As graduation for the Class of 2022 approaches, the Speaker Selection Committee has chosen Maya (Misaki) Funada ’23 as the Commencement speaker, and Joseph Han ’22 to speak at the Senior Dinner. The selection process involved nominations from fellow classmates, as well as an interview before the Committee. An email sent by the Speaker Selection Committee stated, “This was an incredibly difficult decision to make and we know every single nominee, semi-finalist, and finalist would have made an amazing speaker.”

Funada is a part of the Class of 2023, and will be graduating next fall. They are an Anthropology major and an international student from Tokyo, Japan. Funada shared that at first, they did not even realize they had been nominated when they got the email notifying them. “I was way too busy organizing the library teach-in back then,” said Funada, “I didn’t even read the whole thing until I got a reminder from the selection committee.”

Their surprise at being nominated quickly turned to a resolve to be chosen as the Commencement speaker. Funada said they were actively campaigning because they wanted to get a large platform on campus to talk about social justice issues.

Social justice at Hamilton and beyond the campus is the theme of Funada’s speech. “I’m most excited about using Hamilton language to criticize Hamilton,” Funada laughed.

With COVID-19 taking up a large portion of their college experience, Funada discussed a feeling of disconnect with others on campus. “I haven’t ever felt fully, fully connected at this school. I’m an international student and a lot of the things that Hamilton mainstream culture has didn’t really resonate with me. I still don’t feel fully connected to the campus, but that kind of encouraged me to speak up for all these marginalized voices,” Funada expressed. “Major Hamilton narratives tend to lean towards dominant groups and I really wanted to challenge that trend.”

In response to what they will miss about Hamilton upon graduation, Funada replied, “the professors for sure.” Funada talked about their experience away from the College, saying, “when I was working during my gap year, I realized how adults in the real world really don’t care about us like professors here do … Life here is hard of course, but I still appreciate how supportive this Hamilton bubble is, relative to the real world.”

If Funada could give younger people at Hamilton any advice, it would be to “question the dominant narrative, especially when it’s coming from older people or those in power.” Funada jokingly continued, “Maybe they should even question what I’m saying here!”

They speak about a Japanese Economics professor at Yale, who inspired their advice. “If you truly want to change something,” Funada said taking a pause, “you shouldn’t just follow what’s commonly accepted today. If you follow what’s already done, you’re not going to really do anything extraordinary.”

Funada added that “it’s okay to not follow the mainstream path … I struggled so much to accept who I really am, in fact until very recently.”

Han will be speaking at the traditional Senior Dinner during Senior Week. Han is a History major who, after graduation, plans on teaching at an elementary charter school in the South Bronx where he grew up.

Han spoke about his speech, saying “I focused on the like, the brevity of it all. I definitely talked about how it felt being a POC here … I wanted to focus on like, ‘yeah it’s kind of sh*t, but at the same time, it’s kind of funny.’”

Han said that he is “really excited to have the opportunity to speak to people that I’ve been with for so long.” When asked what he will miss about Hamilton, Han laughed. “There were just a million little things that really bothered me, but the thing that I will miss a lot here is the people. I know that’s so cliché. I like the feeling that I can walk through the Atrium and know people and feel like, ‘Hey, I can talk to people.’”

“It’s such a singular moment in my life that will never happen or align the way it did here, right here right now,” he added.

When asked what he would like to see changed in Hamilton’s future, Han said, “I think there’s a really big inequality problem in this school … sometimes I just feel like in order to get accommodations or the bare minimum, I have to lay out my entire life story to someone … When you’re in a conversation with administration, their question isn’t ‘why do you need this’, it’s ‘why do you need this over other people.’”

Han expressed his sentiments about graduating: “I had one foot out the door at the beginning of the year. Girl, I’m ready to leave.”