My Heart Has Two Countries
Kseniia Hnatovska never kept up with the news. Instead, she was a planner. She loved scheduling vacations and weekend activities,
Category: Portland
Getting Down to Business
For Abiba Magba Magba, running a business was a means of survival. Her mother taught her this while Magba was growing up in Bangui,
Flavors From Home In A Suitcase
Ask almost any refugee from war-torn countries how they arrived on these shores, and at this specific place, and you will inevitably hear of radical choices
Leaving a War Behind
Chau Leatherman credits her migration story to three lucky breaks. The first was the journey south to Saigon just after the Communists took over the North.
A Passion for Culture and Language
In the outskirts of Cluj-Napoca, Romania’s second most populous city nestled in the heart of Transylvania, there stands an unfinished house.
Surviving the Liberation
When Minakshi De was born in 1958, the area where her Hindu family lived was called East Pakistan. Then came the bloody Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971.
Striking Universal Chords
Jan Porvas was only seven years old when he picked up the drum that would change his life. Surrounded by his friends and family at home, he was captivated by
Painting A Better Future
A rosary and his mom’s blessing are all Roberto Oran took when he left his small village in Mexico. His faith kept him going, but his belief in higher education […]
Escaping the Taliban Through Art
When Ghu Ali Danish Kamal and his family arrived in Portland from Afghanistan, they were provided with $722 in cash. He headed straight to the art store
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
A Different Kind of Inner Calling
Balamurali Balu, who goes by Bala, immigrated to the United States from Southern India. He completed his PhD at Georgia Tech.
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
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