Robert is a first-generation Laotian refugee who has reached his American Dream of owning his home, being active in his children’s lives and saving for his children’s future. He has overcome many obstacles in order to be where he is now–working as a Chief Of Construction Services. He began his journey here in San Jose, where he attended primary schooling and then started working when he was ... Read More »
When Susan (name changed) was a child, she grew up in a small suburban town in South Korea. She lived a fairly normal childhood one could expect of the suburbs in any nation during the late 70s and early 80s, walking to school and playing in the streets until sundown. It was a close ... Read More »
While growing up in Turkey, the obvious pressing issue concerning Haluk Konuk was that he was not born into a socioeconomically well-off family. He always had to move around with his mother and older sister to live with various other family members in Istanbul. Basic necessities were hard to come by as he even recalled that “eating meat was like ... Read More »
My father has always loved puzzles, logic, and mathematics, winning many competitions in chess, math, and physics. Stuart Fiske was born in 1964. Because his father was both a lawyer and a farmer he grew up between an apartment in Montreal, Canada, where he went to school, and a beef farm in Ontario. An only son with 4 sisters, he ... Read More »
Quy Lee tells a gripping story of his escape by boat from Viet Nam, along with 264 passengers he took along. Also, time in a Malaysian Refugee Camp, followed by a new life in the USA. Quy was part of a storytelling event called “When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Stories of Escape and Refuge.” It was co-sponsored by the ... Read More »
My grandfather’s life started in jeopardy due to his premature birth and small size, which forced him to spend his first two weeks without his family in an incubator. My grandfather, Al Bien, was born in Beijing, China in 1934 where his home was in a “hutong” or alley. Following the beginning of the second Sino-Japanese war, his family moved ... Read More »
Watch Quy present his story in front of an audience, or scroll down further for the written story. It was 1975 in Vietnam. Quy was living in Saigon, the capital of South Vietnam. All around him, he was seeing effects of the Vietnam War and communist control. Ethnic Chinese like him were being discriminated against to the point where their ... Read More »
Rebecca is an up-and-coming Chinese American author. Within three months of its publication, Rebecca’s first book Green Apple Red Book: A Trial and Errors: A Memoir of a Chinese-American has already won three awards at New York, San Francisco and Hollywood book festivals. This narrative non-fiction uses the author’s real-life experience to put the American and Chinese systems of values ... Read More »
Angela “Angi” Chau was born in 1977 in Hong Kong. She and her sister were raised by their grandmothers while their parents were applying for a green card in the United States. Her father was fairly familiar with the United States because he went to college in America, but moved back to Hong Kong after graduating. The main reason for ... Read More »