‘You know who you are’
GREENWICH — Chief correspondent at PBS NewsHour Amna Nawaz attended a girls school, just like Greenwich Academy.
Hers, however, was Episcopalian, which made her stand out as the only Muslim student, Nawaz told the Greenwich Academy Class of 2022 during their commencement Thursday.
School administrators offered her family the option to skip weekly chapel sermons, but her mother, a Pakistani immigrant, wanted her children to experience their friends’ religion, Nawaz said.
So, Nawaz sang hymns and even tried to take Holy Communion. One afternoon, at the age of 8 or 9, she asked her mother why she allowed them to attend chapel.
“She said, ‘Why wouldn’t you go? Why shouldn’t you learn? Being there doesn’t change who you are. You know who you are,’ ” Nawaz said.
“Perhaps the same is true for you,” Nawaz told the soon-to-be graduates. “Being in a new place won’t change who you are. You know who you are. You know where you come from; you know what you carry in your core. Leaving here doesn’t mean leaving behind everything that you learned and engaged in.”
The class of 2022’s 81 students became alumni during a ceremony on the school’s lawn Thursday afternoon, a transformation marked by the replacement of a single yellow rose with a bouquet of flowers.
Sanah Rekhi, co-editor of both the school’s newspaper and literary magazine, also emphasized the change to come in her speech. A journalist like Nawaz, Rekhi was selected by her peers to give an address.
“What I hope for us is that we take all that we’ve learned at GA and use it to care for and support the communities we will soon become a part of,” she said. “The foundation has been set for us to always be compassionate and courageous.”
She said the community at Greenwich Academy is “more permanent than Pete Davidson’s tattoos of Kim Kardashian” because of their “genuine care (they) send to one another.” The graduates spoke “openly and bravely” this past year, she said.
Head of School Molly King commended the class for speaking up. She also noted their entrance to the Upper School was “loud.”
“You have also used those spirited voices to assert your humanity and do the right thing, whether helping to organize or participate in a community Black Lives Matter rally on the turf in June 2020 or when motivating your peers to attend a roundtable discussion in the Noble Room on how to create a school community where everyone feels that they truly belong,” she said.
Nawaz also had a suggestion for how to make other women feel like they belong.
“The most powerful thing you can do when you get the chance to walk through a door for the first time, as many of you will, is to make sure you hold it open behind you,” she said.