My life does not feel logical, sequential, or inevitable. There’s no sense of action, reaction; no consequence, repercussion; no plot. It’s just frag… - Clemantine Wamariya

I needed to see the world in front of me clearly so I could perform my part well. I needed to crack the code. So many times, in my former life, I’d had to become someone else in order to stay out of a refugee camp or out of jail, to stay alive. I had played a mother. I had played a yes ma’am younger sister. I had made myself a nobody, invisible. Now I had to become this strange creature: an American teenager.

There is so much human pain and suffering in the world. I want to honor all those difficult experiences and acknowledge their aftermath.

Staying alive was so much work…. You had to try to stay a person.