Immigrant's $1.3B Powerball win spotlights the Iu Mien community

business2024-05-01 05:25:285

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — Cheng “Charlie” Saephan wore a broad smile and a bright blue sash emblazoned with the words “Iu-Mien USA” as he hoisted an oversized check for $1.3 billion above his head.

The 46-year-old immigrant’s luck in winning an enormous Powerball jackpot in Oregon earlier this month — a lump sum payment of $422 million after taxes, which he and his wife will split with a friend — has changed his life. It also raised awareness about Iu Mien people, a southeast Asian ethnic group with origins in China, many of whose members fled from Laos to Thailand and then settled in the U.S. following the Vietnam War.

“I am born in Laos, but I am not Laotian,” Saephan told a news conference Monday at Oregon Lottery headquarters, where his identity as one of the jackpot’s winners was revealed. “I am Iu Mien.”

During the Vietnam War, the CIA and U.S. military recruited Iu Mien in neighboring Laos, many of them subsistence farmers, to engage in guerrilla warfare and to provide intelligence and surveillance to disrupt the Ho Chi Minh Trail that the North Vietnamese used to send troops and weapons through Laos and Cambodia into South Vietnam.

Address of this article:http://somalia.ekjotinstitute.com/article-2a799213.html

Popular

Nation hailed for brokering Saudi

Yang Hengjun: Australian writer detained in China fears he will die in jail

China news: Mystery as Xi Jinping unexpectedly skips key speech

UN expert visits Motueka to learn about Nelson Tenths case

China strong supporter of multilateral trading system, says WTO director

'Hardest Geezer' Russell Cook completes almost year

Pope Francis calls for ceasefire in Gaza and Ukraine in Easter message

Dealing with fast spreading pest hits new milestone for Otago Regional Council

LINKS