Commencement address prepared for the Center for Latin American Studies, Stanford University, Jun 16, 2024
A year ago, I was honored to be the commencement speaker at Bolivar House, the Center for Latin American Studies, CLAS at Stanford. I did not share the speech I prepared then, beyond my immediate community of students, colleagues and friends. In the current environment, with so much distressing news coming every day, I thought I would share this more widely. In that moment I closed with a reflection on the tragedy in Gaza, today we may want to reflect on display of hatred towards immigrants. I sought to remind all of us about how we should use our knowledge, drawing from Otros Saberes, the knowledges that have been bequeathed to us by the indigenous peoples of the Americas.
Commencement speakers who preceded me at Bolivar House work in saving the lives of children at risk in war zones, advocate for the protection of human rights, deal with the medical impact of the pandemic, explain the origins of the universe, produce wonderful worlds of literary fiction, or receive the Nobel Peace Prize. I am just a professor. But as I was preparing my address to you, it occurred to me that perhaps I was invited precisely because I can share with you something about what I have learned about humility as a professor. I want to share with you an intellectual journey that is the humble product of community, of our friends, our colleagues, our family.
I was blessed with a childhood full of intellectual nurturing. Books and opportunities for learning, including going to museums and traveling# throughout Mexico, were available to me from an early age. When I was young we rarely went to the beach as a family vacation, instead visiting towns with colonial centers, museums and churches. As I was growing up, I learned from both my mother and my father, as well as my siblings, about the ethics of honesty and hard work. Much of that teaching was through example. Integrity and effort go a long way in making living in this world less difficult than it would otherwise be.
My father taught me, among many things, that kindness was not incompatible with manhood. My mother taught me, among many things, that women were just as smart, successful, and powerful as men. These lessons in kindness and equality have guided me throughout my life. I am sure that the parents and caregivers that are here today gave you beacons of righteous behavior, as well as environments of love that gave you the opportunities to be where you are today. I want to thank them, the way I will always thank my parents for my Paideia, my Humanitas, my education. I use the Greek and Latin terms because they suggest that education is not just learning, but being a full person with morals, an intellect and a body, living in a polis, a territory of a shared political community.
My scholarly journey began from an early age, as a rather precocious and avid reader — and, I must add, an excellent A student (estudiante de 10). My teachers, from the early years in elementary school, until my time in graduate school, were critical to my maturation as a person that would devote his life to teaching and learning. My aunt Florence, a school teacher in New York, who married my uncle, a courageous and kind man who migrated to the US with my grandfather in the 1930s, imbued me with an insatiable curiosity for the world. My Argentine high school teachers, exiles in Mexico escaping the terrible dictatorship in their country, Ana Lía and Jorge, introduced me to Latin America, to historical narratives and to the imaginative worlds that literature makes possible. Without the guidance and help of many other inspiring teachers I would never have learned philosophy, statistics or game theory. In graduate school my adviser, mi maestro, Bob Bates, taught me how to think clearly, and the painful craft of translating thoughts into the written page. I am sure you all recall the teachers that were deeply involved in your growth and development. I want to thank them here today, for helping you all arrive at this point in your academic success.
The generosity of others is the reason why I was able to pursue an academic career. I received my first scholarship, in a prestigious private school, made possible by the Mexican government. I should explain that private schools in Mexico must give scholarships to a fraction of their students in lieu of taxes. I learned English thanks to a student exchange in fifth grade, spending some time in an immersive experience in Pittsburgh. Learning a foreign language, and all the opportunities such skill opens, was only possible due to the generosity of the school principal. Even though my family could not afford this international exchange, she funded me and my brother to have this opportunity. I was granted scholarships, paid by European, Mexican and US taxpayers, as well as private donors who endowed other forms of financial support, to pay for my undergraduate and graduate studies. Of course I was a good student. I worked hard. I studied. But without the generosity of these completely anonymous people, people I have never met, I would never have become a Professor at Stanford. We are the product of subtle and invisible threads that bind us to those communities and persons that decide to help us, even though they will never get to know us in person. So I want to thank the anonymous persons that made your education possible.
