Blending Business and Culture
Discipline, fearlessness, and creativity are essential attributes of a successful business owner — and Anne Johnson has all three.
Category: Immigrant
What Gives Us Power
“Sometimes it’s what we are most afraid of — or wish were different — in ourselves that gives us our power,” says young adult (YA) author Abdi Nazemian, describing the […]
From Bullets to Building
Marbles, three books of short Kurdish stories written in Arabic, and two AK-47 rounds. “With war always going on, those were my trophies (to take with me),”
Think About What You Want Most
“This country is still the ‘shining city on the hill’ but the path up is getting steeper,” says Ruth Lesser, reflecting on the difficult road she is still traveling to […]
The Journey of a Lifetime
When 25-year-old Nader Rezvani saw the Statue of Liberty from a tourist boat in 1963, he recalled the poem inscribed on the statue’s pedestal and thought,
Yilan to Portland, a Lucky Life
In 1960, Chang-Shee Chang’s pharmacology lab partner promised him a date with the runner-up of Miss Taiwan. He eagerly accepted. Alone in the theater
Once Home, Now a Jungle
For the first 18 years of his life, Reza Uddin was a citizen of Burma, now officially known as Myanmar. And then, suddenly, he was not. That’s because Uddin is […]
“Home Is Where the Heart Is”
Alta never imagined he’d end up living in America — not while growing up behind the scenes of a satirical French marionette show, nor when he was an apprentice to […]
Hope for a New Generation
Jenny Munezero was two months old the night the soldiers attacked, and the only one left alive in her family’s house. “To this day nobody knows why I wasn’t killed. […]
The Ingredients of Leadership
Although today she is recognized as one of Portland’s best-known chefs, Nong Poonsukwattana confesses that as a child, “I didn’t think (cooking) was
Creating New Narratives
When Naskah Zada immigrated from Iraq to the U.S. in the fall of 1997, she was expecting to eat pizza in front of a big-screen television in either a mansion […]
Becoming His Own Role Model
After his older sister was badly burned by scalding water, Miguel Rodriguez’s mother, a nurse in Orizaba, Mexico, knew the young girl needed to be seen by medical
Giving Others a Voice
Most second-graders don’t worry about what the other kids are thinking when they plan play dates. Elijah Russell, however, figured his friends were only interested
Education Triumphs Over Nationalism
On his first day of Second Grade in 1992, Flamur Vehapi arrived at his school to see soldiers barricading the entrance, declaring, “No more school for you.”
There Is More Than One Way
“I’ve never been a person who had a plan about what they’d be doing in 10 years,” says Susheela Jayapal, Multnomah County’s District 2 Commissioner. “I just do