Monday, April 16, 2012

Chyno Futuristic

6 Month Anniversary March, March 17, 2012, Wall Street
Photo: Stacy Lanyon

I graduated from college in 2009, and I couldn’t find a job within my major. I was sold this American dream that if you work hard and you go to college and you get a good degree, you’ll find a good job, and soon enough, you’ll get the nice house with the white picket fence and the 2.5 kids. That didn’t happen. I was left with $172,000 worth of debt. I couldn’t find a job. I ended up bussing tables about a year after I graduated from college, and I had to decide whether I was going to pay for health insurance or pay my student loans back until they left me no choice, and they started snatching the money out of my check. Also, my parents passed away in 2004 in Afghanistan fighting for what they believed in, fighting for a better world. That’s what they truly believed that they were doing, and that’s what I’m trying to do. If I’m only one person and I can only do one thing, I’m going to make my best efforts to reshape this world, so that everyone can be someone.

It’s so important because if we as humans, not even United States citizens, if we as people in this world allow our governments to spiral out of control, it leads us down a very slippery slope of constant social unrest and turmoil. It’s so important to me because I’m so tired of seeing sadness and seeing poverty and seeing despair when I know that there are people who can fix that, there are people that can change that if they were only willing, if their hearts were only open, if their minds were only open to it. Then, we’d be a lot better. We’d be better.

I want to live in a place where it doesn’t matter who you are or what you are, a place where it doesn’t matter where you came from. It doesn’t matter how much education you have or how much money you have. None of that matters. All that matters is you are you, a world where you are allowed to be you, and you are granted the same privileges and opportunities as anyone else. I want a world where we don’t have to continue looking for the silver lining because it’s all silver, a world where I don’t have to look in the mirror and take deep breaths to deal with the world when I open the door, a world where a sixteen year old boy doesn’t get kicked out of his house because of his sexual preference, a world where a group of people who decide that they want to protest and stand up against something aren’t penalized or scrutinized for that, a world where we can be. 
Interview by Stacy Lanyon
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