On May 16, the University of Pennsylvania held its commencement ceremonies and its Class of 2016 graduated. However, before they did, Lin-Manuel Miranda, writer, and lead actor of "Hamilton," delivered his commencement address that made a lasting impact on many people, not just the graduates and their families.
His speech included apologies, adoration for Philadelphia, personal anecdotes, and inspiration for the graduates.
Miranda started off his speech apologizing for the lack of references to Philadelphia and Pennsylvania in "Hamilton." However, he highlighted the many things that occurred in Philadelphia and impacted history.
He also apologized on behalf of the real Alexander Hamilton, who traded away Philadelphia as the capital of the United States to get votes to create the Treasury. He then continued to say that Philadelphia is the real winner in the deal because of all of the amazing people that it produced and the incredible food that they have.
To emphasize this, he said that "every story you choose to tell, by necessity, omits others from the larger narrative."
He moved into a story about how his shoulder pain was a nervous tic created by the fact that he did not want to break up with his girlfriend at the time. He visited a doctor who told him of this fact and that he was "here to tell you that you'll have to survive [the pain] if you want to be any kind of artist."
What he wanted and what he needed conflicted with each other, teaching the lesson that we all have to go through pain to succeed sometimes. It won't be easy but we will be better for it.
He continued by telling another story about how he went about creating "In the Heights," Miranda's other Tony-winning musical. He was approached by a large producer who wanted him and director Tommy Kail to change the story of one of the major characters, Nina.
The producer wanted to change Nina's story from her losing her scholarship to making her pregnant or having a boyfriend abuse her. Miranda and Kail didn't want their show to take this kind of direction. They decided to decline, learning the lesson that sometimes waiting is better than taking the first opportunity that you get. It would be another 10 years before "In the Heights" would go to Broadway.
As the speech drew to a close, Miranda reminded all of us that our stories are important. He told them, "In a year when politicians traffic in anti-immigrant rhetoric, there is also a Broadway musical reminding us that a broke, orphan immigrant from the West Indies built our financial system.
A story that reminds us that since the beginning of the great unfinished symphony that is our American experiment, time and time again, immigrants get the job done." His reminder that the story told in "Hamilton" is still relevant today and that we can still learn things from history.
He tells them that, while they are entering very uncertain time, their stories will be incredibly important to their families and that they should not discount their stories.
From this speech, we learn the importance of our individuality and that even we can be great. Our stories can be incredible, despite any struggles that we might have. All of us have the ability to create a magnificent story, we just have to be willing to go out and create it.
We cannot be afraid of failure and we must be willing to reject good offers so that we can accept even better ones. While none of us can hope to be as great as Lin-Manuel Miranda, we can all use his words and story to inspire us to go out and create amazing things.
You can read the full transcript here or watch the video here.
