By Karen Neill
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Juan, Myla Pereira, Princess Lynne De Dios and Aina Krizelle Iglesias. Row 2: Seniors Miguel Menjivar, Gilbert Caraveo, Mart Joshua Lopez, Joby Celoza and Joseph Tagorda, Junior Marcus Dunn, Seniors Justin Hara, Daniel Smith and Isis Usborne.
After winning the state competition in February, 16 students in We the People participated in the national competition from April 22 to 29. Despite the clear advantages of other schools and their inability to make it into the top ten, the MHS team is proud and satisfied with their performance.
“We did really well. The kids did amazing. That’s the best team I’ve taken and I’ve taken some really strong teams,” said adviser Dr. Amy Perruso.
Before nationals, We the People continuously practiced answering questions related to the U.S. Constitution. Throughout this time, the students were mentored by a variety of UH Manoa professors and law school students, in addition to former Supreme Court Justice Steven Levinson. “I think that that was empowering for them. Not just at the state level, but also at the national level with the conversations they were engaged in their hearings,” said Perruso.
For the competition, the students were divided into six teams consisting of two or three people. These units were judged by real policy and decision makers for America and were sometimes able to surprise the judges with their out-of-the-box way of thinking. Perruso explained, “Our students made really strong, really interesting provocative arguments. I would say that at least once an hour a judge would be like, ‘Wow, I never thought about that before.’”
Beside providing new ideas, some students believed their strength lay in being able to depend on each other, despite the large sizes of the other teams, and placing bait for judges, in order to better anticipate the questions they’d be asked. Senior Daniel Smith explained, “When the judges actually followed up on that bait we had prepared answers that we gave them that really, I think, killed the judges. An example of this was for unit one we made a really radical argument that pretty much advocated for communism in the United States and when the judges followed up on that, because it was a very controversial and interesting topic, we killed it.” Senior Isis Usborne added, “In the end we all kind of came together and did our best, as cliche as that sounds. But I think it came out to something that we could definitely be proud of.”
Unfortunately, faced with teams of five to seven students per unit, MHS and their three students per unit were unable to make it into the top 10. The next years’ students are currently being prepared by Perruso to take the place of the graduating team.