In my intellectual journey, I believed — and still do — that it is possible to change the world for the better. I am an economist and a political scientist. I come from a Mexican generation which was challenged with the problem of how to extricate ourselves from “the perfect dictatorship”. The Mexican PRI was perhaps less malign than dictators found elsewhere, but it was still an autocratic political order. When I was around your age, I experienced the transition of Mexico into a democratic political system. Many problems bedevil Mexico, including poverty, precarious health, economic instability, underemployment, racism, environmental degradation. A quarter century after the transition to democracy, those problems remain just as vexing and challenging to social scientists. But many in my generation believed we could address those issues through political institutions. We hoped that electoral and liberal democracy, in particular, could make a difference in the lives of people.
We believed that democracy would enhance, to use some terms coined by Indian economist Amarya Sen, the capabilities, functionings, freedoms and opportunities of everyone, but particularly of those less fortunate. Coming from a country characterized by extreme inequality and exclusion, many of us thought democracy would be the lever that could move the world. We were perhaps naïve. We believed in the transformative possibilities of politics. Of living in a polis (or civitas), where our paideia (or humanitas), as a community, where authority could be chosen and removed peacefully, and responsibilities were shared by all members. In my view, much of the political engagement of our current era is characterized by a high degree of despair and cynicism towards institutional politics. Growing as I did, I do not share this pessimism.
In my research I have written and studied questions of political representation, the role of taxes and governance, the power of the State, poverty alleviation, social programs, indigenous communities, among other topics, because I thought knowledge about politics and institutions can contribute to improving the lives of others.
I want to thank you, as our MA graduates, for your research. For engaging, using your privileged minds, your analytic tools, but most of all your passion, in the “betterment of society”. This goal is stated in the founding grant of Stanford as the purpose of this University. That text tell us that the “object” of this University is “to qualify its students for personal success, and direct usefulness in life”, but when it comes to its purposes, it says,
to promote the public welfare by exercising an influence in behalf of humanity and civilization, teaching the blessings of liberty regulated by law, and inculcating love and reverence for the great principles of government as derived from the inalienable rights of man [it obviously should also say woman] to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Moving towards my closing of these remarks, I want to share with you where my research has been going in the past decade. I have come to realize that one of the most powerful forces in the Americas comes from the knowledge and learning of the original inhabitants of these lands, Native Americans, First nations, indigenous peoples. I have spent much of the current stage in my scholarly career trying to understand and listen to voices that were never silenced. Maybe they became whispers, but just in the way in which original peoples have never ceased to inhabit these lands, their lands, their words and other wisdoms, sus otros saberes, are still available to us, if we know where to look for them.
So I want to share some words of indigenous wisdom, urging you to reflect on the wisdom you have acquired. These particular words come from a remarkable Encyclopedia, usually referred to as the Florentine Codex, produced by Nahua scholars in central Mexico. I apologize that the pronoun used in the following text is “he”, but since this is manuscript written in 1577, full of accounts of women as major figures in the social organization of indigenous society, but the scholarly learning in the Colegio de Santa Cruz the Tlatelolco where it was produced, was indeed restricted to men only.
De los sabios. El sabio es como lumbre o hacha grande y espejo luciente y pulido de ambas partes, y buen dechado de los otros, entendido y leído. También es como camino y guía para otros. El buen sabio como buen médico remedia bien las cosas; da buenos consejos y buena doctrina con que alumbra e guía a los demás, por ser él de confianza y de crédito, y por ser cabal y fiel en todo, y para que se hagan bien las cosas da orden y concierto, con lo cual satisface, encontenta a todos, respondiendo al deseo y esperanza de los que se llegan a él. A todos favorece y ayuda con su saber. El mal sabio es mal médico, tonto y perdido, amigo del nombre de sabio y de vanagloria, y por ser necio es causa de muchos males y de grandes errores, peligroso y despeñador, y engañador o embaucador.
