What a great event sponsored by the Harvard Kennedy School: fine conversations over fine food with newly elected United States Congressmen inside Fenway Park. Readying to leave, I approached the coat-check lady and asked for my coat. I held up my return ticket, but she did not need it; she already turned away and was coming back with My Grey Pea Coat.
I was surprised. It had been two hours since I last saw her... How? Did she have photographic memory or something? So I asked, "Ma'am, how did you recognize my coat without the ticket?"
"I recognized the brand, Merona," she responded earnestly.
In a consumer-centric society, where luxury brands are worshipped, this probably is not what you were expecting because Merona is a cheap brand, sold exclusively by discount retailer Target. My coat cost no more than $30.
"Oh, ha ha." I chuckled and teased while putting it on, "I guess you wouldn't have recognized it if it was a Canada Goose, huh?"
"No, way too many of those," she laughed at the Canadian made jackets, each crested with a large, bold red patch on the sleeve that signals the price averaging $800.
I thanked her, as I walked away very pensively.
She had given me a firm reminder of my mission because I will admit to you that this brief scene can encapsulate very well why I am at Harvard and what Harvard means to a kid like me.
The simple fact is that it's not typical for a person like me (and most Americans actually) to be at a school like Harvard. The New York Times reported that in most of the Ivy League schools, you are more likely to be a part of the top 1% where your family earns more than $630,000 a year, than to be part of the bottom 60%, where your family earns less than $65,000.
But the purpose of this piece is not to point out cumulative advantage or complain about the positive feedback loops concerning wealth. The purpose of this piece is to feel good—no, to feel damn good.
About these rare things: Yes I am part of that bottom 60%. Yes my parents did not attend college. But I am proud. Proud that I am a First Generation College Student. Proud that I am in touch with the common people and their trials and tribulations—not through an academic high-horse, but through my memories of my family's struggles that are permanently embedded in my mind.
Not for a second do I feel jealous of what many of my peers have or how easy they had it. Because it is the defiance of expectations that have made me who I am. Harvard has brought me into higher echelons that are usually closed off to the likes of me. It still feels surreal that I could be casually chatting about politics with Congressmen at a bar (no drinks for me of course), receive a grant funded by David Rockefeller to work in Buenos Aires for a summer, learn from professors that wrote the textbook, and listen to the Heads of State and Titans of Industry that come on campus ever so often.
For doing all that on a generous scholarship, I am grateful, and whenever I think about it I am quite honestly stunned; yet in my path of success I will encounter more surreal and unimaginable moments.
But I will never forget where I come from.
Thank you for the reminder, Miss, at the coat check: I am unique, not despite my humble beginnings, but I am unique because of my humble beginnings.
This rise is my story. And the climb is for my family and for the common folk. So you all can keep your Canada Goose. I'll wear my no-name grey pea coat proudly.
Thank you for listening,
Brian Lai