Buenos días, mis estimados amigos.
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La escuela pos-graduado de Brown University les da la más cordial bienvenida a la ceremonia
de graduación de maestría del año 2018.
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Dean Kessel, Deans, faculty, Staff, friends and family, and of course, my fellow graduates:
Let me express my deepest gratitude for the privilege to address the Master’s class
of 2018 at the 250th Brown Commencement ceremony.
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I also want extend my gratitude to my peers
and to the Graduate Student Council for giving me such a wonderful opportunity, which I know
I will cherish for the rest of my life.
Class of 2018, we did it! [CHEERS] and it’s time we embrace this feeling.
Please let’s give another round of applause to our staff, from our custodians and landscapers
who make this campus beautiful everyday, [APPLAUSE]
to administrators, to family, friends and faculty
who have supported us through this journey to graduate from one of the finest institutions
in the world.
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In 1951, in his famous poem Harlem, Langston Hughes asked:
“what happens to a dream deferred?”
Today I will attempt to tackle this difficult question.
My name is Javier Juarez and today I will be graduating from the Master’s program
in American Studies.
For those who don’t know, the American Studies masters program is a short one but also an
action packed one- and let me tell you, I have enjoyed every single day at this university
since it opened its gates to me.
This year I had the opportunity to teach around the country from Stanford University
to Harvard, to a fishing village in Yabucoa, Puerto Rico, and for these opportunities I
am thankful to my department.
The American Studies program also introduced me to people from different walks of life,
people who came from different states like Colorado or California but also around the
world, like China and Germany.
Although strangers at the time, we all knew one thing - we had to hit the ground running.
During a deep conversation over 2 dollar beers and popcorn at the GCB, someone said that
“the best thing about Brown is its accessibility to incredible people,” and today, looking
back at my tenure at Brown, I couldn't agree more with that statement.
I may not know all of you, but I think we can agree on one thing (besides that the GCB
should actually sell actual food instead of just cheese and popcorn) but that thing
is- that at Brown there is a different way of thinking about the world, a new way that
can only be found here- and for that I am thankful to share this space with you.
Because of this realization, I began to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
While writing Dusk of Dawn, W.E.B Du bois said
“My life has its significance and its only deep significance because it was part of a
problem; but that problem was as I continued to think, the central problem of the greatest
of the world’s democracies and so the problem of the future world.”
Du Bois firmly believed that by sharing his life story as an African American he would
tackle the social and racial problems of his time.
Indeed he would be right as his contributions to the civil rights movement would be invaluable
to the elevation of black and brown people all over the world.
78 years later, these words are as relevant as ever, and today drawing inspiration from
intellectuals such as Du Bois and Hughes, I will share with you the significance of
my story.
A story that only a handful of people know, a story that I’ve struggled to keep to myself
until this very moment.
You see, I am 1 out of the 11.5 million undocumented people in this nation.
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After 2012 I became 1 out of the 800,000 DACAmented recipients across the country.
But here at Brown I am only 1 of a handful of DACAmented students in the graduate school,
some of which, will walk this very stage and graduate today.
Like them, getting to this point was not easy.
Aside from the financial burden that this education brings, we live in a country that
does not want us here.
We have been called illegal aliens, drug dealers, rapists, and more recently, animals- but after
today they will call us Ivy League graduates.
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This is why I am thrilled to be standing in front of you today, because as you can see,
the DACA chickens have come home to roost.
19 years ago, when I was a ten year old boy, I crossed the U.S.-Mexico border after being
stranded alone in Ciudad Juarez for 10 days.
My father, who had crossed weeks earlier, was trapped in a motel room, unable to leave
and go find me without the risk of getting caught by immigration.
He made the decision to not tell anyone that I was missing, to not give my beautiful mother
a heart attack.
I hope that no one in this audience ever experiences that feeling ever in their lives.
Once I finally arrived to the Texas side, my dad broke down in tears; he never anticipated
that we had to go through these lengths just to survive to find a better future.
But finally reunited, we rode a Greyhound bus from El Paso, Texas to Providence, RI.
We rode the same bus company where today ICE agents pull innocent people to immigration
custody if they fail to present proper documentation.
Luckily, those agents were not there that day.
But on a lighter note, a funny thing about that bus drive, my father and I didn’t know
how far Rhode Island was from Texas, so I kept asking the driver in my broken english
if we made it to Providence at every stop for the next 30 stops until we actually made
it to Little Rhody at a bus stop just down the hill from here,
no bags, just one set of clothes.
And that’s where it all began.
Life in the US was difficult in the beginning. My father worked a full time job
from 8-5 and a part time job from 6-10.
Although my father was an engineer in Peru, due to the language barrier and unfamiliarity
with the country, Javier Senior had to settle for ironing shirts at a laundromat and cleaning
bathrooms for a minimum wage at a building downtown.
For me, it was elementary school.
