Pamela Moquete chats with Lynn Harrigan, a guidance counselor at Hope High School, before graduating as the school’s Arts Academy’s valedictorian. She received a scholarship and other awards.

The Providence Journal / Kathy Borchers

PROVIDENCE When Pamela Moquete was told that she was the valedictorian of her senior class, she was puzzled.

She thought, Is that good or bad?, because the word “valedictorian” doesn’t exist in Spanish.

Then, her guidance counselor explained what it meant. Pamela was the top student in her class at Hope High School’s Arts Academy, one of three schools within the high school on the city’s East Side.

“I was in shock,” Pamela wrote in her college essay. “I didn’t know what to think. Then, I laughed. A girl who spoke little English in ninth grade becoming valedictorian of her senior class — it seemed funny.”

Her life story is the stuff of Hollywood movies. She, her mother and two older sisters arrived here from the Dominican Republic four years ago, in search of a brighter future.

Pamela’s mother, Lodys, gave up a lot to relocate to Rhode Island. A pediatrician in the Dominican Republic, Lodys Moquete is a housekeeper here. Back home, Pamela attended a private school, where the classes were small, the students were serious about their education and children stayed on the same school campus from kindergarten until they graduated from high school.

A few days after arriving in the United States, Pamela enrolled at Hope High School, an imposing four-story brick building with 1,200 students, a complicated class schedule and a much longer school day.

“It was scary, confusing and sad,” Pamela said in an interview last week. “My classmates were kind of mean, especially those from the Dominican Republic who had lived here their whole life.”

Pamela was lucky. She was assigned to a bilingual education class taught by Judah Lakin, who has made it his mission to make Hope more welcoming to Spanish-speaking students and their families.

“You could tell right away that she was well-educated,” Lakin said. “She became the leader of this group of female students from the Dominican Republic. She was always pushing everyone else to get their assignments done. She led by example.”

Pamela was smart. She asked her teachers for help learning English. Lakin always demanded more from her, ripping apart her writing assignments. At first, Pamela balked. Later, she accepted his criticism.

Still, Pamela struggled, in more ways than one, to find her way in a foreign land. One morning, she got on the wrong bus; two hours later, a thoughtful bus driver drove her back to Kennedy Plaza, where she began. Pay phones were a complete mystery.

Even dating was an unfamiliar ritual.

“In the Dominican Republic, you bring your boyfriend home to meet your family,” she said. “You don’t do that here.”

Pamela, now 18, pushed herself harder. She looked up vocabulary words on the Internet, watched television with closed captions in English and practiced speaking English with her friends. When her teachers spoke, Pamela watched how they formed the words.

Erin Leininger, one of her teachers, recalls the time Pamela came to school during a snowstorm to take a big exam. Leininger said that many newcomers to the United States are reluctant to venture out in bad weather, but not Pamela. She not only trudged through the wet snow but persuaded a good friend to come with her.

“Pamela is exceptional,” Leininger said. “She was always taking her learning a step further and working closely with other students in class who were struggling. This, of course, helped her peers, but also helped solidify her own learning. There was always a group of students in class who gravitated toward Pamela.”

At the end of her sophomore year, Pamela graduated from the English as a Second Language program. This year, she tackled honors physics, advanced math, sociology, art and English 3; her grade point average is 3.7.

Most of Pamela’s friends saw their first language as a barrier to academic success; Pamela saw it as an asset. Before she knew it, she was speaking English fluently.

This fall, Pamela will enter Rhode Island College, where she will study nursing.

When Pamela walks across the stage June 10, her entire family will be there to cheer her on, including her father, who is flying in from the Dominican Republic.

“I used to be a leader in my country,” Pamela said. “When I came here, I felt like a baby. Now, I’m a leader again.”

lborg@projo.com