(speaks in foreign language)
- Good afternoon, good afternoon.
I'm Janice Robinson.
I wear a couple of hats.
I'm Vice President for
Diversity and Community Affairs
and Associate Professor
of Higher Education,
but I just have to tell you.
I'm just looking out at, I
guess, our alumni, right?
And it really, come on, let
me hear it, let me hear it,
let me hear it.
(audience cheers)
And it really makes my
heart soar to have you here
and to have your families here.
This is a relaxed gathering,
it's become a wonderful
tradition at Teachers College,
but I also want to say,
I'd like our faculty
and our staff who are
here together to stand up,
come on, if you can, stand up, faculty,
all the faculty, staff, you know.
They've taken their time to be here!
There you go!
All right.
Look around, and I see
folk up there as well.
So no speeches from me.
I have the easy job.
Before we start, I'd like to introduce
Jasmine Nira Duh-lin-see-uh Hooper,
Clinical Psychology Master's.
And she's going to lead us
in (speaks in foreign
language) national anthem.
Lift Every Voice and Sing,
and it's in your booklet
for those of you who may
have forgotten the words.
Enjoy!
- Hi, everyone.
- Hi.
- All right, everyone.
So those who know, feel
free to sing along.
If you don't, just look
on with the lyrics, okay?
All right.
♪ Lift every voice and sing ♪
♪ Till Earth and Heaven ring ♪
♪ Ring with the harmonies of liberty ♪
♪ Let our rejoicing rise
high as the listening skies ♪
♪ Let us resound loud as the rolling sea ♪
♪ Sing a song full of the faith ♪
♪ That the dark past has taught us ♪
♪ Sing a song full of the hope ♪
♪ That the present has brought us ♪
♪ Facing the rising sun
of our new day begun ♪
♪ Let us march on till victory is won ♪
(audience cheering)
Thank you.
Thank you.
- Thank you, Jasmine.
That was great.
Well, welcome and
congratulation to our graduates.
I wanna say there's a,
there are lots of events
in these two or three days,
yesterday, today, and tomorrow,
and this is really one that
I look forward to the most,
so thank you for being here.
I think I've shaken most
of your hands today,
so, my hands' still all right.
And I appreciate that,
so that was, I really,
that was really great.
I also wanna acknowledge Anita Brown,
our TC medalist who's here.
And those of you
who were there this afternoon
heard such a wonderful speech,
so thank you so much, really.
It's just a pleasure to
have you here, and I,
really nice that you came to, given,
especially given the theme
of your talk, that you came
to this celebration of ours.
So I can only imagine the
pride and joy felt today
by the families on hand to
witness this major milestone.
Families have every reason to be proud.
Their faith, encouragement,
support have been rewarded.
Now, this here celebration
is very special to me
because I'm winding up my
first year as the president
of Teachers College.
And I have no doubt that
everything associated with this,
my first convocation, will
be particularly special
for me and that I will
remember this for the rest
of my life.
So, given that this is my
favorite activity within it
and my first year, this is something
that I will remember and
really appreciate, you know,
being able to participate with you.
So, graduates, you're pioneers
about to embark on exciting,
professional, and personal
journeys that, perhaps,
you could never have imagined.
Take a moment to reflect
on your accomplishment
and what earning an advanced degree
from Columbia University's
Teachers College must mean
to your family and what it means to you.
Now savor this moment
because you've earned it,
and now let's give you a big
round of applause for that.
(audience cheering)
I think we need to give
a big round of applause,
particularly, to your families.
(audience cheering)
So thank you so much.
You know you wouldn't be here
without them, so I'd like
to share a brief reflection on
what your accomplishments
mean to Teachers College.
As first generation scholars,
you have brought unique,
valuable, diverse perspectives
and life experiences to your work,
to your relationships with
classmates, professors, mentors,
and to our staff.
Your contributions to
our teaching research
and practice enterprise
have been invaluable,
so I just wanna emphasize
what an important part
of the community you are
and how much you actually add to it.
I mean, I think our institution
would be much, you know,
poorer without your presence here.
So we certainly believe in the power
of education to understand
and help solve many of
society's more complex
and pressing problems.
Your families instilled that
reverence for education in you,
not only to better yourselves
through education, but also
to use the knowledge, tools,
and skills you have
gained at TC to help bring
about a better world.
Now, you'll hear throughout
today's ceremony, letters
of thanks from students to
their parents, partners,
and other family members.
You'll hear students recall the people
who are always there
to listen day or night,
who are always ready
to provide wise council
and moral support and
who always reminded them
that they have what it takes to prevail
and to make a difference.
And if you, and if what I've heard
about last year's event
holds true this time around,
there will be many damp eyes in the house.
But I would like to leave
you with the question
that the late poet, Mary Oliver,
once suggested we ask ourselves.
What is the gift that I
should bring to the world?
What is the life that I should live?
Graduates, we already
have seen who you are
and what you can accomplish.
We know you possess many
gifts to become innovators,
scholars, educators, healers, and leaders
who'll bring honor to your professions
and create pathways to flourish for those
whose lives you will touch.
So I have three parting
hopes for all of you.
First, I hope each and every one
of you will stay closely
connected with Teachers College.
I certainly hope you will
make TC your first option
for professional and
continuing advanced education.
Those of you going on who have
a Master's and wanna go on
to a PhD, we have some
excellent PhD programs here.
And I definitely hope you
can give whatever you can
of your time and talent
to make the TC experience
for future students at least
as enjoyable and rewarding
as it was for you, if not better.
My second hope is
that you will take the fullest advantage
of your TC education and
experience, both to build
on society's successes
and to correct its flaws.
So the future is filled with hope
and opportunity for everyone.
And finally, perhaps, most important,
I hope you'll have many
occasions for feeling the kind
of pride and joy that your
families feel for you today,
so I extend my heartfelt
congratulations to everyone
in this room today.
Thank you.
(audience applauding)
Now it is my pleasure to
introduce our next speaker,
Haeny Yoon, is in--
- It's a surprise.
Oh, all right.
(mumbling)
(audience cheering)
Haeny!
What's up?
All right, so you're--
- I'm gonna talk.
I'll talk a little bit more.
- All right.
Okay.
- Can I use your remarks to introduce her?
- Yeah, you certainly can!
- Okay.
I'll do that.
Thank you.
- I,
there was something so cool.
She said I wanted to say--
- Oh no.
I'll let you say, I'll let you say.
And I'll stand next to you.
- Okay, you do that.
I, you know, this is what I
was really looking forward
to saying this, Haeny!
'Cause, so, she was a
former school teacher
and became interested
in conducting research
about young children because,
and this is the quote,
a lot of kids are labeled
as underperforming.
But when we look at their practice outside
of what is deemed normal,
they're doing lots
of really sophisticated things.
And we can capture that
through studies of play,
so I think that's great.
I really like that.
I'm gonna remember that all the time.
There you go.
- Thank you.
(audience applauding)
Thank you.
How's everybody doing?
You're doing great?
You look great.
You look beautiful.
Let's give it up for
President Thomas Bailey.
Let's give him another round of applause.
(audience applauding)
I wanna say good evening
and, or is it afternoon?
Good afternoon and (speaks
in foreign language).
Before I continue, I
wanna also acknowledge
that we are standing on
stolen land and that we are
on the land of the Leni Lenape peoples.
And if we can take a moment of silence
to honor the indigenous folks
who were here before us.
And now let's give a hardy
congratulations for all of you.
(audience applauding)
Right.
(audience applauding)
Thank you.
So, graduates, my name
is Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz.
And I am--
(audience cheering)
Thank you!
I feel blessed and honored
to be an Associate Professor
in English education here
at TC, but this is about all
of you tonight and all of your families.
