In 1996, some Kapa’a High School educators didn’t think Junette-Desiree Mendoza Macabeo had the smarts for college. She fooled them. Macabeo, who says she was an average high school student, graduated with her GED and went to Earlham College in
In 1996, some Kapa’a High School educators didn’t think Junette-Desiree Mendoza Macabeo had the smarts for college.
She fooled them.
Macabeo, who says she was an average high school student, graduated with her GED and went to Earlham College in Richmond, Ind. She now teaches English at public schools in Kobe, Japan.
“I am living out my dream when I was told I couldn’t,” she said.
Macabeo, 23, is visiting her family in Kapa’a during the holiday season before she returns to Japan.
During her senior year in high school, one teacher hinted “I wasn’t going to be a success in life,” Macabeo said.
Other teachers told her she wouldn’t graduate on time because she had missed classes excessively due to a kidney infection.
The criticism made her question her self-worth. “I wasn’t feeling so good about myself or my future,” she said.
But she also heard the exhortations of other teachers to move ahead in spite of obstacles, she said.
Among a handful were Pat Delas Reyes, a guidance counselor who helped her apply to colleges and had application fees waived.
Delas Reyes saw the potential in her and encouraged her to go to college, as did her mother, Marilyn Mendoza of O’ahu, “who believes in me,” Macabeo said.
Because her parents were divorced, Macabeo shuffled between O’ahu and Kaua’i, where her father, Honorato Macabeo Jr., lives in Kapa’a.
Macabeo remembers being embarrassed by the predicament of not graduating from high school but planning to attend college.
“I had already been accepted to some colleges (pending graduation) when I found out I wasn’t going to graduate,” she said. Her family members also were planning to fly to Hawai’i from the mainland for her graduation ceremony.
After she recovered from the kidney infection, she took the GED test and passed it, registering the highest scores.
Macabeo said she wasn’t afraid to leave home to try new experiences and challenges. She chose Earlham College because of its reputation as one of the best liberal arts schools in the nation. Its curriculum is shaped by the perspectives of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).
She began classes there in 1996 and graduated four years later with a degree in Japanese studies.
She landed the English-teaching job in Kobe through a teaching project sponsored by the Japanese government.
Because she had gotten a taste of life in Japan through a four-month, college educational exchange program, moving to Japan was not going to be a frightening new challenge, Macabeo said.
Macabeo said her goal is to come back to Hawai’i one day as a Japanese interpreter or translator.
Staff writer Lester Chang can be reached at 245-3681 (ext. 225) and mailto:lchang@pulitzer.net
