 Wow, Chancellor, faculty, staff, parents, students, and Ann Coulter. Welcome to the graduation ceremonies of UC Berkeley 2017. I'm kidding, she's not here, she's not here, don't worry, don't worry, she's not here. But maybe she's watching, maybe she's watching, live streaming. Hey Ann, they let me speak, haha, yeah, that's right, yeah baby. That's what happens when you're not saying stupid stuff. Anyway, graduates, congratulations, today is your day, all of you, after four arduous years, some of you five, after five arduous, some of you six, after six arduous, a few of you seven, after seven arduous, if you've been here seven years, you probably don't know what arduous means. So after seven hard years of work, you're graduating, congratulations, you're on your way. Today is about you, so let me spend the next hour and a half telling you about me. No, it won't be an hour and a half, about 20 minutes, anyway. Guys, I gotta tell you, I can't believe I'm giving this commencement speech right now, it's very surreal to me. I graduated from UC Berkeley almost 25 years ago, yeah man. Go Bears, and I still can't, back then I never would have imagined that I'd be up here giving this speech. When you first invited me to give the speech, I immediately accepted, I was honored, I was excited, and then the next day, I started freaking out. Yeah, I was like, what the hell was I thinking? I'm a comedian, I don't want to write a speech. I mean, it was almost like I'd given myself a homework assignment. Yeah, I mean, I dropped out of a PhD program to not write homework, but here I was. Yeah, and the worst part of the homework assignment was that if I did not turn in this homework assignment and complete the speech, not only would I not graduate, but you wouldn't graduate. Yeah, it started weighing on me and I started getting nervous, I was losing sleep, I actually couldn't figure out, I said, why did you pick me? And then I found ways to calm myself. You know, for example, I thought, well, I don't even remember who gave my commencement speech back in 93. Yeah, and then I thought, will you guys remember who gave your commencement speech here today? Well, no, I thought most likely no, because most of you are probably stoned. Yes, thank you, Cal. Thank you, that made me feel much better. And if you do remember who gave your commencement speech, then you just need better weed. Now, guys, I prepared for this speech and in preparing for this speech, I went online and I did some research. I found that Cal alumni and researchers have won 90 Nobel Prizes, 45 MacArthur Fellowships, yeah, 14 Pulitzer Prizes, 117 Olympic gold medals and 20 Academy Awards. Yes. And yet you picked me to give your speech. I graduated from Cal in 1993 with a bachelor's in political science and a minor, yes, poli sci and a minor in Italian. Yes, I have won zero MacArthur Fellowships, zero no bells, zero Pulitzer Prizes, zero gold medals. I haven't even won a bronze medal, but I'm that guy from the CBS sitcom, Superior Donuts. So I'm giving the speech. Yeah. Yeah, it didn't make sense to me either, man. Guys, listen, I had to dig deeper to find out what really happened. And I was told that you were originally you tried to get Barack Obama. Yeah. Now, see, that makes sense. But when he said no, you settled on me. What are you guys lazy? Would you guys go out to the first African American president of the United States of America? He said no. And then you go, well, who's someone who's looking for more Instagram followers? Someone who'll do this and won't say no. Call Maz. He'll do it. And you know what? You were right. I am looking for more Instagram followers. Here, come in. Let's do a selfie real quickly, everybody. Here we go. Here we go. Get close. I'm going to tag all of you. Hold on. Here we go. One, two, three. And one with these guys. Now I've got the picture, but I still don't know why you picked me. I thought, in all honesty, I thought that maybe you guys picked me because I'm a Cal alumnus and I could tell you some facts about Cal that will make us all feel good about UC Berkeley. For example, you guys probably know about this. Cal Forbes. Forbes just ranked Cal as the number one value college in all of America. Yes. Which has your parents breathing a sigh of relief going, woo, we got our money's worth. At just under $13,000 a year, your parents could have been driving around the past four years in a Jaguar XE. But instead, they sent your ass to Cal. Yeah, so you better get a job soon and pay them back or at least start working as a Lyft driver and give them free rides for four years. That's value for your money. Just this year, Cal scientists figured out why shoelaces come untied. Yeah, I read that in the Daily Cal and I thought to myself, you can get a grant for that? And then I thought they should have just paid me. I have kids. I would have told them to double not it. Duh. Now Cal is not just an academic behemoth, but it also has great sports. Yes. Cal is ranked number one in watching football games. Cal football games. Yes. Cal fans were ranked number one in watching Cal football games and going, yeah. Oh. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. Oh. Usually ending in, oh. But we love our team. Yes. Go Bears. Now, you know, Cal's Sproul Plaza was the birthplace of the free speech movement in the 1960s and has since been the birthplace of several thousand drug deals. If Cal were a celebrity, it would be Lucy Lu. Smart, beautiful, and mostly Chinese. Yeah, the Chinese guys like that. There you go. That was good. You like that? You like that? You can clap. Yeah, man. And lastly, lastly, here's a good statistic. Cal is ranked number one is the top university in all of the Bay Area beating out Stanford in every category that counts. Yeah. Yes. Yes. This was a study done by me in my own head. Go Bears. So it's clear that I graduated from Cal. But there's a lot of Cal alumni who aren't giving this speech today. So I thought to myself, there must be another reason why you guys invited me. And I realized the reason I was invited is most likely because I am a Cal alumnus who also happens to be an immigrant. