Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: Hello, Class of 2026! I know we're at Barclays right now - but you know what I'm going to ask. Can we make some noise for the New York Knicks?
That's right. Now, let's hear it for our graduates. Do we have Brooklyn in the house? The Bronx? Staten Island? Come on Staten Island. Manhattan? And last but not least, let's give it up for the borough that gets the money - make some noise for Queens.
Chancellor Rodríguez, President Monroe, Provost Jones, deans, faculty, staff - thank you for all you have done to help these graduates get to this moment. To the mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, cousins, friends, spouses, boyfriends, girlfriends, even the situationships here today: Thank you.
You saw your loved one with their textbooks cracked open at the kitchen table in the middle of the night. You saw them juggle school with work and childcare and too-long commutes, with bills due and rent that only goes up. And you were there with a home-cooked dinner at the end of a long day. With a word of encouragement when it was needed most. And with the unwavering belief that they would make it to today. They are here in no small part thanks to you. Give yourselves a round of applause.
For the past few weeks, all across the country, commencement speakers like me have stood in borrowed robes at lecterns like this one and delivered hard-won pieces of advice to the Class of 2026. Some of these speeches are funnier than others. People quote Thomas Aquinas and Thomas Jefferson and Thomas the Tank Engine.
And if there's one thing these speeches share, it's the guidance they offer to a group of graduates who, at this point, are pretty ready to go home. The wisdom usually plays on a certain theme: Take risks. Dig deeper. Dream bigger. Sometimes the suggestion is a little more practical: Wear sunscreen. Never trust a Scorpio. Don't run for office without first scrubbing the internet of all evidence of your short-lived rap career. Or do. What can I say: Once Mr. Cardamom, always Mr. Cardamom.
After dispensing their advice, these well-meaning commencement speakers will explain why it's worth taking. It typically boils down to this: Breaking off from the straight and narrow, zigging and zagging, detouring off the beaten path - that's where the fun, the growth, the real life is. A lot of graduates need to hear this. But not the BMCC Class of 2026. Real life is not something you need to seek out.
Because try telling Amreeta Jeena to dream bigger. She arrived in New York from Guyana at age 19. She was always a good student, but she postponed college after having her first child. Years later, she decided to pursue her degree, despite the challenges that would deter less-determined people: family, work, long commutes. Today, Amreeta is graduating with her degree in accounting with plans to one day open her own firm.
Or try telling Vireak Hom to go the road less traveled. He grew up as an orphan in Cambodia, moving from home to home. His first time on a plane was to come to New York City to attend BMCC. Today, Vireak is graduating with a degree in mathematics.
Or try telling Cynthia Kugbedgt to dig deeper. She enrolled at BMCC after giving birth to her third child. Monday through Friday, she commuted to the lower tip of Manhattan from the Bronx after changing diapers, making breakfast, and dropping her kids off at school. Her days were packed, but she found a groove-setting her alarm for 3am to study before her kids woke up. Today, Cynthia graduates with a degree in respiratory therapy.
Today's graduating class is made up of more than 2,000 New Yorkers. That is 2,000 people whose paths have zigged and zagged but still led right here, to this moment. Together, you represent more than 110 countries and speak 28 languages. More than half of today's graduates are the first in their family to go beyond a high school diploma. And 14 percent of this graduating class attended school while caring for children.
Every one of today's graduates has a story as full of setbacks and triumphs as the ones I've shared. But here is the thing: No matter how many times it would have been easier to quit, to stay home, to say "it's all too much" - you still showed up. Each of you made the choice to pursue your education - not because it was expected of you, not because it was the next logical step - but because you expected it of yourself.
You already have the drive that commencement speakers spend whole speeches encouraging graduates to go out into the world and find. You wouldn't be here today if you didn't. Each of you walked a road that was anything but traditional. Leaving the beaten path is hard - but if you'll allow me to be corny for a second - it also has the best views.
And I know a thing or two about a nontraditional path. I'm Indian. And I'm also African. And I'm also American too. Muslim, with a Hindu family. I am a Drake fan, and I can still recognize that "Not Like Us" is a banger. We exist. Representation matters. I ran for mayor when a lot of people told me I shouldn't. They told me I wasn't the right age, that I didn't know the right people, that I didn't have the right credentials. You all might know something about that too. Some people say that when I entered the race, I was polling at one percent. That's not quite true. When I entered the race, they weren't even polling my name.
