It’s an indescribable feeling to be back here in Claremont. You know, I’ve been on a whirlwind in just the past ten days. But, you know, let alone the past year and it kind of feels like coming home. I spent four incredible years here as a student at Pomona. And as you know, to be a student here is to be a student at all 5Cs. And I count the time I spent in Claremont as integral to my formation.
For example, when I first came to undergrad, I wanted to understand gender and sexuality within the context of history and society, so I took Intro to Queer Studies here at Scripps. I first connected with my best friend in the whole world on a fateful evening when we both happened to be eating alone at Scripps鈥� dining hall.
In my four years here, I met people from all over the world: Scientists, poets, linguists, musicians, future educators, at least ten Emmas, and housekeeping staff who saw themselves in me, somehow reminding me of where I came from. I found myself, I found community, and I found my purpose.
Today, you all celebrate the end of your undergraduate years here, and I have no doubt you’ve met just as many incredible people who’ve been a part of just as much self-discovery and connection as I experienced here.
Today, you join a group of alumni that includes a conservationist who dedicated her life to fighting against corporate interests in defense of the land; a key figure in the passage of federal legislation protecting the Columbia River Gorge from real estate development: Nancy Naber Russell, Class of 1953. A critically acclaimed sculptor and mixed-media artist whose work includes a 13-foot bronze tribute to Harriet Tubman that stands today in Harlem as the first public monument dedicated to an African American woman in New York City: Alison Saar, Class of 1978. A US House of Representatives member who defied all odds after she survived a mass shooting assassination attempt and regained her ability to walk, speak, read, and write: Gabrielle Giffords, Class of 1993. She has since become a national advocate for gun violence prevention and gun safety laws. You join a group of alumni whose accomplishments are big and small, personal, artistic, scientific, political, local, and global.
Graduating from college is a feat in and of itself, so congrats, you are all already accomplished. It’s an accomplishment that is shared with your fellow students, the professors who have mentored you and nurtured your minds, the college staff who have kept you housed and fed.
I would argue that you don’t make it to graduation without at least a few good friends. But this accomplishment also belongs to your families and communities from home. Shout out to the parents, the siblings, the aunties, the uncles, cousins, grandparents, trusted family friends, the teachers, and counselors who got you to college in the first place. Please celebrate your shared accomplishment鈥攍et’s uplift them and give them some love!
Raise your hand if you ever thought you might not make it to graduation. Be honest. I’m gonna raise mine. Look around, though. You made it!
Raise your hand if today you are a first-generation college graduate. Raise your hand if you ever pulled an all-nighter. I probably did it somewhere on Scripps鈥� campus at one point, actually. Raise your hand if you ever had to write an email to your professor that was extremely emotional and dramatic, explaining why your assignment was not going to be on time.
While we’re here, where are my queer and trans folks at? Where are my Latinx people at? Make some noise for all my Black folks. Shout out to our indigenous people here today.
API folks, say what’s up. Southwest Asia, North Africa, where you at? Anybody here? And let’s please clap for members of the disabled and Deaf communities here today. Now, raise your hand if any of your ancestors come from another country.
Raise your hand if you met one person here who changed your life. We’re all here and I celebrate that we’re here together.
On this day of celebration, I also recognize that we are in times of great uncertainty, with forces of division and fear attempting to take over our minds and our collective spirit. The devastating fact is that I could be referring to any number of issues with that statement.
What do we do with this juxtaposition of emotions? There appear to be multiple realities and contradictions. You’re about to go out into the world, leaving the cocoon of college life. And it’s scary. We’ve lost our foothold in established conventions and institutions. So where do we set our sights? Where do we place our faith?
Hopefully, you can tell that today I’m speaking to you not as a seasoned vet, but as a peer. And I know I may be a little too cringe and too Buzzfeed (I have done all the quizzes) to be legally permitted entrance into the great and sacred Discord server of Gen Z. But it was only 10 years ago that I sat just like you and listened to a commencement speaker on Marston Quad at Pomona College not too far from here. I do not have any firm pieces of advice for you, only ideas worth exploring and questions worth asking.
I wish I could say that in my decade of post-college life I’ve found any peace within the chaos of the present; my faith in the future was actually the strongest when I was in college. It’s been shaken many times since then. One thing I can say I’ve grown to understand better over the past decade is this:
Time is cyclical, nonlinear, and abundant. What was once true can be true again and what has never been can come to be. Truly anything is possible.
Now do y’all mind coming to class with me for a second? Don’t worry, I know the grading is over, I did the reading for you. In the foreword to the climate fiction anthology, Afterglow, Adrienne Marie Brown wrote about our dream space, our capacity to imagine, and how crucial it is that we tend to it. I haven’t stopped thinking about it since I read it, so I want to share an excerpt with you. It’s an extended excerpt, okay, so stay with me.
Adrienne Marie Brown wrote,
鈥淲hat do we do if our dream space is colonized? To colonize a place and people is to settle among them and seize political control over their land, lives, labor, beliefs, and practices. Much of the world we now live in was colonized at some point, meaning the majority of humans live in a post-colonial architecture, both physical and ideological.
To decolonize is to heal the colonial wound from the land, from the culture, from the practices, from the mind. But for many people, when we begin to speak of possible solutions, like a collaborative, people-centered economy; like replacing punitive culture with a culture of accountability; like centering the needs of our children in our decision-making鈥攊t feels impossible. They cannot imagine it. In many ways, the work of decolonizing the future is the work of decolonizing our imaginations.
Making money from the exploitation of earth and labor is an old story, boring and familiar. The stories we need to hear are of those who are aware of the conditions, attentive to what is changing in the world around us, and finding compelling paths forward. We have to literally rewire our brains, to be interested in our creation and our continuation more than our destruction.鈥�
So, how is your imagination doing? Do you have a plan to continue nurturing it for the rest of your life? It cannot be an afterthought. It cannot be a tertiary or even secondary need. Our imagination must be central to every decision, every strategy, and every endeavor that we embark on for the remainder of this century and beyond.
I firmly believe that despite all the conflict, all the suppression, and all the fear mounting throughout the world, we have the capacity to break through to a shared reality that we haven’t yet dared to imagine.
So many marvels that we live with today, someone had to imagine it first. Electricity, air travel, chemotherapy, the internet, Korean skincare. Queer and trans people in the Western world had to imagine what it would be like to have our families and relationships legally recognized before they were, even though I know the fight continues for us. People in hundreds of European colonies in five different continents had to imagine what independence would feel like before they fought for it and won it. African Americans in this country had to imagine what it would be like to be free from enslavement before they were free.
We’ve come a long way, and we have a long way to go. I know that we can imagine a world that is abundant. I know we can imagine a world of repair, of unity. I think that the way we get there is by remembering that time is cyclical, time is nonlinear, and time is abundant.
You can do anything you want. All you have to do is imagine it.
Thank you. This has been an incredible honor.