{"id":7844,"date":"2021-06-20T02:50:12","date_gmt":"2021-06-20T12:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/?p=7844"},"modified":"2021-06-28T04:25:21","modified_gmt":"2021-06-28T14:25:21","slug":"celebrating-the-fililpino-american-students-who-helped-end-the-sat-act-at-the-university-of-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/thefilipinochronicle.com\/backup\/2021\/06\/20\/celebrating-the-fililpino-american-students-who-helped-end-the-sat-act-at-the-university-of-california\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating the Filipino American Students Who Helped End the SAT\/ACT at the University of California"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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by Emil Guillermo

<\/em>Maybe by time you read this Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Island Heritage Month will be over. It\u2019s still worth remembering. This year we can proudly add the N.H. because President Biden put it in his proclamation. AANHPIHM? It\u2019s in writing.

Plus, if you\u2019ve done your homework, you know that Filipino American labor hero Larry Itliong came from Stockton, California.

He\u2019s become a symbol for the fighting spirit of Filipinos some teenagers from South Stockton like Rain Romeo. She knows a thing or two about standardized testing.

We all do. Tests like the SAT and ACT are discriminatory in nature, failing to reflect a student\u2019s real ability, and advantaging wealthier students who can afford extra-tutoring to game the exam. But until a month ago, the system forced Romeo to live with that discrimination.\u201cI\u2019m not just a score,\u201d Romeo, a 17- year-old Filipino American student told me last month over the phone. She was one of the students who had been asked to testify to the University of California regents about the fairness and efficacy of standardized tests.

Recently, the major barrier to Romeo\u2019s hopes and dreams was removed.

In a historic settlement, the UC Regents agreed they would eliminate the SAT and the ACT from admissions and scholarship decisions through 2025.UC had already figured that standardized tests were unfair last year, but let COVID-19 be the excuse to put a temporary halt on the tests only through 2022. The settlement now bans the test for another three years.

This is significant. Many schools, private and public, including the University of Hawaii have gone with a \u201ctest-optional\u201d policy.

But that\u2019s like saying weapons are optional to a bar brawl. The guy with the deadliest weapon will generally be advantaged. But the rules, you say? If it comes down to a student with tests scores versus a student without, do you want to take a chance on implied fairness and equity?

That\u2019s why a lawsuit on a ban was necessary in the first place, and why a settlement on that suit should become a model that allows for a greater diversity of students of all backgrounds, but especially Black, Latinx, and Asian groups from less wealthy communities.

\u201cI\u2019m thrilled and so happy to hear the news,\u201d Romeo told me. The tests had put enormous pressure on her life, creating anxiety and self-doubt.\u201cComing from a low-income household and a community that is constantly overlooked, I have always felt like I wouldn\u2019t attain success,\u201d she said. \u201cI always based my perceptions and my entire life thought process on these scores. I believed if my score wasn\u2019t good enough, then I wasn\u2019t good enough.\u201d

Romeo immigrated to the U.S. with her family from the Philippines in 2004. She has been active as a youth advocate with the Little Manila Rising group in Stockton. And she feels connected to her community, interested in building it up, not looking forward to leaving it behind. It\u2019s a kind of ambition and drive that doesn\u2019t show up in a standardized test.

More Than a Number<\/strong>
\u201cThere\u2019s more to me than what is seen on that piece of paper, and the number that score represents,\u201d Romeo said. \u201cI don\u2019t want [admissions officers] to make an assumption or observation of me that they think is true based on a number.\u201d

Romeo said she wanted colleges to see her for who she is and what her true potential represents. In Stockton, Romeo has overcome a lot. She\u2019s a star student (weighted GPA around 4.3) in a neglected, low-income neighborhood, and would be the first in her family to go to college. In school, she studies debate, Honors English, Honors Physics, and is in student government, as well as a community volunteer with Little Manila Rising.

She also isn\u2019t ambitious for a corporate life that would force her to leave her home. Instead, Romeo is ambitious for her community. Perhaps that is a quality colleges should find worth nurturing, as Romeo prepares to apply to UC Berkeley, UCLA, and UC Davis, where admissions will consider her uniqueness rather than her relative value to a made-up standard.

That makes the settlement good news for all young people who are overlooked and filtered out by that thing that has long been an admissions officer\u2019s crutch \u2013 the SAT.

Romeo will benefit from the SAT settlement. But it\u2019s too late for some of the other students who participated in the suit like Danica Foronda, a 2019 Edison High grad.

She wanted people to know how the tests were a financial strain on her family who stretched to take expensive prep courses, and then retake the exam. Her score increased by less than 100 points. She was deemed \u201cnon-competitive,\u201d but somehow through UC\u2019s more comprehensive look at student achievement was able to gain admission to UCLA.

But it took a toll.\u201cI experienced burn-out and anxiety at such a young age, worrying about what my future would look like,\u201d Foronda wrote in a letter included in the case documents.

Foronda and other brave Filipino American students who have since graduated like Celine Corpus, spoke out so that younger students like Rain would have a chance to stand out and be seen, not by a number, but for who they are.

And what exactly is that?

Importance of the SAT Struggle<\/strong>
To Dillon Delvo, they\u2019re all heroes.

\u201cThey need to be celebrated,\u201d said Delvo, Little Manila Rising\u2019s executive director. \u201cWhen you grow up in South Stockton, being marginalized means you don\u2019t matter. We changed that by advocating for social justice and putting young people in a position to life their voices up to bring about change.

\u201cWe want our students to have this experience, the experience of victory from their voices to be lifted up,\u201d Delvo continued.

\u201cI want them to tell their children, this happened because I stepped up and said something.\u201dDelvo believes the narrative shift in the community is the biggest way Filipinos fight that age-old plague, colonial mentality, or colonization.\u201cThat\u2019s what colonization is about,\u201d Delvo said. \u201cYou don\u2019t have a right to rule over yourself, you don\u2019t have a right to say or have an affect on the society that you\u2019re living in. You\u2019re just victim to it, or just a passenger. This is about de-colonization.\u201d

It\u2019s an important lesson for the Filipino American students of Stockton who are part of that lesson. And it\u2019s an important lesson for Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage month.

These kids are from the same neighborhood as Filipino American Labor Leader Larry Itliong. They have inherited past that includes Itliong\u2019s labor victories in the fields. And now they have added a victory over the discriminatory SATs at the University of California.

It\u2019s part of a legacy Filipino Americans must realize is definitely worthy of celebration as we remember AANHPIHM 2021.

Call it by its full name. Asian American Native Hawaiian Pacific Islander Heritage Month. That\u2019s the name on the presidential proclamation. It shows our diversity and inclusivity. That\u2019s why it matters.And the students in Stockton will be remembered for making that ideal of diversity a real part of their lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

EMIL GUILLERMO<\/strong> is a journalist and commentator. In Honolulu, he was a member of the Advertiser Editorial Board and a columnist for the Star Bulletin. His columns are now homebased on the Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund website. He vlogs at <\/em>www.amok.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Read More:<\/em><\/strong>
Say The Full Name: Remembering Our Native Hawaiians On Heritage Month<\/a>
California\u2019s New Attorney General: The Filipino American with the Golden Story<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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