In the summer of 1993, the United States, for the first and only time, allowed one thousand Tibetans to move to America with immigrant, rather than refugee, status. Yangphel won the lottery. He was the thousandth Tibetan…That he was the last Tibetan given the chance to emigrate had to be fate.

Pyaohn acknowledges the natural barriers, such as age and time, to realizing his career goals now, but for this Karen Burmese refugee, there’s something far more important than opportunity; and that is braving the truth and attaining dignity.

Sifri’s dreams of a future in Palestine were dashed one day in 1948 when his mother burst through the door of his first grade classroom.

Mesfin did not have any money, but he did have one resource not available to most refugees-a family member already settled in Kenya. “I go to the city and I ask this guy ‘you know him?’, and he said no, so I go to next guy, restaurant owner, and I say ‘you know him?’” He had found his uncle in a matter of hours.

Under the cover of night, amidst the foliage of unbeaten paths, Peter Magai Bul faced the ever-present dangers of wild animals and poisonous snakes without the comfort of a single blood relative. But neither the dark, nor the predators, nor even the loneliness could compare to the harrowing reality: Death itself had picked up their scent, and was perpetually lurking just behind them in the tall grass they walked through.

Thirty years after leaving Cambodia, Leon Lim still treasures the map that his uncle traced to direct him to safety. Simple blue ink scribbled onto a small piece of notebook parchment led him away from his home city of Siem Reap to seek sanctuary in a Thai refugee camp.

Waiting in a potentially unending state of limbo, refugees cannot decide when they will leave the refugee camp, where they will go, or even under what circumstances.