The faces, the smiles say it all. As far as graduations go, this was a winner.
On June 23, Homeboy Industries, the largest gang and rehabilitation program in the world, celebrated 109 graduates, from associate’s to bachelors to master’s degrees, participants or alumni of Homeboy Industries’ 18-month training program, community clients, and staff.
“This week, 109 courageous individuals crossed the stage. More importantly, they crossed into a new chapter of hope, dignity, and possibility,” said co-CEOs Shirley Torres and Steve Delgado. “We are in awe of our graduates and their grit, grace, and commitment to transformation. Their journey is a reminder that healing is possible, community is powerful, and our future is bright.”
Across the board, the graduates at this commencement ceremony faced incredible systemic barriers and unsupportive educational systems to complete milestones in their academic journeys through their resilience, strength, and wisdom.
Homeboy Industries and its Academic Education and Pathways to College Program supports hundreds of individuals seeking to complete diverse academic pathways. Among this year’s group, were graduates that were awarded their associate’s, bachelor’s and master’s degrees from East Los Angeles College, Cal State Los Angeles, Cal State Long Beach, UC Berkeley, UCLA and USC. Other graduates have received their high school diplomas from partnering institutions: Learning Works Charter High School and Twilight Adult School.
Waiting in the wings with his congratulations was Rev. Greg Boyle, 71, the Jesuit priest who founded Homeboy Industries 37 years ago. It has since grown to 14 social enterprise businesses, including Tepito Coffee and Puppy Fades grooming in Pasadena.
The week before graduates posed with family and babies and pets and congratulations rang out, Boyle acknowledged the state of affairs outside Homeboy’s building in downtown Los Angeles, where anxiety and fear formed a dark cloud in the wake of immigration raids. Boyle has known dark days before. He can still count to the person the number of “homies” he’s buried (263) and even how many pairs of brothers.
In Los Angeles, Boyle said, people are frightened.
“There’s certainly no migrant invasion, but troops were sent. There’s certainly no migrant crime wave. We know that. But troops were sent. So there’s a kind of vague anxiety, a foreboding,” he said.
Quoting the poet Mary Oliver, Boyle offered an antidote to the fear.
“This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.”
Being lovingly attentive in the present moment can lead to a precious peace. As another writer, Karen Maezen Miller of Sierra Madre says, “What you pay attention to thrives. Attention is love.”
So let me just leave these photos here for you. Just enjoy the smiles. Wonder about what horrors these graduates went through to get to this day. Boyle says it is the honor of his life to know people like them: the ones who made the most of second chances, the ones who inspires him to a radical kinship, compassion and connection. Now you can pay attention too.
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