DeLauro Delivers Commencement Address at Platt Technical High School

New Haven, CT – Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-03) gave the commencement address at Platt Regional Technical and Vocational School in Milford today. More than 800 students from 24 towns attend this specialized school, which focuses on providing trade and technology skills and preparing students for post-secondary education while staying current with the global workforce's changing needs and expectations through business and school partnerships.

Congresswoman DeLauro's remarks appear below.

Thank you. It is an honor to be here with you this evening. And it is good to be back – I last spoke at this ceremony in 1993, when many of you graduating tonight were still very new to this world. Time flies!

I would first like to thank your principal, Gene Laporta, for inviting me to join you. Good education depends on good teachers and strong administration, and in this, the Platt Regional Technical and Vocational School is richly blessed to have leaders and educators like Gene. He has spent a career helping young, bright Connecticut minds, like all of you being honored today, to learn manufacturing skills and to harness your capacity for innovation. Gene, thank you so much.

Thank you to State Representative Dick Roy for joining us. And thanks and congratulations also to Samantha Zofchak, tonight's valedictorian, and Andrew Kelly, tonight's salutatorian, for your reflections tonight, as well as your record of academic achievement.

And, most importantly, congratulations to all of you young men and women, the largest graduating class in Platt's history. This is your night. You have each accomplished so much in order to get here, and you and your family should be proud.

Tonight represents hard work, excellence, striving, and accomplishment. You know the value of educational achievement and you have put tremendous time and effort into it. So it is a very special honor for me to share your graduation ceremony with you.

When I was growing up, the value of education was a constant theme in my home. My father came to New Haven from Italy as a young man. He was filled with hopes and dreams but he could not speak English. When a teacher asked him what the word "janitor" meant, he drew on his Italian and thought of the word "genitori," the Italian word for parents and family. The teacher and students laughed at him. He left school in the seventh grade and never went back. But, nonetheless, he always believed in, and upheld the value of education.

My mother Luisa, when she was a young girl, did not go into college, because she went to work at age fourteen. She had to – at fourteen, women found jobs. She finished high school at night. There was no parental leave back then, so when I was born she had to leave her job at the Winchester firearms factory and instead worked long hours in the dress shops, New Haven's sweatshops, doing piece work. No lunch hour, no breaks. She would ask me to meet her at her work after school. Amid the clouds of dust and deafening noise, she would pull me over and say, "Rosa, get an education, so you do not have to do this."

Well, thanks to my parents, I did get an education. Mind you, when I grew up in Wooster Square, educating and empowering women was not always a strong suit in the Italian-American community. I even remember my own grandmother telling my mother not to bother sending me to school. "She should get married and raise a family." She meant well by it, in her own way, but she also thought that women should not aspire to scale the same heights of society as our fathers, sons, and brothers.

But my parents disagreed. They saw to it, through sacrifice and hard work. They taught me that we should expect more out of life, that we each had a great contribution to make, that we should work hard to fulfill our ambitions and that we should never take no as an answer.

And when I graduated they said, "Rosa, use this education to get a good job and to help people." My parents knew that dreams come true through education. That is why I set up the Ted DeLauro scholarship in my dad's name – to honor what he and my mother taught me – to help others achieve their own dreams. This year's recipient from Platt is Daniel Candelaria, Jr., from New Haven. Dan has been a community volunteer and president of the Platt Tech Honor Society, and exactly the sort of young man my father would have looked up to. Congratulations to you too today, Dan.

To all the other graduates here today: Your school has prepared each of you to succeed, to reach for your own ambitions and hopes for yourselves and your families' futures. Some of you here tonight plan to continue with your education, and I know that many of you have plans to begin working in the high-skill occupations that you have done so much to master.

You have done your part – you have worked hard, struggled, and succeeded. You have richly earned the diplomas being presented here tonight. So you know the meaning of work, and what it is to achieve. These are values that you will put to good use the rest of your lives, and they will serve you well. As Teddy Roosevelt well put it, "Far and away the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing."

Work is a crucial starting point because we cannot forget that it is the toil and perseverance of working and middle-class Americans that got us and our country to this point. Work is the engine of the American dream, and it keeps us moving forward. That honest labor, that building of a dream, generation after generation, is represented here by yourselves and your families. There is a basic honesty in individuals setting a goal and working for it. And it is that work and honesty that gives us such excellence, such accomplishment, such high hopes.

It sustains us as a people, even when the winds seem to be blowing against us. As you know, particularly in the face of the recent recession, a lot of working and middle class American families are struggling to make ends meet, and jobs, particularly manufacturing jobs, have seemed all-too-scarce.

And that's not counting all the bad news we see on television on a daily basis. But, you know what? Generations before us dealt with obstacles the likes of which we can barely imagine – British invasions and Civil Wars, World Wars and Great Depressions – and our nation still stands strong and proud – a beacon of freedom and opportunity.

Because, underneath the bad news, people and families are still doing the right thing – working hard, making the most of their education, trying to help their communities. That is why I still feel that, obstacles aside, we are moving in the right direction, and that if we keep on working and fighting, things will change for the better.

You here this evening are an important part of this change. You have reached this milestone by staying true to the values of honest work. And you have been well-prepared for the challenges ahead by your time at Platt. As some of you know, I visited here once again this past January, and spent time in the classroom, to learn from you and from what your teachers and principal showed me all of you were accomplishing.

And I left very impressed with both the students and the school. To my mind, Platt is a model of the kind of school we need across the country to restore our manufacturing vitality. Few high schools offer this kind of state-of-the-art technology and expert training. Few high schools give their students the skills to reach industry certification. And few high schools give their students this kind of precious foot in the door. That is why I have been proud to support this school during my time in Congress, and why I plan to continue fighting for Platt in the future.

I firmly believe that, if we really want to keep our country prosperous and competitive over the next century, we need to return to an outlook that prizes and supports honest work and domestic manufacturing. In short, we need to move away from being a nation that simply buys things and go back to being a nation that builds things.

Our manufacturing and innovation are what has made Connecticut great from the earliest days of the republic. Thanks to Eli Whitney and his groundbreaking use of interchangeable parts two centuries ago, we first obtained the proud nickname "arsenal of the nation." And among the inventions Connecticut manufacturers have given the world since are sewing machines, steamboats, vulcanized rubber, friction matches, safety fuses, lollipops, cork screws, mechanical calculators, cylindrical locks and the submarine.

Graduates, you today are the next chapter in this rich history. Through your hard work, I know you will help to ensure that our state is as renowned for its manufacturing innovation fifty years from now as it has been in the past. You are the next generation of manufacturers and inventors, workers and artists, leaders, statesmen, and stateswomen. Your parents and teachers have given you the skills and the resources you need to rise to your full potential. I encourage you to use this gift well, and to give back to those around you whenever you can.

For all the challenges we face, this great country of ours is possessed of all the endowments it needs to move confidently toward the future. Those endowments are our values – the values of hard work, education, honesty, excellence, family, service, and commitment to people. And these values are embodied in you, the young people being honored here tonight for your hard work and outstanding achievement. With your help, together, I know we are in good hands, and that we will continue to move forward to a better future.

Congratulations and well done!