So I wanna say, again,
congratulations to you.
Congratulations to all of
you who have supported them
for being here.
I greet you in love,
I greet you in thanks.
And I am overwhelmed and
moved by all of this.
I, you know, in an era
where it is becoming more
challenging for students
to obtain a college degree
and pay for it, right?
The feat of these graduates,
what you all have accomplished,
the fact that you've
gotten your advanced degree
from Teachers College Columbia
University is something
that is worth applauding
over and over and over again.
(audience applauding)
And to you, friends and family
and loved ones, you need
to be applauded.
For without you, this group
of first generation scholars
would not have made it.
In your hearts, you know this to be true.
You know this to be true
because you can name the
sacrifices that you have made
for them to get to this point.
And, graduates, you know this to be true
because you know the love
that they have for you,
the belief that they have
in you, the financial
and the emotional support
has been, their financial
and emotional support has been
the wind beneath your wings.
So, indeed, education seeks
to level the playing field
and create a balance of
opportunities for those
who bear the brunt of
inequity and inequality.
Education, love, and
sacrifice of family helped me
to become the first
generation PhD in my family
and get this beautiful purple robe.
(audience applauding)
Right?
(audience applauding)
So it is my goal, indeed,
that I will not be the last
in my family to do so.
And when I reflect on educational
spaces and, particularly,
college campuses, I think, specifically,
about the protests by black students
across the country
historically and even now.
I also think about the students
in Puerto Rico last year.
Amidst all that the
island endured, walked out
of their college campuses,
refusing to attend classes
as an act of resistance
to what was happening
on the island of Puerto Rico.
I think about the high school students
in Charlottesville and in
my hometown of the Bronx
who are protesting the racist incidents
in their school districts and speaking
against the pervasive
inequities in their schools.
And even before they have reached college,
these students understand
the power of fighting
for an equal education.
And as much as they understand the power
of an equal education,
they are also willing
to disrupt their education,
to put their education
on the line to bring about
change for their peers,
for themselves, and for the generations
that they will never meet.
So it has always been
students, students of color
and their co-conspirators
on college campuses
where resistance to the status
quo has brought about change.
So those of you here at TC, as you hold
onto your degrees and you
exit out into the world,
you may or may not have
battled those same type of wars
that these students have been in.
But you are going out, degree
in hand, into a society
that needs you, a society
that needs your resistance
to the status quo, a society
that needs your vision
for a world that, perhaps,
you've not yet seen.
And with your degree in
hand and your resistance
in your heart and the hope that you hold,
you will bring about
change to institutions and
to our society, particularly, in education
and healthcare and psychology.
That's the three strands
y'all hear, you know that.
Right?
That's TC.
And so you will bring
about change for children
who look like you and
other children who are
in the struggle to thrive.
And as Bettina Love tells us, we want
to do more than survive.
We wish to thrive, so communities
who have resisted oppression
and inequity have always
been community focused.
We have never really been individualistic.
We have been socially driven,
and we work collectively
for the betterment of
ourselves and for our humanity.
And I want to remind
you, more than anything,
to love one another.
When someone in your community
is successful, bask in
that as a community achievement.
When they are down, lift them up.
Remind them that the
struggle has prepared us
that we come from greatness
wrapped in fortitude and that,
through this greatness and this fortitude,
you will be able to thrive.
They will be able to thrive.
What was that?
Okay, beautiful.
Beautiful.
Whatever you said is beautiful.
All right?
And always remember your
responsibility to each other,
to our communities, and to the
world that we now call home.
You are as real as you are
magical, and we thank you
for the magic that you brought to TC.
First generation magic is in
the way that you find joy.
It is the way that you find joy
in the most difficult circumstances.
First generation magic is the way
that you think deeply
about your communities
as you strive to advance
conditions in our world.
First generation magic
is the way that you look
at each other without saying
a word, and you just know.
First generation magic is the way you know
and experience the world.
First generation magic knows
it's not just who you are,
but who your friends are,
who helps you along the way.
First generation magic is
in every move that you make.
First generation magic is wanting more
for others than you want for yourselves.
You are first generation magic.
(audience cheering)
And so thank you for this
magic that you have given
to all of us.
It has been a pleasure.
For those of you who have
taken a class with me,
it has been an honor to teach you.
And you have taught me in return.
In closing, I want to, once
again, salute you, graduates,
and salute your families.
And thank you, in advance,
for all of the great work
that you will do in the
communities that you are a part of.
Indeed, you have left your mark on TC.
We are grateful, we are better
because you have been with us.
Thank you, and we love you.
(audience cheering)
So now it is my job to sit
down while Haeny Yoon comes up.
Dr. Haeny Yoon.
Let's give her a round of applause.
(audience applauding)
- Okay, so I want
everybody to try to speak
after Dr. Yolanda
Sealey-Ruiz talks and see
how nerve wracking it is.
And I wanna start by just sharing a story.
But, first, congratulations
to the graduates, families,
extended families, chosen
families, and ancestors
on this very important day.
Especially as first
generation college students.
And if you're like me, you
have spent many years trying
to prove your self-worth,
calm the self doubts, ignore
and confront all the haters,
and learn whose opinions
and evaluations really matter.
And so I wanted to start by talking
about my second grade report card, okay?
So I was quiet growing up.
And in the comment section of
my second grade report card,
it reads, Haeny needs to
be encouraged to continue
to participate in discussions
and answer questions.
Haeny needs to participate
in oral work, particularly,
in reading, social studies, and science.
So, basically, everything.
Her written work is fine.
In fact, this was a predictable part
of my report card growing up
in most of elementary school.
My lack of voice was usually
coupled with comments about
how I worked hard, how much I improved,
how neat my handwriting
was, and how delightful I am
to have in class.
And, of course, I can't help
but notice that neatness,
cooperation, compliance,
and diligence are all tropes
about Asian Americans.
So I was hyper aware of
difference, as I was one
of the few Asian children
attending my K5 elementary school.
I was placed in an ESL pullout program
from kindergarten through third
grade even though I think I
was proficient in both English and Korean.
As a child, I was embarrassed
by atypical cultural ways
that seemed so far away from the norm.
My parents didn't speak English very well.
My dad would sometimes pick
me up in his mailman uniform,
which I was constantly embarrassed by.
My parents never, I told
myself I wasn't gonna cry.
This is not happening.
My parents never chaperoned field trips.
My father worked during the day.
My mother worked at nights.
They rarely came to school events.
They hardly talked to my teachers because
of language barriers.
They were not PTA president
or in charge of bake sales
or organizing class parties.
And while some children at
school want their families,
their cultures, and their
experiences to be visible,
I often wanted invisibility.
And at school, my experience
felt out of place.
And my tendency was to keep things hidden
from my peers and teachers.
School was not a space where I wanted
to be vulnerable or open.
School was a place where I
kept my head down, did my work,
and tried my best to go
unnoticed, trying desperately
to fit in.
I spent so much time and energy trying
to erase my differences and
make excuses for my culture,
and I think many of us are
still, will continue to make,
to try to navigate the tensions
between cultural preservation
and cultural progress.
Keeping your history and identities intact
while still moving forward
with the hopes of a better,
richer, fuller life that
your parents and those
who came before you
worked so hard for and,
in many cases, died for.
So, in this process, I wanna
recognize the sacrifices
on all of our behalf,
the very real struggles
and tensions that happen
within our own families,
the cultural rituals that
made our homes distinct
and unique, the abundance,
even if not materially,
that filled corners and spaces,
the seemingly weird cultural practices
that you always made excuses about.
But somewhere in the
midst of this, somebody,
a figurative report card
maybe, told us that we need
to participate more and
be comfortable with trying
to be normal.
