palestine

I visited occupied Palestine in 2018 on a trip with students from my Peace & Conflict Studies department at Swarthmore. During this trip, I learned from displaced Palestinians as well as ex-IDF soldiers who testified about the human rights violations by the Israeli government. In this photoset, there are images of Palestinians existing with great hope and resilience even while being subject to militarized policing.

As a Kachin person, war and displacement are topics I grew up discussing, and I learned so much about how the Palestinian struggle is intertwined with the civil war in Myanmar. Weapons that are used against my people are the same ones being used against Palestinians due to arms deals between Israel & Myanmar. And at the root of it all, I am a citizen to the country manufacturing weapons used in wars across the world and my American tax dollars are being sent to fund these genocides.

I wish for peace, safety, and a free unoccupied homeland for Palestinians; protection and healing for Jewish people worldwide; and an end to all wars, including in my birthplace of Myanmar.

iceland

When I was 19, I went to Iceland alone, rented a car with my fake American ID, and drove around the whole country with only $800 in my bank account. In between sleeping in my car and making kettle meals at camping stops, I explored the most otherworldly parts of Earth while discovering and healing wounds I found in my solitude.

This trip revived my roots in eco-spirituality that I believe were diminished by a strict upbringing in organized religion that was imposed upon my ethnic community through mental and cultural colonization. I believe that the weaponization of religion and erasure of our indigenous ancestors’ animist beliefs has been incredibly detrimental to society, and that the exaltation of human beings over the rest of nature is the reason for our impending demise.

Salvation does not wait in the afterlife. Salvation is found in this lifetime by being a guardian & steward for the rest of nature.

Myanmar

Although I was born in Myanmar, I moved to America by way of Guam when I was around 2 years old. In 2016, I finally had the opportunity to visit Myanmar again during a time of temporary peace and hope for democracy. It was the first time I fully understood myself, my parents, and our greater ethnic community. I was only 16 years old when I witnessed the direct effects of war against my people, and the people I met and what I learned will never leave me.

I spent a few weeks in the city where I was born, Yangon, and spent another few weeks at an internally displaced people’s camp on the border along China. At the IDP camp, I taught English and recorded audiobooks to distribute amongst IDP schools. All the students there were victims of the civil war that had interrupted their youths and education. Some students kept learning, some became soldiers in the resistance armies, and some passed away young just from the difficulties of life in a UNHCR village in the jungle.

In 2025, while visiting Japan for my mother’s birthday, I met a prior student of mine named Jimmy at a Kachin church. He reintroduced himself and his story. Jimmy had attended the school I taught at in the IDP camp, learned English using the audiobooks I recorded, and through great effort in his studies, had been awarded a scholarship to study English abroad in Japan. His plans for the future were to continue further his studies in hope of returning home to a free Myanmar to build a Kachin nation.

Re-meeting Jimmy after a decade has been the single most important event in my life. He is only 3 years younger than me, but has lived so much more life than me, and is a living testament to the significance of education. To be honest, I never expected to meet anyone from that IDP camp again. I can’t believe that my actions from age 16 had a ripple effect that brought someone out of warfare and into a future of hope and peace. Continuing to help others and generate more moments like this is my calling in this life.