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's right, Fox News. Immigrants taking your jobs again. Yeah, baby. In a time when anti-immigrant sentiment is on the rise and we have a president who fans the flames of fear against immigrants and refugees, leave it to the students at UC Berkeley to send a message of inclusivity to the world by choosing an immigrant to give the commencement speech here today at Cal. Now, before I go any further, I know that some of you are thinking, oh no, here comes the anti-Trump stuff. And this being Cal, most of you are thinking, oh yes, here comes the anti-Trump stuff. Yeah. Let me assure you today is not about Democrats or Republicans or Independence or Green Party or any of that stuff. Today, there's only love for everybody. I'm serious. Yes. I'm serious. Listen, even if you voted for Trump, we still love you. We do. Listen, I know immigrants that voted for Trump. Yes. I have immigrant friends who voted for Trump because they wanted fewer taxes. They ended up with fewer relatives. But still, things happen. Things happen. Speaking of Trump, if you're thinking of committing a federal crime, this weekend would be a good time to do it because he just fired the head of the FBI. Jim Comey. Yeah. Easy Comey. Easy Comey. Trump keeps firing people. Can someone let him know he's no longer on the apprentice? Okay. Enough Trump stuff. Let's get serious. Guys, let me start by saying, and I know this is being live streamed as well. So let me tell the world, immigrants love America. All right? We love America. We run away from strife and conflict and poverty to come here for a better life. As cliche as it might sound, America is still the land of opportunity where anyone can become anything. I was born in Iran. Yes, my Iranians. Yeah. At the age of six, my family was forced to flee the Iranian Revolution, and we came to America. Today, I stand in front of you giving the commencement speech at one of the top universities in America, if not the world. I am the American dream. Now, as many of you know, Berkeley has students from over 160 different countries, and that number does not include the immigrant students with US high school degrees. Cal was the first campus to have an undocumented students program and is the role model for dozens of other programs that are being created across the country. I know that many of you are first generation Americans or your parents are first generation Americans. Yes. For many of you, you're the first graduating in your family. Yes. Guys, your parents have sacrificed so much. They fled war and revolution and worked hard and swallowed their pride to get you here today. We have an amazing mix with us today. I know, for example, we've got Mexican Americans. Let me hear Mexican Americans. Let me hear Mexican. Yes. Yes. We've got Indian Americans. Indian Americans. Let me hear Indian Americans. Yes. Chinese Americans. Chinese Americans. Iranian Americans. Syrian Americans. Yes. Let me keep it going. What else do we have? Just yell what you have. Lebanese Americans. Where are you from? There we go. We got it. He brought his flag. He brought his flag. There we go. We have Vietnamese Americans. Armenian Americans. Give it up for wherever you're from. Give it up. Give it up. Colombian Americans. Yes. Palestinian Americans. Yes. Iraq, guys. This is a beautiful mix of people. Let's keep it going. Where's my Native Americans? Native Americans? Native Americans. African Americans. Where's my African Americans? Yes. Where's my white people? White people. White people. Yes. We love you, white people. White people. You're the rice and we are the spice. Yes. White people. Without us, all day long, you'd be eating meatloaf. Because of us, you have chow mein and you have sushi and you've got a kebab and hummus and curry. Who doesn't love curry? This is America right here. Look at it. This is America. Now, guys, yes. Give it up for you. America. This is America. Guys, my parents came to America and they brought us in late 1978. They were in the middle of their lives back in Iran, but they had to leave their home and bring the kids and work. And they had to come to a foreign land. But back then, in late 1978, America welcomed us. But then things changed quickly when Iranians took Americans hostage in Iran. And suddenly, we started getting blamed for the actions of a government that we had fled and that we opposed. Yes. Things turned ugly when that anti-immigrant sentiment started coming home and hitting close to home. When I would be in the fourth grade and I would have older kids call me an F and Iranian. Other Iranians were being beaten up and shot at, just for being Iranian in America. Unfortunately, this has been a part of American history for other communities as well. As we all know, Japanese Americans during World War II were put into internment camps for the actions of the Japanese government. More recently, after September 11th, Indian Sikhs were shot and killed just because they were war turbines. Even more recently, just this past year in Kansas, a man went and shot two Indians and then went and claimed that he had shot two Iranians. Our own president fans this anti-immigrant flame by calling Mexicans rapists and drug dealers and by clumping in Syrian refugees with ISIS, even though they're fleeing ISIS. Earlier this year, when the administration tried to impose their travel