Immigrant's $1.3B Powerball win spotlights the Iu Mien community
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.
Related articles
Calling a female colleague a 'pretty woman' at work is sex discrimination, tribunal rules
Calling a female colleague a 'pretty woman' at work is sex discrimination, a tribunal has ruled.Sugg2024-05-01Beijing Zoo prepares facilities to help animals fend off summer heat
A hippopotamus drinks water at Beijing Zoo in Beijing, capital of China, July 30, 2020. Beijing Zoo2024-05-01Chinese President Receives Credentials of 70 Ambassadors
Contact Us HomeNewsHighlightACWF NewsSocietyWom2024-05-01Understanding Xi's Quotes on Building a Community with a Shared Future for Mankind
Contact Us HomeNewsHighlightACWF NewsSocietyWom2024-05-01Swiatek rallies against Haddad Maia to reach Madrid Open semis
MADRID (AP) — Iga Swiatek came from a set down to defeat Beatriz Haddad Maia 4-6, 6-0, 6-2 and reach2024-05-01Night tourism flourishes in Shaanxi's Xi'an
Tourists in traditional Tang Dynasty costumes enjoy themselves at the Great Tang All Day Mall in Xi'2024-05-01
atest comment