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BOSTON (AP) – The latest generation of American scholars in Rhodes has more women than any other class.
The Rhodes Trust announced Sunday that the 32 students selected to begin classes next fall would be 21 women, and that nearly half of the recipients of the prestigious Oxford University Scholarship in England are immigrants or Americans of the first generation.
Among them is Jin Park, senior official of Harvard University, who is the first beneficiary covered by the DACA, the Obama era program that protects young immigrants from deportation.
The 22-year-old South Korean, age 7, from South Korea, hopes to become an immigrant rights activist after studying Molecular and Cell Biology at Harvard and founded a non-profit organization . to help undocumented students enroll in college. He says that it is important for him to use this opportunity for the improvement of others, not just for himself.
"When you grow up as an undocumented immigrant in America, with this understanding that your talents do not really belong to you in the traditional sense of the word, you have to share the fruits of your work with others," he says. It's just something you learn, "Park said.
Alaleh Azhir, 21, of Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, emigrated from Iran at the age of 14. The New York City resident hopes to eventually become a doctor and will study women's health and reproductive health in Oxford.
"I'm just a passionate defender of women in general and it's mainly because of my past," she said. "I thought I could defend women's rights by advocating for their health."
At Chapman University in Southern California, Vidal Arroyo, 21, reflected on the unlikely path he had chosen to become the first Rhodes Scholar at his school.
"As a Latino, a first – generation student and traveling by train to go to university, this scholarship is so important to me, as it gives hope to students from all over the world. backgrounds like mine, which have to overcome many obstacles in their higher education and a better future, "said Arroyo, who plans to study engineering sciences in Oxford.
And 23-year-old Eren Orbey, a graduate of Yale University in Connecticut, whose parents emigrated from Turkey, hopes to study at Oxford to bring more "context and clarity" to his writings. He regularly contributes to The New Yorker magazine and works on writing a book about his father, killed in Ankara while he was only three years old, and the murderer of his father.
"I am interested in studying the ethics of revenge and forgiveness," Orbey said Sunday by e-mail. "I think our culture and our media coverage often condescend to immigrants and trauma survivors.In my writings, I hope to repost tragedy and conflict as opportunities for growth and heroism."
Rhodesian Fellows join a separate international group of specialists representing more than 60 countries.
Rhodes Scholarships cover all expenses of at least two years of study at Oxford. They were created in 1902 by Cecil Rhodes, British businessman and Oxford alum, prime minister of the Cape Colony in present-day South Africa.
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List of winners: https://tinyurl.com/y96poov4
Winner Biographies: https://tinyurl.com/ycu37jb9
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Hajela brought back from New York.