All right, so I wanna end
with my parents immigrated
to the US with little money,
no family, and, perhaps,
the hopes of an American dream.
They worked blue collar
jobs most of their lives.
Both are retired from
the US postal service,
which might be obsolete very
soon, but also attempted
to start several small
businesses along the way.
My mom eats Korean food,
basically, three times a day
and occasionally, and I'm
not trying to say this
to rip off Beyonce.
But we would go to Red
Lobster on special occasions.
It was expensive and fancy,
and it wasn't Korean.
So every time we went, it was special.
So despite economic struggles,
my parents actually took us on road trips.
We had a tent that we stayed in
across several different
campgrounds across the US.
And, later, we graduated
to an RV that we drove
across the country.
We actually did go to
Disney World, but not
on a Disney cruise or a
resort or even a lowkey hotel,
but an RV, stayed at a campground.
And, in my eyes, it was
still, and this is, like,
not a coincidence, it
was still magical, right?
Because, I mean, Disney
is magic to young kids.
I would be lying, though,
if I said our lives were always magical.
We definitely had ton of tough times.
But in the struggles and
tensions that overtake most
of us because we are immigrants,
minorities, and outsiders,
it's easy to forget our magic
because we walk into rooms
and can't help but wonder
if you're the minority hire,
the representative for
person of color, that one
from the uneducated family
that makes for a good story.
And people remind us how special we are
because we made it or give
us looks that we're supposed
to be the hope of our race, class,
gender, identity, citizenship.
James Baldwin once said,
I walk into a room.
And everyone there is
terribly proud of themselves
because they managed to get to that room,
but I encourage each of you
to walk into rooms knowing
that you belong there.
Or, as Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz
always reminds me,
and I can't see her because I'm so short.
She always reminds me, this is our time.
You are not conditional, you are not here
to make other people feel
better about their progress.
You do not exist for
other people's benefit.
But you just, basically, are here.
So I honor all of you who
are here and have arrived,
and I hope this helps
you center your story
to rewrite comments on report cards
and what other people think
of you and that you revel
in the magic that comes
with being different.
Congratulations.
(audience applauding)
I'm gonna...
Thank you.
I'm gonna end with letters and remarks
that students have
written to their families
and to just this space,
and so I'll just start
by reading comments from you out there.
My time at TC was enriched by
many brilliant, challenging,
and supportive faculty,
administrators, staff, and students.
Honorary mention to the
community I fostered while at TC,
which include professors and mentors.
To Dr. Sandil, Dr. Ethan, Dr. Vernovsky,
Ms. Veronica Holly, and Ms. Sandra Vera.
My time at TC would not have been the same
without your courses,
guidance, and support.
Special thanks to the Rural Student Group,
Black Student Network,
Higher and Post Secondary
Education Association,
and the Coalition of Latin Ex-scholars
for amazing fellowship and programming
that fostered community and
created spaces for all voices.
Being first gen in this space means more
to me than receiving a degree.
It is the opportunity to break barriers
and be a role model to those who may feel
that higher education is not possible.
For me, being a first generation
graduate and, in fact,
first woman in my extended
family to graduate,
is a really big deal
because it means I have
fulfilled my mother's wish.
And her sacrifice had meanings.
So, at this moment, I
wanna say, thank you, Mom,
for believing in me when no
one else had and continuing
to love and support me.
Yes, it's my degree, my diploma.
But the overall goal and the
intention is more than that.
It's for you, me, my nieces and
nephews, my future students,
the town, Grandma Dixie,
Auntie Mug, all relatives.
This is for everyone who
believed in me, who doubted me,
who hoped I'd fail.
For those who say this isn't
possible given where I'm from,
for the kids who go to school just because
but don't know how far they want to go.
The degree is for everyone
I've met along the way
who has believed in my
mission and my potential
to change the world.
To all those who were there
for me when I needed it,
I couldn't have done this without you.
I can't thank you all enough.
We did it.
Where we come from, image is everything.
My only goal is to paint images
of resilience, dedication,
and love for those who
need it more than ever.
To my families and
friends, it took a village.
And I'm grateful to have you as mine.
And, to Harlem, I'm everything that I am
because you housed me.
Thank you.
(audience applauding)
So I have the privilege of
introducing Dr. Mark Gooden,
Professor of Education Leadership,
and just all-around great, great guy.
So here's my friend and
colleague, Dr. Mark Gooden.
(audience applauding)
- Thank you, Haeny.
So I'm Mark Gooden.
I'm a Professor in
Organization and Leadership
and the Education Reach program,
and I just wanna get it out there early on
that I wanna be like Yolanda
Sealey-Ruiz and Haeny Yoon
when I grow up.
So I got something to strive for.
Excellent.
So I want to certainly say,
and I'll say this in a couple
of ways, but first and
foremost, you may not tire
of hearing this, but
congratulations, graduates.
Congratulations.
(audience applauding)
And also, congratulations to
parents, significant others,
husbands, wives, childrens,
aunts, uncles, Mama,
Grandma, Meemaw, whatever.
Those folks who have done what they can
to really support you and get you here
because I know there were some sacrifices,
and we appreciate you loaning them to us
for this period of time.
But I just wanted to
acknowledge those folks
who have supported these graduates.
So if you fit in any of those
categories, if I missed one,
I apologize, but let's just
acknowledge them please.
(audience applauding)
Excellent.
So the focus of my remarks
is certainly the quotes
of the graduates, but I wanted
to just share a few quotes with
you before I get into that.
One is by Malcolm X, and it
is education is our passport
to the future for tomorrow
belongs to the people
who prepare for it today.
Now you got your passport, right?
Are you prepared for the future?
Ooh, you sound unsure.
Let me try that again.
Are you prepared for the future?
- Yes!
- Excellent, excellent.
So one other quote I'll share,
and it really hearkens back
to what I just said a moment ago,
and this is an African proverb.
And it says, essentially,
that if I seem tall, it is
because I stand upon
the shoulders of giants.
I stand upon the shoulders of giants.
Just a quick story about my own education.
I was one of those kids in class who,
when Haeny was talking
about her report card,
it connected very well
with me that I was the one
who got that remark on
their, who, you know,
he does well generally.
He's very bright, however,
you know the one when it says,
you know, he talks a bit much in class.
Yeah, y'all, some of
y'all got that too, right?
He completes his work and
distracts others, all right?
And they just didn't know, at that time,
that I was really preparing
to be a professor, all right?
So, you know,
some people may have
said some negative things
or something that didn't
seem quite positive
or maybe they threw a little shade.
But they just didn't know
that you were preparing
to get your degree
from Teachers College Columbia University.
They just didn't know, all right?
Excellent.
So we forgive them for that, all right?
And my final quote, my
final quote is really
from Maya Angelou.
And some of you, I know
you've heard this one before,
but it's always one I have
to really remind myself,
as I've gone through my education
journey, as we struggle,
we heard earlier, many of us
people, many of us, as people
of color in the academy struggle
with the imposter syndrome, all right?
We struggle with that going
through classes, but we have
to remember, we have to remember
that there were a number
of folks who really put
in the time, the folks
who were here, the people who
are no longer here with us,
and even those folks who came
many, many years before us.
And the quote's from Maya
Angelou's poem, and it said,
bring in the gifts that my ancestors gave.
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
So as long as we keep
that ahead of us, as long
as we remember why we are
given this education, as long
as we remember who we are in
support of and why we came
to this space or this place,
we can really have a real strong pushback
to that imposter syndrome.
We can have a real strong pushback
to those doubters, haters.
Those folks are not gonna go away
because you have your degree.
Some people like to say, more
levels, more devils, right?
So be ready for that.
Be ready for that, all right?
We know that, when you
are really moving forward
and moving into that space of excellence,
some people just can't deal with it.
