(any/all)

I want to share a little of my background so you know why this project is so important to me.

 

I live with a huge mix of identities: I have a facial difference. I am Japanese American. I am also neurodivergent and queer. I have spent my life living in the simultaneously beautiful and challenging intersection of race, gender, sexual orientation, and disability. My career as a circus artist has led me to perform in spotlights around the world. It also led to a number of producers spotlighting my facial difference which ended in discrimination and loss of work. All of these experiences have led to this moment in my life.

 

It hasn't all been bad, just complex. There are some days where I feel badass and invincible. Other days, I can't look in the mirror. Like many people in our community, I live with chronic pain and a face that visibly changes in appearance from one day to the next. I fight internalized ableism at every turn. Slowly, though, I've been learning to find joy in my difference. I love myself more...little by little...which I couldn't do it without the warm embrace of my friends and family in and outside of the Facial Difference community.

 

These days, I focus on writing, speaking, modeling, and face equality activism. Because of my lived experience, and because I exist in the center of so many intersecting identities, I'm a believer in the wholeness of each individual human on this planet in all our complexities, and I'm excited to change the negative beliefs baked into our societies that separate us from that wholeness. I look forward to experiencing this journey with you as we explore our evolving lives through new lenses of hard questions, introspection, empathy and the celebration of differences.