by Justine Ang Fonte, Roots of Health Board Member

Good afternoon, graduates, professors, and proud families. I am Justine Glo Ang Fonte, the daughter of Glorietta Zapata Ang of Bagabag, Nueva Vizcaya and Samuel Ang Fonte of Romblon, Romblon. Today is truly a celebration because here I am, Zooming in from Lenape Territory as a Filipina child of colonization, giving a speech to all of you, recipients of a graduate level degree from one of the most prestigious and privileged institutions on this planet. This commemorates your hard work, intellect, and service in a game that was never designed for any of us to even play past the application fee. In other words, we aren’t supposed to be here.

My plan was to become a District Attorney but the LSAT laughed at my face and said, “Nah, sis.” So, my public health story originated when I was teaching in an 8th grade classroom in Houston, Texas. In the summer of 2008, I was tasked with teaching math to students who had failed the state exam earlier that spring. Here’s the class makeup of my 24 eighth graders: 14-16 year olds, a quarter: Bloods, a quarter: Crips, a quarter: La Primera, a quarter: Southwest Cholos, 3 Hurricane Katrina displacements, 2 parents, 2 pregnant, and one absent for 2 consecutive weeks. There’s a lot of public health case studies in that one sentence but I’m going to focus on the last one, the absentee, named Maria.

Maria was studious, attentive, inquisitive, and then gone for 2 weeks. My high school Spanish skills failed me each time I called home to find out where she was. She returned for the last week of summer school and when I asked her if she was okay and where she had been she replied, “I was sick and bleeding a lot.” Asking if she had a wound or internal bleeding, she corrected me pointing below her waist, “No, Miss, down there.” I asked, “Has this happened before?” She said, “Yes, every month.” I asked, “Since when?” She responded, “Sixth grade. It hurts a lot and I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” I spoke to the principal at lunch, “You have a 15-year-old eighth grader who attends school for half the year because she’s on her period and probably has endometriosis and doesn’t even know it yet you expect me to teach to a test?!”

This middle school failed Maria. Abstinence-only education failed Maria. Human rights failed Maria.

In our world, White supremacy is when health is declared a human right but only some have access to it. Responsible public health interrogates how identities and systems impact access. We know that from Crenshaw’s intersectionality teachings and Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model of health. Physicians alone can’t deliver health. Public health alone can’t deliver health. We need each other. This collective ideal is contrary to White supremacist tenets of objectivity, individuality, and power hoarding. We need biostatiscians, environmental scientists, sociomedical researchers, epidemiologists, policy makers, population and family health professionals to deliver health.

But when public health works, no one knows about it. You made the decision before COVID-19 to be an unsung hero. It’s this virus that proved to the whole world why we’re needed and why public health professionals of color are especially needed. We were impacted by this pandemic professionally and personally. It’s our communities that suffered the most fatalities. It’s our communities that experienced the most violence because our skin color, last name, or our accent.

Audre Lorde taught us best “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” As descendants, patients, and subjects of racist medical histories, you learned public health through a different lens than your White peers. Therefore, you need to rely on ancestral tools of survival to disrupt those practices, heal from intergenerational traumas, and unlearn the stigmas that kept our people in the margins. With those tools we can lead, author, innovate, and fund new ways to make health a reality for all.

When I was asked to be your graduation speaker, I had the feeling many of us people of color get when we are awarded with good news: Are they talking to me? Or did they confuse me for the other person of color? Aren’t I too young? Aren’t I too inexperienced?

Here are 5 pieces of advice that even I still have to remind myself of:

#1. Resist Imposter Syndrome: Yes, they are talking to you. But yes, they did confuse you for the other person of color before. No, you’re not too young. That’s just the melanin. No, you’re not too inexperienced. You’re at the highest level of education and now a specialist in this field. Welcome, we’ve been waiting for you.

#2. Your professors are now your colleagues. If you didn’t grab a coffee or drink with them during office hours, make sure you schedule one now and make it a double. You will continue to learn from them and they will learn from you.

#3. After today, you won’t have BLSC & AAAH meetings anymore. Establish your own affinity groups and micro-affinity groups. Surround yourself with people who share your identities to affirm and uplift you. My Filipina circles are at the core of my healing and decolonization journey.

#4. When a conference asks you if your presentation or work is evidence-based to challenge your credibility, tell them that the long-standing history of academic data on your topic is disproportionately collected by White researchers so your presentation is how you make sense of said data as a public health expert of color. That’s statistically significant.

And #5. When people ask you where you went, where this degree is from, do not, do not say, “a school in New York City.” You put in too much time, energy, and tuition to be humble when this name can open so many doors. You code-switched, gave that TED talk, knew your worth, and like Black Panther’s vibranium, harnessed all those microaggressions and adversity transforming them into a Master’s degree all while living in the Master’s house.

Your ancestors remind you that emotions are your compass and survival is in your DNA so that you can dismantle that house classroom by classroom, protest by protest, and vote by vote.

And as a result, that house is starting to fall apart. The game wasn’t built for you to win but look where you are today. You have an advanced degree in Public Health. So,call upon all of the weight that the letters M, P, and H carry and say that you have an Ivy League graduate degree from The Columbia University.

As People of Color, we’re reminded, “Until the lion learns to write, the story will always glorify the hunter.” Mailman School gave you the tool and now you need to make it your own and build a new house. Customize it as a pen, a pencil, paintbrush, keyboard, or a stick to draw in the sand. The point is, you’re a writer now and the world needs to know your story. Tell it.

Class of 2021, congratulations!

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About Justine Ang Fonte

Justine Ang Fonte is a sexuality educator, producer, and a daughter of Filipinx immigrants. She is the founder and Director of Health & Wellness at The Dalton School, a K-12 independent school in New York City. As a nationally-recognized speaker, Justine consults to both public and private institutions across the United States on inter-sectional health education topics and is a speaker to thousands of students in school communities.

A math teacher by trade, she remotely managed an after school reading and math Learning Center in her father’s hometown province of Romblon, Philippines, since 2009. After her teaching experience in math, Justine pursued a career path in public health after witnessing the direct effects of health disparities impacting students’ academic achievement in her middle school classrooms.

Passionate about sexual and reproductive health in the Philippines, Justine worked with the Philippine Center for Population & Development evaluating the Department of Education’s Adolescent Reproductive Health curriculum as a visiting researcher at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati.

Justine is also the co-creator of Raised Pinay, with fellow board member Rachelle Peraz Ocampo, showcasing the narratives of Filipina women in New York City.

She received a Master’s in Education from the University of Hawai`i and her Master’s in Public Health from Columbia University.