The College Graduate

On Sunday, I watched Mukue graduate from Springfield College and get ready to start her master’s program to be an athletic trainer. Dad, who grew up in Springfield playing baseball, was an athletic trainer for 36 years. He teared up as I showed him and mom the video of Mukue getting her diploma. Mukue was just 6 when she migrated from the bamboo stick 1-room home her dad Pa Dah built in war-torn Myanmar. With her sister, she was quickly catapulted into a position as the de facto co-head of household for her family— learning English, setting up utilities, navigating the city bus, talking with Husky Medicaid and when mom or dad got sick, going to the hospital. By 14, she somehow remained happy, sometimes blissfully unaware of the poverty around her, amazingly optimistic living in a dream to play for USA Soccer, or for her home country Thailand. When she came to live with us at 15 I saw a kid ready to take on the world who just needed support. It’s not lost on me how Mukue’s pursuit of athletic training carries on our family tradition, and it’s also not lost on me that investing in social services and advocacy for teens like Mukue and their families can change a lot. Pa Dah, who saved his family by traipsing across the globe to the US in 2007, who understood his kids needed support he couldn’t give them, now helps fix and build homes for people in need. If you’re investing in healthcare, I would only say that investing in businesses serving the Medicaid population and the underserved like Mukue isn’t just good will, it’s good business. And it’s humanity.