ban, I knew a storm was coming. The travel ban was sold as a way to keep terrorists out of America and to keep America safe. However, none of the countries that were in the travel ban had committed an act of terror in America. Again, people who had done nothing wrong were being blamed. I heard a lot of the real stories of what was happening. I heard of an elderly couple who had flown to America, to Los Angeles, with a visa to come see their son. And once they landed, they were coaxed into signing a piece of paper that revoked their visa. They were put back on an airplane and sent back to Iran. I heard of another Iranian man in Norway who had gotten a visa to come see his father, who was sick and basically on his deathbed, and his visa was revoked. I heard of a Syrian refugee family who had been living in the Middle East in a refugee camp, had been vetted after several years, told they could come to America, sold all of their belongings and then told they can't come to America. This travel ban was not keeping America safe. It was tearing families apart and ruining lives. Hearing those stories reminded me of my own experience. What would have happened if on December 5, 1978, when I came here with my family, they put us back on a plane and sent us back to Iran? What kind of psychological damage would that have done to me and my family if we had to be sent back into a revolution that we were fleeing? Imagine your own parents and your own grandparents. What would have happened if when they landed in America they were sent back? How would that have changed your destiny? Immigrants and refugees are not just numbers. They are people coming to America for a better life. Yes, I believe I believe that most Americans are good people and if they could only hear the stories of the struggles of these refugees and these immigrants, they would welcome them rather than shunning them. If I can drive one point home to you today, it would be to put yourself in the shoes of the less fortunate and have empathy. You are blessed to be graduating from one of the top institutions in the world. Not everyone has that opportunity. So when you come across others in America or around the world who are less fortunate than you, be open to them and try to understand their experiences. Try to help them if you can. Always fight for the underdog. One of the coolest things I saw when I went to a protest at LAX against the travel ban was the group of lawyers who'd shown up and were waiting for people to arrive so they could volunteer their services to help them. Be that lawyer. Now, whether you're an immigrant or not, we're to crossroads in American history and you graduates are right in the thick of it. Do we keep the American dream alive and let people from around the world come to this country to make the best of their lives or do we close ourselves in and kill the American dream? 25 years from now, who will be giving this speech? Will it be someone from Damascus or Mogadishu? Or who knows maybe an undocumented student? Yes, I would encourage us to aim for a future America that welcomes people of different backgrounds and thrives on diversity. Now since we're at Berkeley, I have to talk about another topic as well and that is free speech. I'll keep it brief. As someone born in Iran where free speech is limited and people fight for it on a daily basis, sometimes even dying for it, I would urge you to always, always fight for free speech and never take it for granted. Now, as the chancellor so eloquently put in an op-ed piece in the New York Times, I know that Berkeley recently found itself in the middle of some controversies with threats of violence and had to make some decisions about and culture and Milo Yiannopoulos on this campus. Let me tell you in preparing for this section of the speech, I actually have to go back and read some of the writings of Ann Coulter and Milo Yiannopoulos. Oh my God, talk about torture. I mean they say a lot of stupid stuff so I can understand why you don't want them to speak here. However, I would encourage you to fight even for their right to free speech. I know that's not a popular thing to say at Cal, but I really feel that's a conversation we should have and I also feel that if we let them speak, eventually they will hang themselves with their own words. We saw that with Milo, the way Milo did. Now let me tell you why free speech is so important you guys. I've done stand-up comedy around the world and in 2007, I got to go to the Middle East and do a tour in five different countries and whenever we do shows in the Middle East, the promoters would tell us you can talk about anything you want but no sex, no religion and no politics. So we'd say hello and good night. Or since we were in the Middle East, salam aleikum and aleikum salam. Fox News will take that clip as well and put it with the immigrant. He spoke Arabic and he took our jobs. But let me tell you the reason they didn't want us talking politics, they didn't want us talking about their leaders in their own country. So if you were in Egypt you couldn't talk about Hosni Mubarak who was the president then but you could talk about a leader in another country. As a matter of fact, at one point one of the promoters got word to us that the Ministry of Information had contacted them asking us if any of us had any material about Hosni Mubarak. I swear to God. The reason was a journalist a few months earlier had written a piece where he said that Hosni Mubarak was looking older these days and he'd been thrown in jail for it. Yeah, so I quickly told the promoters I have no jokes about Hosni Mubarak, that handsome young devil. But here's the thing where it comes to free speech. When I came back to America, people would ask me what's the difference between