We will be traveling together. Together, we are poised at one of the most important thresholds of your life. Like you and your families, I too have crossed many borders to be here. They have been national, ethnic, linguistic, generational, and intellectual, as well as gender and class based. Surely, I am not unique.
Border crossings are a necessary and essential part of every life.
Think about it, you have already had to cross borders of one sort or another - to be here today. Some of you come from different states, regions and, nations. California, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont and Wyoming, and also from Guam. Some of you have traveled from abroad, over many miles and through many time zones to be here. Others among you have crossed yet another kind of border.