Clemantine Wamariya, Who Survived Genocide in Rwanda, on Her New Memoir, The Girl Who Smiled Beads —and Living for Black Joy

In her memoir, The Girl Who Smiled Beads, (read the excerpt from Vogue’s April issue here) Clemantine Wamariya, with coauthor Elizabeth Weil, describes a childhood brutally disrupted by the Rwandan genocide in 1994. At age 6, she fled on foot with her sister Claire, nine years her senior, into Burundi. The pair moved through southern Africa, staying in refugee camps or scratching out a living, before being granted asylum in the United States in 2000.

Painted in vivid scenes and flashbacks, the book offers a visceral insight into the stultifying life inside a refugee camp, in which, Wamariya writes, “Staying alive was so much work…. You had to try to stay a person.” In her new home of Chicago, Wamariya’s experience upends preconceptions about the mind and spirit of a refugee, and how she interacts with her new surroundings. Above all, Wamariya is anything but passive. She confronts every challenge head-on, and redefines every exchange from her own questioning perspective.

<cite class="credit">Photo: Andrew White</cite>
Photo: Andrew White

She meets Oprah, Elie Wiesel, and President Obama. She goes to Yale University. She joins boards and delegations, and becomes an advocate. She likes to dress up, laugh, and enjoy life. She resists every possible form of pigeonholing. Having fought so hard to stay alive, Wamariya reminds us what life is. Here, she talks to Vogue.

How did your move to Chicago at age 12 come about?

One day, when we were living in Zambia, our seventh country in six years, Claire came home and told me that she’d learned about a U.N. program set up to grant genocide survivors asylum in the United States. We were living in a slum in Zambia. We were so poor. But Claire, who was 21 at the time, was just unbelievably resourceful. She’d saved our lives repeatedly, and for moments like this she always kept one respectable outfit, so that no matter how little money she had, she could meet anyone, anywhere, and not be pitied or judged. She put on her good jeans and crisp white shirt and aced the first interview at the embassy. The following year we were on a plane to Chicago.

What is a typical day like for you now, as an advocate?

My day-to-day varies. I do some public speaking. I talk to school groups. A few weeks ago I was at the first Black Joy Parade in Oakland, California—hundreds of people from the Bay Area dancing, singing, walking, and creating joy. At one point I was watching a painter, and a little girl came and sat next to me. She gave me a name, Joyful, because she said I looked like a Joyful. I almost started to cry. She saw me. And that’s the incredible opportunity I have before me: not just to teach but to learn, and to try to get people to slow down and apprehend one other as humans.

What do you feel most proud of having communicated to the world?

That all of us have equal humanity. It’s such a simple idea, but so hard for people to hold in their minds. Every single person on the planet has equal humanity. In my own life I’ve gone from being seen as utterly worthless to [having] great privilege, and nothing about who I am inside has changed. Every person you see seeking refuge, every person you see walking away from their whole life because their country has descended into chaos and war…I am every one of those people. You are every one of those people too.

What do you hope readers will learn from your story?

I truly hope readers learn to believe in their imaginations and their ability to shape their own lives. That’s what The Girl Who Smiled Beads means to me. The title comes from a fable my nanny told me when I was really young. At every plot point she paused and said, “What do you think happened next?” and whatever I said, whatever future I imagined, came true. Even today, that fable allows me to hold on to the belief that I have the power to create my own reality and future.

What will readers be most surprised about?

I know it sounds lofty, but I hope to surprise readers about their own assumptions, particularly the dynamics of who helps whom. That relationship is very complicated, and often undermining. Sharing is wonderful, but giving—I give, you take—often maintains the power status quo. As a teenager, not long into my new life in the United States, I really surprised a lot of people when they said, with the very best of intentions, “How can I help?” and I responded, “How can I help you?”

From Elie Wiesel to W.G. Sebald, books have meant a lot to you growing up. What are you reading now?

I am way, way deep into Audre Lorde at the moment. She has an essay called, “Scratching the Surface.” I have the audio recording on my phone and I’ve listened to it seven times. It’s so dense and compelling. I feel like she’s literally redefining my world: “Racism: the belief in the inherent superiority of one race over all the others and thereby the right to dominance. Homophobia: the fear of feelings of love for members of one’s sex and therefore the hatred of those feelings in others.” I do a lot of rewinding, as half the time I’m saying to myself, “This is brilliant, but what were you saying? What does this mean?”

What is your favorite thing to do when you’re not working?

Yoga. And sleep. Anything to rest my mind and body.

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