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Humans of New York (again)

I’m starting to think that Brandon Stanton of Humans of New York is one of the best story tellers of our time.  His images and stories earlier this year about 13-year-old Vidal Chastanet and his principal at Mott Hall Bridges in Brooklyn and the aftermath were astounding.  Jason and I shed more than a few tears reading through the stories of Vidal and his school and cheered heartily at his subsequent visit with his principal, Ms. Lopez, to the White House to meet Barack Obama.

Last month, as I tried to move in a little closer to the stories of the Syrian refugees, Stanton and his HONY platform were there for me again.   All the Facebook posts and articles and righteous indignation of the interwebs failed to move me.  But Stanton, with his pictures and selected quotes from the subjects, did.  And now he’s done it again.

He’s recently returned from a trip to Jordan & Turkey where he was able to photograph and document the stories of several Syrian families recently approved for entry to the US, and I have been gripped by the stories.   A couple days ago, I saw the man in the photo below and I’ll admit that my first thought was,

Eh, doesn’t look too interesting. 

And without the quotes that go along with them, they aren’t that interesting.  Not really.  Just another person, right?  But despite my initial reaction, I read the caption.  And then the next and the next.  There are 7 in all.  Check them out…

1

“My parents were supportive of my education, but they didn’t direct me. My father was a farmer and my mother was a housewife. They did not know much about science. But I was determined to become a scientist through my own personal will. I graduated high school with the third highest scores in all of Syria. I worked construction in the evenings to pay for my school. Even as a teenager, I was being given construction sites to manage. I graduated from university at the top of my class. I was given a scholarship to pursue my PhD. I suffered for my dream. I gave everything. If I had 100 liras, I would spend it on a book. My ultimate goal was to become a great scientist and make a lasting contribution to humanity.”

2

“Our marriage wasn’t arranged. We married out of love. We met when we were students at university. She was studying law. We built a family together. We were a very modern family. We had good days and bad days and rich days and poor days but we were always together. We ate every meal together and educated our children well. My daughter was studying to be a doctor. My son was the smartest in his school. We were well known in the community. Nobody had a problem with us. We had no affiliation with any party or regime. Everyone loved us, honestly.”

3

“I built this compound for my family. I saved the money for it, I designed it myself, and I oversaw the construction. The first missile tore through the yellow house and exploded inside the pink house. It was a government anti-personnel missile. They are not supposed to be used in residential areas. Inside were 116 small bombs, and each bomb was filled with needles and shrapnel. The pink house belonged to my brother and his entire family was torn to pieces. The second missile landed in the green house but did not explode. That was my house. If the missile had exploded, I wouldn’t have any children left. But it only destroyed the top floor where my wife and daughter were. Sixteen people died in the attack. Seven were from my family.”

4

“I was overseeing a project outside the city when the missile hit my house. Nobody was around to help, so my son had to carry the pieces of his mother and sister out of the house. He was fourteen at the time. He was so smart. He was the top of his class. He’s not the same. Right after it happened, he’d write ‘mom’ in his notebook over and over. He’d cry all night long. Two years have passed but he’s still suffering very much. It’s very hard for him to focus. He gets tired very easily. My daughter was in the house too. She still has shrapnel in her neck. We survived but we’re dead psychologically. Everything ended for us that day. That was our destiny. That was our share in life.”

5

“Everything that wasn’t destroyed in our house was stolen over the next two days. We left with nothing. I can’t even pay the rent of this apartment. I’ve been in Turkey for two years now. I’m dead here. I have no life, no respect, and my children aren’t going to school. I have a PhD but I’m not allowed to work without a residence permit. There is a university here that is teaching with a book I wrote, but still won’t give me a job. In order to survive, I’m forced to create designs and give them away to Turkish citizens, who take all the credit and pay me barely enough money to cover the costs of my materials. This year I created blueprints for a giant construction project of 270 big houses. I was paid maybe one percent of what a Turkish citizen would have earned. There is no respect for my work here. Only money is respected.”

6

“I had no problems before the bombing. I think the cancer came from my sadness and my stress. It’s in my stomach. It’s getting more and more painful. The only reason I can speak to you right now is because I’ve taken a painkiller. I can barely eat. I’m bleeding internally. I’ve gone to five hospitals here. They tell me there’s nothing they can do, especially because I have no insurance and no benefits. My friend in America tells me that it’s an easy surgery, but I’m fighting against time. It’s spreading, and I think that soon it will move beyond my stomach. And then there’s nothing I can do.”

7

“I still think I have a chance to make a difference in the world. I have several inventions that I’m hoping to patent once I get to America. One of my inventions is being used right now on the Istanbul metro to generate electricity from the movement of the train. I have sketches for a plane that can fly for 48 hours without fuel. I’ve been thinking about a device that can predict earthquakes weeks before they happen. I just want a place to do my research. I learned today that I’m going to Troy, Michigan. I know nothing about it. I just hope that it’s safe and that it’s a place where they respect science. I just want to get back to work. I want to be a person again. I don’t want the world to think I’m over. I’m still here.”

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I think Stanton’s biggest gift is allowing us to see the sameness in other people.  People who are ordinarily so different, so other, as to be scary, are made real and relatable through his images and selected quotes.   People who once seemed so far from our own experiences are brought close so that we can see our sameness.  You can check out his other images and stories from his trip to Jordan & Turkey on his Facebook page.