Graduation Speech

I have been quiet. I graduated two weeks ago, and I have been readjusting. I am also getting ready for next year, when i will completing a fellowship on climate adaptation (more details soon).

For now, some people have asked me to share my graduation speech, here it is.... feel free to make comments (good and bad)

6/2/07
I first applied to COA five years ago, but I got rejected - which actually gave me another
full year to think about it.
Maybe everyone should have to apply twice
But I applied again; I realized that COA had exactly what I wanted, but I just wasn’t sure
that I could move to the US. The five months between the day I was admitted to COA and
when I actually arrived in Maine were full of questions and doubts.

When I decided I wanted to come to the US for college, I was not too confident with my decision. I came to the US with many assumptions, assumptions based on how the US is perceived in the world. I thought that everyone was rich, and that the wealth of the nation made its citizens oblivious to the social or environmental issues beyond national boundaries. I thought that McDonalds and KFC were the icons of American cuisine.

I was wrong.

The past four years have showed me that the Us portrayed in the media is very different from the US I have seen with my own eyes. I have come to see a nation of hardworking people,
Hard working people who can empathize with the harsh realities faced by many in the
world, Hard working people who hope for a better world for all.

But If this is the US I have seen, then why isn’t that the image reflected in the rest of the world? Why is the US government so different from the people that it is supposed to represent? From my perspective, the distance between American people and the American government and the setback in the exercise of democracy in the United States is not an issue of public or foreign policies. I believe that distance is due to a market-driven approach to freedom of speech that does not allow Americans to be informed of the cost associated with their choices, nor to question the price, roots, and implication of the policies that rule them.

The public space to challenge discourse has been reduced to what is catchy for the nightly news, making news coverage of Paris Hilton’s last spring break partying more profitable and suitable than critical coverage of the debate and lies surrounding the war in Iraq.

With great surprise I have seen that the politics of fear disseminated through the mass media are undermining the ability of the American people to question the policies that rule them. Democracy is in danger; freedom of speech and critical thinking could become a footnote in history books.

But today I feel hopeful, honored, and fortunate.
I feel hopeful of the tremendous potential of my peers and friends to make use of the democracy inherited from the Founders of this nation,
I feel honored to share this stage with my class,
I feel fortuned to have worked for the past four years in an environment where we are
encouraged to ask the uncomfortable questions that guide us to the truth.

Although we all graduate with the same degree, we are all ready to face different challenges, challenges that will require our ability to be critical thinkers; challenges that will help us find our own truths.

When I look back, I realize that I could have gone to some other school to concentrate on international relations or economics, but I would have missed out on one of the most valuable skill I have gained at COA: The ability to work with others, who might otherwise be classified as artists, biologists, designers, or whatever other tag you can think of. Us, the human ecologists integrating our skills and experiences has given me new hope. If we can collaborate for common goals, we can challenge the current paradigm of democracy handicapped by fear, a paradigm that limits debate and discussion to a series of prefabricated messages, messages that are rendering democracy useless.

I am proud to be a human ecologist, and I believe we can work for common goals. I know that today, when we leave this stage, we will all walk in different direction, but that will not stop us from sharing common visions. We will continue to find our own truths, to try to understand our world better, we will continue to be critics and visionaries able to solve the dialectical opposition between social convention and individual libertarianism.

My time in the United States is coming to an end.
I am not sure if the admissions office regrets having accepted me the second time I applied,
but I am thankful for their decision.

Coming to COA fundamentally changed the way I see the world. Not only I have realized that there is more to the US than McDonalds and KFC, but I have come to strongly believe that all of us, American people and those of us who are not from this land, can collaborate and take global leadership to critically shape how we relate to our world. Critical judgment is needed, and I am proud to know that there are 50 new human ecologists walking away from this institution today ready to engage in that challenge. I believe in the potential for change in this room.

I like to share the words of Arundhati Roy, an Indian writer who has inspired my work at
COA:

“Another world is not only possible, she’s on her way.
Maybe many of us won’t be here to greet her, but on a quiet day,
if I listen very carefully, I can hear her breathing.”

Class of 07, I am honored to have grown with you for this past four years. Thank you,
and good luck.