A Man of No Nation

Grant 0:00
Alright, I’m here with my good friend Oh, say

he’s an immigrant. We’ll get into his story a little bit later. But we’re going to do somewhat of a podcast style interview.

We’re going to talk a little bit about his life, different stages that he’s gone through and things like he has a kind of an interesting story. So turn it over to him. What’s your name? And where are you from?

Confidential Speaker 0:21
I go. I was born in Nigeria. But I was fine. No way at all raised in Nigeria. Because I left at a very young age. I like to I came to Atlanta. We moved around a bit. Eventually, I wound up in Canada. And then after that, I moved to Texas for a minute. And then I went to Virginia. And I found myself here. So

Grant 0:43
do you name a couple places? What What was the first place that you remember? Being like having actual memories? Or was it Atlanta? Was it Canada?

Confidential Speaker 0:52
I mean, the first place I remember was Texas and in Texas, I apparently I went to like a Spanish immersion of like, elementary school or something like a kindergarten or something. It was like it was mostly like a daycare, but they also taught like school. And I like apparently learned Spanish. I didn’t even really, I think my mom tells me that I was good when I was younger, obviously now I’m not at all.

Grant 1:18
You haven’t tried to Spanish out? You know, here’s a very actually a lot of, you know, Spanish speaking people a lot. You should give it a shot.

Confidential Speaker 1:27
I mean, I took I took I took a three Spanish classes, but those were not the best. One of them. And there was only three people in the class. And I was the worst because if you missed the day, the professor would notice. Like advanced Spanish. Yeah, that was advanced Spanish, and Spanish back in Lorton. Right? What was it? That was here? Best? JMU? Yeah, I took Spanish in high school, too. That was never good. And then when I finished it, I figured that I wasn’t ever gonna have to take Spanish again. Lo and behold, come here. I take Spanish again for three years. I was very disappointed about that.

Grant 2:09
But um, okay, let’s get a little bit into So you moved around a couple of different places. You named Atlanta, Connecticut, Canada. What are your earliest memories of America? If you have any? And what age did you come to America?

Confidential Speaker 2:22
I came to America when I was two when we first started in Atlanta. And we came to A tlanta becaue my family in Nigeria. They have friends here. So we stayed, we stayed with them. My dad left us early on went to I think he went to New York or something, either New York or Canada. Because he trying to like look for work or something. But he was away from us, right? And my mom tells me that I was VA I got there was a point where I got really, really sick, right? To the point where he thought I was gonna die because I was like, always throwing up always just like, well, and I was like to at that point, keep in mind, right? My dad, my mom tells my dad this. We’re like, where he where he’s at? He gets kind of worried. So he’s like, Okay, you guys need to leave Atlanta, and go live with my family because, like, we were staying with family friends. He was like, yeah, he trusts them. But they’re not like tight like his brother will be. Right. So we left Atlanta to go live with his brother in Connecticut. Yeah, stay there for like a year.

Grant 3:28
And sorry to cut you off. But I’ll let you continue your story of but in Atlanta. Is there a sizable Nigerian population there? Is it just kind of a one off?

Confidential  3:38
I was kind of wondering I don’t really remember to be honest. But it sounds like there were a couple people we knew there that were not cheering. Yeah. We’ve talked about this before that off there. But Atlanta is a really dope place. It’s a really diverse, diverse commonplace, with a lot of opportunity. But fast forward back to what you were saying. You’d left Atlanta. Yeah, I

Confidential Speaker 4:03
We left Atlanta, we went to Connecticut. And apparently, I don’t remember Connecticut either. But my mom said that it sucked because like, everything was far away from each other. It was really cold, almost as cold as Canada. Like she did not like Connecticut at all. But after Connecticut. We went to New York for some reason. I don’t even remember. But that was before we were trying to like go to be we’re still trying to go to Canada, but then are my mom’s other family friends in Texas. We’re getting married. So my mom goes to like we meet our dad in New York. And we go to Texas, in Texas. Be like we like see our family friends getting married, but then my mom’s also pregnant. So then she asked my brother in Texas, so that’s the only reason why my brother was born in Texas, which I thought was kind of cool. Right? And after that, like we stayed in touch for a while because my, my mom loved Texas, my dad loved Texas, but we can state it for too long because we weren’t yet permanent residents in America. Right? So we had a limit of how long we can stay there. That’s why we had to go to Canada.

Okay. So, okay, so because you have your citizenship, do you have your citizenship through Canada by virtue of being born in Canada? Is that kind of what you had to go back to Canada?

I was in? No, I wasn’t born in Canada, we got to go to Canada because Canada is like, it has less restrictions or something like that, like you can become a citizen in Canada easily. Right? You just stay there for a while. You become a citizen. That’s what happened with us. That’s how we became citizens. Okay.

Grant 5:42
So you don’t necessarily have to be born there present.

Confidential Speaker 5:45
You’d have to live there for a minute. Okay. And you could become a citizen. Here, though, it was harder because we couldn’t stay here. We couldn’t stay here legally. So we had to leave. Canada, I assume that we will have to stay there. I’m guessing because my dad got a job in Canada? No, my dad was in college in Canada. That’s why.

