Students mark milestones with 2025 heritage celebrations at ASU
This past fall, students gathered from all across Arizona State University to celebrate community, heritage and achievements as they move onto the next chapter of their lives. These celebrations honor the hard work and dedication each student from every background brought to their education.
Beyond a traditional commencement, the celebrations offered a sense of belonging and recognition for the students, family and friends that were there every step of the way. Many of these students faced difficult chapters in their lives including cultural barriers, navigating identity and creating their own first-generation milestones.
The International Celebration started with a beautiful dance by Autumn Phan, who immersed the audience into a story of how the women during the Tang Dynasty lived with strength and resilience. The students watched knowing that they succeeded in making not only themselves proud, but their communities and cultures as well — and they got to appreciate their own Sun Devil identity, too. The student speaker, Mariatu Kabba, shared a beautiful speech about what ASU has done for her.
The next celebration was the Asian/Asian Pacific. Through this celebration, attendees got to see just how strong a community built on love and endurance can prosper into a one-of-a-kind connection. Cathy Vo, student speaker, did an amazing job describing just how their parents’ hardship and relentlessness led to their accomplishments and success.
“But I know that this is not our destination,” Vo said. “This is our beginning, because we have endured not just for ourselves, but for the people in the communities who believed in us.”
“Roses and thorns belong to the same stem, and in holding both, you learn how to endure, how to persevere and how to grow.” she said. “Because in the end, it is not the titles or the degrees that define us, but the communities we build, and the people we uplift along the way.”
Themes of representation and belonging continued in the Rainbow Celebration. The event showcased the idea that who you are inside should never affect your pursuit of education. The students showed love comes in many different ways like the love that is in one's community. At ASU, the unspoken love that the Rainbow Celebration highlights is how students find each other and lean on one another to share similarities and celebrate the differences to make one Sun Devil Family.
The Black African celebration highlighted the importance of preserving culture and recognizing accomplishments within the Black community. Student speaker Lea Noelle talked about how every moment lived through each Black and African student makes their ancestors proud. With honor and high respect, Lea reminded her fellow students to relish in the accomplishments and be proud of who they have become.
“Today you are proof we are still moving,” she said. “You may not realize it yet, but when you are walking across that stage, you are joining a powerful statistic. You are answering prayers your ancestors didn't even have words for.”
For many graduates, these celebrations were more than just a ceremony; they were a moment of peace knowing that through all their hard work and the people who came before them, it was well worth the wait. ASU was a stepping stone to the future that each student will remember.
Photography by Paul Pascual, ASU Student Life