I wanted to externalise Nia’s internal struggle in KAYA. Her mixed race identity crisis goes deeper than mere lookism and a post-colonial mindset. She wants her mother to accept her as she is. She needs to learn to accept herself instead of trying to be like everyone around her. And yet, isn’t it such a natural human impulse to want to belong and fit in? After all, we are social animals; and especially third-culture kids struggle with this social need to belong. Even more so, if their parental home doesn’t give that homogeneity and acceptance; how can a child learn that two distinct cultures can peacefully coexist, if the opposite is modeled to them?