Humans of New York, and the World
This segment originally aired live on October 28, 2014. An edited version was included in a best-of episode of The Brian Lehrer Show on December 24, 2014. The unedited audio can be found here.
Photographer Brandon Stanton has returned from a 10-country, 50-day trip with the United Nations. The "Humans of New York" photographer discusses what he learned from Erbil, Iraq, to Mexico City as part of a trip to raise awareness about the U.N.'s Millenium Development Goals. His new collection of photographs of New York City kids, Little Humans (Farrar Strauss Giroux Books for Young Readers), is out now.
“We live in a very conservative culture, but I want my children to be open minded. I try to bring them to as many places as possible: big malls, art galleries, concerts. We want them to see as many types of people as possible, and as many types of ideas as possible.” (Erbil, Iraq)
"This one likes photos too much. If he takes one more photo, I will break his camera. But don't translate that."
(Zaatari Refugee Camp, Jordan)
"What's your biggest dream?"
"To be the mother of a doctor, the mother of a minister, and the mother of an engineer."
(Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo)
This woman spoke about how she had been visiting her sister in Juba when the fighting broke out, and had been unable to return home. To make matters worse, she had left her older children behind in her village, because she thought it would just be a short trip. She had not seen them in nearly a year. As I was interviewing her, she kept a very resigned, unsmiling, faraway look on her face, which can be seen in the previous post. But when we finished, my translator asked her what village she was from. When she told him, he pulled out his phone. "I've just been to your hometown on an aid mission," he said, "I can show you photos." As he scrolled through photos of her village, her expression suddenly changed.
(Tongping Internally Displaced Persons Site, Juba, South Sudan)
"I want to be an engineer."
"What advice would you give other engineers?"
"If you build a house that collapses, you're going to get arrested. So you need to keep using the pendulum to make sure that everything is straight. Also, your cement mix has to be strong. You also need to be careful with the builders that you hire, or they will steal the cement from you."
"What sort of building would you build?"
"A factory that makes new books, so that everyone can have new books for school. All of my books are old and have writing in them."
(Entebbe, Uganda)
"We had our first day of kindergarten yesterday, and I'm already starting to mentally prepare myself for the first boyfriend."
(Kyiv, Ukraine)
"I think the great fear of every Tibetan is that our story will die out. It's been over fifty years now since Tibet lost its independence. Our monasteries have been destroyed. The Chinese language curriculum is being mandated in our schools. More and more Han Chinese are moving into Tibet-- building homes, building malls. I think now we are all starting to think that the Chinese are too powerful and that the dream of returning home is fading away. I think our mistake was that we didn't keep up with the world. We held on to the monastic tradition too tightly. We didn't embrace modern education, and so we weren't connected with the outside world. Because of that, we lost our freedom silently. I think our challenge now is to educate our children in a modern way, so hopefully they will be better at sharing our story."
(Dharamshala, India)
"Do you remember the happiest moment of your life?"
"Every day when I get home from work."
(Hanoi, Vietnam)
"The saddest moment of my life was when my son left for America. I begged him not to go, but it was no use. He was my son but also my best friend. He used to tell me everything, but all he tells me now is: 'Don't worry, I have a job. I'll tell you everything when I get back.' I think he just doesn't want me to worry about him. Because I heard from his friend that he's being badly mistreated."
(Mexico City, Mexico)
