By Yoonjeong Yang ’24
The sense of community has transcended the physical distance between us. On September 15th, the first chapel of the year happened virtually, bringing the St. Mark’s student body, faculty, and staff together. Despite the shift from offline to online, the chapel successfully presented musical performances by St. Markers, school prayers, as well as a senior chapel talk– many St. Markers’ favorites– by the student monitor Lily Wang Luo. Taking an advantage of the new online format, Lily presented her story and journey leading up to St. Mark’s through a video. Her talk about identity and confronting challenges due to her race has deeply resonated with me as much as it did for many others. This article shares some key take-aways and reflections on her chapel talk.
Under Chinese parents, Lily was born born in Peru. Her family then moved to Brazil and attended a local school in Novo Hamburgo with native Brazilians, where she would learn the Portuguese language and about the Brazilian culture. Despite how accustomed she was to the language and culture, Lily was still considered a racial minority in Brazil as an Asian immigrant, being conflicted between her ethnic Chinese identity and Brazilian cultural identity. Her struggles about racial identity continued when she transferred to an international school in China, where most students were now ethnic Chinese who were fluent in both Chinese and English. Moving from Brazil to China further deepened Lily’s questions about her identity, for she was neither fluent in either language nor the culture of her supposed “home” country. Wanting to fit in, she at first chose silence about her Latin American identity while westernizing herself. However, she realized that the harder she tried, only the lonelier and dissatisfied would she grow.
Then, she moved to St. Mark’s. During her early times at St. Mark’s, she still felt apprehensive about people assuming her background by her looks because of her prior experiences. To her surprise, people at St. Mark’s were much more sensitive about one’s identity and multi-cultural backgrounds. This surprise, followed by great delight, motivated her to reach out to people with different backgrounds and diverse student groups. Doing so allowed her to fully express her true self while also hearing about other people’s stories. Through these meaningful interactions, she felt confident that the relationships built here at St. Mark’s would be deep and lasting ones. While it is true that not all of us may relate to Lily’s experiences, the moral of her story points to something that we can all learn from: building relationships with open-minded and supportive people has the power to heal struggles about your identity, develop empathy, and ultimately lead to self-acceptance and self-appreciation.
Lily’s talk reminded me of my own struggles to adapt to a new culture and social atmosphere when I first moved to the U.S. I underwent similar stereotypes and judgments made by my peers. Like Lily, I too chose to show the things that were expected from others, despite the feelings of self-loss it brought to me. At my previous school, I remember having to veil my failure, fear, or sadness and refrain from trying new things because of my worries about failing. At last, I found people at the school who would encourage me to step outside my comfort zones. This was a turning point in my life where I began to challenge myself every day to try new pursuits. I no longer closed myself to limited perspectives and went to explore different things.
Just as much as Lily’s speech resonated with me, I hope that her powerful speech has impacted many other’s thoughts about identity. Taking from Lily’s advice, we should continue to step out of our comfort zone through actively reaching out to people from different backgrounds. Lily’s chapel talk was also a reminder of the importance of community and how it shapes our identity. While we live through unprecedented times, self-acceptance and open-mindedness are things we should continue to strive for. Everyone at St. Mark’s has a story of their own to bring to the table, and these unique experiences build up the community that we are.
Here is a link to Lily’s chapel talk: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LXMmURGOGDm95lj20H-811ZPyDfqfwAE/view?usp=sharing.