Grant 6:08
Okay. So, you go to Canada, or you go to Canada for the second time. Right? Yeah. The second time. But when did you? How did it come about where you came back to America?

Unknown Speaker 6:23
Okay, so a prolonged period. The second time we lived there for seven years, right? And then that seven year time, a bunch of other stuff happens, like, parents get divorced. And it’s just me, my mom, my brother, Dad’s, who knows where to be honest. And then we, we had to leave because the rent there’s insane. Apparently taxes there are fucking crazy, right? Like cuz they get free health care, right? But their taxes get screwed. There. Our rent was also insane. Like the rent that we were paying there, we would have never like had money. We didn’t have any spending money in Canada, we were pretty much poor. We were always I was always, my brother was always wearing my hand gowns. Like, there was even times where we would like go on in the street. I remember this, because we I joined like the Boy Scouts and stuff, right? They were like being trying to like try to be more charitable towards us. Because we were immigrants, right? So they were like, kind of helping helping us out. And they had a thing where they were like selling apples, right. And they gave us a couple of apples so that we could sell them for ourselves and make keep the profit, which I thought was awesome. All right, but the only thing that sucks is that I had to sell apples. So then I went to my boys at the time and I was like, Hey, can you guys help me sell apples? And then we were basically going in like, door to door rear door to door salesmen were like hey, you got sportsmen their apples were fire though. I don’t think I’ve had apples accurate ever, to be honest.

Grant 7:53
Okay. So you went from being an apple salesman, certified Ap ple Sales. Were how did the story go after that?

Unknown Speaker 8:04
Um well in Canada. I was always kind of like, entrepreneurial, maybe not entrepreneurial. I liked I liked to do stuff where I could like make some kind of money from it. Right? Most of the stuff. It wasn’t like, I was like working a job. I was young. I was way too young to be working a job. But it was always like something on the side. Like, apples are like babysitting some kid like I got my red cross certification in Canada. So like, I took this class in Canada, where I’ve learned how to like, what’s it called? CPR CPR. Shit? Yeah, I don’t I haven’t done that stuff since but in Canada, I like learn how to do it. And I tried to do like, I tried to babysit these one. This one little kid. And I wasn’t the best babysitter, but I mean, I still made some money. So hey, sorry, exactly.

Grant 9:02
But um, would you attribute that kind of entrepreneurial, entrepreneurial spirits in your mom or would you dattribute that?

Confidential Speaker 9:09
I would definitely attribute it to my mom is my mom was like a hustler. She’s always been a hustler. She tells me that like because in Canada, we were poor like it was it was tough being an immigrant and we were there. Now I really feel it as much but like, back then, like, it was very hard to fit in. Because for one I didn’t have clothes, right? My mom will work. I saw like her first job. I think she said this, like she was the good type of nurse. I would like go to like an old parents home like an elderly home. And she would like take care of them type stuff. And then from there, she got her job like some bank. I think she was an accountant for a minute. Right? But it was it was from her being an accountant that she like made some connections with like this person like, I think the company’s name was because they had a branch in Canada, but they also had a branch in Texas, right? So this person was originally from Texas. But they were also like family friends, because we have family friends in Texas, right? So our mom basically was talking to her, she learned about the company down there, she applied, she got the job. And she was like, Yes, I can finally leave and start making real money.

Grant 10:21
Okay, so the job helped facilitate exactly the they sponsor her, or how did that relationship? What do you mean by sponsor, because I know in some scenarios, immigrants are like sponsor, you know, when you fill out an application, and our last something along the lines of when you need sponsorship, in order to get the job, it means sponsorship, in terms of I guess, there’s like paperwork and documentation. You know, like, for example, there’s certain industries where they immigrants come over, and they work for either a small step at a time or some period of time. And the government like, does authorization? I say that to say it helps them, you know, come into the country.

Confidential Speaker 11:06
So the industry brings Yeah, I guess, yeah. Because that’s how we even got like, they paid for our flight. Sorry, if I didn’t wear all that. Like, I think I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Like they basically are the reason why we were able to come in to Texas, right? Exactly that. And I remember for the longest time my mom was here on a TN Visa work visa, you said a T and V T and visa TN Visa. Yeah, get a TN Visa search. That means she’s allowed to work, right? She’s the person that’s working. Me and my brother. On the other hand, we had well, my brother was born in America, so he didn’t even affect him. i On the other hand, Americans that he was born in Texas. Yeah, I on the other hand, was born in Nigeria. So it did affect me. So I had a TD visa, which means I’m not allowed to work. I had that visa from when we came here. Like when I was 13, all the way up until like my turn, like 20. Okay, so I was not allowed to work for that entire period of time. Right. All my friends were working. I wasn’t able to, I had to rely on my mom constantly, which sub i didn’t like, I didn’t like rely on my mom.

Grant 12:16
So 2020 didn’t have a go. We spoke spoken about

Confidential Speaker 12:22
love here. I did have a job. Okay, I did get a job. It’s just that I wasn’t technically supposed to have a job.

