Sankar Raman

Patriotism Despite Incarceration

Janice Okamoto was just a baby, only a few months old, when she was sent to Minidoka with her family. Her father was a musician, and like all the

Sankar Raman

Conversation Series: 200% American

Mitzi Asai Loftus and her son Toby talk frankly about her memories of growing up in Hood River, Oregon; her childhood incarceration  

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.  

Rani Bagai

Living In a Gilded Cage

In the early 1900s, Rani Bagai’s grandparents arrived in California ready to start a new life. But citizenship requirements and prejudice against  

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

Karen Weliky

Becoming and Never Looking Back

“I always knew I was a hands-on person. I liked taking things apart and putting them back together,” says Fiaindratovo Manavihare, explaining  

John Rudoff

Manifesting the American Dream

Dollars would line the streets of America. It’s what all the Hollywood movies promised. Lazeni Koulibali believed he would stay in America for a short time,

Sankar Raman

A Rabbi After All: Fulfilling a Calling

By the time he was seven, Eliezer Schwartz had already learned that if he ran fast enough and threw a lot of stones, he could protect himself from the schoolyard […]

Sankar Raman

A Journey Protected by a Force of Light

In many of Soulayvanh Beisel’s earliest memories, everybody is traveling by boat. She remembers how monsoons would wash through her hometown of Tha Ngon,

Sankar Raman

Assimilation and Nostalgia

When Deepak Kaul immigrated from his native Kashmir — territory disputed by India and Pakistan — to New Jersey at age 10, his family lived across the street from Annin […]

Sankar Raman

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

Jim Lommasson

Paint Tubes, Baghdad, Iraq

Hussein Alkhudhari: And when it was Impossible for me to carry my mother; my palm tree and my home; and all those faces that I love; instead I carried my

Sankar Raman

Fleeing a 21st Century Genocide

It was such an idyllic childhood for Mohammed Husson Ali. Nearly all the 1300 families in the Burmese village of Myo Thu Gyi were farmers.

Sankar Raman

Let Nothing Hold You Back

Beneath the star-studded sky of Makamba, Burundi, 6-month-old Olive Bukuru clung to her father’s hip as they fled on foot for roughly 100 miles to Tanzania.