When you were 10 years old, what did you want to be when you grew up? Maybe an astronaut or a firefighter? Maybe you just wanted to be rich or famous.
When the Indianapolis Recorder interviewed 10-year-old MacKenzie Isaac in 2010, when she was valedictorian of the final class to graduate from Jewel Christian Academy before the school closed, she knew she wanted to make a difference.
Now 16, Isaac is ready to graduate from Cathedral High School — again, as valedictorian — and begin her college career, but not before sharing her story with the Recorder in hopes of inspiring others.
Indianapolis Recorder Newspaper: What do you feel when you look at this old article and this picture of 10-year-old MacKenzie?
Isaac: When I see that face, it reminds me of a time when I thought literally anything is possible. After coming this far and having so many ups and downs, I’m starting to regain that feeling. When I was younger, I was super precocious, and I thought it would be a lot easier than it was. It’s been a long time, but once I set that goal in fifth grade, even when it got hard, I just never forgot it, and that was the motivating force behind pretty much everything I’ve done since then.
How has it been more difficult than expected?
In fifth grade, I was around students who looked like me, and we had all grown up together, and it was super apparent that the teachers were in my corner all the time. But when you transition into an environment where people don’t know you, and you have to present yourself so they do come in your corner, it’s a lot harder.
Transitioning into a school that was a lot more ethnically diverse was a really big culture shock, and it also kind of popped my bubble … a lot of the stuff I thought would come naturally to me, it didn’t. I’d have to work a lot harder, I’d have to advocate for myself a lot more, especially with regards to talking to my teachers. Being at a school like Cathedral taught me how to give myself a voice. I really had to force myself to do that.
How did you come to know you might be facing more obstacles than your non-minority peers?
When I transitioned into middle school, it wasn’t an all-Black middle school, but it was still extremely small. By that point, it hadn’t registered with me. But those same peers from middle school transitioned to high school with me, and for them it was a little bit easier … It caught me off guard and instantly made me feel like I had to prove to these people that I belong here. Sometimes I would make assumptions that just because I look this way people are going to feel a certain way about me, but I’ve really gotten some unbelievable support at Cathedral.
How do you think being a minority student has made your experience unique?
It’s made my experience unique because it taught me to have confidence in myself. It’s so easy sometimes to make yourself feel inferior, but you have to stop yourself from doing that, because you may have not started on the same level or pedestal as everyone else, but if you’re given the same opportunity, you have to learn to take the fullest advantage of it. You have to really want it, but not just that — you have to make it apparent to other people that you want it.
You skipped a year and are graduating high school at 16. What’s it like to be younger than others in your class?
Initially, I always felt like I had to prove that I was as mature as them, but I forgot a lot of the time that I was younger than them. I would think, “OK, how would 18-year-old MacKenzie handle this situation, and how would she be more mature than 16-year-old MacKenzie?” That just kind of became a permanent part of my mindset.
You’ve mentioned you want to take this opportunity to inspire other students. What advice do you have?
The key is always think about your goals in reference to doing something for someone else; don’t just have your goals for yourself. As I got older I found different people I was doing it on behalf of. One of those groups are these kids who I want to reach out to today, because I want to show them that you don’t have to look a particular way or speak a particular way to be successful.
Have a voice and try to be a voice for people who don’t have one. Always advocate for yourself. Don’t give up on what you believe in, because if you work hard enough, you can absolutely do anything you want. Don’t let your obstacles define you, because everyone has them, even if they don’t verbalize them.
Tell me about your college plans.
I’ll be going to Notre Dame, and I’ll be a pre-health sociology major. I plan to go into public health … My goal is to coordinate community health fairs and screenings, and my focus is affordability. I think affordable health care and health fairs where people can get immunized and screened for certain things, it’s part of basic human rights. I want to be that for people. Getting paid is just not my concern.
Is there anything we haven’t discussed that you’d like to talk about?
I have one more word of advice. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself. You can’t solve all of the world’s problems on your own, because you didn’t cause all of the world’s problems on your own. Just remember that if you find a good support group and if you keep God on your side, you can do absolutely anything. Remember that we’re not wired for perfection; it’s not expected of us. Just give it your best and don’t give up, and then great things can happen.
