Written by CNN Staff
CNN is profiling a rising star from each of the world’s regions. Soon to be 30, they are not yet well-known to their respective national media, and include Palestinians, Germans, Nepalis, Americans and Canadians.
Just as surreal as its subjects, the shot itself is intriguing, and subsequently goes unrecognized. The exterior shots of the contestants’ hometowns are given up to the viewer to select their home from a photo montage, as the location begins to “speak” through the auto-correct in the text it is print at the bottom of the page.
Here, we meet 39-year-old Zouche, who was born in Lagos, Nigeria, and now calls New York home. She tells her powerful story over the phone.
“My story is a story about what immigrants go through to get visas. I was born in 1985, and I was a little bit obsessed with what my passport looked like and what it said.
My story is about an independent woman who was born a woman, lived in a country from which there was no civil war, lived in a country where there was no famine. At the age of 18, I was very, very close to moving to England, but because my mother, my uncle was in England, I made a promise to him, ‘When I die, if we are in this house together, then we will stay in this house and die together.’”