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Alex Koroknay-Palicz is the current executive director and former president of the National Youth Rights Association. The National Youth Rights Association is a grass-roots organization fighting to defend the civil and human rights of young people in the United States.
This interview was conducted via AOL Instant Messenger, as per request of the subject. This interview has not been edited in any way, and it is in its orginial condition.
Date beginning: 23 October 2005
Time beginning: 10:30 p.m. ET
My name is Adam King, a journalist acting for the National Youth Rights Association. I will be interviewing you on general personal issues, history, and your inolvement in youth rights.
Good evening.
What is your full name?
Alexander August Joseph Koroknay-Palicz
When and where were you born?
I was born in Kalamazoo on July 2, 1981
Were you raised in Kalamazoo?
no, I only lived in the area till I was 3 or so, then my parents moved to Holland, Michigan, about an hour and a half north, where I lived until I graduated high school.
Desribe Holland to me through your eyes as a teenager growing up there.
It was a small midwestern town in every sense. I really enjoyed it. There was a certain commonality of experience that bonded people together despite the fact not everyone agreed on everything or necessarily liked each other all the time. I loved the town and my friends and was very much a king going off on various adventures around town. Epic bike rides, dangerous pranks, and creative experiences all around. In some ways I was freer then than I am now, yet of course in other ways I certainly wasn't.
Were you treated as a king or did you act like a king?
I acted like a king. So certainly I am guilty of a fault many adults have of romanticising their youth. My views of myself and my life were decidedly not shared by my parents or teachers or other adults in my life. To them I was just some cocky kid up to no good.
What sort of problems did you have with your parents or teachers?
It was the combination of a general lack of respect and an insistant effort to control me. People patronizing me, talking down to me, never talking to me or dealing with me as an equal. I've never really gotten over that. It is sometimes the most subtle things that can be the most hurtful and long lasting. The tone in someone's voice, a dismissive glance, the times others talked about me rather than talking to me. Like a million pin pricks, these all took their toll.
Plus on top of that were the double standards and the hypocrisy exacerbated by everyone's intent to butt themselves into my life and tell me (and command me) how to live. Disrespect is a problem, but if taken alone its a problem that you can escape from, run from. Yet everyone's efforts to control me was something I couldn't escape from. When people are shouting at you and threatening you and commanding you to obey, its incredibly frustrating. Always someone standing over your shoulder waiting for you to mess up, heck even if you don't mess up, they have some "helpful" advice (or command) about how I should live. I just wanted to be left alone. I knew myself better than anyone, it was insulting for others to assume greater knowledge of my life than I did. But more than just an assumption, it was actuated. I was commanded, I was expected to obey, and I was punished if I didn't.
I was never hit or abused, thank God for that, so there are many, many individuals out there with far worse upbringings than mine. In fact I was probably one of the fortunate ones. After more experience and knowledge of more families out there, my parents really weren't that bad. Yet even moderately good parents and moderately good teachers by societies' standards I found quite lacking.
Do you get along with your parents today?
Yes and no. We get along much better than we did in high school or middle school. Distance helps. The fact I'm not living under their roof helps. They may have mellowed somewhat as well, perhaps give me more respect than they once did. Our relationship is complicated of course by the fact we are family. I love my parents very much. They love me very much as well. Blood is thicker than water or so they say, so they will always be my parents and I will always love them. Would I want to live with them again? Not on your life.
What about siblings? Do you have any siblings?
I don't. I'm an only child.
How do you feel about being an only child?
Its not an issue I've really dwelled upon much. I've never really longed for a brother or a sister or rejoiced that I never had any. I've never really known anything different. Its shaped me no doubt in many ways, but I don't really feel any particular way about it. It just is.
Mr. Koroknay-Palicz, have you even been arrested?
haha, yes I have. Twice actually.
What were the reasons for being arrested?
The first time I threw a party at my house while my parents were out of town and got busted. I had a keg in the house and plenty of underage folks inside. Thankfully I took precautions that allowed everyone to escape. No one else was arrested, just me. It was the first and last party I threw in high school. Its sad in a way, with all the other hundreds of parties that happened in high school (none of which I attended by the way) the one party I actually threw (and was at) got busted. Luck of the draw I suppose. Or perhaps I'm an amatuer and did something wrong. Who knows. I only regret I was caught - and that I never got the deposit back on the keg.
The second arrest I do regret. The second time, I was out with some friends driving around causing trouble, as we were apt to do. But usually our "trouble" was fairly mild. This night however I decided on a whim to drive onto the soccer field at Holland Christian Middle School. I 'turfed' it by doing 180's and such with my car, tearing up the field. Then of course we were dumb enough to stay in the parking lot till the police came.