But remember, that's between
them and their self-esteem.
That has nothing to do
with you, all right?
All right, so the focus
of my remarks is really
on quotes from you.
So I wanna start with the
first one, and it is, it says,
see, it's a couple of
spirits every generation
that wasn't supposed to make it out.
But decode the matrix.
And when they get to speak,
it's like a coded language.
Reminds us of our strength
and all the stolen greatness.
Know he's a genius.
He just can't claim it 'cause
they left him no platforms
to explain it.
He's frustrated, so he gets faded.
But deep down inside, you
know you can't fade him.
How long should I stay dedicated?
How long till opportunity
meets preparation?
Dedication, hard work, plus patience.
Nipsey Hustle.
(audience cheering)
All of us in the gutter,
excuse me, all of us are
in the gutter.
But some of us are
looking towards the stars.
To my granny and my mama,
thank you for exposing me
to the struggle and
teaching me how to hustle.
H.P., stand up.
94124.
I am always thankful to
my family and friends.
Without their love and encouragement,
I would not have been able to
see this through to the end.
I thank my family, specifically my mother,
for all her support.
Because of her, I am here.
All right now.
(audience applauding)
Thanks so much for my
friends who accompany me
on this fantastic study journey.
Thanks so much for this whole community
to promote my growth with
caring and loving people.
Thank you that you are here with me.
Celebrating this graduation
is celebrating the value
of each drop of love
and care I have received
from all the marvelous people
that crossed my path so far.
In a 42 years' lifetime, they
are so numerous that it is
as impossible to write everyone's name.
As it is not to cherish
each of their contributions.
Thank you for your patience and support
while you traveled on
this journey with me.
Your belief in me inspired
me when the road was tough.
It always amazes me how believing
in someone can get a
person so far in life.
My family believes in me.
And because of that, I was able to achieve
what they had set out
for me to do in life.
Education is important.
Knowledge is valuable.
Intuition is sound, and truth brings value
to different trials and circumstance.
Stay true to yourself, your
value, and be persistent.
I had a wonderful experience at TC.
The caliber of my professors
and classmates combined
with the strong curriculum
and the vibrant environment
of New York City all contributed
to a magnificent experience.
Last but not least,
congratulations to my colleagues
of the 2019 cohort.
We did it!
(audience cheering)
Again, congratulations, graduates.
It's such an honor to be in your presence,
and I'm going to move on to the next part
of the program which is
the Master Student address.
And I'll be inviting Diana Cervantes
and Paola Munoz Rojas to the stage.
I think that's right.
Yes?
Please welcome them.
(audience applauding)
You all look so lovely.
(audience cheering)
(speaks in foreign language)
(audience cheering)
- Thank you.
(speaks in foreign language)
(audience applauding)
Mom.
Dad.
Thank you.
(audience applauding)
(speaks in foreign language)
Thank you.
(audience applauding)
I'd like to introduce Paola Munoz Rojas.
(audience cheering)
(speaks in foreign language)
- Said that diamonds are made
under intense pressure,
but there are days
when the heavens themselves
never felt so dense.
In the Bronx, everyone and
their mothers look just like me.
And I look exactly like them,
and (speaks in foreign language)
on my block carry pounds
of gorgeously kinky hair
upon their heads up
until they're old enough
to take the heat lashed
on by Dominican salons.
An act of alchemy
where (speaks in foreign language)
transforms baby girls' fuzzy
crown into silk.
(speaks in foreign language)
To which baby girl responds,
(speaks in foreign language).
I beg to differ.
Her (speaks in foreign
language) is mean as hell
because baby girl's getting a, swallowed
up the salon this entire
comb and coughed it back
up into pieces
as an act of resistance.
Yeah.
On Sunday mornings, (speaks
in foreign language)
would bless you
with 20 Hail Marys and two
sloppy kisses to the cheek.
As a child, I paid close attention
to (speaks in foreign language).
With their right hand, they
are ready to snatch anyone
that came for their life.
And with their left, they mastered the art
of measuring the right amounts of
(speaks in foreign language)
to add to their special (speaks
in foreign language), an act
of love and resistance against the bland
as hell (speaks in foreign language)
that had been introduced
by the neo-colonialists
gentrifying the barrio.
(audience applauding)
The men in my community leave
home at 4:00 PM, returning
to their daughters by four in the morning.
I barely recognize my
father in the mornings.
He grows older every night.
Perhaps, they bring back a
nickel or two in their pockets.
Despite that, they're always rich enough
to hand us our Sour Patch
Kids just as he promised.
My father's arms, sore from
holding a taxi wheel for hours,
are still strong enough to
pick up both his daughters
and fling them across his shoulders so
that they might be able
to reach for something
that he was never able to reach himself.
Our dreams are now his wishes.
Families crossed entire
oceans far beyond the comfort
of native soil beneath their feet, dream
after dream deferred, at the
slight hope that, one day,
their great great
granddaughter will actually be
just that, great.
I'd like to hope that
they didn't look back
when they dropped their names
in the ocean in exchange
for new ones.
I can only imagine how
difficult it must have been
for them to reintroduce themselves.
At Columbia, people do not look like my...
(speaks in foreign language)
Whereas, I would have been praised
for touching the hot paella, learning
that it burns, failure
doesn't work in the same way
within institutions of higher education.
Failure haunts me.
Because my education's a
gamble, I could lose it all
if it weren't, if it were
led to my untreated anxiety,
PTSD, and depression.
My mental illness, political
in and of itself, as
it intersects with my
(speaks in foreign language),
multiraciality, white
afro-indigenous poverty,
atheism, and womanhood.
All these things keep me tethered
to my bed during mornings
when the world feels far too
heavy for my feet to carry.
My financial security,
ultimately, is contingent
upon a certain grade.
And, at times, I feel reduced to digits.
There are days when I can do
more than just wake up, though.
There are days when I don't give a hell,
and I let the hood fly out of me
within oppressive academic spaces.
I disrupt respectability and
what it means to be educated.
I can be academic, hood,
and feminista all at once.
(audience cheering)
And just as I expect, for
the ways in which I have
and continue to be educated, to be honored
within academic spaces, I
also expect for this world
to honor the experiences
and physical presences
of my father, my (speaks
in foreign language),
my sister, my friends,
and my community.
(speaks in foreign language)
The village of people
who raised me have
never made me more proud
of being Dominican, especially
as I decolonized my identity
and reclaimed my
afro-indigenous narratives.
(audience applauding)
I love that my hair is
political and that it has a mind
of its own just like me
and Mama and my father.
I love that (speaks in
foreign language) a habit
because I've witnessed it
being done over and over
and over again from my own community.
Indeed, it does take a
village to raise a child.
And more than that, I love who I am.
I've grown to love myself,
and this is a revolutionary
act in and of itself.
Everyday, I see myself grow,
perhaps not vertically,
along with everyone else
around me back home.
This is the place that my
father had us reach for
and there are entire
stratospheres that I have yet
to see for myself.
I only regret that I cannot
bring him and my aunt along
with me sometimes so that they may witness
for themselves the fruit of their labor.
The world has grown three times its size,
and it feels heavier than ever before.
But I hope it doesn't.
Despite the tremendous weight I carry now,
I cannot imagine a greater honor.
I will proudly carry my
(speaks in foreign language)
along with me.
Because of everything that
I am, the whispered prayers
and narratives of Dominican Diaspora
in the South Bronx, (speaks
in foreign language).
This new world is mine to reclaim.
Thank you.
(audience cheering)
And now, for our faculty
address, Dr. Anna Neumann.
Please give a round of applause.
(audience applauding)
- Hello, everyone.
First of all, to all the
graduates in here, thank you
for the honor of letting me
learn with you and from you.
