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As the actor and activist Martin Sheen charged the 2019 graduating class of Santa Clara University with caring for and remaking the world in his commencement address Saturday morning, senior Daniel Sepulveda found himself distracted by a more down-to-earth worry: That he might trip and fall when it was his turn to cross the stage.
He didn’t, thankfully. And as Sepulveda later stood outside Stevens Stadium snapping photos with his extended family, the San Jose native had a chance to reflect on how each family member — from the parents who took him to school each morning to the cousins he’d grown up with — had helped him earn the degree he received on Saturday.
“Everyone here has played a role in my upbringing and everything I’ve done since I was a kid,” Sepulveda said. “Everyone has their own special piece that came together to build up to where I am today. It’s like seeing this giant puzzle complete itself.”
As it did for many of the about 1,200 newly-minted Santa Clara University alumni — who donned black gowns, red sashes, gold cords, intricately decorated mortarboard caps and leis made from purple orchids and origami dollar bills — the ceremony left Sepulveda feeling a mix of excitement, exhaustion and relief.
Sheen captivated the class and their family members with a whirlwind address that challenged the stadium’s closed captioning to keep up. In just under 15 minutes, he read poetry from Rabindranath Tagore and Emma Lazarus, endorsed a unionization drive by Santa Clara University’s adjunct faculty and lecturers, recounted an Irish story about Saint Peter at the gates of heaven and quoted Robert F. Kennedy and Josiah Bartlet, the fictional president Sheen played on “The West Wing.”
“We are called to find something in our lives worth fighting for — something that can unite the will of the spirit with the work of the flesh,” Sheen told the class, his cadence occasionally sounding like the soaring presidential oratory he once delivered as Bartlet. “We are not asked to do great things — we are asked to take greater care of the environment and the very least among us,” he said. “Such an ideal is rare in a culture of so many compromised values and so much cynicism.”
Sheen had warnings for the graduates heading out into the world: That it would take great sacrifice to make a great impact, and that the rewards they’ll have to seek for serving others will come from themselves, not from the approval of the crowd. The state of the world today, both in its immense challenges and its successes, are a result of the choices of the generations that came before, Sheen said.
“If the past is prologue, I’m afraid the road ahead is a dead end — unless, of course, you decide to rebuild that road to your own specifications and trust your own instincts,” Sheen said.
In the top rows of the stadium bleachers, more than a dozen relatives of graduate Jake Kawasaki watched Sheen’s speech in matching T-shirts that made them stand out from the crowd.
When Jake’s older sister, Jolie Kawasaki, graduated from college a few years ago, the family held up big cut-out photos of her face at the ceremony. Now that it was her little brother’s turn to graduate, Jolie came up with something even more noticeable — or embarrassing — depending on your perspective.
In the days leading up to the ceremony, she’d gotten a shop to rush an order of t-shirts screen-printed with a giant photo of a smiling Jake, donned by each relative before the ceremony. Family members also waved pom-poms fashioned out of newspaper and held up big letters spelling out, “JAKE YAY.”
The family kept the biology major from Honolulu in the dark about their plans until he saw them Saturday morning.
“I love him, I’m proud of him and I hope he’s thoroughly embarrassed,” Jolie Kawasaki said. “These shirts will probably be showing up at his wedding.”
