Journalist Emil Guillermo Remembers His Cousin, Alum Stephen Guillermo

DIVERSE ISSUES IN HIGHER EDUCATION -- When I think of graduation time, I don’t think about my own crossing the stage in cap and gown drag. Nor do I think of my kids.

I think about my cousin Stephen, who I saw as the second coming of my father. Stephen came to the U.S. an immigrant when he was 8 years old from the Philippines. He practically traced my father’s footsteps and then exceeded them. He received his Bachelor of Arts in International Relations from San Francisco State University in 2014.

But there is a digression. The degree came a few weeks after his violent gun death.

It was a posthumous degree, but it didn’t have to be.