The Inheritance of Ambition

Tattooed above his eyebrow is the word “Ambition.” This young man is incarcerated for sex trafficking, as his mother is. Growing up in a world where exploitation was already part of his family’s experience raises difficult questions about what we inherit, what becomes normalized, and how cycles of harm are perpetuated. His circumstances do not diminish his responsibility for the lives he has harmed, but they invite us to consider how those cycles begin, and what it might take to break them.