Growing up with your parents brings safety, but being abandoned can leave deep emotional scars.
Xueli Abbing, now 16, was abandoned at birth in China and left outside an orphanage. Her parents were never identified. Staff named her “Xue Li,” meaning “snow” and “beautiful,” because she was born with albinism.
She was later adopted by a loving Dutch family. At 11, a Hong Kong designer invited her to model in a campaign celebrating “perfect imperfections,” which became her first major experience in fashion.
People with albinism face discrimination worldwide, and in some places, are even hunted due to harmful myths. “I’m lucky I was only abandoned,” Xueli has said. She dislikes when models with albinism are used as “props,” but she was treated with respect during a London photoshoot — one of the images even appeared in Vogue Italia in 2019.
Modeling is challenging for her; she has only 8–10% vision, and camera flashes hurt her eyes. Still, she continues to work to represent people who don’t fit conventional beauty standards.
Xueli wants to educate the world about albinism. “It’s a genetic disorder, not a curse,” she says. She hopes people will say “a person with albinism,” not “an albino.”
“I won’t accept children being harmed because of albinism. I want to change the world,” she says.