Read the full transcript of Zohran Mamdani’s delivered an emotional and deeply personal commencement address to the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) Class of 2026,
Editor’s Note: In this commencement address to the BMCC class of 2026, Mayor Zohran Mamdani celebrates the resilience of students who navigated significant personal and economic hardships to reach graduation. He reflects on his own non-traditional path and emphasizes that their drive, ambition, and ability to “show up” despite setbacks truly embody the spirit of New York City.
INTRODUCTION
ZOHRAN MAMDANI: Hello, class of 2026! I know that we are at Barclays right now, but you know what I’m going to ask. Can we make some noise for the New York Knicks? That is right. Now let’s hear it for our graduates!
Do we have Brooklyn in the house? Do we have the BX in the house? 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 Rodriguez, President Munroe, 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 ones with their textbooks cracked open at the kitchen table in the middle of the night. You saw them juggle school with work and child care in two 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. Please give yourself a round of applause.
On Commencement Speeches
Now, for the past few weeks all across the country, commencement speakers like me have stood in borrowed robes at lecterns like this one, struggled with their hats like I am, 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. They fix their hat one more time.
And if there’s one thing these speeches share, it’s the guidance they offer to a group of graduates who, at this point, let’s be honest, 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.
The BMCC Class of 2026 Already Knows Real Life
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, Vyarak is graduating with a degree in mathematics.
Or try telling Cynthia Kukbezi 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 3 a.m. 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.
A Nontraditional Path
More than half of today’s graduates are the first in their family to go beyond a high school diploma. And 14% of this graduating class attended school while caring for their children. Every one of today’s graduates has a story as full of setbacks and triumphs as the three that I’ve shared.
But here’s 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 entire speeches encouraging graduates to go out into the world to 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 will 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. I’m also African. I’m also American. I’m Muslim with Hindu family.
I’m a Drake fan, and I can still recognize that “Not Like Us” is a banger. We exist. Representation matters.
Running for Mayor When They Said I Shouldn’t
I ran for mayor when a lot of people told me I shouldn’t. They told me I wasn’t the right age. I didn’t know the right people. I didn’t have the right credentials. I didn’t know how to wear this hat. You all might know something about that, too.
Some people say that when I entered the race, I was polling at 1%. It’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 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 the scorching heat, we built a campaign on the belief that a dignified life shouldn’t be so far out of reach in the city that we love. Today I have the immense honor of standing before you as your mayor.
It is a nice story, but it doesn’t capture the fullness of the anxiety, the doubt, 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.
Recognition for the Hard Days
Because while this is a day worthy of pomp and circumstance, celebration and triumph, I know there were days, months, frankly 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 I fell, I’d still have a home to return to, a bed to sleep in, a safety net to catch me, which is more than enough.
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 in that chase where I have felt down and out.
From SoundCloud to Studio Time
A few years before I ran for state assembly, I was living at home with my parents, unsure what to do with myself after my last song that I released couldn’t break a thousand streams on SoundCloud. It seemed the more music I made, the fewer people wanted to listen. But I wasn’t ready to give up on my music dream just yet.
To paraphrase Schoolboy Q, I was just sitting in the studio. Now, studio time, as some of you may know, was and is not cheap, so I took a job tutoring. One of my students went to a private school in the Bronx.
Taking the Long Way Back
To get there, I took the same one train to St. Louis. To get there, I took the same one train to transfer to the same BX10 bus that I rode to get to Bronx Science a decade earlier as a student. Except the bus that 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 this time they weren’t even for me.
Every night as I lay down in that same bedroom that I had grown up in, I’d fall asleep looking at the tower of CDs I’d accumulated in my teenage years. Common, Lupe Fiasco, Jay-Z, Talib Kweli, all rappers who spoke of being down but getting back up anyway.
The Soundtrack of a New Yorker
When I was in middle school, I loved going to the Tower Records on 66th Street and Broadway in Manhattan. I’d only been in New York City for a few years after arriving from Uganda, and I liked the energy of the guys who were hustling bootleg CDs out front. I bought my first ever CD from them, and yes, it was Eiffel 65. For those of you who don’t know, they sang the song “Blue (Da Ba Dee).” At that time, my music taste was still very much developing.
I listened to some of the Offspring’s “Pretty Fly for a White Guy.” Then I graduated to the Blueprint, the clean version. Then I found my anthems on Get Rich or Die Trying, an album I listened to more times back to front than I can count. I bought a jog proof Walkman. Does anyone here know what a jog proof Walkman is? Maybe up in the crowd. And threw it on the ground just so the kids knew it wouldn’t skip during “Many Men.” This used to be a concern that we had.
I still remember walking down the street with 50 Cent blasting in my ears, really feeling myself. And the lyrics were, “and if they hate, then let them hate, and watch the money pile up.” This line still hits, and I know it hits for a few who are here on the stage, a few who are here in the crowd, because the ambition of our city that it captures in those words, it speaks to the ambition that is 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.
What It Means to Be a New Yorker
In my lowest moments, that energy fueled me to get up and get on with my day, to take the next step. Now 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 same train is running late or caught in the tunnel. It’s the resilience this city demands of each of us.
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 also give recognition to your lows. This is a room full of people who showed up. And that is not automatic. That is not a 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. And it is such an honor to be here before you as the mayor of our city, delivering the first ever commencement speech that I have in my time in that position.
A Message of Gratitude to the Class of 2026
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!
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