It has, it always means the world.
And I'm always so grateful to realize
where we have been together.
Many of you in here, or at
least some of you, know me
as Professor Neumann.
Some of you know me as Anna.
But my name, originally, is Hannah.
I was born seven years
after my father's liberation
from Auschwitz and Buchenwald
concentration camps.
And seven years
after my mother's liberation
from Sha-ka-vu-it,
a Ukrainian labor camp,
where as a teenager,
she was incarcerated for four years.
I am the daughter of exile and genocide.
I am the daughter of refugees.
My father from Slovakia
and my mother from Romania
to the state of Israel where I was born
and spent my earliest years.
At age six, I, with my family,
boarded a ship for America,
carrying only hope.
Moving to several dusty
Texas border towns, settling
in Brownsville at the tip of South Texas.
I am an immigrant.
Moving to Texas, I spoke only
Yiddish, my home language,
and Hebrew, the language
of Israeli schools,
struggling hard to pick up
the English and the Spanish
of my new world.
I am a non-native speaker of English.
I am also a first generation
high school graduate,
and I am a first generation
recipient of a college degree.
(audience cheering)
As Jews in a steeply anti-Semitic Europe,
my parents were denied education.
Graduating from Brownsville
High School, I enrolled
in Texas Southmost College,
a two-year institution,
and later completed work
toward my BA at the
University of Texas in Austin.
I am proudly a community college student.
And also--
(audience cheering)
And also a transfer student.
Before the word transfer student existed.
Then I went on to earn a
Master's degree and later a PhD,
and that I have held
two full professorships
at two prestigious
universities was all so above
and beyond my parents'
wildest, wildest imaginings.
I can still see their eyes.
I've dedicated my life and
learning to all they shared
in words and love and all that
in suffering they could
not put into words.
I admit I struggled.
I failed many times.
I had no map, no light, no guide.
Just risk, lots of fear, plenty
of confusion, failure too.
But I did learn a lot, and
three things, I will share
with you today.
First, I learned that light
and love are everywhere.
Even in the darkest of times, but you have
to go look for them.
And you have to dare to find them.
Second, I learned of strength,
that it too is not bestowed.
It's in me, and it's in you too.
And, thus, my job and your
job is to bring that strength
to life and then to let it lead.
And third, I learned that,
often, plans and goals collapse.
Failure does happen, but dreams,
when they're for the good,
never really die.
Often, they return to blossom.
And in the most surprising of ways.
Of love, strength, and dreams.
And now our graduates speak.
I am here because of my father
who taught me to love books.
This is from our graduates.
My grandmother, who taught
me to love the local library,
my Chicago community who believed in me
so much I feel I can achieve anything.
(audience cheering)
I'm so grateful to be here
to represent my country
and my family.
I have learned, here, how loving
and honest friendships materialize
amid anxiety and depression.
I could not have asked
for better people to cry
and laugh with and to love.
(audience applauding)
My professors, you saw me
through tribulation and grief.
You offered outstanding
critique and direction
through my dissertation.
I could not have done this
without my mentors, professors,
teachers, my significant other.
I dedicate my achievement
to those who believed in me
when I could not see the
possibilities before me.
Special thanks to my Latinx community
for your unconditional support, yay!
For teaching me, for teaching
me the value of grit,
hard work, dedication,
and most important, joy.
And, finally, Teachers College, to me,
is like Hogwarts is to Harry Potter.
(audience laughing)
Thank you.
(audience applauding)
I am now honored to introduce,
as our next speaker,
Professor Carmen
Martinez-Roldan, from our program
in Bilingual/Bicultural Education.
Oh, there you are!
(audience applauding)
(speaks in foreign language)
- To our graduates and
relatives, congratulations.
(audience applauding)
Thanks to the college and of
Latino scholars for inviting me
to share this incredible
moment with you all.
I was also a first generation scholar.
Although, I can't say
that, at my graduation,
I really grasped what it meant.
I started understanding
better the implications
of my academic and
professional journey when I saw
how some Puerto Ricans at
home and some Latinos here
in the United States saw my
success as their success.
I have learned that our
journey, how we embrace the good
and not so great moments,
means a lot to others
and give hopes to others and
that our actions, as small
as they can be, even if we don't see them
as transforming the world,
are actually impacting the world.
We are part of a collective
that goes back in time
and projects itself into
the future, and this sense
of history and solidarity
gives more significance
to our stories.
We are not alone, and we wouldn't be here
without the support of many.
In my case, I come from a
working class family background.
As a young woman, my
mother worked in New York
in dormant factories sewing
pieces of clothes all day.
She returned to Puerto
Rico and married my father,
a humble man who repaired TVs.
Three years later, they adopted me.
My mother stayed at home taking
care of me and my sister,
and I still don't
understand how they managed
to raise us with so few resources
and no other financial support.
So my Puerto Rican parents
involvement in school was,
as in the case of many minority students
in the United States,
different to what my extreme
middle class education
and culture respects.
I don't remember having a big study time,
but I do remember that for my parents,
education was a priority.
Their part in town
involvement was ensuring
that we didn't miss classes
and that we completed our school homework.
And today, with no big
study time experience,
I am a literacy researcher
in bilingual contests.
(audience cheering)
As a Teachers College professor, I want
to thank you all because
you have contributed greatly
to make TC a better place
where the exchange of ideas
should also honor diversity
of voices and experiences.
Even if you don't realize
it, the questions you ask
in your courses, the examples you offer,
the topics you chose for
projects, all made a difference
and had an impact that
we can't measure today
but that it is in no
way less transformative.
You made our work more
interesting, more purposeful.
And you give us so much hope for a future
where social justice and
equality can prevail.
And for that, I thank you all.
(audience applauding)
So now let's continue hearing
your voices from your letters.
My family taught me
compassion, empathy, ambition,
and tenacity because, throughout my life,
I always felt aware of
how people treated me
and my family differently due
to race, ethnicity, gender,
language, culture, abilities,
socioeconomic status,
and education level.
Because of this treatment,
I knew how important it is
to speak out as a role model
for my family, my friends,
and the larger communities as
a Southeast Asian American,
Vietnamese American,
and Filipino American.
(speaks in foreign language)
Thank you for telling me everyday.
(speaks in foreign language)
Your faith in me has kept me
going through difficult times.
When I graduate, I won't be
walking that stage alone.
What I will have accomplished isn't
what demands a standing
ovation, but what my family
uncle Monidad from the South Bronx,
the Dominican Diaspora that continues
to live and breathe, my papi,
(speaks in foreign language),
what they have done for us to finally take
that walk together, to finally
graduate, and to reap all
of the unimaginable rewards and benefits
that (speaks in foreign
language) will present to me.
For me, to have a better life,
is nothing short of magic.
We survived, and after all,
it's only just the beginning.
Papi and Mami, (speaks
in foreign language).
(audience applauding)
And now let's present Dr.
and student, Mariel Buque.
(audience applauding)
- What's up, everybody?
Hey!
I see some beautiful faces in the crowd.
It's so good to see y'all.
This is my favorite celebration.
I graduate today, okay?
All right.
Class of 2019, where y'all at?
I wanna hear y'all.
Woo!
Yeah!
(speaks in foreign language)
This right here is my tribe.
(audience cheering)
So we just got our doctorate
in Counseling Psychology.
(audience applauding)
(speaks in foreign language)
I knew my dad was gonna cry.
(laughs)
(speaks in foreign language)
Okay.
All right, so I'm gon' read
because my memory is (muttering).
So, first of all, I'd
like to thank the Creator.
Thank you, God, for having me here.
I almost failed out of TC my
first year, so I thank God
for being here.
And it wasn't 'cause of me.
It's just 'cause, you know.