My opponents couldn't say my name right. Even some of people supporting me couldn't say my name right. But I did it because like each of you, I expected something of myself. With the help of many, many New Yorkers who knocked doors in the pouring rain and scorching heat, we built a campaign on the belief that a dignified life shouldn't be so far out of reach in the city we love.
Today, I have the immense honor of standing before you as your mayor. It's a nice story, isn't it? But it doesn't capture the fullness of the anxiety, the doubt and the crushing failures that dotted the way. So instead of boring you with the traditional graduation advice today, I want to offer you something simpler and more straightforward: recognition. Because while this is a day worthy of pomp and circumstance, celebration and triumph, I know there were days, months, even years - when your dreams felt impossibly out of reach.
Now, I am wary of drawing too straight a line from my experience to yours. I went to college in Maine, at a school where ultimate frisbee is a lifestyle. I've been able to take risks in my life, because I knew that even when I failed or fell, I'd still have a home to return to, a bed to sleep in, a safety net to catch me. But like every single one of the more than 8 million people who call our city home, like every single one of you - I have chased a dream. And like every one of you, there have been moments where I felt down and out. A few years before I ran for state Assembly, I was living at home with my parents, unsure of what to do with myself after my last song couldn't break 1,000 listens on SoundCloud.
It seemed the more music I made, the fewer people wanted to listen. But I wasn't ready to give up my music dream just yet. To paraphrase Schoolboy Q, "I was just sitting in the studio." Studio time was not cheap, so I took a job tutoring. One of my students went to a private school in the Bronx. To get there, I took the same 1 train to transfer at the same Bx10 bus that I rode to get to high school, a decade earlier. Except the bus I used to ride south I now rode north. In almost every way, I felt like I was going backwards. Ten years out from high school, I was still writing high school papers - except they weren't even my own.
Every night, as I lay my head down in my childhood bedroom, I'd fall asleep looking at the tower of CDs I'd accumulated in my teenage years: Common, Lupe Fiasco, Jay-Z [and] Talib Kweli. All rappers who spoke of being down but getting back up anyway.
When I was in middle school, I loved going to the Tower Records on 66th and Broadway. I had only been in New York City for a few years after arriving from Uganda and I liked the energy of the guys hustling bootleg CDs out front. I bought my first ever CD from them. And yes, it was Eiffel 65. At that time, my music taste was still very much developing. I listened to a lot of The Offspring's "Pretty Fly for a White Guy." Then I graduated to "The Blueprint" - the clean version. And then I found my anthems on "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," an album I listened to more times back to front than I can count.
I bought a jog-proof Walkman and threw it on the ground at school just so the kids knew it didn't skip during "Many Men." I still remember walking down the street with 50 Cent blasting in my ears, really feeling myself: "And if they hate then let them hate and watch the money pile up." That line still hits. It hits because it captures the ambition of our city - the ambition in this room, right now.
It captures the can't-tell-me-nothing, don't try to stop me energy of a New Yorker with something to prove. In my lowest moments, that energy fueled me to get up and get on with my day. To take the next step. Each of you know something about that too - about what it means to be a New Yorker. It's not just the swagger and the triumph and the train crossing the bridge at sunset. It's trying to make rent and afford groceries. It's the days when that train's running late or caught in the tunnel. It's the resilience this city demands. Being a New Yorker means showing up anyway, day after day, week after week, year after year.
So today, as we celebrate your highs, I want to give recognition to your lows. This is a room full of people who showed up. That isn't automatic. That isn't given. But that is - to quote a man who hates my tax policies - "how the money piles up."
That hunger that every single graduate here knows, that drive that lives deep in your belly, to go after your dream even when everything is standing in your way - that is New York City. You are New York City. In a traditional commencement speech, this is the part where I would tell you: "Welcome to the beginning of the rest of your lives." But I can't do that. You've all been living the rest of your lives for a long time. So, to the Borough of Manhattan Community College class of 2026: what I will say instead is thank you.
You are the beating heart of the greatest city in the world. Thank you for being the New Yorker that some middle-school aged kid, or some guy feeling like he's on a bus going backwards, can see and think: Maybe I can make it here too. Congratulations to the BMCC Class of 2026. You made it.
