East LA College Chooses their Commencement Speaker: It's Gustavo!

This just in:

Gustavo to Give Commencement Speech at East 

Los Angeles College Graduation!

Gustavo writes all about it this morning (click title above for the whole enchilada, including a link to Arellano's LBCC commencement speech last year, and see below for an excerpt).

Regular readers of Dissent will know Rebel Girl has forwarded Gustavo Arellano and many other worthy candidates (local, smart, articulate, connected to education and O.C.) as nominees for the IVC Commencement Speaker gig for many years now.  

After last year's rather hurried, muffled consideration of candidates, Rebel Girl wishes she had recorded some of the rather dismissive and condescending comments made about certain candidates like Arellano—inappropriate, too, uh, political, not a good fit, etc. Coded language, of course. You know what they mean. You know who is appropriate, whose politics are acceptable, whose fit is just fine (Yes, and Rebel Girl knows what those wags will say about his East LA College invitation—and perhpas you do too: Well, of course they (e.g. East L.A.!  Mexicans!) want him and he is just fine for them. But not us. No.)

This morning's news comes after yesterday's dissemination of IVC Commencement Speaker Committee's list of new nominees—a hot discussion topic in the hallways. It's a very, very, very, very, very, very long list (over 30) and committee members have been directed to rank each candidate.  

Among the names: Tom Hanks, Condoleezza Rice, Bill Gates, Morgan Freeman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Scott Lay, Hilary Rodham Clinton—and yes, Gustavo Arellano. 

Not so long ago, this committee used to meet and sort out the list of nominations that came in from across campus. Call it a feasibility sort. The committee knew, say, that it was unlikely that Steven Spielberg would come to speak at the little college in the orange groves even if we said pretty please, so to "rank" him and others like him (Pope John Paul, Dick Cheney, Beyonce, Seth McFarlane, etc.) was a waste of time and skewed the process. Better to focus energies on a list of more, uh, realistic candidates, people who were likely to say yes. As Rebel Girl recalls, that committee did its work well with a collegial spirit,  meeting a few times under able leadership and generating a list of finalists to forward to the president.  

No, Rebel Girl has declined to serve on that committee this year. She can take a hint. Like her nominees, she is perhaps inappropriate, too, uh, political, not a good fit. She wishes the committee good luck. 

And yeah, ask Tom Hanks. Go for it. Hanks is poised to make his Broadway debut in Nora Ephron's final play, "Lucky Guy." One of Rebel Girl's high school pals is in the cast (behind Hanks in the photo below, black tie).  She knows that they're in rehearsals right now (previews begin March 1!) and that the play is scheduled to run through June. So Rebel Girl advises that perhaps Hanks is just a little too busy to say yes. But you can ask. Why not. The play could be a big flop and close early. It's happened before. 

excerpt:

This will be the second year in a row I've [Gustavo Arellano] been invited to speak at a community college graduation (I did the deed last year at Long Beach City College), and it's a wonderful honor given I'm a product of the juco system, having graduated from Orange Coast College way back when.

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Past commencement speaker wrangles:

• Plagiarism is a form of theft, Glenn (but all is well, really) - May 30 12
• "Too Political" - May 24 12
• That's some leadership, that leadership à la Roquemore – May 21 12
• News about Gustavo Arellano, who, again, won't be commencement speaker - May 1 12
• Evidently, the IVC Academic Senate cabinet won't agendize whether IVC should support Saddleback faculty's "shared governance" resolution - Apr 15 12
• Commencement speaker choices: the controversial and the unimaginative - Jun 12 10
• What about Gustavo Arellano? - Jan 18 08