“From the beginning of Camp X-Ray, we had been creating, and those small acts were our escape. Some of us wrote on Styrofoam cups and plates. We used spoons or twisted the tiny stems off apples to write poems or draw flowers, hearts, the moon. We made flowers out of stickers we found on fruit. These were tiny expressions of our former selves breaking through, resisting the identities imprinted on us. These simple expressions were as necessary as food and water, and they were always punished.” ArtHumanityCreationAgencyGuantánamoGuantánamo Bay Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo Source: Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
“Working on these books helped me make sense of this place and what had happened to us. It was my way of processing and even reclaiming the power to tell the world who I was in my own words, not the interrogators'. They could control my life, but I wouldn't allow them to define it.” WritingAgencyTelling Your StorySelf DefinitionGuantánamoGuantánamo Bay Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo Source: Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo
“More important than the things they gave us was the freedom we had over our lives and our contact with the world. It might sound simple, but just being able to have a pen and paper in my cell changed my life.” AgencyGuantánamoGuantánamo Bay Book:Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo Source: Don't Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo