Gonzales hello, highlands. Id rate have a good time tonight . I know you are, because you are cowboys and cowgirls. This is an important time for you and your family. I want to thank the provost for a kind introduction. The board of regents for their work every day in guiding this university and faculty. Thank you so much for the invitation to be here. Before i get started, i want to recognize the people of santa fe. Best ofto wish you the success as you go forward. Graduates, this is all about you , but tomorrow is mothers day. In wishingou join me a very happy mothers day to your moms who fought so hard for you to get here . [applause] gonzales also, if i could ask all the veterans who have served our country with great honor, would you please stand up so we can thank you for your service. [applause] mayor gonzales thank you so much. I also want to quickly recognize one of my colleagues, the Santa Fe County commissioner who is receiving his masters degree. Congratulations. [applause] mayor gonzales i want all of you to know that i have a daughter heading off to college this fall, so i want to welcome all the parents and family members here as we did earlier. I am only beginning to sense that special mix of pride, hope, love, and anxiety that you all have been living for the past four years, but it has already caused me a few sleepless nights, i will not lie. So, congratulations to all of you in getting your sons and daughters here this far. Congratulations on achieving this incredible objective. It is always such an honor to bear witness to a commencement ceremony. It is one of the most powerful rights of passage that our society has. I know how powerful being on this stage can be. My brothers and parents recognized what it could mean, as they work hard at a Radio Station to enable me to be the first gonzales to graduate from college. My life was never the same after that moment. The work you have put in here means your life will not be the same either. It is hard to overstate how much a College Degree can change lives, open doors that you cannot even imagine, how it with the career you always dreamed of right there within your reach, how it changes dreams literally into realities. Can i get a show of hands from all the First Generation College graduates here . Stand up. We have a few we have a huge shout out. [applause] mayor gonzales for everyone here, this is a day of celebration and anticipation. My fellow first graduation firstgeneration graduates, i hope there is a special pride in the future, because statistically speaking what you have done today is lifted every succeeding generation of your family to success. Younggive all of these folks another round of applause again. [applause] gonzales the idea that college or post a secondary education creates change is so widely accepted today that hardly needs repeating by me. Still, it remains amazing nonetheless and it worth celebrating on days like this one. It is why the teachers have helped guide you to this moment. They all have worked so hard to create a community of learning to support you on your journey. It is why so much of what i do daytoday is about sending our young people successfully off to receive an associate or bachelors degree, or earn an apprenticeship, or learn a trade at union hall. Tois why we worked so hard build an economy that create a place for you to be successful as you go out into the world and begin your careers. Make no mistake about it. Im not only here today to deliver a well earned congratulations, but also to recruit. I am asking you and challenging you as you consider your next move to keep new mexico close to your heart. Know that you have something amazing to contribute to the next chapter of a long and beautiful history whose brightest days are still ahead. Today is special to me, because i get to be here on a campus that i love so much with faculty and administrators i have known and worked with. We are celebrating another class of incredible young people who will go out in change our communities, our state, and our world for the better. University,ighlands this place that you have shaped and contributed to and made it your own, has served people in the state. Wereast majority of whom born and raised right here in the land of enchantment. In all of those years, i have for many ofilege those years, i have had the privilege to serve on the board of regents. To help our young people follow jobs to becoming teachers. I have had a front row seat to see this place change lives and see the echo of that change in our world. To date, it is one of the most inspiring things i have had the opportunity to be a part of. Do not think that all of us here in these ropes petting you on the back means that your in you on the patting back means that your work is. Inished, no this is a milestone and not a finish. As you build your leadership in thoselassrooms and spent early mornings studying and preparing for exams as you dreamed about your futures, we have been hard at work out there to prepare the way for you. Now, your time has come, and not a moment too soon. You give us such great hope at a time in new mexico when hope is something we so badly need to rediscover. Look at the paper, and it is easy to be beaten down with the struggles that our state is facing. Every time we end up at the bottom of another list for child welfare, for poverty, it is a reminder that we must do better. It is frustrating, because each one of those small each one of those big figure statistics represents an individual. Thiseach of you, i love place so much, and i know and believe it is and we are capable of so much more. In all of my travels, i have never seen a place like new mexico. The natural beauty, the culture, the food, the art, the music, and the history the traditions we passed down from one generation to the next. These are all second to none. Even with all that, they are still not our greatest resources. I am looking at our greatest resource right now. [applause] mayor gonzales with every class we graduate, every class of leaders we send out, we get one step closer to taking control of our states destiny. I look around this room today, and i cannot help but feel hope. I know you feel it, too. It is not easy. The path you set out on is fraught with challenges. The world will put challenges in your path to define you and help you find out what makes you different. Often, it may use that to divide you from the people around you, and it is an easy trap to fall into. I have spent a lot of sleepless nights and missed opportunities trying to fit into the worlds categories. It means i spent a lot of my life feeling separate, apart from, different from. Thatad of celebrating difference, it made me feel divided from the rest of my community, my family, and my state. If i wished nothing else for each of you, no matter what your difference is, it is that it will not take you as long as it did me to find an embrace who you really are. That it will not take you a lifetime to learn to love the fact that everyone of us is unique. That the logical conclusion of all of that difference is not division that brotherhood and sisterhood. Is not division but brotherhood and sisterhood. Collectivekes both and individual problems formidable if not impossible. But you can be the antidote. You will be the antidote. A little at a time every day, every interaction am a every everythat you make, interaction, and every decision that you make, because you are living proof that giving into division can only lead into anger, hatred, jealousy, or spite. These are the things that you do not want driving your decisions or happiness in life. Reject the notion that we are not all in this together, and you will be amazed at how much more becomes possible. Reject the idea that disagreement equals difference. That argument equals anger, and that hatred is productive. The world will then open up to you in some incredibly magical ways. Hate has caused a lot of problems in this world, but it has not solved one yet. You do not have to take my angelos wordsa or mine, but you will find that hate is only something that stands in your own way. I cannot think of a bigger tragedy than that. If anything i say today cancer as a guidepost to you today ve as a guidepost to do, let it be that. We are counting on you. So far in my life in public mayore as a region, as a mayor, i have learned it is very easy to give into division. Ive also seen what happens when we fight to overcome that impulse, and it is so powerful. I know you have hopes and dreams for this place that you love. For your lives, your families, and your future. There is nothing the Human Potential is not capable of achieving if we put aside the things that keep us from working together. Do not doubt that you have the strength and intelligence to overcome, and we will never lose faith in you. I know how eager you are to start celebrating with everybody you love. However, i cannot let you lead re without leave he telling each and every one of you how much you have made me proud, how proud you have made the faculty, and how proud you have made your state. The hope and promise in this room is aweinspiring. You are going to go on and you incredible things. You will be artists, healers, builders, leaders, but be new exicans first, last, and always. That is all we will need to never lose hope in you. Thank you for having me here. Good luck. I look forward to seeing you all do incredible things. 2017 ss of [applause]