SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Before Calvin Yang walks across the stage at Hayward High School on Saturday, he’ll remind the Class of 2022 about collective memories that only pandemic graduates can claim. Like the “nauseating loading screen we have all experienced at some point” during months of remote learning. And the “strong sense of resiliency” they developed through “persistence and strength, arguably more so than any former class.”
Seniors from across the Bay Area have been graduating in recent weeks — in person — after a high school experience like none other. They attended school online while teaching themselves and their younger siblings, faced cancellations of proms and plays and pep rallies, advocated for racial justice and gun control, battled declining mental health while facing the loss of loved ones and the heightened trauma of the pandemic. And, of course, they made friends — virtually and in person — who sympathize with their shared experience.
But unlike the two classes before them, members of the Class of 2022 have been able to walk across the stage over these last two weeks for a final, bittersweet celebration.
