EUNICE MWABE: As a
little girl, growing up in a farm just outside
of Nairobi, Kenya, I spent a lot of time wondering
how about the world outside. I spent my weekends watching
TV and listening to music. I watched old '60s
movies on school nights when I was supposed to be asleep
and I read a lot of books. I mean, a lot of books. I devoured media because I was
thirsty to understand the world outside the confines of my
otherwise simple, comfortable, and incredibly
joyful upbringing. So it was no surprise
that everything I knew about America,
I knew from media. And this was before
social media. So the variety of images
I had of the United States was limited to what movies
wanted me, an outsider, to know about this land of the
free and home of the brave. I watched movies about American
high schools in particular and I found them
absolutely fascinating. And I learnt a lot for example,
I learned that in America you could walk out of classes before
teachers dismissed you just as long as the bell had rung. And I thought to myself, indeed
this is the land of the free and the home of the brave
because that kind of behavior wouldn't fly where I'm from. In America, becoming homecoming
King and homecoming queen was a big deal, but I never
understood where home was or where people had gone
enough to become me. I also learned that in
America everyone was always looking for a prom date. And that if you dropped your
books and someone picks them up for you and gazed
into your eyes, then at the end of the year they
would become your prom date. To date, I find it
utterly impressive that the content was that
consistent across the board. You watched Mean Girls
and it was like you had watched everything. Yet these thoroughly analyzed
case studies of my peers could never have prepared
me for the past four years as an international
student at Harvard. In fact, in a way I held
a lot of misconceptions about the United
States because of them. Now, I know more often
than not, this phenomenon happens the other way around. For instance, if
I walk into a room and I say, hi, my name is Mwabe
and I'm from Nairobi, Kenya, a lot of things might go
through your mind like, wow, she speaks
such good English. Or perhaps you might ask
yourself the age old question and what I am sure we
are all wondering today, I wonder whether she's listened
to Ariana Grande's music. Yet in the same way I too
had my own stereotypes about the United States. There were stories I had
heard throughout my life that had embedded plenty of
assumptions in my mind. Racial stereotypes,
stereotypes about people from different
socioeconomic backgrounds, stereotypes about
American preferences. At times, I wouldn't
realize I had these perceptions in my mind. But I always found
myself holding on to them ever so tightly
whenever I encountered something new or different
that I wasn't willing to try. The thing with stereotypes
that makes them so powerful is that they menacingly
appear to be true. And that it can be so
comfortable to hold on to them because predictability
is easy to work with. Nuance makes things
complicated, nuance doesn't fit into policy or
captivating film narratives. And once you're comfortable
enough in what you know, there's no reason
to step out of it. I have always been fascinated
by people, cultures, history, why we think the
way we think based on where we grew up, or our experiences. And it was this
fascination that led me to the anthropology department. I was excited at the
prospect of a concentration where for the most part I got
to observe people and theorize about why they do what they do. At first, this started as
a self-centered process. In the midst of my debilitating
homesickness and reluctance to adjust, I needed
an excuse to get out of having to engage with this
new country and its people. By delving deeper to
understand myself, my roots, and my culture. When any lovely
Wednesday afternoon, you'd find me at
a section in Tulsa either finding a way to
connect every possible theory to the African continent,
or vehemently retorting to something a peer had said. And it always
sounded like, well, I just want to push back
on that for a little bit. And say that that is based
on a very Western framework of thinking. Around my friends
I started statement in with in my culture,
especially when I didn't want to
try something new. Like in my culture,
we don't eat quinoa. Or in my culture, we don't ask
professors about their weekends or agreed to call them
by their first names. I'm sorry, Dean Khurana. I mean, Rakesh. And while this transformative
liberal arts education has given me-- has given me the tools
to explain where I'm from or why you would find me running
by the child's in the window and no one is chasing me,
self-centered intellectual pursuits can get
incredibly dissatisfying and ultimately, lonely. And so I began observing
Americans instead. Away from the images that had
for so long filled my head, I promptly began my fieldwork
outlining the rituals among American 20-year-olds. Their sociality, their
tribal customs, and norms, what they found taboo
to talk about in public. Their different kinship
systems and values for concepts like personal space,
and how how's it going isn't actually a question
about how it's going. Eventually, I too
began to participate in the natives rituals, annual
festivals like the Super Bowl and this collaborative activity
that was creating a march madness bracket. I started watching American news
as an empathy exercise really. And slowly but
surely, my eyes began to open to certain realities
about the American experience through the lens of
Harvard class of 2019 that bring it on one, two, and
three could never have taught me not even in a million years. There were experiences
that brought us together as a community and reminded
me of the universality of our experiences. It was in the looks of all
in amazement and chagrin for some when we witnessed
Adams house rise like a Phoenix from the ashes
blessing us with what had to be the greatest
housing video of all time. [CHEERING] [INAUDIBLE] It was in your
faces every time you worried about the inequalities
of your education system. It was in your pain when another
unarmed black man was shot. It was in the face of an
understaffed homeless shelter in an increasingly
gentrifying town. Now, I know Harvard
is not representative of the entire United States. In fact, if anything
this heavily endowed bubble is
far from the reality faced by millions
in this country. But if there is anything
I'm thankful for, it has been the
opportunity to have been part of class of 2019. A class of strong, talented,
beautiful, smart, ambitious young people who
have shared with me little snippets of where they're
from and where they hope to go. So at the end of this
anthropological study, I'd like to share with
you all my findings based on the statistical sample
that has been my interactions with the class of 2019. The most important of them
being that people are people, and joy is joy, and
pain is pain everywhere. And we cannot limit ourselves to
what we know based on where we come from. In the same vein, let it not
be that this Harvard experience becomes our culture if you will. That we get so attached to
bleeding of this crimson blood that we are so unwilling to
step out and be challenged to learn something
new or presently engaged when we encounter
something or someone different. Statistically speaking, those
who have left these grounds have had a palpable
impact in the world. Those who have gone
ahead of us have disrupted culture,
transformed global politics, revolutionized economies, and
we will most probably go ahead and do equally significant
things if not more. But these accolades,
these achievements, do not make us any better. Our lives anymore valuable,
our joy any more valid, our anger any more justified
than the man across the street from whom every dollar counts. And this is in no way meant
to devalue all wealth. If anything, it takes
away this pressure that we need to prove
a point to the world. That we need to prove
that we went to Harvard and did enough with
this opportunity. Class of 2019, you
graduate from Harvard but you're worth so much
more in and of yourself. And so I implore you in the
words of the great philosopher of our day, Pulitzer prize
winner Kendrick Lamar, sit down, be humble. Humility not being defined by
how much we downplay the power that comes with a name. Humility not being
saying to those who ask that we went to a
school in Boston. But humility being
the willingness to see all humanity as equal,
Harvard degree notwithstanding. Humility being the willingness
to learn as much as we can about those different from
us outside of what we know. And then using this Harvard
degree to, as we say in Kumba, do what we can with what we
have to leave a space better than we found it. The world is in need of more
people who walk through life with this sense of wonder. People courageous
enough to engage with that which is different or
strange or even unacceptable. Willing enough to step out
of what they think they know and humble enough to learn
from each experience. More than ever, our
generation needs a leadership that is willing
to love and serve within this rare blend
of courage and humility. Courageous enough
to secure the bag. Humble enough to do it
without letting it define you. It is my hope class
of 2019, that it shall be said of us that we
embodied this in the years to come. Thank you and congratulations. [APPLAUSE]
