Humans Of New Mexico Highlights Individual Stories (rebroadcast)
July 7, 2017 – The diversity in New Mexico is one of the most prominent features of our state. The Humans of New Mexico collective wants to highlight the stories of everyday people. The online project is run by students, community members, and community leaders. Maybe you’ve seen some of the photos and interviews on Facebook. Our producer Sarah Gustavus sat down earlier this year with two members of the project, Sradha Patel and Georgia Weiss-Elliott, to learn more.
Interview with Van Overton Jr.
“I look at everything I do through the filter of, “Is what I’m doing right now, helping or hurting children?” Every single thing that I do.
Every single thing that I do, even when I am standing behind a bar, [chuckles] you know, late at night, I ask myself that question and the answer is typically, “It’s helping,” because it’s allowing me to eat and feed my family, and so it’s definitely helping and right now it’s just a means to an end but the number of organizations I’ve yet to join, I don’t know. But I know that there is more out there, there’s more that needs to be started. There’s a lot more work that needs to be done and so I hope to join more organizations or start more organizations or whatever that will eventually change the lives of all the children in our world, you know, and how I’m doing that is starting locally, and knowing that if everybody can think first about children that it will change the way we do everything.”
Interview with Tierra Hudson
“At my high school I’m probably 1 of 5 of African-Americans. And the way I look people are going to perceive as African-American you know? So that’s how I carry myself. I try to carry myself positively. I want to say it’s not hard, but it’s a little more difficult because I’m finding a place where I feel like I belong. Especially being in a rural area, I don’t have a lot of people; I mean I have my family you know. But the other thing is I have a lot of kids in my high school who will tell me “you’re getting these opportunities because of your race” you know, “because you have these things.” And, it’s at the point where I’m just like, I’ve worked hard for where I come from and if my race has anything to do with it, awesome. But I’ve gotten here because of the choices I’ve made and how hard I’ve worked.”
More interviews are online: Humans of New Mexico