stand-up in the Middle East and America? I would tell them the difference is in America we're encouraged to make fun of our leaders. In America our late night hosts make fun of our leaders on a nightly basis because we are secure in our government. Our leaders are secure in their leadership. In America we hold an annual dinner where the president shows up and gets roasted. And then this year Donald Trump decided not to attend. And I thought oh my God we're closer to a Middle Eastern dictatorship than an American democracy. Why is President Trump afraid of being made fun of? Is he not secure in his leadership? Why is it that every time there's a piece of news about him that he doesn't like he calls it fake news? These are tactics that a Middle Eastern dictator like Hosni Mubarak would be using in 2007 rather than a tactic that the leader of the free world should be using in 2017. So my point on free speech is that if we limit the free speech from the right, then we sound like hypocrites when we criticize our own president for trying to limit free speech and free press. Yes let's be the ones, let's not be the ones attacking free speech, let's be the ones defending it. Now I know I'm getting a little political here today and I'm sure that some of your parents and grandparents are not too happy about it but hey it'll be make for good conversation over brunch and mimosas. But I'm not going to apologize and I'll tell you why. In many immigrant cultures we're told not to question authority. Growing up my parents would tell us that we have a reputation in the community and that we should just stay out of trouble and not rock the boat. But in America we're encouraged to question authority and I implore you to keep rocking the boat even when you graduate. Yes, criticize our leaders and hold them accountable. Guys the travel ban reminded me that even though I've lived most of my life in America some people don't consider me American. It reminded them that my rights could be taken away at the drop of a hat. I woke me up. The travel ban woke me up and I started going to the protests at LAX and I started posting on social media and some people that were fans of mine on on on Facebook would write me back and say maz stop talking politics you're going to lose a fan and I would write back oh well I would rather fight for what's right and follow my heart than sell tickets to a comedy show. I encourage you to get involved be politically active. You know it's easy it's easy to get a nine to five put your head down and collect a paycheck but there's so many causes out there and they need you. We all know there's so many battles that need to be fought immigrant rights women's rights black lives matter global warming LGBTQ rights and many many more stay politically active. Though there's much work to be done you guys a lot of this work falls in your lap I'm very optimistic about your future. I think you'll be more integrated and more progressive than many generations before you. I myself am Iranian American and my wife is Indian American. Our kids are confused but they don't know the difference in color they don't judge people based on color. Keep pushing the envelope of inclusivity. Now as much as I'm not I'm not a religious person I try to live my life by these three tenets that I've heard in the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism good words good thoughts good deeds try to live your life with those tenets. I will end today on a less political note I'm gonna I'm gonna leave you with a few parting tips that I've gleaned over the past 24 years since I was sitting where you're sitting here today. Let's call these final tips. Tip one always tip preferably 20 percent if you can. I believe in karma and that what you put out in the world will come back to you but it also feels good. And besides being stingy sucks and nobody likes you. Tip two find what it is that you love to do and do it and only you know what that thing is. My mom yes my mom wanted me to be a lawyer when I told her that it did not want to be a lawyer she told me and I quote well then at least become a mechanic. I swear to God I asked her I said how'd you go from from lawyer to mechanic. She said everybody needs a mechanic nobody needs a comedian it's true. I realized my mom didn't know what my passion was she just wanted me to have a secure future because she loves me and I love my mom as I'm sure most of you love your moms but your parents don't know crap. Nobody knows crap when it comes to what you want to do in your life. Picking your passion for your life is not a secure choice but if you can find that passion you will be happy and you will you will follow your passion and lead a great life. So find that passion and live that live that passion. Tip three travel the world is big and it's beautiful. Go see the world and by seeing the world I don't mean a weekend in Cabo. Go overseas go to South America go to Europe go to Australia go to the go to Beirut go visit Beirut yes Lebanon go visit the Muslim world you will see that must yes go visit the Muslim world you will see that Muslims are not out to get you they just want you to buy a rug. Tip number four never pay full price for that rug always negotiate and in negotiating always say my friend it helps my friend discount for me my friend tip five kiss your parents every time you see them yes kiss your parents every time you see them especially if they're immigrants because you never know tomorrow they might be deported UC Berkeley I want to thank my family who came out today my wife my mother my sisters my friends my my old school teachers I want to thank you for inviting me I want to thank everyone here and congratulate them once again congratulations UC Berkeley class of 2017 and go