Sankar Raman

Just Waiting for a Miracle

“Just waiting for miracles. That was pretty much my day,” Marceline Washikala reflects on her life growing up in a series of refugee camps. 

Sankar Raman

Standing Against Injustice

As a young boy growing up in the unrecognized African state of Rhodesia, Tapiwa Kapurura was faced with injustice. He was born in the town of Mount Darwin

Sankar Raman

A Focus on the Possible

For Emiliano Ruelas Sosa, the doors to the American dream began to close when he was 15. Due to his legal status he was not allowed to get his driver’s […]

Karen Weliky

Life Through Her Eyes

For 98-year-old Bertha Lee Saiget, Portland’s Chinatown is more than a mark on a map or a tourist destination. Its history is her life, and she has borne witness to […]

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.

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

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 […]

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

Karen Weliky

A Musician’s Education

As he was relaxing on the beach at sunset, beer in hand, Gerardo Calderon Garcia was startled when a stranger approached. After a short conversation, the stranger