As part of my punishment I was given community service, a portion of which was to help out the school directly. I met the principal of the school and he was one of the nicest people I've ever met. In my mind the epitome of how a Christian should be. Very kind and forgiving. Here I was, someone who caused hundreds of dollars of damage to their soccer field, disrupting their team till it could be fixed and he was never bitter or hostile or really upset over it. He forgave me. In fact the court assigned me 5 hours of work at the school and I think I only worked one or two. The Principal signed the form for the court saying I worked all five. He could have been nasty and gotten every minute out of me, by all rights he should have, but he didn't. I've never forgotten that.
Do you not regret supplying alcohol to your underage friends?
No. Not at all. No one got hurt, so what did it matter if they (not me actually, I didn't drink) had a few beers. Adults drink. It didn't make much sense why there needed to be different rules for teens. No one acquired any magic alcohol consumption abilities upon one's 21st birthday.
How old were you at the time?
My math (and memory) is a bit rusty, but 16 I believe.
How did you get the keg?
My friend worked at the grocery store, and he had a friend there over 21 who bought it for me.
If you had the choice, what is one thing you would change from your past?
That's a difficult question that people often ask, and I've considered it several times but I can't think of anything I'd change. Every mistake I've made has been a mistake I've learned from. Every failure has made me stronger. Changing the past would change me, and while I can't say I'm 100% happy with everything in my life, but I don't like the idea of tempting fate, even as a mental exercise, and wishing for changes in the past. All my experiences, good and bad, make me who I am today, and I wouldn't trade that away.
Do you have any heroes or role models? If so, who are they and why? If you do not, why not?
Most people do I guess, but I don't have anyone I can point to as a hero or role model. The idea behind it I suppose is that you look up to someone and admire them so much you attempt to copy yourself after them, emulate their personality or replicate their successes. I've never done that. For better or wose, I've always strived to be my own person. Plus I recognize that everyone, no matter who they are, are not perfect. Everyone has their insecurities, their failings, their oversights, their bias. I've never idealized anyone enough to make them my hero.
All right, so what were the factors involved in you moving out of Holland?
I knew I wanted to get involved in politics - to make a difference. And politics lived and breathed in Washington, DC. So I knew this is where I had to be. When looking for colleges this was the only city I looked at.
What college did you go to?
American University.
How did you decide to go to AU?
I think it was meant to be. I really believe in fate, and I think my decision was incidental. AU was the very first school to send me information, back in sophmore year even. Then, later, I was nominated by a teacher to attend the National Student Leadership Conference (that following summer I believe), that conference was based at AU and I lived in the dorms for a week or two. The conference was just an amazing experience all around. Then I went with my parents to DC to tour 4 colleges there, and I just liked AU. I dunno why, maybe it was all because of the experience at the conference, but it was the one I decided on. I never applied to any other schools.
What was your major?
CLEG, which was another thing I liked about AU. It was a combined major that included Communications, Law, Economics, and Government.
How were you involved in AU? Clubs, sports, etc?
I wasn't terribly involved. I founded and ran NYRA-AU, and despite some limited involvement in the fencing club and the ACLU chapter there I wasn't all that involved in activites at the school besides NYRA. I spent much of my time just hanging out with friends and doing youth rights.
How well did you do in college?
Not bad. I wasn't particularly challenged in college, but I never really cared much for the work. So I could ace tests with little or no studying, but writing the papers didn't interest me much, and I grew frustrated with having to write them. I got B's mostly. But considering the lack of effort I put into my schooling, I'd consider getting B's pretty damn good.
Did you graduate?
No.
What influenced this?
I no longer saw the point of school. I wasn't getting anything out of it, it was just driving me to frustration with many petty demands on my time that were neither making me a more educated person nor advancing any potential career of mine. Increasingly I saw my future bound together with NYRA's future, and as I was already Executive Director of it I knew that whether I had a degree or not wouldn't determine whether I'd get "hired" or not. The only thing holding me back was funding, and that ultimately rested on my hard work and effort to raise, not on whether I had a slip of paper saying I graduated or not.
Did your parents have a negative reaction to this?
hehe, hoo boy, did they ever. I don't think they've ever forgiven me for deciding to leave school. I kind of equate it with coming out of the closet about one's sexuality. Getting a college degree is such an accepted thing to do that any deviation from it is seen as not only an absurd disgrace, but threatening. It was like I personally sought to harm them. Its been an uncomfortable point of tension between us since.