Grant 12:31
And then same thing with me. I started working when I was 15. I didn’t have many different scenario, but I wasn’t supposed to be working. I was working at like some baseball arena. So I can kind of

Confidential Speaker 12:44
Yeah, so my first job. So my first job was with this one guy, where like, he was like, he would fix computers and laptops and all that kind of stuff. And my mom had a friend that put me in touch with this guy. Right? And he was like, yeah, come on, like, get my nephew, like, a way to like work because he can’t work. Can you like just pay him something like, help them out? Right? So I would basically be taking Uber so this place to work, like just to get some experience. Right? Right. But then when I would get there. I remember the first day he was like, I don’t really need you.

Grant 13:23
I definitely had that conversation with someone before.

Confidential Speaker 13:28
Yeah. And basically, he just had me be the person that would like clean laptops, clean the floor, just the cleaner. I was the cleaner. And the because it was just him working. He was fixing the laptops. He didn’t he only needed a person to you only needed a person to fix laptops. I didn’t know I didn’t have that experience. Right. So we just had me cleaning them. But he didn’t even need me to clean them. And sometimes he complained that I wasn’t even doing a good job, which that’s that’s actually a really annoying person. But anyways, that first job lasted like two weeks before he was like, Yeah, I’m paying you all this money for no reason. Even though I was like, Yo, like you’re paying me money, but like my Uber is here are more expensive than the money that you’re even giving me right. So it was it was like a mutual kind of like, yeah, good riddance. My second job was like a week after that job. I worked at like this pie factory, they stopped shut down because of COVID Thank God, but um, I think the sky didn’t pay me. And so my mom wanted me to work. She really wanted me to work because she felt bad that I wasn’t able to work my entire like life. And I still wasn’t able to work with us like that. All right. So she basically made an arrangement with him, that she will be paying him and then he will be paying me. So he wasn’t really paying me. He See, my mom was basically it was basically allowance. Okay. He’s basically allowance and they were both keeping that away from me. Right. But then I was working I was like, I was like a waiter. I was also making pause. I was doing all this kind of stuff. So it was a friend and there was a friend in store as well. Exactly. It was like, he was like a restaurant on the outset. Then on the inset, we were making food and all that because the factory kind of Yeah, so that’s your job. Apparently, he wasn’t paying a lot of people because a lot of people that worked for him are immigrants, a lot of people. It wasn’t just me, I was the only one that felt like I was at least getting paid. So I wasn’t complaining. Everyone else was constantly complaining. They were like, there was like this four year old woman who said that she had two kids, single mom with two kids. Well, he didn’t get paid in four weeks. And she was like, Yo, come on, I need I actually need some money. So she was like, everyone was complaining. Right? So he

Grant 15:58
was somewhat was he inadvertently taking advantage of them? What was he doing? He

Confidential Speaker 16:02
was already on purpose, because he was the type of person where like, you think he’s a nice person, because he has like a charming personality. He’s like, Hey, guys, like he’s trying to be all friendly, right? But then behind your back, he’s hiring more people, even though he doesn’t have the money to pay the people he already has. You’re just taking advantage of all of us. The first time I got exposed to anything like just crazy. So I don’t think people did that. Apparently they do. Second, I found out that he was taking advantage of me. I quit immediately. I need to tell him I quit. I just stopped going. Rightfully so. Yeah. Doesn’t need to know that I quit. Screw him. Yeah.

Grant 16:41
So that was that Job was when you were what? 19? Yeah, I

Confidential Speaker 16:45
was like 1920 20.

Grant 16:48
So in like, would be good experience eye opening? At least not on? Obviously not in a good manner. But sometimes lesson, Did you learn anything from it?

Confidential Speaker 17:02
Well, one thing I learned is that work is actually fun. Like sometimes, because that Job was so fun, even though it was like the same monotonous action over and over and over every day. But at the same time, every day, something would happen to where it was like, oh, today’s different from yesterday. You know what I mean? So that was one thing, I learned that I actually like working. And another thing that I learned was that people are willing to take advantage of you people are willing to lie, people are willing to completely like the way he would treat some of his employees. Right there were there was one woman who’s been working at him since the company’s like reception. Right? She was like the cook. She’s the only person that knew how to cook all the meals. Right? Right. No one else knew how to cook all of their like meals all there because he had a big menu. And he was like, five, six pages on the menu. Right. And one of the guys he hired after the fact was literally said he was like the assistant or something. He would just be like supervising kind of. And he was always saying I like the menu is too big. We need to cut it down and we cut it down, right? But the boss man was like, No, I’m not going to do it. Because it’s sentimental to me. kind of stuff. And honestly, that’s probably one of the reasons why the business got shut down to the end. Because he had a big money for no reason.

Grant 18:21
So like you say, you were 19 when you had that job. Yeah. How around that time. Do you have any other memories of you or what? Probably? Were you a freshman in college or

Confidential Speaker 18:34
that post? Yeah, I was a freshman in college freshman in college.

Grant 18:37
Okay, so how did you end up at JMU?

