He moved to Canada 3 years ago and now he's valedictorian at his high school
CBC
When Richard Lopez moved to Canada with his family he wasn't fluent in English.
But three years later he gave the valedictorian speech at Lasalle Secondary School in Sudbury, Ont.
"At the beginning I was very nervous," he said about giving the speech in front of all his classmates.
"But after it kept going, I think it got easier because I got some laughs at first, which helped a lot."
Lopez says his family moved to Canada, from Ecuador, to have a better life.
"Things were not looking good over there and we just had to get out," he said.
"Then we did a lot of research on where to go and we decided that Canada was the best place for our future and our education too."
On his first day at Lasalle Secondary he asked his guidance counselor if there were any other students at the school from Latin America.
"And they said no, that I was the only one," he said.
"So that was kind of a bummer, but I think that gave me the motivation to learn English and get used to the environment."
Lopez joined the school's soccer team and excelled in his classes.
After he did his first presentation in front of his class, he learned that he liked public speaking.
Because he made an effort to be friendly with everyone, his classmates voted for him to be their valedictorian.
"I'm always saying hello to people, you know, making chit chat," he said. "I believe that every person has an interesting story about them."
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