Immigrant's $1.3B Powerball win spotlights the Iu Mien community
Time:2024-05-21 17:37:48 Source:healthViews(143)
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.
Previous:‘The Blue Angels,’ filmed for IMAX, puts viewers in the ‘box’ with the elite flying squad
Next:Children are evacuated from school 'during an exam' after threat made via email
You may also like
- Trump accepts a VP debate but wants it on Fox News. Harris has already said yes to CBS
- Lily Gladstone will appear opposite with SNL's Bowen Yang in remake of 1993 rom
- Five surprise teams aim to finish stunning seasons by securing Champions League spot
- Rural livestreamer spreads basketball enthusiasm
- Sweden beats France, Britain relegated after losing to Norway at hockey worlds
- Chelsea and Lyon bring leads into return legs of Women's Champions League semifinals
- Ukraine pulls US
- Tiger Woods' son Charlie shoots +9 in US Open qualifying as 15
- Messi in and Dybala out in Argentina squad for pre