'I Am Muslim With Hindu...': Zohran Mamdani Delivers Emotional Message In Powerful Graduation Speech

Summary

Zohran Mamdani delivers an emotional commencement address to the BMCC (Borough of Manhattan Community College) Class of 2026, framing their graduation as a triumph over nontraditional paths and persistent hardship.

Celebration and acknowledgment

• Mamdani opens with enthusiastic audience engagement, acknowledging Brooklyn, the Bronx, Staten Island, Manhattan, Queens, and the New York Knicks.
• He thanks:
  • Chancellor Rodriguez
  • President Monroe
  • Provost Jones
  • Deans
  • Faculty and staff
• He especially highlights the families and support networks behind the graduates—emphasizing how parents/relatives balanced work, childcare, long commutes, and home responsibilities to help students reach this milestone.

Rejecting “traditional advice” with real stories

Mamdani contrasts typical commencement phrases like “take risks,” “dig deeper,” and “dream bigger” with BMCC graduates whose lives already reflect those lessons without platitudes.

He shares or references examples of graduates overcoming barriers such as:

• Accounting: arriving in New York and later completing a degree while managing family responsibilities
• Mathematics: growing up in difficult circumstances and pursuing higher education
• Respiratory therapy: studying while raising multiple children and commuting early each day

He also emphasizes the class’s diversity:

• students from many countries and languages
• a large share being first in their families to go beyond high school
• many attending school while caring for their children

His personal identity and political credibility

Mamdani connects personal identity and leadership credibility, describing his own nontraditional background as Indian, African, American, with a Muslim/Hindu family, and using pop culture references.

He links representation to leadership by describing his run for mayor—despite obstacles such as:

• low polling early on
• difficulties getting his name right

Ultimately, he becomes mayor.

Key message: “Recognition” of lows, not just highs

Rather than the standard theme of “the beginning of the rest of your lives,” he argues graduates have already lived much of that “rest” through years of chasing dreams.

He pivots to recognition—honoring the doubt, failures, and anxiety that came before success.

A detailed account of setbacks and persistence

He recounts a period when his music career struggled after releasing a song that didn’t perform well on streaming.

To keep going, he took a tutoring job, describing it as a form of “going backwards” both geographically and emotionally. He explains how teenage music inspirations—such as Tower Records, various rap artists, and 50 Cent’s mindset of “watch the money pile up”—helped him endure his lowest moments and continue moving forward.

“New York City” as resilience

Mamdani defines being a New Yorker as relentless effort: showing up despite late trains, rent pressures, and everyday instability—more than “swagger” or symbolic triumph.

He tells graduates that their hunger and perseverance are what define both them and the city.

Closing

He thanks the BMCC Class of 2026, calling them the “beating heart” of New York City. He also frames the speech as the first commencement address he has delivered as mayor.

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Presenters / Contributors

• Zohran Mamdani (speaker; mayor; graduation address)
• Chancellor Rodriguez
• President Monroe
• Provost Jones
• Deans
• Faculty
• Staff
• Audience members / graduates and their families (mothers, fathers, siblings, cousins, friends, spouses, partners, etc.)