How did beauty advertisements make you feel when you were growing up?
I never really paid too much attention to beauty advertisements. I was super consumed with social media growing up, and so whatever I would see what was popular on social media on Tumblr, I would see all the skinny white girls and their little yolo phases and just Tumblr core. I think that affected me in a way that I thought that I had to look like them in a sense. I had to have long straight hair and a thigh gap and all of these things. That was something that I had to unlearn throughout my high school years and be like, okay, their version would not look like me on me. I would not look like that, and I don't think that would be healthy for me either. That's healthy for them, but for me it looks different. 

How have you seen the beauty industry shift from when you were a kid to now?
I feel like I've seen it make great strides in diversity, whether it be racially or physically. At first you would only see very few black people and other people of color in white spaces, which was everywhere. Everywhere was a white space back then in the early two thousands, but now you're able to see so many more people from different walks of life that have different looks. They don't look like the typical person that you would think would be on runways or in commercials or anything like that. It's just a lot more diverse, but I feel like we still have so much more to go. In a sense, I was thinking of this article that Paloma Elsesser did with The Cut, and she was talking about body diversity on the runways and how it's still kind of going backwards in a sense, and I think that we should be proud of how far we've come, but also be aware that we still have so much more to go and so much more to achieve with diversity.

What communities do you feel that you're NOT seeing consistently in advertising? 
Something that I've been seeing a lot of discussion about online is concerning black people. We see a lot of South Sudanese models being represented on the runways, and that's amazing. Being South Sudanese, I love seeing my people, but seeing other African communities, other African nationalities like other West Africans or South Africans, or even just black Americans, seeing them on the runway is just as important as seeing someone from East Africa because we all don't look the same. We all have different facial types, different body types, just the phenotypes are just different, and a lot of people take seeing the South Sudanese models as just the diversity token, and that's not how it's supposed to be. We should be seeing different people from different parts of every continent. I see a lot of discussion about East Asians being what you think of when you're looking at Asian people. That shouldn't be the case. You should also see Southeast Asians and Southern Asians. We can't be contained just to one look of a person or of a race. That's something that I've been thinking about a lot.

What effect has the inclusivity boom and beauty advertising had on you personally? For better or for worse, and what about your community?
I feel like my experience is so little. I've only been modeling for just over a year. At first I was working a lot and I wasn't sure if I would say the boom definitely helped with that, and then I felt last year I didn't get as much work, and so I felt like maybe me, the way that I look is a trend, and so that's going away and I've seen this being discussed online a lot with other plus-sized creators and models, they feel like their bodies are a trend and that they're going away because now thin is in, and we see so many people losing a lot of weight because of medications and all these things, and so I feel like I am still kind navigating that and seeing what's going to happen when I go back to New York. Am I still going to feel the effects of this past year not getting as much work because my look isn't in? I don't know. Sometimes I place my self-worth on the amount of jobs that I book and I shouldn't, it's not going to change anything from who I was yesterday or two minutes ago before I even got the email saying that I didn't book the job.

In taking steps towards more diversity in beauty product and beauty advertising, what are companies still doing wrong or what could they be doing better?
I feel like companies don't take into account the undertones. For me, that's the biggest thing. When I'm looking at beauty products, especially foundation or concealer, bronzers, anything, they're still not deep enough or they don't expand on their undertones. It's different for every person and they only market towards one specific type of dark skin or just a specific type of skin color in general. I know a lot of people that are lighter than me that still have trouble finding their foundation shades because they can't get the tone right. They have to mix multiple foundations and concealers and products and that should never be the case. We shouldn't have to consume so much just to get something perfect for us. 

Some brands are turning to AI as a solution for inclusivity. What are your thoughts on that as a solution?
I did not like that as a solution. Just me also being a creative and I think that it is just a lazy way of getting things done, and it's a cheap way too. I don't think that you should be cutting corners just to provide advertisements or products or anything like that. I don't think that's fair to your consumers. I don't think that's fair to the brand. I don't think that's fair to the people that put this industry on their backs. There are so many creatives that have done so much incredible work and to cut them out as the middleman of providing the service in the products to your consumers is very distasteful, in my opinion,

What do you think you personally bring to the fashion and beauty world?
I feel like I bring another type of representation within the curvy girls because even though there are not that very many South Sudanese curve girls, there's still quite a few. And I’ve met a lot of them and they're absolutely amazing. I think what sets me apart from them is that my hair is a lot different. I have locs and none of them do, and I feel like sometimes that hinders me from getting jobs or from doing the things that they have done with their shorter hair. But when I came into this industry, I was very adamant about not cutting my hair or taking out my locs because I felt like it was very special to my identity.It'll help me be a singular identity in the sense that people will recognize me because they see that I have my locs and I don't look necessarily like every other curve girl. 

Additional Question Posed After the 2024 Presidential Election Results
How do you feel the results of this election will impact you, both personally and professionally?
Personally, it’s going to heavily impact me health wise. It is already hard as a black woman to have healthcare professionals to believe me. On top of that, I am diabetic, which already has its own pile of issues. Adding on repressive reproductive laws makes being at my best health wise, that much harder.

Where do you think your power lies in the face of these results as a model?
My power lies in my voice. It is imperative that we actually use our voice to speak about our experiences, to tell our stories. Fashion is political believe it or not. As much as fashion is about the clothes or the product we’re selling, it is also about the people who are modeling them. Our job is to make them come alive. Use your platforms to build communities that will fight back against the groups that will stunt the creative heights that i know fashion can reach.

What do you think the beauty industry can do to support you in the coming years?
The biggest thing the beauty industry can do to support me is to continue showing up for dark skinned people. There is so much untapped potential with beauty products and technology that could benefit all darkskinned people. There are people who are wanting to spend their hard earned money to better their self esteem, it is so important to care.