Confidential Speaker 18:44
I mean, it was kind of just the coin toss to be honest. Like that was literally just

Grant 18:48
like in your just just the Preface. This is all my friend graduated. And yeah, just just to preface a little bit, but like what were you saying? How did you end up with Damien?

Confidential Speaker 19:02
So, basically, like, my mom had a bunch of friends in her office that had graduated from JMU. I was wondering, get a bunch of people in our office that are graduate that had graduated from Jimmy so she was using that as like oh look like people from jam you can make it here to Navy Federal. That’s where my mom works that by the way. She works at Navy Federal Credit Union. She went from working as like a helper and like a kind of nursery area to Now she works at like one of the biggest banks in the world. They have branches everywhere. But anyways, that’s one of the reasons why because a company that legit asked people from JMU that are like somewhat high positions, right? So it was that then there’s this one guy I was talking to you he was saying that he wanted to go to JMU we want to go to JMU meet him We talk all the time before class and stuff like that back in high school talking about and I remember that I didn’t want to go to Mason, because Mason would require me to like, go from home what I would have to still be at home to go. Right, right. So jam, you and VCU. Were like the two places in Virginia where I was like, hmm, maybe one of them one of them. I didn’t really want to go outside of state because I knew I was going to have to come back home. And I went outside the stadium just be a household huge hassle to come back home and taking the flight or something, right, because I did have like a Texas College in mind back then. But I wasn’t really trying to apply. So it was JD was between JMU and ECU. But if you have a lot of shootings posit, I took that, dude, I all that stuff happened, bro. And then I was like, so that’s what happened. That’s why I ended up coming here. Because I was I was I’m interested in the arts, right? So this year was what I naturally thought of Oh, VCRs. And after all that, I was like, I’m just gonna play it safe. So yeah. So let’s talk

Grant 20:58
a little bit about talking about why you came to JMU. Let’s talk about the how have you gone to em you as a, you’re still going to TD? Visa? Right? Yeah, TD visa. So I was going through the process of signing the applications and, you know, doing all the paperwork, the bureaucratic?

Confidential Speaker 21:15
Well, biggest thing is that I couldn’t apply for scholarships or grants. So I remember I was talking to my mom about Mom, I’ll just go to Nova, it’s gonna be cheaper. I’m almost like, no, because you’re gonna go to Nova, then you’re gonna get lazy and you’re not gonna want to, you’re not gonna want to apply to other schools. So I was like, Okay, fine. I guess that’s fair. That’s a fair point. Right. So the financial aspect was the thing that was the worst, because I literally could not apply for scholarships or grants. Some people told me that I could apply for a scholarship a grant from Canada, and then use that here. But I wasn’t sure if that was true. And then when I talked to my mom about it, she was like, Nah, it’s not like that. You and you have to like live there. Come here to do that. At least that’s what she told

Grant 21:58
me. So you technically, could have went to school in Canada?

Confidential Speaker 22:02
Yeah. Yeah. But I really want to because if I went to school, Canada, I don’t see myself coming back here. You know, right. It’s gonna be hard to come back here. If I leave.

Grant 22:11
Yeah, it definitely would have been a hassle. Like some holidays. Exactly.

Confidential Speaker 22:15
Right. So that’s why I was like, I’m just gonna stay here. But another thing that sucked was, I like for my first couple of years, while I was in the citizen, I had to pay as if I came to jam you for out of state Berlin, they made me pay out of state tuition. Even though I’ve been in Virginia at that point for like, like, three, four years. So that was just unfortunate. I was just so unfortunate. My mom had to get a second job. Cute. She had to work at Walmart to look on top of her Navy, federal job, and Navy Federal pays a lot more. So it’s crazy.

Grant 22:55
So how did you end up getting that like, rectified? Did you apply and say, Hey, I’m actually I’ve been here for a while I try, but they’re not gonna be your credit.

Confidential Speaker 23:10
But it was only for two years. Thank God. Only two years I was playing 40k a year. Yeah. 40. But then the last two hours, just good.

Grant 23:24
Okay, so we talked a little bit about Janu. Just to backtrack a little bit. Before we go forward. I’m sure you have some interesting things to talk about in your future. But looking at my list of topics, what much of your own neighborhood have gone outside of school when you were in the neighborhood? Of how’s that for

