LOS ANGELES — Her name is Little Amal, although she is anything but small. The 12 foot puppet who represents a 10-year-old Syrian refugee is on an epic journey across continents. She began her walk in 2021 travelling from the Syrian border to Great Britain, over 6,000 miles in 14 countries and senior puppeteer Craig Leo was there every step of the way.
“Amal is there to highlight the plight of unaccompanied minors,” he explained. “A lot of young people were being sent off on their own across Europe to find family members.”
She’s now reaching the end of her walk across America, another 6,000 miles covered, and over that time Leo said the project has taken on new meaning. From what’s happening in Gaza to what he’s witnessed as they visited towns along our southern border, to people being displaced by climate change, he said it’s clear the refugee crisis is not going away and neither is the message of Little Amal.
“The awful thing is that it’s needed now more than ever,” he said.
It takes three puppeteers to bring Little Amal to life. The team rotates, with one inside the torso and two more controlling the arms. It’s the hardest puppeteering job Leo’s ever had to do, but he said whoever is up there on the stilts, controlling the head is very likely beaming.
“You just see these crazy smiles on our faces,” he laughed. “We must look like a bunch of lunatics. But quite frankly, it is the most uplifting and most beautiful piece of work I’ve done, I think.”
Little Amal is in Los Angeles for three days, making multiple stops, many coordinated with arts organizations. One early morning stop Wednesday was at the UCLA Community School. Meryl Friedman is the director of education and special initiatives at UCLA’s Center for the Art of Performance and said students have been preparing for six weeks, exploring themes of immigration and migration.
“What it means to leave your home when you don’t necessarily want to, but because you have to,” she explained, “and what are the things that you carry with you?”
They worked on art projects, including crafting over 400 handmade poppies, which they gave to Little Amal as she strolled through their campus.
“The California Poppy is the symbol of hope and resilience, which is what Amal stands for,” Friedman said. “[Little Amal] is a physical and literal testament to what it really means to walk in someone else’s shoes? What does it mean to be empathetic? And if you can think about what it’s like to walk in someone else’s shoes, then maybe this world would be a little bit kinder.”
Throughout the process leading up to the visit, she said students had many open, sometimes tearful discussions about what their own families’ journeys or what they themselves went through to get here. Students like Freddy who said Little Amal’s story is familiar. His father was born In Guatemala and travelled to America alone as a teenager to meet up with his older brother.
“He had to leave his home by himself,” Freddy said as he made his way through the crowd to get closer to the puppet.
Throughout the visit, throngs of children followed Little Amal, chanting her name, a scene that Leo has witnessed before. He remembers once being up on the stilts inside the puppet and looking over a parade of children filling the street in Belgium.
“It became like a march for children’s rights,” he recalled. “And suddenly the penny dropped in my head that she, she had the capability and the capacity to stand for all children in the world. And that’s kind of what’s happening at the moment.”
On Thursday, Amal will walk around Skid Row and the Arts District. She will then watch the sunset on the Santa Monica Pier before visiting the Music Center to reflect on Dia De Los Muertos. Working with theater companies such as Pasadena Playhouse, Center Theatre Group and Deaf West Theatre, producer Bruna Davila said they are able to determine where Amal will be most meaningful.
“The real importance of having the cadence of three events a day is that we decentralized arts,” she said. “We’re not only asking people to come to us, we’re really coming to that community. And that’s super important for the project, to go to places where art sometimes it’s not.”
Following her three days in LA, Little Amal will head to San Diego — the end of her U.S. tour. From there she travels into Mexico, making her way south as migrants journey north, facing conditions Leo said no child should have to endure. Anyone of them could be Little Amal, he said, and it’s for them and all refugee children that he and Amal keep walking.