Meredith Alberta Palmer Keynote Address – Transcript:
I want to begin with a huge congratulations to the Indigenous graduates of Cornell University of 2021. Congratulations. My name is Meredith Alberta Palmer and I’m a postdoctoral scholar in the American Indian and Indigenous Studies Program and in the department of Science and Technology Studies here at Cornell University. I’m Tuscarora, Haudenosaunee by my mother line with my family up at Six Nations. My father was of Irish and Scottish descent and his family settled on Northern Paiute lands in what’s called eastern Oregon. I myself grew up in Philadelphia, moved to Ithaca when I was 11 and I’ve also lived some time in Vermont and California. Today I’m speaking to you again from Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ’ lands in Ithaca, New York, and I wish that I could be in a room with all of you maybe having a picnic at Akwe:kon. I wish I could get to know you all now that I’ve read about you before making this video and I want to let you know that my virtual door is always open so please do feel welcome to get in touch with me. I wish I could see all of your beautiful stoles and all of the wonderful goofy robes and hats that we wear to celebrate this occasion and I wish that I could meet all of your family, all of your relations and all of the friends who are surrounding you. I also want to start by acknowledging that this has been a very difficult and a very long year. I want to acknowledge that it’s okay to be sad about how this is all turning out right now and if you are sad, I understand very much what you’re feeling. Last year in 2020, I finished the eight year process of getting my own Phd just as this pandemic began. I’ve yet to walk across any stage, as I had dreamed to do with my daughter, and may not get to in the end. One of my advisors more or less jokingly told me that we should all put completed degree during 2020 global pandemic as a line on all of our resumes. It’s been a very difficult achievement and perhaps for some of you being here this year or during your longer degree time was a sacrifice; you were away from your communities during the time that you spent in Ithaca. Some of you may have found new family here at Cornell and some of you may have lost family or other treasured community members during this year or you’ve been far away fearing that you may lose them. What you’ve done amidst all of this and what we’re here to celebrate in this video is historic; you chose to stay and stick it out whether or not you feel it today and whether or not you feel it this month, you’re stronger now for it. And so despite not having this same day of celebration that maybe you dreamt of, your accomplishments here are no less momentous and they’re no less tremendous. Whether you feel like you’ve ridden through this time with strength and support or if you’ve felt lonely and anxious, or like you’ve just barely pulled through, you have done it, and that is truly amazing. And I hope that you find a way, whether you’re here in Ithaca or if you’re in your home communities or wherever you may be right now, to take time to rest, to celebrate, and to observe your hard work, your perseverance, and your achievement, whether this means maybe a meal with your family or a march across your living room blasting Pomp and Circumstance or a zoom call with friends or a walk with your favorite animal, take a moment to be with your pride. So whether you’re a first generation student or a second or third generation college graduate, this is momentous for each of you in your own way. You can go forward now into the world with a new set of knowledge and a new range of experiences and a new network and crew that has your back and are part of who you are forever. When you come to a university to get a degree, any degree, you’re not only given a more curated education and curriculum of classes and programming but you also confront another set of experiences that maybe you didn’t ask or plan for and that is increasing the visibility of Indigenous students on campus. Maybe organizing together across your differences and maybe confronting an administration that does not see us and does not have the tools to comprehend the depth of our knowledges and the knowledge of our communities that we come from and are a part of. And none of this work, this latter work, shows up on your resume or on your transcript but all of these experiences, the credentialed ones and the survival ones, come along with this degree that you’re earning this month, and it’s a degree that holds weight in many circles and so of course it also comes with responsibility and the diplomacy and the protocols that you’ve learned and developed, and will keep developing, in managing your relationship with an institution such as Cornell are skills that no class will have ever taught you. And though I wish we didn’t need them now, you have them and people will need you and many will want you and you’ll be carrying your new self and your degree out into the world and may be back into your homelands, and whether you do your good work loudly or maybe you’ll do your good work quietly, and whether you do your good work quickly or maybe you’ll do it slowly; whatever you do is going to shape the world we leave for our children, for our grandchildren, for our nieces, nephews, and nibblings. So whatever you do, keep throwing your head back in laughter, keep staring in the face of those who cannot see you or who erase you and tell them exactly who you are. Keep finding and building your people. Keep finding your own ways of defining success. Keep enjoying your process whether you know exactly where you’re going or not, and so importantly keep allowing yourself time to rest. The spring is here in Gayogo̱hó꞉nǫ’ lands and across the northeast and in a short month the strawberries will be here blossoming and fruiting and your own post-graduation life also blossoms ahead of you, and as it does be good to yourself and be good to each other. Your achievements are yours and would also not be possible without a network of people watching out for you in the best ways that they know how.
So I also want to thank all of the parents, all of the grandparents, the aunties, and the uncles, and the guardians who have made it so that these graduates could be doing the incredible work and achieving the incredible things that they’re achieving today, and which we’re celebrating. Your love and your care and your patience and your support and your questions have helped bring these wonderful students through a difficult, and hopefully ultimately rewarding process of getting their degree from Cornell University, and so thank you parents and caretakers so much for sharing your children with us and for everything that we’ve learned from them.
And so graduating class of 2021, celebrate where you can, whenever you can, what you’ve done is amazing and it’s done and I am so happy for each and every one of you.
Congratulations again.