The translation into English, from the Nahuatl original, provides us with some nuance the Spanish version actually lacks. Do keep in mind Nahuatl includes rhetorical devices of repetition and diphrasism that are not easy to translate. Diphrasisim in fact is a beautiful literary devise, such as in malacatl in tzotzopaztli (spindle and reed) for weaver, in cuauhtli in ocelotl (the eagle, the jaguar) for warrior, or In tlilli in tlapalli (the red and the black), representing writing in codices, hence knowledge:
The wise man [is] exemplary. He possesses writings; he owns books. [He is] the tradition, the road; the leader of men, a rower, a companion, a bearer of responsibility, a guide. The good wise man [is] a physician, a person of trust, a counselor; an instructor worthy of confidence, deserving of credibility, deserving of faith; a teacher. [He is] an adviser, a counselor, a good example; a teacher of prudence, of discretion; a light, a guide who lays out one’s path, who goes accompanying one. [He is] reflective, a confessor, deserving to be considered as a physician, to be taken as an example. He bears responsibility, shows the way, makes arrangements, establishes order. He lights the world for one; he knows of the land of the dead; he is dignified, unreviled. He is relied upon, acclaimed by his descendants, confided in, trusted –very congenial. He reassures, calms, helps. He serves as a physician; he makes one whole. The bad wise man [is] a stupid physician, silly decrepit, [pretending to be] a person of trust, a counselor, advised. [He is] vainglorious; vainglory is his; [he is] a pretender to wisdom…, vain –discredited. [He is] a sorcerer, a soothsayer, a medicineman, a remover of intrusive objects in people. A soothsayer, a deluder, he deceives, confounds, causes ill, leads into evil; he kills; he destroys people, devastates lands, destroys by sorcery.
While I am not competent to quote this incredible text in Nahuatl, let me read you the first sentence, so you can get a sense of the beauty of this text produced by the indigenous scholars of Mexico in the 16th century:
In tlamatini tlauilli ocutl, tomaouac ocutl apocio, tezteatl, coiaoac texcatl, necoc xapo, tile, tlapale, amuxoa, amoxe, tlilli, tlapalli, utli, teiacanqui, tlanelo, teuicani, tlauicani, tlaiacanqui.
Knowledge comes with responsibility. Your journey, I am sure, will be different from mine. But take a minute to reflect on what you have already accomplished. You are not alone but yes, it is your achievement, and yours to honor. You are already quite wise, but make sure you become good, not bad wise persons. And please, no impostor syndrome.
Before I close my remarks, I do want to devote some minutes to address one particular challenge of living engaged in the world today. The news coming out of Gaza has dominated what we read, watch in our social media, or experience first hand in our campus for months. We are physically quite far from all those events, but not mentally or spiritually. Latin America, we should always remember, has had its fair share of human suffering, emerging from civil war, foreign occupation, refugee displacement, genocide and famine. But in the space we occupy in Silicon Valley, in our beautiful surroundings, we are quite far from the horrors of war in the Middle East or the cruel criminal violence that has engulfed Latin America for decades.
Blossoming Latin Americanists. Let me tell you that you experience empathy with those who are suffering the tragedies of the world because you have decided to keep your eyes, ears and hearts open, watching, listening, feeling. You know that the world is a complicated place. You have learned over your career, studying Latin America, that there are subtle and deep connections between the peoples, cultures, economies, and politics, no matter how distant people may live from each other. The way you understand the world is probably by now irremediably tainted, by knowing so much about Latin America. You have lost your innocence.
We all witness the presence of Latin America here in the United States, in California, in Santa Clara county, at Stanford, every day. The person who has tended to this garden, who has cleaned the Casa Bolivar, or prepared the appetizers just ate, is most likely someone with relatives in Mexico, Colombia, El Salvador, or Guatemala. Many of them have suffered unspeakable violence. But I want to remind you that these cooks, gardeners, janitors, most likely also watch with joy in their spare time some Latin American soap operas or soccer. They dance and brighten their heart listening to music coming from Latin America or the Caribbean. We are connected by threads that are often invisible, not only by our tragedies, but also by our joy and happiness. By the dreams we share of the worlds that could be different, by our ideals.
Gaza reminds us every day of the tragedies of human suffering. But I would encourage you to take advantage of your new position to think about what you want your role in our connected world to be. Work with both your idealism and your realism. You are prepared to do so, because over the course of this year you have learned about the reality of Latin America, and you have also learned about Latin America as a dream, as a utopia.
In closing, it is customary in commencement speeches I have watched, in preparing this one, to give some piece of advice to the graduating class. I want to encourage you to think about the choices you have ahead of you.
Chose service, over profit.
Chose community, over personal success.
Chose to help others, even though it may not advance your career.
Chose kindness, over winning.
Chose friendship, over partnership.
Chose family, over clan or faction.
Chose to do what is right, even though it will cost you.
Chose, because you do have a choice.
Congratulations!