So I wanna, first, thank you,
Juan Carlos, for inviting me
to this celebration, and Janice
and TC and the faculty here.
And I'd like to just,
I'm gonna be shouting
out a lot of people.
So just bear with me
because it's a lot of people
that contributed to this.
It takes a village, and
so I wanna make sure
that you are all honored.
Yo-lee, queen.
Hey!
I love you!
I love you.
You are seen, queen.
I see you.
To my tribe, my extended
family, Santos and Diana,
I love you so much.
And my mentors, Liz, Marie
Miville, Dr. Marie Miville,
the reason why I am at Teachers College.
My advisor and my confidant,
I appreciate you so much.
(speaks in foreign language)
Daryl, my posse, Court,
Lucy, Ed, Mark, Morgan.
I see you in the crowd.
I love y'all.
Joe, my spirit sisters, Maxi, Jen, Ed.
Okay, so now I'm gonna get to my speech.
So to our family and friends.
Can we give them a roaring,
just resounding cheer?
(audience cheering)
We love y'all!
Six years I have spent as a
student behind these walls.
And for all of those six years,
I have heard this familiar
story echoed in the mouths
of the students
that find themselves
being first generation
in their family and within
this level of education.
It has been the story
of the common struggle.
Y'all know what I'm talking about, right?
Tell it.
It's a story of isolation,
of feeling like you don't have a guide
to help you navigate the inner
workings of the ivory tower.
It is a story of immense
pressure we place on ourselves
to be the first in our families
to, quote, unquote, make it.
It is a story of pain mixed with pride,
of injustice mixed with fearlessness.
But most of all, it is a story of triumph.
You see, we were planted in
this institution for a reason.
It is a reason that, perhaps,
transcends your understanding.
And it certainly transcends mine.
I came to TC not knowing what
an Ivy League institution was.
I'm from North New Jersey.
Brick City in the house!
Anybody from, yeah!
Okay, I didn't know what
the words ivory tower meant,
the elite and elitist
aspects of it, and moreso,
what it meant for my
overall psyche, well-being,
and sense of belongingness.
I didn't know
that being a working class
black Dominican immigrant
in an ivory tower was
going to be synonymous
with loneliness, sadness, and failure.
But I had to fight the
erroneous ingrained belief
that I made it here because
Columbia needed to meet a quota,
and not because I embody
the hardworking spirit
of my parents to make
it here by my own merit.
(audience applauding)
I had to fight my long-time companion,
Mr. Imposter Syndrome, or as I like
to call it, the silencer.
Because it silences us and
casts us to the shadows
of institutions and organizations, left
to carry the burden of our own self-doubt.
They lead people within
minoritized populations
that are foreign to the world of academia,
easily impressioned by the
microaggressions and macroinjustices.
And they make us feel
undeserving of the degrees
that we are here to receive today.
The very definition of
imposter is the following,
a person who pretends to
be someone else in order
to deceive others.
Especially for fraudulence gain.
Well, let me tell you a thing or two
about this so-called imposter syndrome
y'all had me thinking and
believing that was a part of me.
It is a mechanism that controls our minds
from its very greatness,
and imposter syndrome is
the only thing in any of us
that is fraudulent.
This merit we receive today, this merit
that our families crossed borders
and seas for is justified,
deserved, and well-earned.
We worked twice as hard to get here
and (speaks in foreign
language), the party,
we will be throwing will be twice as long.
You better believe it.
(audience cheering)
Okay?
(laughs)
And this story
of feeling like an imposter
syndrome is not isolated
to me, okay?
You see, being in psychology means
that you're everybody's therapist.
So, any psychology folks
in the room, y'all hear me.
So, I mean, I can't even tell you
how many free sessions I done gave out
in this institution, shoot.
In the hidden corners where
students of color felt safe
to spill out their pain.
I'ma just let y'all know I'm coming back
to collect some checks.
(audience laughing)
'Cause Sally Mae is coming
for me, so I'm coming
for y'all, okay!
All right.
For all those years,
I heard the same story
with little variation
echoed in these walls.
We came out of here with
a degree that is attached
to pain and doubt.
Well, this year, I'm challenging
you to attach triumph,
not pain, to your degree
because you deserve to be here.
You are not a fraud, you are the minds
that will push these institutions
of higher learning forward.
You see, for those of us
first generation folks
who live under the perpetual
lie that we don't belong,
we felt like we'd been dug in the dirt.
And as a Mexican proverb
so beautifully proclaims,
they tried to bury us.
But they didn't know we were seeds.
(audience applauding)
That's right.
Can we say that together?
Say it with me.
They tried to bury us, but
they didn't know we were seeds!
Tell it!
We are now birthing the
dream that has been planted.
So as you stand here planted,
rooting yourself in that dirt,
take hold because it is
now growing season, okay?
It is now the moment to show this world
what you are made of and whether you grow
to be a willow tree or an
oak tree or a mango tree
or my papi's favorite, an avocado tree.
(audience laughing)
Rest assured that you
will be beautiful, tall,
and magical, and phenomenal.
Phenomenal woman, that's me.
And phenomenal are all of you.
(audience applauding)
We are phenomenal because,
look around you, we come
from phenomenal people.
We are rooted in greatness,
so take this degree.
And instead of receiving
it with a pain, receive it
with victory in your spirit.
For this is our university as
much as it is anyone else's.
Many of our family members came
here to fulfill our dreams.
They fought long and
hard for us to be here
and us graduating is our way of saying,
we didn't come here to play with y'all.
(laughs)
We came to win!
(audience applauding)
All right.
Y'all know.
It is the season of proclaiming
that we belong, taking
back our confidence.
We are the dream keepers,
the dream builders,
the dream keepers.
I urge you to live by the
words of the great disrupter
and artist, James Baldwin.
The world is before you,
and you need not take it
or leave it as when you came in.
To our families, our
village, our ancestors.
(speaks in foreign language)
Our degrees are marked with our names,
but you are the real MVPs,
families and friends,
of this journey.
You are the most deserving of this moment.
(speaks in foreign language)
My right lung.
A recent lung transplant
recipient and survivor.
(audience applauding)
The real MVP, and I was
a nurse and a doctor
at the same time, okay?
I just thank you for every
breath that you take.
I love you.
Aiden, you are my inspiration, my mini me.
You're gonna rock this world.
To my rock, Esther.
(speaks in foreign language)
Dominican revolutionary.
The future Dr. Lee Set-mah-tos.
Jamal, my great love.
(speaks in foreign language)
(audience cheering)
Thank you.
With a cocked hat because
that's how we do, okay?
To our families, thank you
for crossing seas and terrains
so that we could proclaim
that we are the Teachers
College graduates of 2019.
Because of you, we can.
Because of you, we are.
And because of you, we will.
Congratulations to us all.
(speaks in foreign language)
(audience applauding)
Thank you.
(audience cheering)
All righty.
We would like to hear more
from our faculty and also
from the stories of all of
the graduates, so I'd like
to present to you Dr. Amina Tawasil.
Thank you very much.
Congratulations and God bless.
(audience applauding)
- Good evening, everyone.
My name is Amina Tawasil.
I am a lecturer in the
Anthropology and Education program.
I also graduated from
that program in 2013.
I'm so happy to be here.
Back then, we didn't have
this kind of celebration.
And imposter syndrome was
in the air for a lot of us,
so I am going, I prepared something.
But I don't have the pointers
for you to take away from,
so take away what you can.
I am a Muslim from the Sulu Archipelago.
I'm from the Tuh-oh-sook
indigenous tribe, born to a father
whose father was a head
man of a fishing village.
To get to my village today, one would have
to take a 27-hour flight
from here to Manila
and another day of land and sea travel.
