All will be able to comprehend Sunday’s ceremonia de graduaciòn

Learning of Swarthmore College’s commencement ceremonies scheduled for Sunday made me recall my own graduation from college nearly a quarter-century ago.

Among the family contingent that made their way down from Chicago to Bloomington, Ill., was my grandmother Angelina – who was the one of my four grandparents who never developed a confident command of the English language.

ADMITTEDLY, SHE HAD my father and two of my uncles (all three of her sons) on hand to provide translation. But a part of me always wondered just how much of the academic ritual my paternal grandmother actually comprehended.

Then again, what I remember was an uninspiring commencement speaker (whose name I’d have to look up) and not a word of what he said. I also remember not being alone among the students in feeling that way.

So maybe my grandmother was just as confused as the rest of us.

Now, we move 24 years to the future to this weekend, where at the Philadelphia-based elite college (although not as special as my alma mater, Illinois Wesleyan University) officials are anticipating a significant number of people on hand who might not comprehend English enough to follow the ritual of sending students off into the real world.

WHILE IT IS common for colleges to have sign-language interpreters on hand for the hard-of-hearing (although nothing like actor Garrett Morris offering his hearing-impaired interpretation of Saturday Night Live sketches), this may well be a first.

According to an Associated Press dispatch, people attending the ceremony will be offered wireless headphones if they want them. Those who take them will get to listen to a Spanish-language interpreter, doing a simultaneous translation of the academics trying to show just how other-worldly they are capable of being.

It almost sounds like they’re making graduation sound like a session of the United Nations – with everybody wearing headphones to listen to people provide them with the translation needed for us to overcome the many languages spoken around this planet.

Now for all those people who are going to start ranting and raging about how this thought is horrible and that these people ought to listen to English just like everybody else, I’d say that nobody is offering this service out of the goodness of their heart.

NOBODY IS THAT nice.

Swarthmore officials are only bothering because the Latino presence at their commencement ceremonies (due to a growing Latino segment of their student body) is large-enough to warrant such a service.

While I’m not bitter in any way that my alma mater didn’t offer something similar (in all honesty, it wouldn’t have occurred to me for them to do so), I can’t help but think it would have made my grandmother feel like she was more a part of the event.

Making sure everybody can comprehend what is happening only leaves a good impression upon everybody. One has to have a particularly craven view of life and people to see anything bad about this.

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