{"id":119573,"date":"2020-05-28T14:00:09","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T00:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=119573"},"modified":"2021-03-31T13:01:00","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T23:01:00","slug":"graduation-ceremony-pacific-islanders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2020\/05\/28\/graduation-ceremony-pacific-islanders\/","title":{"rendered":"Â鶹´«Ã½law graduate organizes graduation ceremony to honor Pacific Islanders"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> < 1<\/span> minute<\/span><\/span>
\"people
The Pasifika Commencement Ceremony.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

While the pandemic has hampered educational commencements around the country, a recent graduate of the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> at Mānoa William S. Richardson School of Law<\/a> is making sure fellow Pacific Islanders will not be left out of a celebration.<\/p>\n

Ian F. Tapu<\/strong> is organizing an online graduation ceremony to celebrate Pacific Islanders across the country, including Micronesian, Melanesian and Polynesian students who are graduating from high school, college and graduate school.<\/p>\n

The first Pasifika Commencement Ceremony is scheduled for Friday, May 29, and will be streamed on Facebook at 2 p.m. HST<\/abbr>. To view the ceremony go to the Pasifika Commencement Ceremony Facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Ian Tapu<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Because traditional graduation ceremonies have been canceled due to the COVID-19<\/abbr> pandemic, Tapu reached out to his friends throughout the U.S.<\/abbr> to help organize the event. Sina Uipi, a policy associate for the nonprofit Empowering Pacific Islander Communities, and Alika Masei, a Waiʻanae<\/span> teacher, also assisted as co-organizers.<\/p>\n

“We\u2019re never sure if this is going to be the last graduation for some of them, so we wanted it to be the best and most celebratory way as possible,” Tapu said.<\/p>\n

Commencement speakers which include graduates, community leaders, advocates and scholars will share their stories and any obstacles they have overcome. On the day of the event, a commencement booklet will be available to download on the Facebook page with the speakers\u2019 bios, pictures of the graduates, the village or islands they represent and their schools.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first Pasifika Commencement Ceremony is scheduled for Friday, May 29, and will be streamed on Facebook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[234,33,1466,470,9,68],"class_list":["post-119573","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-people","tag-commencement","tag-hawaiian","tag-manoa-enhancing-student-success","tag-pacific-islands","tag-uh-manoa","tag-william-s-richardson-school-of-law","entry","has-media"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119573","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119573"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119573\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119826,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119573\/revisions\/119826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119573"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119573"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119573"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}