Confidential Speaker 23:46
you? Well, the main thing I can think of is like, for instance, in Canada, because Canada took up a big part of my life, right? Because I was like, six when I went there. I left when I was 13. That’s honestly the longest I’ve spent anywhere to be honest. But um my mom was always working, of course. So I was always at like a babysitter’s place. And there were a lot of kids at the babysitter’s like, like I met some of my best friends back then. They’re right. My brother had to go there too. And it was kind of cool. It was basically just, we would just be in the basement chilling out parents or supervision, doing whatever we wanted. You know, we were pretty much just misfits, like a bunch of misfits like in the basement just chilling, right? And then I learned how to play chess because all the kids were good at chess. I will try to play them I’m trying to beat them they would always kick then eventually I became Nice. So then I started kicking. It was honestly my like childhood like outside of school in the house. It was honestly so far. So good. 13 You left and right 13 I left Canada went to Texas, Texas was different because then I was just home. I didn’t have to go to a beat sir. I was like old enough to stay at home and chill. And my brother, but first actually in Texas, because I remember there was a year where he lived with my mom’s friend. It’s like, this one lady. I really the only thing I really remember about her is that she was arguing with me all the time about how America is better than Canada, or whatever. Like she would think America is better because blah, blah, blah, blah. I’d be like, No, Canada’s better. Like yeah, but anyways, she she would like, we lived at her house. And we didn’t really have rights at her house like that. Like we couldn’t, there was a lot of things we couldn’t do let her house. She was a strict woman. But and the main reason why we didn’t have that many rights is because my mom again was always working. So it would just be me and my brother and this lady at home. Right? Whenever I come back from school, she would just be there. Like, I remember we didn’t we just had like, back then I didn’t have like an actual phone. Right? I had like a flip phone. I had a flip phone, bro. Like, I It’s so crazy to think about that. Back then I had a flip phone is the only time I could watch YouTube back then something like on the internet was on my mom’s iPad, which I couldn’t use until my mom was home. Right? That was just unfortunate. Because in Canada, we had a computer. When we went to Texas for a while we didn’t have any computer, we’d have anything. We were poor. We didn’t have shit. And living with this lady was tortured and sucked. I remember back then I was like, I was like playing with a cold. That was still like the I still had like, what’s the beyblades? No. Beyblades are like those like little big spin. Yeah, but she had like a wooden floor back in my house. We didn’t have wooden floors. We had like the rug like all that kind of stuff, right? And then we had like our room like, like slick stadium or whatever, where we could just play with that. If we did it on her wooden floor, she would be so pissed. This one day she grabbed three outside, right through out in the dirt or whatever. Like trying to hide it from us. I did not like that woman at all. At all. Right? And but then in Texas, I was trying to join some clubs, right? Like the international students club. They have like all kinds of voids, right. And I got to meet some people that like, it was crazy because of how not diverse it was in Texas versus like, in Canada, it was very diverse. Like I lived in an Indian neighborhood. There were a bunch of like, Egyptians, black people, Indians, all kinds of stuff. In Texas, who was mainly white people everywhere you would look it would be another white person everywhere. Dark difference.

Grant 28:11
Okay, that kind of makes sense. Yeah, I mean, you can think about it from that perspective. So you by that, by that time when you went to high school in the DC area, I’m really interested in that high school experience, high school experience, high school experience in the you know, the neighborhood, how that shaped you your perspective of the world, your philosophy, and

Confidential Speaker 28:39
well, high school was kind of like, to my I remember my first year in high school. All my years in high school wasn’t able to work. My first year in high school. I didn’t have any friends. Not really. I had people I knew there and here and there. But like as far as moving and moving, constantly moving all my life. It’s like, I kind of I kind of got to a point where I was kind of tired of getting close to people who could I mean, because I would just be like, Oh, I’m just gonna move again. I’m just gonna leave. We’re gonna be here for a minute, then I’m just going to leave we’re gonna something’s gonna come up. I’m just gonna move, you know, because especially when I left Canada, I didn’t have a phone. So all those friendships I had gone. I was like, the most depressing thing, right? And then after I left Texas, I did have a phone. But I also felt like I’m always moving like I’m so tired or just tired of constantly moving. So when I get to PA school, the main thing I had in mind was academics. I was only focused on like doing good in school doing good in school, like working and like getting the grades you know, I’m still goofball, of course, but like, I wasn’t really getting close to people like that,

Grant 29:52
right? What was the motivation for getting good grades?

Confidential Speaker 29:56
I just wanted to make like, my family proud. Like that was the The main thing I cared about when I was younger, just making my family proud, is especially my mom, she gave me so much. You know, there’s, there’s no way I can really give any, like, there’s no way I can really repair any point in my life, just because of the sheer amount that she’s given me, like coming from Nigeria, and now we’re where we are today. Like it’s impossible. I I can’t like repay your ever but I can try. You know, I mean, and one of the ways I can try is because she cares a lot about my grades, especially in high school. She cared so much about my grades. Now not so much. I mean, I mean, I’m out of college, so obviously not so much. Yeah, but yeah, like, I’ve been, she cared a lot. And my grades were always good. They were always like, pretty good. I didn’t really look like studying. So I would just pay attention in class. And then I would just have good grades, right. But one thing that was most notable about my freshman year, is that I kind of just found myself gravitating towards like, because especially after coming from Texas, wrong route, a lot of like, a lot of white people. When I come here, I’m starting to gravitate towards like the arrow groups, Asian groups, the black groups, so making friends with all these different like ethnicities, but I think because I’ve moved around so much, I’m like very interested in people who are very different from me, than me because I met people that are like, similar to me like that. Not since like Canada, to be honest. Right. But did you

Grant 31:31
relate with him on the level? Was he was he from Vietnam?

Confidential Speaker 31:34
He was yeah, he was from Vietnamese and from Vietnam.

