The Curse of Excellence

​"Tipi's bitch", "Mockahontas", "Miss Quotas"... Don't waste your time trying to insult Ama Smith ; she has heard it all and she is still standing.

​Since childhood, Ama—a proud member of the Cherokee Nation—was convinced that the only way for her people to survive was to outshine the WASP elite. For her, academic excellence wasn't a choice; it was a survival strategy, pursued at the cost of her own mental health.

​Her brilliance caught the eye of the Ivy League, leading her to Harvard, where she graduated with top honors in psychology after countless sleepless nights and enduring the quiet cruelty of elitism.

​When she returned to the Oklahoma reservation, she hoped to be a trailblazer. Instead, she found herself treated as a "poster child." The Tribal Council didn't want a doctor; they wanted a spokesperson. A political puppet.

​But Ama never cared for politics.

​Now 34, Ama lives hundreds of miles away from the reservation. As a practicing psychoanalyst, she spends her days dissecting the minds of others, while still trying to figure out where she truly belongs in a world that only sees her

as a category.