“We cannot capitalize off of our diversity while the individuals that make us diverse are fettered by debt.”
Welcome and nyob zoo*, fellow graduates of UMass Boston’s Class of 2022. Welcome and thank you, friends, family, faculty, staff, and community members for joining us today on this momentous occasion. As a first-generation college student like so many of you, as a Hmong, transgender Bostonian from Alaska, as a Beacon, I am honored and privileged to stand here today to congratulate all of you, each of you.
For most, if not all of us, getting to this moment was far from easy. I am sure that each one of us can remember the moments where graduation seemed to be a distant dream, a seemingly unreachable point in an unsure future. For many of us, it is often hard to be for the times when the times are not for us. From bouts of unfathomable depression to navigating systems of institutional oppression. From indebting ourselves to the state-sanctioned violence that is student loans to working multiple jobs while also being students. From the loved ones we lost to COVID to the collective trauma we are situated in. In our untimely existence, I recognize that where there is no hope or vision of the future, it is incumbent upon us to invent it. To invent the times. Not for the times … but for us.
At UMass Boston, we are defined by a community that holds a multiplicity of backgrounds, cultures, and identities, but we cannot take pride in our diversity if the mechanisms to support our untimely existence are not in place. We cannot capitalize off of our diversity while the individuals that make us diverse are fettered by debt. We cannot be a leading research institution without paying our graduate students a living wage. We cannot call Dorchester home while gentrifying our neighborhoods. We cannot and will not be an anti-racist institution without properly funding our Africana Studies Department. And we cannot and will not be a health-promoting institution without fighting for reproductive rights and fostering belonging for transgender people.
My fellow graduates, we have spent countless hours in the classroom, fought for seats on the shuttle dozens of times, waited in the Dunkin line longer than we’d like to admit … we have occupied this space together for some time now. Learning and unlearning. We all had to figure out together, in real time, how to recenter care for those pushed towards the margins. How to innovate kindness and inclusion through computer screens. How to continue to show up in the face of towering impossibilities. How to be a committed and engaged community member … How to be a community member. As we move forward, I want to share three lessons, which I have found fundamental for inventing hope and fostering belonging. I share these lessons so that they may be interwoven into the fabric of your actions and into the tapestry of our communities.
1. Orient yourself towards flourishing.
As we move forward in the next stages of our life, we must also be conscious of what we are moving toward. This entails asking, What deserves a future? What will be in the futures that we ourselves create? In answering these questions, I urge us all to engage in a ruthless criticism. In the words of Karl Marx, “I am speaking of a ruthless criticism of everything existing, ruthless in two senses: The criticism must not be afraid of its own conclusions, nor of conflict with the powers that be.” By asking what deserves a future, by engaging in a ruthless criticism of everything existing, we posit ourselves as practitioners of curiosity, as inventors of our times, as catalysts of change. We must criticize the social practices that are commonplace in our commonwealth, but suboptimal nonetheless. For example, when UMass Boston opened its doors to Beacons in 1965, tuition sat at $100 a semester. Today, out-of-state students like myself pay 175 times that … per semester. You see, we must put forth demands and visions of flourishing because this is what we all deserve. Our orientations towards flourishing cannot be individualistic, rather they must be by and for the collective: canceling student loan debt, adequately funding public education, protecting trans kids. An orientation towards flourishing comes with understanding that none of us will be liberated until Black trans women are liberated.
2. Remember that you are a human being, not a human doing.
As proud as we should be about our many accomplishments, as proud as I am of all of us for graduating, recognize and remember that our worthiness does not center around our degree or any other accomplishment we have on a resume. We are human beings, not human doings. As such, we do not have to rely on institutions or achievements to legitimize our experience. Our existence is already untimely, so take your time. Slow down.
3. Be savagely thankful.
Love unguardedly. Say thank you. Sit in your gratitude. You possess the unlimited power to hand out kindness to others and be a producer of joy. So be generous. Hold each other accountable to this commitment to love. Make it such that wherever you belong, as long as you are there, there will not be any scarcity of love or shortage of worthiness. Love exists inside of you. And therefore it exists in our community. Because you exist in our community. This is what I find most beautiful about today … look around … we are in this transformative moment where you are called upon to share your education, your experiences and identities, and your love with your communities.
My fellow graduates, I offer these three lessons as a marker to the journey we are now beginning. We are life-long learners. We are practitioners of curiosity. We are community members. And we are UMass Boston’s graduating class of 2022. Congratulations, Beacons, and thank you!
*“Greetings” in the Hmong language
