Commentary
How scared boy became a top teenage scholar

By Linda Tagawa
Special to The Advertiser

He shifted his mortarboard and tassel, straightened the long black robe and marched in step with classmates across the football field to the tune of "Pomp and Circumstance." When the senior adviser stepped up to the podium and called out the scholarship recipients, Israel Dioquino gasped when his name was called. "I can't believe it!" he shouted, "I just can't believe it!"

Indeed, few people would have believed that this young man would be receiving his high school diploma along with a scholarship award, if they had known him at 9 years of age when he arrived from the Philippines armed with only a few halting words of English.

Dioquino was only 8 when his mom and seven siblings packed their meager belongings and moved to this foreign place called Hawai'i, from a remote village in the Philippines. His father had died when he was 3 and his mother struggled on alone. There was no TV or radio. Wood was chopped for their stove and vegetables were raised in a garden. Water was pumped daily and brought by bucket to the house. "The dirt floor of our home was swept with a bamboo broom, and each night we climbed a ladder upstairs to sleep on the floor," Dioquino recalled.

Finally, the Dioquinos decided to move to Hawai'i, where they had family, settling in Waipahu. "When we came to Hawai'i, I was so excited. I received a real flower lei and had my picture taken with a little black box for the first time. And when Aunty headed home on the freeway, I saw more cars than I had ever seen in my entire life. When we arrived at Aunty's house, I removed my shoes, got on my hands and dug my fingers into the soft, furry floor they said was a carpet."

A few weeks later, it was time for Israel to start school.

"When I stepped on the school grounds the first day, children gathered and stared. I was so frightened that I cried. I didn't understand what the teacher was saying and wanted to go home," he recalled.

The next morning, Israel and his brothers and sisters had a hard time finding the right bus, and he cried all day. When it was time to go home, the newcomers couldn't remember which bus they should board. They walked from bus to bus until they heard familiar music on the radio. "Dis da one!" they agreed.

"We hopped on the bus, and off we went," Dioquino recalled. "One by one, students got off until there was no one else but us."

"'Where you live?' the driver asked, but we didn't understand. He drove up and down streets pointing, 'Ova hea?' 'Ova dea?' We shook our heads until finally, after a long ride, we saw our street.

"The next day, we walked home so we wouldn't get lost."

The boy continued to cry at school until a girl named Jill asked him why he was crying. She became his first real friend.

Then, in the fourth grade, the school held a talent show. Israel, who enjoys dancing, entered and performed the Electric Slide. He won a medal and found himself an on-campus celebrity overnight. "Students called out to me, 'Wuz up, Electric Dancer?!'

"Soon after, other students asked for my help with dance routines, and so I began teaching them. That's when I realized I had something of worth to share. From that time on, I wanted to go to school."

Then, in the sixth grade, he made the honor roll: "I began to feel smart and more confident in myself," he recalled.

"When I entered high school, I needed more than my talent as a dancer; I needed money for proms, snacks, gymnastic classes and to help my mom out. With so many children to feed, she didn't have extras. So I got a job as a room cleaner. Since that time, I've worked at a number of places and at one time held three part-time jobs," he said.

In his senior year, Dioquino was elected vice president of the International Club, ran for homecoming king, helped organize a fashion show and kept working part time.

"At my graduation I was proud at how far I'd come ... from speaking only a few words of English, to becoming a leader in my school," he said. "I felt so proud!"

On graduation night, Dioquino, who hopes to go on to Honolulu Community College using his scholarship money, earned more than a high school diploma; through the years, as he met each obstacle head-on, he began to perceive himself as a person of courage, dignity and worth. In turn, he earned the respect of his peers.

Linda Tagawa is a teacher and the mother of four grown children.