UNLV grads find mortarboards ideal medium for personal touch

She thought of her great-aunt Lola, who immigrated from the Philippines and helped her family make a home in the U.S. Before moving to the mainland, their first stop was Hawaii — where they were introduced to the native Hawaiian dish lau lau.

“It’s like pork, or chicken and it’s wrapped in a leaf,” Rooks said. “It tastes very good. It’s very fattening, it goes straight to the hips. It’s the perfect stress food for finals week.”

A replica of a lau lau — made of cotton balls and ribbon — now adorns the graduation cap Rooks will wear to UNLV’s commencement ceremony on Saturday.

She came up with the corresponding message with a little help from her mom.

“She said, ‘Well, are you graduating summa cum lau lau?’ And I was like, that is hilarious,” Rooks said.

Growing trend

Rooks, who will graduate Saturday with a degree in theater arts, is among the growing number of college students who bedazzle their mortarboards with gems, lace and glitter to add funny, serious, political or playful messages to the ceremonial accessory.

“With almost everybody that I talked to, the answer always involved wanting to put my own personal touch on it,” said Sheila Bock, an associate professor in UNLV’s department of interdisciplinary, gender and ethnic studies. “They want to communicate something about themselves personally.”

Bock, a folklorist, began informally tracking the trend in 2011 as a faculty member attending the ceremonies. In 2015, she formalized the project, and has since archived several hundred examples, concentrating most of her work on UNLV students.

“If people are doing this, it has to carry some kind of meaning,” she said. “It’s really kind of powerful what people choose to foreground in this space.”

Bock said some of the earliest examples of bedazzled mortarboards date back to the 1960s, when college graduates would adorn their caps with peace signs to protest the Vietnam War.

So it’s not a new phenomenon, but it’s become much more common in recent years, especially on social media.

“It’s taken on a life of its own there,” Bock said.

The themes have become more serious and political, too.

“A lot of caps are talking about the experiences of immigrants or the children of immigrants, and making those identities visible,” she said.

Bock said the messages become amplified on social media, with graduates using phrases such as “#immigrad” and “#latinxgradcaps.”

Children of immigrants also usually pay homage to their family in their messages.

“They’re highlighting not just the individual’s accomplishment, but a family accomplishment,” she said. “And particularly in this moment — where there’s a broader discussion around immigration and who deserves the benefits of citizenship — it does have a lot of political force.”

Rooks said her cap, complete with lace, the lau lau and a yellow hibiscus flower, honors Lola, her great-aunt, who was also her first math teacher.

“She was a really big help to my family,” she said. “She would send money back to the Philippines; she would help people get their start here when they moved here. When I was growing up … she’s the one who started teaching me math with raisin boxes before I ever got to school.”

Other themes

Bock said other messages that push back on the formalized graduation ritual — a ceremony that’s supposed to open up doors of opportunity.

“They’re calling attention to the high amount of debt that people graduate with,” she said. “I was recently looking at a picture and the message on it said, ‘My $35,000 hat,’ indicating that I am carrying a lot here.”

There’s also the theme of anti-intellectualism, with students purposely misspelling words on their mortarboards.

“It’s a sometimes serious, sometimes playful way of pushing back against that pervasive idea that education is this guaranteed way of embarking on the American dream,” she said.

Selam Ayele, who’s graduating with a major in public health and a minor in anthropology, said her college experience has already opened doors for her. She will join Three Square as a senior hunger program research assistant, where she will examine food insecurity in senior populations.

Her graduation cap is adorned with pearls, glitter, gems and flowers, and a message that reads “To God be the glory.”

“I’ve grown in ways that I never expected to, and I wanted to give all of that glory to God,” Ayele said. “I worked for it, but at the same time, I know he always made the way work for me.”

Contact Natalie Bruzda at nbruzda@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3897. Follow @NatalieBruzda on Twitter.