Grant 31:37
And did you relate on the level of being an immigrant? Yeah. Like, yeah,

Confidential Speaker 31:41
I found myself relating to people like that I perceived as outsiders, people that were kind of like, they don’t really fit in, but they’re like, still cool people. Right? That’s, that’s always kind of stuck with me. But yeah. Okay. My sophomore year, I started to make like a solid group of friends. Like one of my best friends was from Azerbaijan. He was also an immigrant, like, my best friend was an immigrant. My other best friend, he wasn’t technically and he was from Puerto Rico. So you can territory territory of the United States. But he wasn’t born in the United States. He was born in Puerto Rico. And my other best friend was like, Indian guy had a Malaysian friend. I don’t know, I had a lot of like, it was very diverse, not one of us looked sounded spoke, like even like thought to say, we were all very different.

Grant 32:53
That must have been a bit experience, in some respects to seeing, you know, other you know, seeing other people that are different. Sometimes differences can, you know, bring about my similarities, and they can bring people together in exact some respects.

Confidential Speaker 33:07
That’s exactly like, that’s, that’s how we were so tight. Because we became pretty tight. Like, tight knit it, or whatever you say, cuz we were all different. We all had similar kind of experiences of feeling like we didn’t belong. That’s what kind of bonded us together, kind of, right. And then my junior year, people started to work, everyone started working. And a lot of my friends, despite the me immigrants, they were still American citizens, right? Because I think most of them, most of them, although some of them were like first generation immigrants. Most of them were like, second generation immigrants. So they were still allowed to work, right? I wasn’t allowed. I couldn’t work. And that was just the worst because now I’m not doing anything. I feel like I’m like going nowhere in life. And my whole idea is to make enough money. So I can like pay my mom back. If I can’t work, and I’m just sitting on the sidelines and all my friends are making bank because it’s exactly. You just you just end up feeling.

Grant 34:12
So internships where you were hindered, in sense, like you were unable to, did you have an internship?

Confidential Speaker 34:20
And to have an internship, well, I could have gone with a normal internship, but I wanted to paid one of them. I couldn’t have paid one. I couldn’t have anything like that. And I just thought, right. The closest thing that I had to an internship was back when on when Trump was running against Hillary Clinton. My friend, he was like, like, my Puerto Rican friend was very like pro Hillary, right. And he was working at lists like a place where they do calls that remind people to vote

Grant 34:51
types of campaign office, yeah, campaign office.

Confidential Speaker 34:54
So then he asked me if I wanted to volunteer at his office. I was like, okay, yeah, I’m not doing anything else. Of course. So we were just there making calls people you know, it was I was pretty chill. It was a, it was a pretty nice time.

Grant 35:08
Is that something you could put on your resume if you want to do? Or is it kind of one of those things?

Confidential Speaker 35:12
Just it was like a service kind of thing. I went to community service, it wasn’t really like a resume. It wasn’t a job. I wasn’t paid. Right. It was I was just giving my time to help. Right.

Grant 35:24
So did you have a higher up? Or was your friend your kind of

Confidential Speaker 35:27
your? Yeah, he was he was just, I just went there with him. I was like, It’s plus one. Okay. Yeah, I didn’t have any connections to any of them. As well. He was the one who brought me in, like when he when I would introduce myself to people out be like, Oh, on his friend. Like, you know, they bill Oh, thank you for helping out. That was that was pretty much it. I went there for like three times like for that specific campaign. So after that, I was like, Yeah, I’m not coming back here.

Grant 35:52
It is there up any ID ideas of jobs that you may or may not want to do like that rule out political bolding.

Confidential Speaker 36:01
I’ve always known that for a job. I like to talk to people. That job was fun, because you get to call people they get to like, a lot of the times not gonna lie, a lot of the times people would just not pick up. And if they don’t pick up enough, leave a voice message, right. But I didn’t mind that because I like talking. So like, I always knew that I would appreciate a job where I just get to sit down and speak. Right. So that didn’t really change that. But yeah.

Grant 36:31
So I knew I do agree, you’re, you’re really, really outspoken. And I think some type of some type of expression child would be a good fit for you. I kind of already said that. So right now you’re working at a bar, you’ve been working and since you graduated, but what are your aspirations of future aspirations?

Confidential Speaker 36:54
Well, I really want to get into the entertainment industry, I want to like, make my own movies, I don’t really want to be an actor, per se. But acting is a possible route to getting there. So that’s like, where my mind’s at right now. And in the meantime, I could just be get taking odd jobs here and there until I like, start to really like, make enough money so I can start to pursue my passion. That’d be like the goal.

Grant 37:21
They would consider la for the entertainment.

Confidential Speaker 37:24
I was mostly considering Atlanta. Why? Because I feel like Atlanta is like the New LA. It’s like the new start. Because I feel like LA is kind of past its peak. It’s kind of coming down. Atlantis on the rise, though, still. So I think that that’s like the smart move. I feel like a lot of people that I speak to especially even here, a lot of them are like, yeah, oh my god, I’m gonna go to LA I’m gonna become famous in LA. I’m just like, in Atlanta with like, good luck. And LA was

Grant 37:54
always one of those places where you kind of visit?

