Sankar Raman

A Return to Her Roots

For as long as she could remember, Shirley Yee was enchanted with Cantonese opera. The emotion of its music, the grace of its performers, and the complexity of their  

Sankar Raman

Creating Peace Amid Conflict

Djimet Dogo will never forget seeing the boy, no more than 8 years old, who had been whipped by a soldier until he was bleeding from the chest.

Makka Djibrine

Competition From Within

Education is a prized commodity for Makka Djibrine Khatir. But it hasn’t always been this way. Indeed, for most of her early life, education was the same as suffering.

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

Zhou Fang

Struggling to Stay in the U.S. of A.

Sometimes persistence pays off–especially when wending one’s way through the morass of the U.S. immigration system.  Zhou Fang learned this lesson first-hand

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 […]

Karen Weliky

Spreading Love Through Coffee

When Hector Mejia Zamora lost his father, he made a bargain with God. “I was only fourteen,” he says, “But I told God that if he gave me my dad […]

Mirifoto

Portland Ukrainians’ Plea

Fighting back tears at a rally she organized a few days after the Feb. 24 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Tatiana Terdal still managed to draw laughs from the 300