(speaks in foreign language)
A word that means people of the current,
are known for their
domination of the South seas.
They had established an Islamic sultanate
and launched piratical raids
against Spanish colonial
settlements for 500 years, well
up until the United States
created the Philippine
commonwealth in 1935.
My mother comes from a wealthy
Catholic Filipino family
that is also part Spanish but fought
against Spanish colonization.
If you're familiar with the
history of the Philippines,
having parents coming from both the North
and the South is almost a guarantee
for a life of contradiction.
For generations, Filipinos
from the North, like my mother,
read from history books
that described the Moros,
Muslims from the Southern
Philippines like my father,
as savages with tails like monkeys.
But, actually, my childhood was full
of great stories like
my great grandfather,
Hum-gee-mah Hassan, who led
some 4,000 Moro warriors
in an attack on the American
fort on the island of Sulu.
In 1972, Civil War broke
out between the North
and the South.
Because of this war, my sister
and I rarely attended
school until we migrated
to California in 1979.
My father had been applying
for jobs as a busboy,
as a messenger, a doorman
prior to our arrival
in San Francisco.
He told my mother stories
of being denied service
at restaurants and being
called chink or gook.
My father came from a
family with a long history
of resistance against colonial forces.
But in the San Francisco of 1979,
my father was a brown
man with slanted eyes
who feigned knowing karate
moves on the sidewalks
of San Francisco to protect himself.
I'm eternally grateful that
my parents brought me here
to this moment.
Language has been symbolic for me.
My sister and I were two
of three people of color
in our elementary school
in Sunnyvale, California,
now called the Silicon Valley.
It was rough.
I learned to speak English by sitting next
to our stereo speaker everyday
after school, listening
to 92.3 KSJO, a hard rock radio station.
And this was inspired by
the first time I wanted
to make friends.
I approached a girl.
She was an English
speaker, and I asked her,
in a Filipino accent,
will you be my friend.
And she turned around and gave
me the middle finger, so I,
that motivated me.
I said, I really need
to learn some language of communication.
So everyday, from that day, I sat in front
of a radio station and listened to the DJ.
And for a long while, as a third grader,
I spoke English like a DJ.
(laughs)
So fast forward.
I now speak four languages.
(audience cheering)
My tribal language, which I disregarded
because I really felt
like it's not a language.
But I learned, later, that,
no, this is, I'm proud of this.
And one being Persian.
I lived in Iran for about 18 months,
and I did my dissertation
field work there.
I have three graduate degrees
from two Ivy League institutions,
TC being one of them.
The first from my village,
the first in my family.
But I want, what I want
to share here tonight is
about another language that
I have yet to figure out,
the language of privilege and power.
I am perpetually uneasy, uneasy
between my parents' struggle
for bringing us here
and my supposed task of
finding some meaning in my life
or making meaning out of freedom
as a first generation.
As the years pass, I
become more and more weary
of the possibility
that, perhaps, this idea
of self-actualization that
is supposed to be on me,
my responsibility, as
the universe allies norm
that I'm supposed to aspire for comes
from the same ideology that
justified the colonization
of so-called lesser peoples
like mine, that somehow,
those who are not interested
in finding the meaning
in their lives are lesser than me
and must be shown the light.
I am vexed, in ways, more
than my parents ever were.
As a first generation
college graduate, I'm today,
occupied with questions more than before.
Most often, finding insightful answers
from my students here at Teachers College.
Some of them are here tonight,
so thank you very much
to all of you.
I've learned so much from you.
And once again, congratulations.
(audience applauding)
I would now like to read thank
you letters from students.
Thank you, (speaks in foreign language)
or your continuous love and support.
I'm grateful to my
siblings, Ji-rus, Tabitha,
and Michelle for their honest prayers.
Thank you, Sabha Hat and
Salman Bhai, for everything.
Lay-la and Za-ra, thank you
for brightening up my life.
Kevin, you are awesome.
Thanks for your love and courage.
Thank you, (speaks in foreign language).
I know you are all
smiling down from heaven.
Thank you, God, for an amazing life.
You, Almighty, gave me strength
to complete my journey.
Amen.
Thank you for bringing
my dreams to reality.
Thank you for trusting me always.
Thank you for your unwavering
support and belief in me.
Thank you for keeping me in your prayers,
for your kind words and
encouragement along the way.
They have sustained me
throughout this journey.
My success is our shared success.
To God be the glory.
Thank you for your financial
and emotional support.
You inspire me to strive
for greatness everyday,
and I'm happy to say that
I now carry two degrees.
Thank you to my partner for
helping me in this journey.
You're truly wonderful.
Shout out to my guinea pigs' children.
Emma and Hope.
And to my ferret, Michael the Ferret.
(laughs)
Thank you for your unconditional support
throughout my PhD program.
I would not have been able
to achieve this academic
milestone without all
of you cheering me on
over the last four years.
Thank you for supporting
me these past three years
while I earned my Master's.
The love and help you
provided me encouraged me
to keep going when I
thought I should give up.
Thanks be to God, our blessed
mother Mary, and to all
of you that have made
this dream a reality.
Thanks to my ma, pa, and my
(speaks in foreign language).
The hardest choices
require the strongest will,
and I've learned that
everything is possible.
I could not have done this
without the love and support
of my Superman and family.
I would not be here if it were not
for the entire village that supported me
through this process.
Me making it here is a testament
to my mentors, colleagues,
and TC family that
inspired me to be better.
For that, I am eternally grateful.
Thank you, so let's give
them all a round of applause.
(audience cheering)
I would now like to invite
Dr. Christopher Emdin
to the podium.
Thank you.
(audience applauding)
- Good evening, everyone.
So I have been charged
with reading the names
of the graduates so that
we can celebrate them
and their families.
However, and I know
y'all been hearing a lot
of speeches thus far, you
know you can't have me last
at the joint and not have
anything to say at all.
So I will share some words if that's okay.
(audience applauding)
The first thing I wanna share is this.
If you look at the program
and look at all the graduates
and all the presenters, you
will find that three out
of 11 of the speakers
this evening have been
from the borough of the Bronx.
That's about 27.27% of the
population, which only goes
to support my theory that the
Bronx will save the world.
So that just has to be said, and I mean X.
Been throwing the X's up before Wakanda.
So that's first.
Second, there's been this resounding theme
throughout all the conversations
around the challenges
or the impact of imposter
syndrome on the graduates
and even some of the faculty.
And my theory has always
been that we, collectively,
have an antidote to imposter syndrome
through the concept and
construct of being ratchedemic.
I have always told folks
that, to be ratchedemic is
that brilliant, merging of
the ratchet and the academic.
(audience cheering)
For those who are not
familiar with the construct
of the ratchet and who may perceive that
to be a mechanical device, ratchet,
within urban communities,
is the exemplification
of all negative characteristics associated
with marginalized groups.
That may mean they have
a mode of communicating
or engaging that are not respectable.
Your ratchet friend
speaks a little louder,
has a little bit more color,
has a little bit more flowers
on their graduation cap,
has a little tilt in
their graduation gown.
They are all these things
that give us our magic,
and imposter syndrome
requires that you give
up those things in pursuit
of what is perceived
to be academic.
Once we recognize that
our first generation-ness,
our ratchetness, is
actually a gift that those
who do not have that
experience can never possess,
we start realizing really
quickly that we are the ones
who should feel like imposters.
The absence of the magic
of your uniqueness,
your Islamic identity, your hood identity,
your Caribbean identity,
your Latinx identity,
that magic is what makes you special.
As long as you merge
that with being academic.
Sitting here today,
having graduated from one
of the top institutions in
the world in education means
that you can qualify to hold
onto the academic identity.
