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 […]
Category: Portland
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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
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,
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 […]