My name is Amias Myles Callender and I am a rising senior at Boston Latin School. I was born December 2nd,1996 in Boston, Ma at Brigham and Women’s hospital to Ardel M. Callender an immigrant from Barbados and G. Renee Payne-Callender. I live in Dorchester with both of my parents, two of my three brothers including my twin of whom I am the youngest, my maternal grandmother, one maternal aunt, and her daugher. During grades K2,2-6 I attended Pope John Paul II Catholic Academy- Neponset Campus formerly St. Anns. I participated in Metco for grade one attending Hastings Elementary School in Lexington, Ma but went back to St. Anns after I endured a concussion and the distance was out of range of my mothers’ comfortability. From 7th grade through the present I have been attending Boston Latin School. At BLS I play football and one season of tennis. I am also Operations Manager of the Fashion Talent Club.
My interest for public service stems from my community and the people who reside there. I am from Dorchester one of the more troubled parts of Boston and I’ve been around and know personally some of the constituents who are involved in drug trafficking, gang activity, and other cancerous acts in the community. I began to wonder why these things occur. Why do people opt out of education and stray towards the street life? Why is there such a disconnect between the lawmakers/ enforcers and the ones affected most harshly by laws? Why in Ashmont Station am I more likely to see gang flags than the slacks and tie I wear to work? The answer I got to these questions in a general format is that people don’t know the other options. At Boston Latin School I am exposed to internship opportunities such as the Ward fellowship, and I’ve seen manifold success however at other public schools that’s not happening and if it is then it is definitely not happening at the level that should be demanded by all parties involved. I’ve also realized that the reason some people hate “the system” and feel as though they don’t reap the benefits of it is because they don’t understand it and they feel like those that do understand it don’t understand them. I was one of those people until I decided to change that. I decided that it was unfair to judge a system that I knew nothing about. It was unproductive to complain among people who neither cared that much nor could, in their current state, affect change. I realized that if I wanted to understand politics, law, and things of that nature that affect people every day I would have to get involved. This combined with a joy found in getting my point across is why I want to be a lawyer because again it’s unwise to say “public defenders don’t help” and “they just want us all in jail” when no one is studying the law and becoming a public defender, private defender or prosecutor in order to change these conceptions whether they are factual or fictional.
This summer I am interning at the state house in the office of Senator Linda Dorcena Forry and already I’ve learned a sizeable amount about not only the logistics and duties of the job but also the intangibles about politics that one has to be in the environment in order to completely understand. But the most important thing I learned so far is that elected officials at the base of it all are passionate about helping people they are in place as resources for everyone not just those who can or do vote.