Yuri Kim offers UOG grads a message of perseverance

The UOG class of 2020 graduation ceremony will go down as one of the most unique in school history, held virtually with the commencement speaker delivering her address from halfway across the world. Ambassador Yuri Kim spoke from her post in Albania about how her father brought her family to Guam in the late 70's and found the American dream.

"Guam in the 1970's wasn't exactly the America most foreigners think of, no highways, no cowboys, definitely no skyscrapers," she said. "But it was America just as it was supposed to be: warm, friendly, and full of possibility."

Hers was a message of perseverance, how her father drove around for years in a rusty old pickup truck and how her mother once had to break into young Yuri's piggy bank just for gas money. But eventually, her father opened his own contracting and engineering company.

"To this day I cannot pass a construction site without thinking of my parents and their perseverance, hard work, and their faith that we can always, always get back up," Kim said. 

This year's graduates, and the world, she points out are in the midst of an unprecedented time of turmoil.

"I have news for you, there will be more hardship coming your way," Kim said. "Life is like that, it spares no one. Some of the hardship you face will be evident to others, some of them will be known only to you. Either way, you will have to decide what to do about it. I hope you choose to get back up no matter how many times life knocks you down. You will get bruised along the way. But every time you choose to get back up you will get back up stronger and wiser than before."

Congratulations to the class of 2020 and valedictorian Megan Yan Gimmen, a dual major in chemistry and biology and a minor in sociology. 

Kim is the first Korean-American woman and the first Guamanian to be a U.S. ambassador. Two of her siblings attended UOG, and one will soon earn a Masters degree in clinical psychology.