Zilala Mamat ’26 knows that her work documenting Uyghur heritage is dangerous. 

Shortly after she interviewed a Uyghur historian last summer in Uzbekistan, he was murdered. After Mamat delivered a 2024 TedX talk at Cornell — telling stories about victims of persecution — her family members were targeted. She’s received threatening phone calls and was stopped by police during a winter break research trip to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.

Nevertheless, Mamat, who is Uyghur-American herself, remains undaunted, even emboldened, as she continues her work to document the lives and stories of Uyghur people living in exile.

“Their goal is to push me into fear, so I don’t do the work I do,” she said. “But even if we stay silent, the atrocities will continue. So, for the greater future, it’s important that we continue to speak out.”

Mamat, a government major in the College of Arts & Sciences who’s interested in international law and human rights work, was born in the northwest region of China, also known as Xinjiang or East Turkestan. She moved to the U.S. in 2006 with her parents, who came here to study and then sought asylum. She still has family members who live in the region.

Read the full story on The College of Arts & Sciences website.