Heroism in the Ivy League
(This is an adaptation of a speech that I gave at a banquet at Yale this year.)
My mom has never been able to visit Yale.
It goes without saying that to be at Yale is a privilege. To be able to write this as a student of Yale University brings a certain credibility and ethos that I certainly do not deserve but am awarded anyways. However, amongst all the praise and admiration that comes with being at an Ivy League school it never meant as much as receiving affirmation from my parents. Nothing can compare to the simple smile that comes from a proud father or mother. In Islam, we say that heaven can be found at the sole’s of our mother’s feet. We believe that outside of the divine there is no love greater than a mother’s and as I reflect over my four years at Yale I can remember far too many moments when I missed my mom. So my first piece of wisdom as a not so wise college student is to do whatever you can to spend as much time with your mother and/or father.
I never need a reason to remember my parents, but I do so here because I want to discuss something that I have believed strongly in my whole life: heroism. Specifically how heroism has shaped my life as a Muslim. As a Yalie. And as a Muslim at Yale.
Even when I was a little chubby brown ball of a kid, I would think about growing up and someday being a big chubby brown ball and I always wanted to be the hero. Whether it was Saturday morning Ninja Turtles when I was 7 or hopeless romantic Bollywood when I was 18, I always wanted to be a hero. I never broke down and analyzed what that word meant, hero, like we do so often in our classroom discussion sections. I just knew that I wanted to be someone that saved the day.
But by the time I came to Yale I had no intentions of being a hero. I had no intentions of standing out or being anything special. My expectations remained at “Thank God I made it.” This year as a Freshman Counselor I have been advising current freshman at Yale for the past few months and I have realized something astounding. Almost everyone comes into Yale not wanting or expecting to be something special. I find that so bizarre.
When I reflect on the caliber of people that have gone through Yale’s halls, that are currently in Yale’s halls, and that will someday go through Yale’s halls, I can’t help but feel like I have a responsibility to something bigger than myself. I brought up my relationship with heroism because throughout my time in college very few people have talked to me about heroism. I’m afraid that as a generation we are losing the desire to become heroes or heroines at places like Yale.
And especially at places like Harvard. Sorry I had to.
As a Muslim and as a first generation college student, for me an Ivy League education is nothing to take lightly. More importantly, education is nothing to take lightly. Whether you are at Harvard or taking college courses online, somehow you were able to earn a seat at that symbolic table of higher education, but it is imperative to remind ourselves that this seat is a costly one. And no, I am not even talking about the monetary cost of attendance at an Ivy League school. For many of us, to be able to go to our fancy institutions of higher learning someone somewhere sacrificed a whole lot. For me, it was my immigrant parents who left Pakistan for a better education system. For some of you it was your grandparents or even great grandparents. Regardless, sacrifice was necessary at some point for us to enjoy the many rewards and benefits that our schools offer us. I am here to tell you that those sacrifices don’t come without a price. We as individuals and as a community have a larger responsibility to pay it forward, and to continue to make the right sacrifices, and I am saying this is especially true for the Muslim community today. We have a moral obligation to come to terms with our role in society. We have been gifted opportunities, resources and abilities and we have to earnestly ask ourselves what we hope to accomplish with them in our short lives.
Look around: We have refugees spilling out of Syria by the millions. We have young black children being gunned down in our own backyards. There are girls being shot in South Asia for wanting nothing more than to go to school. We hear about a new gunman massacre at our own universities and work places every other month. We have absolutely despicable and evil people killing the innocent in the name of religion. My religion. And when the innocent and the underprivileged of each of our communities look desperately for people to save them, where are we? Whose role is it to stand up and defend them. Protect them. Speak for them. Fight for them. Who are their heroes?
I say it’s you and me.
I say its time to stop looking for heroes and heroines and to start becoming heroes and heroines. College is a time to figure out what you truly believe in. Instead of spending four years worrying about what you should be getting out of college we should be asking how we can use our intellect and our education to help ourselves and others at the same time. The big secret is that they don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
That diploma that we hope to get is a key to many different locked doors. Its time we start using it on the right locks. For the Muslim Community that may mean that those locks are no longer the traditional “safe” career paths of Medicine or Engineering. One of those locks just may be global media. There are a lot of different (usually negative) things that you can hear about Islam today in the media. However, I think what is most important for people to hear is that my Islam has always been a foundation to my belief in heroism. It’s not often that we hear about Islam and heroism in the same light, especially with the media and entertainment that we consume. Globally, Islam has become closer and closer to something villainous. A look at most B-listAction films to come out of the 2000’s will you tell you that. To me that just means that every Muslim or marginalized group in this country should have that much more motivation and fire to be a hero or heroine. It won’t be easy. It will require a lot of personal sacrifice. It may not…actually it will not be safe or practical. But when do heroes and heroines ever make the easy or practical choice? We don’t look up to them for that.
My mom. My biggest hero, will be coming to Yale for the first time when I walk across that stage at graduation.
I want her to see me get my diploma and think that Yale was able to take her 18 year old Muslim son and give her back a man that someday just might be somebody else’s hero.
.
