“Curiosity requires vulnerability. To be openly curious — to ask other humans questions, particularly publicly — is to admit all that we do not know.” At Brown University’s 2026 Baccalaureate ceremony, bestselling author and Brown alumna Xochitl Gonzalez encouraged graduating seniors to embrace curiosity, question assumptions and stay open to learning throughout their lives. Growing up in a working-class neighborhood in Brooklyn, Xochitl Gonzalez wasn’t exactly praised for being a nosey, or “compulsively curious,” child. When she pressed her grandparents on why she had to eat lentils every week, why her uncle was laid off from his job, or why her cousin broke up with her boyfriend, Gonzalez was routinely met with a refrain designed to stanch the flow of constant questions: “Because ‘Y’ is a crooked letter.” But her grandparents’ approach had the opposite effect on her relentlessly inquisitive young mind. “All that answer did was make me determined to know what, in fact, had led ‘Y...