Although you consider your college education arbitrary, do you have any regrets whatsoever about not finishing?
None at all, I should have left earlier.
How many years did you attend before you decided to not finish?
3
How did you find out about NYRA (or preceding organizations to NYRA)?
Well I had worked on a youth rights campaign senior year in high school independently, and as part of my online research then I came across a portion of ASFAR's Declaration of Principles. Unfortunately I couldn't trace my way back from that page to the rest of the ASFAR website so I couldn't find any information about the organization, but from the little I saw they seemed to be exactly what I was looking for. But I put it out of my mind and continued on my campaign.
When I won my campaign I pretty much decided that youth rights was what I wanted to work on, whether I had to start my own organization or not. That summer after I graduated, in late July actually, I finally decided to see if I could find that organization I had come across back in the spring. This time I did, and I found a bunch of youth rights organizations around at the time. NYRA, ASFAR, YouthSpeak, Peacefire, Oblivion, the National Child Rights Alliance. I joined them all.
How have you beome a prominent figure in each of the respective organizations?
persistence.
Explain to me your involvement in NYRA. Start from the beginning, in NYRA's formative years.
I suppose initially I was more involved in ASFAR, just because at the time, in 1999 it was the larger and more active of the two. I joined the very active discussion list and started mixing it up with the regulars right away. I may have walked right into one of the many raging debates on the age of consent issue. Immediately I took a moderate, pragmatic approach. I knew that radicalism wasn't going to get us anywhere. This, I suppose, alerted those active in NYRA who had already adopted such a philosophy and we started talking. I learned that the current President of NYRA, Avi Hein was actually an incoming freshman at AU that fall, same with me. Another amazing coincidence.
We talked and I got involved in NYRA. Some of the current people running NYRA were a bit grating, so I continued to work within both ASFAR and NYRA, but with the shared philosophy and the personal connection to NYRA through Avi, it was clear NYRA was going to be my pick of the two. That October of my freshman year NYRA held its Annual Meeting at AU. And while I wasn't on the ballot (I probably wasn't even a member when it was sent out) the members present at the meeting elected me to NYRA's Board of Directors.
From the first moment I joined the movement I was very action oriented. It didn't take me long to recognize that both organizations were full of a bunch of blowhards with imagined self-importance that seemed more concerned with imagining a perfect utopia or reveling in the trappings of running a professional organization than actually running one. So from the beginning I was a thorn in everyone's side pressing them toward action. And better yet, actually getting out there and doing stuff. It was quite frustrating to me how resistent the leadership of both organizations were to me and my efforts to actually get things done. But instead of just getting frustrated and walking away, I remained persistent. Now I'm still here and they're all gone.
Let's advance to the present. How did you feel when doing an interview on a network for your first time?
Like CNN?
Yes.
It was cool. I really felt like a pay off for everything we were doing. Finally we were starting to hit the big time. Of course it was just one of many steps in a long staircase we haven't begun to see the end of yet, but it was a very important step. We got national exposure and a sense of hope that people were starting to listen and taking us seriously. It was a real proud moment.
How did you feel when you became NYRA's first paid executive director?
That was another very proud moment and very important moment. Another step toward legitimacy. It was also a bit of a scary moment, like I was pulling off the training wheels finally. The contract was for three months and I had no guarantees that when that term ran out I'd still be getting paid. I didn't know what would happen. (and still don't) But I knew it was a very important step we had to take. Getting an office, hiring interns, they all fall into part of this. It makes me feel proud of what we've been able to accomplish and hopeful for the future. In my years of involvement with the movement I've never once doubted that we'd get here, but after so long struggling along with a lack of support, lack of volunteers and lack of money it seemed like that eventual day when we would be organized well enough to afford staff was further and further away. So at least temporarily this is a vindication that yes, a rag-tag bunch of kids can create a real organization with a real office and real staff, and yes I can actually get paid for doing what I love and am most passionate about.
To conclude this interview, is there anything else you would like to add?
nothing I can think of that I could state before I fall asleep.
All right. Thank you Mr. Koroknay-Palicz for spending two and a half hours of your valuable time. This concludes the interview.
Date ending: 24 October 2005
Time ending: 01:00 a.m. ET
Adam King is a freelance journalist for the National Youth Rights Association. He also serves in the national capacity as South Region Director of Chapter Formation.
This interview may not be copied or reproduced or altered in any means without written permission from Adam King. Adam King may be contacted at AKing@YouthRights.org
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