Harvard Grad, Yurong "Luanna" Jiang, Reminds Us of Our Shared Humanity

In a powerful message to the Harvard class of 2025, graduate Yurong "Luanna" Jiang delivered the Graduate English Address with a speech called “Our Humanity.” Jiang brought awareness to the continual suffering in the world with compassion and empathy, and she encouraged her classmates to see the shared humanity in others.

“If there’s a woman anywhere in the world who can’t afford a period pad, it makes me poorer. If a girl skips school out of fear of harassment, that threatens my dignity. If a little boy dies in a war that he didn’t start and never understood, part of me dies with him.

But today, that promise of a connected world is giving way to division, fear, and conflict. We’re starting to believe that people who think differently, vote differently, or pray differently—whether they’re across the ocean or sitting right next to us — are not just wrong. We mistakenly see them as evil.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

What I’ve gained most from Harvard isn’t just calculus and regression analysis. It’s to sit with discomfort. Listen deeply. And stay soft in hard times.

If we still believe in a shared future, let us not forget: those we label as enemies—they, too, are human. In seeing their humanity, we find our own. In the end, we don’t rise by proving each other wrong. We rise by refusing to let one another go.”

—Yurong "Luanna" Jiang

Watch the full speech on YouTube or read the full transcript on Harvard Magazine.