D'von
Portrait with Hosea Johnson
Description: A young man stares into the camera. His face is silhouetted against the dark background and the rest of the figure blends in. His hair has pink and blue brightly colored streaks and their portrait says, “Color amongst darkness.”
Portrait with Zachary Maxwell Stertz
“My humor and my ability to take a joke are good qualities I have. I think my maturity is another one of my best qualities. I'm doing a lot of stuff now that a lot of 19 year olds, a lot of kids my age aren't doing and I like that about myself. I think my hair is one of my favorite qualities. I love my hair.
People would describe me as fun, loving, and happy. I walk into a room and it automatically smiles. I come across as nice or cordial, because I feel like there's no reason to be mean to somebody you don't know, and there's also no reason to not accept somebody, or to act like I'm better than anybody because everybody has their own thing.
I feel pressure sometimes, where I almost feel like I have to overcompensate in order to be looked at as okay, or to be seen as good. There's a lot more pressure on that because the only person who I still feel really sees me, is me. Talking to people about certain things and opening up to them was always hard for me. Since I don't do that, I think people don't see the part of me that can still get hurt. What people say still hurts, whether I was smiling or not. I think that's something I want people to see and stop thinking that I'm just going to be okay with everything, and then let's rely on D’von to be cool and level headed and fun and happy.
When I was younger, I was heavier and there were a lot of jokes flying around. My older brother was slim, fit, played baseball, basketball, played anything that was given to him. But there I was sitting on a couch, humming a tune or writing songs when I was eight. I think people saw that, especially in New York, as the lesser one, compared to my brother. Growing up in the Lower East Side, or New York in general, people were not generally nice at all. I guess I've always been under pressure to be better than I am or better than him or better than I was at all. Growing up in that environment really didn't help when I was already insecure about everything about myself.
I identify as a 19 year old male who is also African-American and Latino. I’m a singer. I know singing and music is a Plan A. Teaching is a plan B, but an equal want. I'd love to do both of them. I don't want to be seen as gay or straight. I don't want to be seen as all those categories. I want to be seen as D’von. I'm going to make “D’von” a category. But there’s certain prejudices and certain perceptions that you’re made to have or you learn to have as you grow up. I'd love to change that about the world. I know what I am, I don't need others to tell me what I am. At the end of the day, I'm going to have to walk outside with this person. I'm the one who will deal with the fact that I like this person.”
New York, 2020