Laya Mosto

I think my parents and my family tried to protect us.

The less you know as a kid, the better, because obviously you're not going around school and saying things

But then when the war started and the revolutions, the protests first started, like my sister and I like had a lot of questions, obviously.

And we're like, OK, but like, what does this mean?

Is the president like a good guy or a bad guy?

Like, what do we do?

What do we say?

And then slowly, like everything changed.

Yeah.

How did your parents explain it to you?

I remember like in the beginning, maybe for the first like couple of weeks, like my mom let us be.

So she was like, oh, like you could take whatever you think if you want to say it's good, whatever.

But then very, like very soon after that, as soon as we knew like things were serious and it was like a part of the Arab Spring and everything, my mom kind of like sat us down and like explained.

He is a bad guy.

He explained like the crimes that have been happening, the suppression.

My mom is from the northwest of Syria.

She's from Latakia.

So she grew up in the city where like Assad's family and like his people are sort of from the villages of that city.

So she kind of was experienced a lot of the aggression and oppression sort of like growing up.

So they'd come into the city that sort of like