252 Soakhamnuan contest. The teacher would read something to the class and we had to listen very carefully. At the end, the teacher would ask us questions and we had to answer the questions. I won and I got a scholarship – it was not a lot, but I was always proud when I could help my parents even a little bit because I knew it was hard to earn money. I was so excited that I might be able to go to another school and compete. The teacher just said that I did not have Thai citizenship, so I could not go to another school. I hated the word stateless. It always upset me. At that time, it seemed like I understood what statelessness meant, because people were always telling me ‘No, no, no.’ I felt that, I am a human too and I grew up in Thailand; why can’t I do the same things as other people? 4 Sixth Grade I didn’t really understand statelessness until sixth grade. When I went to sixth grade my friends always talked about where they were going to continue school, which schools had great uniforms and what city they were going to study in. I knew that my parents couldn’t send me to school. I was really jealous. I didn’t care about the uniforms as much as my friends, as long as I could go to school. So when my friends were talking about it, I always ran away and cried. I didn’t want to embarrass myself. I didn’t want them to ask where I was going to school or make fun of me because my parents didn’t have money. I knew that even if I graduated from high school, I would not get a diploma because I was stateless. Also, I was told I could only work for a farm, factory or restaurant; those places would hire stateless people who had pink I.D.s and would employ you even if you didn’t go to school. My mother asked me questions like, ‘Should you just go work and save money and buy whatever you want – is it worth it?’ In Thailand, stateless people had to pay more for school and uniforms. I think she just thought that she would just be wasting her money sending me there. 5 At the Highest Risk My mother told us that sometimes ‘businessmen’ came to our village looking for people who wanted to work in the city. They would tell her that her daughters could work in a restaurant or be a housemaid, but who knows if it tilburg law review 19 (2014) 248-260