The Hard Way Can Be What Saves You
Yamini Rajan was 12 the first time she heard her father cry. With tears rolling down his cheeks, he saw the scars covering Yamini’s thighs and arms.
Tag: Story
Love at First Sight—with Medicine
Growing up in Kyiv, Ukraine with a mathematician father and physicist mother, Tetyana Odarich was expected to follow in her dad’s footsteps.
A Candle in the Darkness
Dr. Baher Butti’s earliest memory dates from 1963, when he was just two years old. His uncle took him to visit his father in prison, where he was serving time
For the Love of Mozart
It’s the late 1980s in Taipei, Taiwan. Every week, four-year-old Ruby Chen ventures with her mother from their storefront apartment to the local Yamaha Piano store
Something To Be Proud Of
Felix Songolo does not remember much of what he left behind in Africa. His family left the Democratic Republic of Congo before he was born
Building a Thriving Community
Selling matches and chewing gum on the rough streets of Mexico City, Jaime Miranda learned early on what it took to survive. “I guess at the age of 9 or […]
Making Her Way in Art and the World
Surrounded by shimmering glass beads, a rainbow of colored fragments, and vibrant glass masterpieces in her studio-gallery, Kurumi Conley confesses,
Reprogrammed Like a Cell Phone
Amidst the thick darkness of a city just before sunrise on the day he arrived in Portland, Abdulelah Aldabea imagined his brain was an iPhone restoring to
Determination Born in a Refugee Camp
After generations of peaceful living in the mountainous country of Bhutan, the family of Nabin Dhimal was abruptly forced to flee in 1989, when the Bhutan government
A Resilient Daughter of the Arab Spring
When Rama Yousef was born in the Syrian capital of Damascus in 1999, her father cursed and cried tears of frustration. She was his fourth child and not the son […]
When the President Was Shot
She was a young assistant professor of medicine who had changed her specialty from surgery to anesthesiology when she moved from Connecticut to
Reveling in Koto in the Pacific NW
“I’m Japanese — how come I didn’t know this music?” That’s what Masumi Timson thought as she sat captivated by her first koto concert.
Desert to Oregon, a Paintbrush in Hand
Hussein Al-Baiaty was about as far away as anyone could be when terrorists crashed two airplanes into New York’s World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.
In Limbo O’Er the Land of the Free
Depressed and undocumented, Jhoana knew she needed to change her life around. Born in Pachuca, Mexico in 1991, Jhoana grew up in a small house that her
It is the Only Way to Succeed
Alejandro was barely 10 years old when his father died. He was devastated, his world suddenly turned upside down. Alejandro was born in 1980 in Bryan, Texas.