I’m Not Supposed to Be Here

Chanpone Sinlapasai was born in war-torn Laos and came to the US at age four. As a child acting as interpreter for her parents, she soon realized  

An Orphan’s Long Journey Home

Liani Reeves arrived in the US when she was only a few months old. With no way to trace her ties to her birth family in Korea, she grew up […]

To Bear Witness: Closure

On a journey to come to terms with their losses, a group of Holocaust survivors from Portland, OR, travel together to six of the locations where concentration camps

Karen Weliky

History Keeps People Thinking

Jack Boas counts his career as historian as beginning at conception. “Or maybe even before,” he suggests. “I could not avoid it, as a child of

Sankar Raman

A Rebellion Against Silence

Sindy Avila-Gutierrez looks back undaunted on her life as an undocumented immigrant.  “I’ve always been a rebel in that way,” she says. “You tell me

Sankar Raman

I Create So It Cannot Be Erased

Portland artist Roberta Wong is the daughter and granddaughter of Chinese immigrants. She grew up partly in Chinatown, itself a product of segregation.

Karen Weliky

East-West Encounters

The first time Susan Chan saw snow was also the first time she spent a winter in the United States, away from her childhood home in Hong Kong.  

Sankar Raman

Choosing the Road Less Traveled

From the start, Barbie Wu was determined to forge her own path.  Born in Taipei, Taiwan, in 1986, she comes from a family of scientists.  

Sankar Raman

Art and Life: Trusting the Process

Mauricio Villarreal, co-founder of the design firm PLACE, takes a pragmatic approach to daily existence. “Life just happens,” he reasons

Sankar Raman

A Lifetime of Listening

One of Margaret Stewart Clark’s earliest memories is of sitting, at age two or three,  with her sister, who was blind, as the older girl taught Clark how to

Sankar Raman

Finding Identity in Resilience

Looking back on the many changes in her life, Sara Houranpay likes to quote her father’s advice: “When life throws you down, you get up,  

Brooke Hoyer

Past Passions, New Horizons

For Ningshu Fang, the lessons that her grandmother taught her as a child are an invaluable part of who she has been, and who she has become. “She was a […]

Palmarin Merges

The Art of Learning New Things

In Japan, Palmarin Pimentel Merges has taken to going for walks around Tokyo, and creating patterns for her art work from things she sees.  

Karen Weliky

Using Identity to Live Out Loud

In elementary school Osvaldo Gonzalez felt sure that he was destined to be an outsider. “I felt like it was not OK to be me,” he remembers. “I would sit […]