The minute you hold onto that concurrently
with your ratchetness, there
is an immediate antidote
to imposter syndrome.
You ain't gotta be worried
about that no more!
Through your ratchedemic
identity, you are delivered.
(audience applauding)
And thirdly, prior to naming
the names, I want us to look
at this idea of celebrating equity,
inclusion, and empowerment.
And hold onto that beyond this event.
But as you go out into the world.
But do not celebrate
equity if equity means
that you're the one person in the room
who represents equity.
We do not just celebrate equity.
We demand it.
When we talk about inclusion,
do not celebrate inclusion
if inclusion is simply a blanket
to hide the concept of assimilation.
You do not go to a place
and wanna be included
if they cannot include
you on your own terms.
Inclusion is not a synonym.
Inclusion is not a synonym.
Inclusion is not a
synonym for respectability
and acceptance by power wielders.
And, finally, celebrating
empowerment is a daily enterprise,
a daily exercise.
Realize that you're empowered by virtue
of your existence alone.
Your degree has got you here,
but your degree won't save you.
What you need to be
empowered by is the family
that brought you to this place.
Do not be empowered by this gown.
Y'all, celebrate the gown.
But this don't empower you.
You're empowered by the
folks who brought you to be
where you are today.
(audience applauding)
Just one more thing, y'all.
I'm sorry.
I'ma read these, I promise.
You know, the final thing is this.
And this is, you know,
advice, specifically,
to the graduates.
We gon' celebrate with the families,
but I wanna give y'all some
advice that I didn't get
when I got this degree.
Coming from where I'm from.
That I had to learn the hard way
and that I hope you will carry with you
today as you go forward.
And there's that, in the
world of academia or the world
at large, you will always
encounter three types of people.
And you have to know how to deal with each
of those people for the
sake of your survival.
The first group are builders.
The builder will come to you and may,
oftentimes, critique you.
And he will say things to you
that may hurt your feelings.
It might hurt your pride.
It might hurt your sense of
self, and you have to be able
to understand that it's
not about the emotion
that's generated within
you and what they say.
You have to look past
that emotion and look
at their intention.
If somebody comes to you
and says something to you
that hurts your feelings a
little bit, and you can see
that there's love in what's
being said, accept it.
Reflect on it.
Build on it, and grow from it.
Always pay attention to those
around you who are builders.
The second is a hater.
Visibility, a degree, the
fact that you are celebrating
who you are, your acceptance into worlds
that you have not even
imagined you could be in.
Once you walk into those
spaces, you will have people
who have the same credentials you do
without the life experience you
do without the magic you do.
And by virtue of the magic you
have, they will hate on you.
And you have to understand
that haters don't deserve your energy.
A builder you listen to
closely, you reflect on,
and you grow from.
A hater, you ignore.
It's the hardest thing to do
in the world to ignore a hater,
but it's the one thing
that pains them the most.
When you walk
with your swag intact despite
all they say about you, it
kills their spirit and
elevates your consciousness.
Listen to a builder.
Ignore a hater.
And the last group is just suckers.
(audience laughing)
And suckers are everywhere, B.
But let me define them for you.
Suckers are folks who will
critique your very existence.
Suckers are folks who
fundamentally are opposed
to immigrant voice.
They're intentionally past unrealistic.
They're intentionally misogynistic.
They are speaking directly
about something that is
how you're made up yourself.
Always have time to shut down a sucker.
Utilize your degree from
TC as a sword to wield
against the force of a sucker.
The fact that you have it
should not just be empty.
It is a tool for you to be
able to shut down a sucker.
So in closing...
(audience cheering)
Pay attention to a builder.
See past the emotion
and see their intention.
Ignore a hater 'cause they
will come, and use your degree
to shut down any sucker
that comes across your path.
And with that...
(audience applauding)
I am charged with calling out
the names of the graduates.
Please ensure that you turn
up for each of the graduates.
This is the part of the program
where ratchetness is accepted.
You got horns, use those.
So we celebrate the
graduates and their families.
Donte Jennings.
(audience applauding)
That's a big brother and
a mother right there.
Christy Strongman!
(audience cheering)
Y'all ain't shouting for
Christy like she, okay?
Christy, your name says it all.
Strongman, strong woman.
Truh-mee-see-uh Truh-nell!
(audience applauding)
Okay!
Dust your shoulders off, sis.
All right.
Ashley Hog-wul.
(audience cheering)
That's a very particular type of turn-up
if you guys can understand that.
That is a Nigerian turn-up.
It is very unique.
Okay.
Theresa Buh-rer.
(audience applauding)
Yeah, Theresa!
Shoo-ah Ma!
Shoo-ah, where you at?
Come on now!
(audience cheering)
This how you know people
gon' do great things
in the world when they got mad last names.
Lar-i-lin Patterson Parbs IV!
(audience applauding)
What?
Gangsta!
Jasmine Nera Hooper!
(audience cheering)
Go ahead, Jasmine!
Okay!
Robert Louis Charles!
(audience cheering)
Raphaela Espinal.
(audience applauding)
Okay.
She pointed back, she pointed
at you, point back, okay.
Kaitlyn R. Louis!
(audience applauding)
Luh-leef Latchman.
All right!
V-onn W-inn!
(audience applauding)
Go ahead, Vonn.
Celebrate, okay?
I love this one 'cause the
student is just graduating,
but they entered their
name with their degree.
It says John E. Williams, PhD.
Don't get it twisted.
Okay?
Yes, yes.
Regina Brown!
Regina, where you at?
All right.
Marty Hernandez.
Yes.
Omar Rodriguez Esparta.
That's a three names again.
It just sounds important.
Valjean Young.
(audience applauding)
Anezo Bimbol.
(audience cheering)
Ashley Sa-pun.
I see you, Ashley.
Stephanie Cobolero.
Oh, Co-mol-er-oh, my bad.
Tatiana Webb.
(audience cheering)
Roxanna J. Florez-Volasco.
(audience cheering)
Better put all your names
on that card, that's right.
Daisy Garcia!
(audience cheering)
Candace Cunningham.
(audience cheering)
Eliza Eckstein.
(audience cheering)
Colin Eduard
Colin got that G-Unit chain on too.
This is very important.
Michelle Burris
I think Michelle's family got
the loudest cheers so far,
I don't know.
Okay.
Ramon Caranza Banuellos.
(audience cheering)
I see you Ramon.
Sasha Parshment
Nicole Fox
Yes, yes!
Nah, they win, they
win, they win, they win.
Nancy A. Alfaro.
S. Adria Peri.
(audience cheering)
Andrew, that is not acceptable.
You just, he gave me the little.
(announcing names)
Okay, okay!
(announcing names)
Beautiful speech.
(announcing names)
Hair on fleek.
(announcing names)
Throw that!
Talk that talk, okay!
(announcing names)
Okay, Janae.
(announcing names)
Yes, yes.
Beyonce hair flips and all.
(announcing names)
Better throw that X up.
Yes, okay.
(announcing names)
My heart.
(announcing names)
Y'all getting tired?
No?
I'm still turnt!
You better be turnt too!
We got some names on here.
Shall I define turnt?
No?
You got it?
Okay.
(announcing names)
Okay!
(announcing names)
That felt like a flood, okay!
(announcing names)
Last but certainly not least.
(announcing names)
I didn't get your card, sis?
What's your name, sis?
(audience cheering)
All right, now as is
customary, I think right now,
I want all the graduates to stand please.
I want graduates to turn
towards their families please.
And just clap for 'em.
(audience applauding)
Now, attendees, I know I was the one
who invoked the ratchet.
So please forgive me.
Right now, we'll have all
the graduates walk out.
Families, please wait
for them all to walk out.
And then, after that,
we can continue our celebrations together.
(upbeat music)