Confidential Speaker 37:56
Yeah. Yeah, unless you have a really good reason to be there. I mean, it was funny. I visited la this past two summers ago. And I remember it being like a place where Okay, and honestly, the main thing I remember was that there was a lot of crackheads like on the streets to be honest, like a lot.

Like, I remember, there was a guy asking me for money. I’m like, No, I’m sorry, I don’t have any. I turn around and look back. And he just pulls out a crock. But it was, it was a straight up that’s honestly, that’s the big thing I remember about all

Grant 38:50
a row. So there were definitely some some. A lot of poverty.

Confidential Speaker 38:54
Yeah, yeah, exactly. There’s a lot of homeless people in LA, like a lot of tents. Right? And this one guy at the store? Because it’s so noted, noticeable. Like, it’s not something that’s hidden in any way. How many homeless people are there? Right? It’s one guy when we went there. He was asking us if we were tourists. And we were like, Yeah, right. We were asking you for locations and stuff. Right? He’s like telling us where to go, blah, blah, blah. Then one thing he mentioned, we didn’t have to it was not prompted at all. He just gave us the instruments, pieces of advice. He said, Well, by the way, one of those homeless people is trying to bother you. You just do not let them do anything. Just like kind of scare them away. There’ll be one fight. They’re not going to do anything. Right. I was like, Okay,

Grant 39:39
what’s so interesting? Yeah. An interesting experience. Yeah. Yeah. So you kind of roll it out la Atlanta is going to be Yeah.

Confidential Speaker 39:51
Lana, for sure. Yeah. La it kind of made me sad after a while because it made me think like, we’re lucky to not be the one You know, but especially coming from where we came from. So lucky that we, if we stayed in Canada, we would probably be honest right now is my, from what my mom was saying, we were not making money. We were almost losing money because of how expensive everything was.

Grant 40:14
So it was almost imperative that you came to. Yeah.

Confidential Speaker 40:18
Yeah. Back at the time, I hated that we were leaving. But looking back, it’s a blessing to be left. It’s crazy.

Grant 40:30
So, we’ve talked about a range of different topics, ranging from your childhood up until adolescence to feed your aspirations. Is there anything else you want to talk about what we can talk about? religion, politics, recreation, what you’d like to do for fun? started

Confidential Speaker 40:51
I’d like to edit videos, right here and there. Watch interesting YouTube videos online. It’s probably my biggest one to be honest. And talk. Because you like the three the four main things I like to do for fun, right, my hoverboard? I’m probably going to learn guitar at some point. Okay. Yeah, couple things. I have a broad range of interests. But yeah, and one of the things that I’ve been really interested in, especially lately is philosophy and religion, just because like I find it interesting how like, even with like, like, say, take the refugees because I was taking. I remember back when I was in college, I was taking this refugee class. And I don’t really remember much from it. But I do remember that. One of the main takeaways that still stays with me till this day, is that the refugees would use like religion, to basically overcome the terrible things that they had to go through. Right? Like, if they went through a bombing or something, they would be praying to God brain to all all, so that they could like, make it through the next day, and they get through the next day. And I definitely see that with my mom. 1,000% after everything she’s gone through. Like when our dad left us, she was like, I don’t even I just remember her being sad all the time, bro being almost like, then she her faith became stronger. And now it’s like she can take do anything almost right. But

Grant 42:33
what did she practice? We don’t want to ask him. She’s Christian. Christian. Yeah. Okay. So that was that was a big part

Confidential Speaker 42:41
of why we were even able to, like, survive all that. scandal was hard. I mean, that’s it. When we got to Texas, everything became easier and easier and easier progressively. But like, in Canada, things were pretty tough sometimes, because I remember like for one battle, like constantly switchable we switched apartments like three times. Right? constantly moving, constantly moving. Well, fortunately, I’m still able to go to the same school because all the all the departments were in the same district. We were constantly moving. My mom was never home. We got the babysitters all the time. Our family was like it almost collapsed. Because after our dad left, we never saw our mom. We were always at the babysitters. My mom was always basically alone, like, but she has some friends even there. But she wasn’t really close. We weren’t close to our mom until we came to Virginia. You know what I mean? That was like, the craziest thing. We came out of it. So thank God for that.

Grant 43:45
So would you say your your journey of immigration, how has it made you better worse? Neutrals

Confidential Speaker 43:53
definitely made me more resilient. For sure. Like, especially considering the fact that like, for the majority of it, it was like I wasn’t really close to my mom, because he was always working. I wasn’t really close to my brother either. Because not going to I was kind of but yeah, and then constantly, like moving and like, like, making friends that then leave them like constantly. Like it’s one thing if it’s like, oh, yeah, like we’ll see you I’ll see you some other time, like in the future, you know, but when do you really like leaving them and you know, in the back of your mind, I’m never gonna see this person again. Like, you know, that’s kinda that’s kind of a shame. Like you just leave in the middle of the school year, right? Constantly. Like sixth grade starts three months past and then Dan, your daughter

Grant 44:42
that she’s bearing like you said, you didn’t have a phone so there’s no way

Confidential Speaker 44:46
to contact anyone. All that’s gone.