In Peru, I used to see my father all the time: he would take me to school, and have dinner
with us every night, however now with this new work schedule we barely had time together
-as he would leave before I woke up and come back late when I was asleep.
This gave my dad an unusual idea.
Let’s just say my dad put a whole new meaning to “bring your kid to work day”.
I don’t blame him though, like him I was also struggling to cope with the language,
making friends, and learning to be in a foreign country.
So one day my father asked me if I wanted to join him at his part time job.
I enthusiastically said yes, because I knew he worked at a shiny new building downtown.
But to be honest, it did not matter what we did, as long as I was with him.
He was my father and I missed him.
I still remember the first day of the job.
He showed me how to enter the building by signing in at the front lobby- getting our
cleaning supplies from the closet and using our badges to go up the elevator.
We would go floor to floor and take a sharp right turn to clean the men’s bathroom and
then knock and clean at the women’s bathroom.
We would use windex to clean the massive mirrors, and industrial cleaning chemicals to clean
the toilets, the urinals and the sinks.
Then we would mop the floor and move on to the next floor.
We repeated this through the whole night which had to take no less than 5 hours or
else we would get in trouble.
In those bathrooms while cleaning and mopping, we would talk about school, his job, my mom
and my sisters back home and all of the great things we can accomplish in this country if
we continued to work hard, stay positive.
We talked about our American dream and as optimistic as my dad was in those bathrooms,
we never expected that it would pan out like this.
Being accepted into Brown was one of my proudest moments of my life.
But during my first week of orientation I signed up for a class which was to be held
at the school of Public Health.
Seeing how I didn’t know my way around campus, I threw it in my GPS and walked to the location.
To my surprise, the Hemenways building which I’ve always known it as, was now the School
of Public Health, the same building where my father and I spent years cleaning every
toilet, every mirror and every sink.
I couldn’t believe it.
I tried to play it cool and walked in.
I said hello to the security guard and signed in.
I walked forward and passed the closet of janitor supplies, I pushed the button to call
the elevator.
Once the elevator arrived, I walked in and I went up to the top floor.
I remember the doors opening in slow motion, and instead of going to my class, I took a
sharp right turn into the men’s bathroom.
The feeling was surreal, my bottled up emotions finally exploded in the sink as I looked at
my reflection in the same mirror I had cleaned years ago.
And in this reflection, the image of my father behind me still cleaning those toilets -so
one day his son could have the opportunity he never had.
That man is sitting with us today, next to my beautiful mother.
The original dreamers.
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Los quiero mucho. Take a bow!
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I wanted to share this story with you all today not only to emphasize on the sacrifices
that our loved ones have made for us to be here today- but to show you how drastically
things can change with hard work, perseverance and a bit of luck.
Back when I was cleaning those mirrors, I never thought that I would be on this stage.
Back when I was cleaning those mirrors
I didn’t even know if we were going to make it another month.
But my father, he always knew.
I am proud to be a Brunonian and today I am telling the world, because this for me is
a culmination of the sacrifice, sweat, tears and constant rejections that I had to endure
to finally make it here.
I represent the deferred dream of the 11.5 million undocumented people in the nation.
Who due to our immigration laws are suffering, their dreams too have dried up like a raisin
in the sun.
Their dreams too have festered like a sore.
Their dreams too have begun to sag like a heavy load breaking their backs.
And one day too, their dreams will explode because the burden will be too great to dissolve.
Langston Hughes is as relevant today as he was in 1951 when he wrote Harlem.
So class of 2018, I know we have gone through a lot these last two years, so starting today
I want you to pick yourself up, dust yourself off
and begin again the work of remaking the world.
A wise man once said that.
Good ol’ Barry O.
For those who continued right after undergrad or those like me who came mid career
to Brown.
This goes without saying, this is not a race.
Do not compare yourself to others, your path is as unique and beautiful as your values
and intentions.
You have a bigger purpose for this life that will certainly affect others.
So continue going forward, continue questioning your purpose but most importantly continue
learning.
Because whether you are graduating in public health, cybersecurity, engineering, chemistry,
education, or American Studies, I have faith that you will go into this world to create
a better one.
A world where people are not marginalized, oppressed, abused, or discriminated against.
A world where there are no borders separating dreams, but only bridges that facilitate those
dreams become reality.
Use your voices to advocate for those in need and in doing so, remember the reasons for
why you pursued this journey in the the first place.
You, class of 2018, you have this power, after today.
So please- when you leave here today and go back to your hometowns, your places of work
or your places worship, tell them what you heard here today.
That a son of an immigrant, who didn't speak the language, who crossed borders illegally,
who cleaned the dirty bathrooms of this prestigious institution, graduated alongside the greatest
minds and told you to change the world.
And that the same American dream- which we have lost so much hope for, is still very
much alive, as you can see.
Thank you Brown University!
Thank you Class of 2018, may God bless you and all your future endeavors, it’s our
time to change the world.
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