Larissa Martinez said she didn't want to give her classmates the 'traditional Hallmark version' of the speech and instead opted for the truth. Larissa will be attending Yale on a full scholarship and hopes to one day be a neurosurgeon.
The internet video above has been viewed an astonishing number of times since it went up earlier today. ( Facebook Link)
Source: Seventeen
As valedictorian of McKinney Boyd High School in McKinney, Texas, Larissa Martinez was given the honor of making a speech at her graduation ceremony on June 3. She could have spoken about the importance of hard work or big dreams — both topics she knows very well first-hand. But instead, she chose to reveal a personal secret.
"I am one of the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the shadows of the United States," she announced in front of her classmates.
Up until that moment, only a handful of her closest friends knew about her situation. She put in an application for U.S. citizenship seven years ago, and it's still being processed. The speech took weeks to write and revise, and she was nervous to deliver it. But when she finished, her powerful words spurred her classmates to give her a standing ovation.
She also managed to include a jab at Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, without naming him directly.
"America can be great again without the construction of a wall built on hatred and prejudice," she said, alluding to Trump's controversial plan to build a wall on the border of the United States and Mexico to keep out undocumented immigrants
News report by WFAA.
Larissa Martinez's valedictorian speech to her senior class at McKinney Boyd High School (McKinney, Texas) in which she revealed she is an undocumented immigrant.