Grant 44:49
So in a sense, would you say that kind of disconnects you from Canada a little bit the fact that you know, you don’t have that base

Confidential Speaker 44:58
there anymore. I don’t have it anymore. I’m definitely disconnected from Canada, which is a shame is I remember as a kid, I love Canada, I loved it. Leaving it was like, honestly, that was the most dramatic thing that’s probably ever happened to me my entire life. Because honestly, it was like, obviously, I wasn’t like I was losing someone like someone died. It wasn’t like somebody died. But it was like I lost a piece of myself when I left. It’s crazy. Because I am so connected, and then all of a sudden gone. And then you’re able to connect ever again. Like when we left Kent, Texas, I didn’t even care. I was

Grant 45:37
like, off to the next. Right, you gotta know, you had no sense of the sense of community

Confidential Speaker 45:43
anymore rest of this polygon.

Grant 45:46
So like, I guess that kind of makes sense to one of the one person that you didn’t know you didn’t have such a great relationship with them as much. I guess that kind of makes sense as to why there wasn’t that

Confidential Speaker 45:57
that community.

Grant 46:01
So where do you feel most at home?

Confidential Speaker 46:05
Well, when I was younger, it was church. Not because because my mom would sometimes send me to like the, what’s called, like the Bible, Bible study for our kids or whatever, I hated that. Because it was just boring. It was just like them saying, Hey, guys, let’s list our top 1010 reasons why we love Jesus. I’m like, Oh, God again. But I liked, I really liked the were like a pastor just comes on. And he’s like, telling you like, if you dropping wisdom, touch it. Not even necessarily about God, but just wisdom in general. You know, because that’s something I’ve always kind of felt like I needed some kind of guidance. You know, because I was in close to my mom, I didn’t have a dad and have any kind of guy to like, look at, you’re no one to look up to. For, like the majority of my life, then the only time I would get a semblance of that was in church is where I’m like, Okay, I feel like I’m on the right track. It’s the only time you’re gonna tell me about that. I wouldn’t get that with my friends. Because my friends were always so different for me. I could sense that, like, you’re like, even if I try to be like this person, which I’m not going to, there’s no way I could ever be close to who this person is. I always thought that feeling don’t kind of overhear everyone else’s like, agree, you know, so that I just decided to, like lead into like, who I am and more. That was basically how I got over that. And I think if not for the pastors who like gay, like wisdom and advice and all that stuff, I wouldn’t be nearly as resilient as I am today.

Grant 47:48
Are you? Are you still active member in the?

Confidential Speaker 47:50
Oh, no. I’ve moved on from from wisdom and found in an urban religion. And now I’m trying to find the wisdom in as many things as I can. I honestly, I’ve already seen the limits of like, Richard, we spend in Christianity, I think at least the like, if it only helps, so far, doesn’t help with everything. You know, as much as Christians will tell you that it does. I don’t think it helps with everything. But there’s, there’s wisdom everywhere. There’s wisdom. And like, there’s a lot of philosophers, for instance, and those philosophers, most of them, they’re not really giving their philosophy based on some religion, they just created it based on their experiences of life. Right? So I find I personally find like, the philosophers whose lives I get the most are the ones that are the ones that I tend to want to listen to the most. That’s how often that’s what I find, at least.

Grant 48:53
Can you know, how would you connect that to your immigrant experience? If you can’t at all? If not, then as far as the philosophy has been shaped by your

Confidential Speaker 49:06
journey, I mean, my philosophies have all been shaped by whatever phase I’m in, in my life. Like, because in my immigration experience, like, the main thing I’ve learned is that nothing lasts forever, like you’re here for a minute and then bad, like the drop of a die and your entire world can change. And you have no control over it. You just have to get with the program and start to adapt. Like doesn’t matter how much you complain, doesn’t matter how much you cry, you’re gonna have to eventually, like, Get with the program, right? And what I’ve basically learned is that keeping like a level of like, not detachment, but well I guess he has attachment by the level of not like not being too attached to shit. It’s like the nice it’s like a overall arguing like philosophy thing that most of the guys have been watching kind of like All agree with. It’s like not saying to attach to shit. Like, I’ll have this water bottle today the next day it’s gone, or some shit. You know, that is like the main thing I think I’ve wondered. But yeah, I mostly look at philosophy through the lens of my own experiences I don’t follow blindly, whatever. Like if a philosophy says like 10 days, I might take like three things, and then go on to the next and see what I can take from that guy. I find that that’s when I’m more likely to do I’m not gonna stay, so I can’t be in Christianity anymore. Because there’s a lot of things I don’t like about the Bible, even though there are a lot of things that I do like about the Bible. You know, there’s a lot of things I like about other religions too. So I can’t I can’t really choose one. I’d rather like make my own kind of philosophy of how I want to live my life

Grant 50:51
assortment of being the best of each. Exactly. Makes sense. Are we kind of hit or hit a lot of topics. Is there anything else you specifically want to talk about with regards to I

Confidential Speaker 51:06
think that’s all?

Grant 51:09
Well, we appreciate the interview. Man. Yes, great. Thanks again.

Confidential Speaker 51:17
Yeah, no problem, man. He’s