Michelle Obama Talks Values And Overcoming Obstacles To Native American Graduates


First Lady Michelle Obama gave the commencement speech at the graduation ceremony of Santa Fe Indian School in New Mexico yesterday. Local news channel KQRE reported that approximately 3,500 people lined up hours before the ceremony began for the opportunity to hear Ms. Obama speak.

Michelle Obama spoke about her upbringing and what she learned from the example of her father who suffered from multiple sclerosis and from her mother. Here is some of what she had to say about lessons her parents taught through their example:

“I learned respect from how my parents cared for my great aunt and uncle. How my mother would wake up in the middle of the night to check on my great aunt. How my father would prop himself up against the bathroom sink each morning, leaning hard on his crutches to give my great uncle a shave. I learned integrity from my parents. That living a good life is not about being wealthy or powerful, it’s about being honest and doing what you say you’re going to do. It’s about how you act when no one is watching and about whether you’re the same person on the outside that you are on the inside.”

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Michelle Obama’s words weren’t only about the values she learned from her family, values she believes she shares with each student at the Santa Fe Indian School. She also praised them their progress.

“As we all know, this school was founded as part of a deliberate, systematic effort to extinguish your culture, to literally annihilate who you were and what you believed in, but look at you today. The native languages that were once strictly forbidden here now echo through hallways and in your dorm room conversations at night. The traditions that this school was designed to destroy are now expressed in every square foot of this building.”

Michelle Obama’s comments were in reference to a history fraught with challenges. As Time reported, Santa Fe Indian School was founded in 1890 with the goal of assimilating native Americans into the culture of white Americans, a path seen as the correct moral choice. The original goal of the school Michelle Obama addressed was to change their “language, religion, family structure, economics, the way you make a living, the way you express emotion, everything.”

Among Michell Obama’s strongest words of encouragement were the ones she offered that addressed the struggles the graduates have surely already faced and would continue to face throughout their lives.

“… many of you have faced and overcome challenges in their lives that most young people can’t even begin to imagine – challenges that have tested your courage, your confidence, your faith, and your trust. But, graduates, those struggles should never be a source of shame. Never. Those struggles are the source of your greatest strengths, because by facing adversity head-on and getting through it, you have gained wisdom and maturity beyond your years.”

Michelle Obama’s voice trembled as she expressed her effort in her daily life as she raises her two daughters to express the same love and ability to dream that she got from her parents and that the ancestors of the students she was addressing had passed on to their generation.

This is not the first time Michelle Obama has spoken with honor and respect for the history and current condition of the Native American culture. In 2015, Ms. Obama spoke about issues currently facing the Native American population and how those issues are the result of “a long history of systematic discrimination and abuse.” Though not widely reported, Michelle Obama’s comments were viewed as an acknowledgement of the responsibility of the U.S. for the current struggles of the Native American culture and population.

[Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images]

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