Nine-year-old Alisi Fifita wants to be a doctor and may have found the ideal role model in Cindy Ta, who used to sit in the same classrooms at Palolo Elementary School and live in the same Palolo Valley Homes public-housing project as Alisi.

"I liked it when she told us to wish for what we want to do," Fifita said yesterday, just after hugging her new hero. "She said you just need to try."

Moments before, Ta stood on the cafeteria stage at her former grade school in front of a banner that featured a class picture of Ta in kindergarten at Palolo Elementary and a recent photo of her as a new graduate of the University of Hawai'i's John A. Burns School of Medicine.

On the opposite end of the cafeteria hung banners that read, "Palolo Pride!" and "Excellence Starts With You!"

Like many of Palolo Elementary's current 240 students, Ta lived in public housing as the child of immigrant parents. She did not speak a word of English until teachers took the time to help her become fluent.

Ta, 26, received more awards on Saturday than any of the other 55 UH medical school graduates and next week will head to a three-year residency in internal medicine at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital.

In between UH and Harvard, Ta yesterday thanked her former teachers at Palolo Elementary and — she hoped — inspired the pupils to dream of a life beyond public assistance.

"I went to Palolo Elementary just like you," Ta told the kindergarten through fifth-grade students gathered inside the cafeteria. "I lived in the housing, too, just right that way, and I walked to Palolo Elementary every day from Palolo housing and I didn't know any English, either. I had to study very hard to learn how to read. ... The first thing I learned was, always try your best.

"When I was living in the housing and when I was sitting where you're sitting, I wasn't sure I could be a doctor," Ta said. "But little by little, day by day, here I am. And today, 20 years later, I'm a doctor."

She told the children to "read a little more, study a little more and run a little faster."

Then Ta turned to the Palolo Elementary teachers past and present, especially Gayle Terayama, who spent extra hours tutoring Ta to speak English during nap time, and Ta's first-grade teacher, Sandy Kanemura.

As Terayama and Kanemura wept, Ta said, "Your work is more challenging given the population here. But you make a bigger difference than you know and you affect our lives more than you know. ... Thank you for teaching us, for inspiring us, for inspiring me."

After her speech, dozens of children lined up to thank "Dr. Ta," and she told them they were a better version of herself 20 years before.

Ta had been a shy and introverted Vietnamese immigrant while many of the current students — primarily from Micronesia — "are more brave and courageous than I am," Ta said. "I was more timid. They already have goals and dreams and know what they want to be. I told them they can definitely do it."

Principal Ruth Silberstein, Hawai'i's 2008 National Distinguished Principal, hoped that Ta's message sticks with her students and makes a difference in their lives.

"They have big-time problems," Silberstein said. "The gangs are coming up again and there are drugs again. How do you give them hope? Education has to come first and Cindy helps promote that."

Kanemura had talked up Ta's appearance to her students and when they saw her for the first time yesterday, "they were almost in awe. It's her!" she said.

"To know that someone just like them has made it this far is unbelievable," Kanemura said. "And that she even thinks enough of them to come back and share — that's rare."