we’re going to college someday.”

“This day has been thoroughly drilled into my mind,” said Daniel Gant, who’s headed to Tufts University. ​“I not only wanted to be here, but I worked and sacrificed to make sure I got here.”

As they neared obtaining their diplomas, this year’s class dealt with the most significant turmoil that any within the network had faced, as their principal resigned abruptly after the Independent published a video of him shoving a current student and teachers protested against ​“the systematic racial inequalities that are observable throughout the network.”

Despite those challenges, thrown on top of 16-hour days of classes and sports and homework, the soon-to-be graduates are heading off to top-ranked schools around the country.

Among the reveals last week, students held up pennants from Ivy League schools like Yale and Brown; historically black colleges like Howard and Johnson C. Smith; religious schools like Villanova, St. John’s and Providence; small liberal arts colleges like Pomona, Bowdoin, Bryn Mawr and Kenyon; several state schools and community colleges like Gateway and Housatonic.

At times, the event felt like a revival, spreading the good word of the ​“no excuses” gospel, which holds that an exacting education can overwrite a students’ circumstances, leaving race and class as a mere palimpsest on the pages of a teenager’s life.

“These past four years have been full of challenges and obstacles, which I overcame to disprove the statistics. Being a Hispanic man in this society made my way harder but shaped me into what I am today,” said George Bohorquez, the son of a factory worker who’s headed to Clark University. ​“Hearing things such as ​‘You speak so well’ and ​‘You’re not like them’ triggered me to want to overcome the low expectations that this confused society has set upon my race and culture”

As students testified, often through tears, the crowd, which included bleachers full of underclassmen, let out ear-splitting cheers of agreement, encouraging them to go on and go slow. Throughout, they also thanked their parents, who stood up to film their speeches on their phones, as well as their teachers, social workers and guidance counselors.

A few students even quoted Bible verses, thanking the Lord for the difficulties he had given them. Even more referred to the numbers, which say that, statistically, black boys, even if they’re raised among riches, will end up worse off than white boys who share the same socioeconomic background.

Zackery Murphy, an Amistad senior who’s heading to the University of Connecticut next year, said he practically felt he’d been born with the wrong name, a white boy’s sound hiding his black man’s skin.

“I beat self-doubt and my own limits. I beat systems of oppression, even the ones hidden in plain sight. In a world like this, where you’re born with this skin, like a lot of us, that’s what you have to do,” Murphy said.

Later on, Murphy said he’d been referring to the school itself as a domineering system, which exists almost exclusively for students of color. He said the school had drastically improved after Emery Sykes, a former counselor, took over as principal. He said that his years in the charter network had set him up for success, but he said he also realized that those same techniques were ​“oppressive” when he entered his sophomore year of high school.

“Not everything is as it seems. When you’re in a system like that, you have to see past the boundaries and past the barriers that exist against you,” he said. ​“It felt good to share that. We don’t really have time to shine, to actually express ourselves and our own stories with our own people.”

During his speech, Murphy told younger students to look within themselves to find their own worth.

“To my friends and fellow peers, you all know the vibes. We not only entered but now leave as one of the greatest classes to ever be at Amistad High School. I’m proud of how far we’ve gone, but even more proud of how far we’re going to go,” Murphy said. ​“When odds are against you, trust yourself and your own process. Know your worth. And don’t invest permanent time in temporary objects.

“Thank God for my family, especially my mother, whose strength and selflessness showed me that a black woman is nothing but a powerful woman. Your sacrifices for me will never go unnoticed,” Murphy concluded. ​“You have a son destined for greatness. I promise.”