Intro:
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ALT: Albert Einstein at blackboard (AP Images)
Refugees often face challenges when resettling in a new country, but many are able to overcome these obstacles. Here are some notable examples of famous (and not-so-famous) refugees who resettled in the United States, went on to achieve success and have made a difference in their local communities and beyond.
Photo 1:
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ALT: Loung Ung sitting in chair and gesturing (AP Images)
Loung Ung
In 1975, when Ung was 5 years old, the Khmer Rouge overthrew the Cambodian government. Ung and her family were forced to leave their home in the capital, Phnom Penh, on a death march through Cambodia. Ung was trained as a child soldier by the Khmer Rouge but managed to escape the country with relatives and went to a refugee camp in Thailand. She was later resettled to the United States, and after college she became an author and activist for human rights in Cambodia. Ung is also a spokesperson for the USA Campaign for a Landmine Free World.
Photo 2:
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EMBED: Courtesy photo
ALT: Philip Emeagwali standing by computer (Courtesy of emeagwali.com)
Philip Emeagwali
Emeagwali, who grew up in Nigeria, is a member of the Ibo ethnic group. In 1966, the Biafran civil war erupted between the Nigerian central government and the Ibo population in the south. During the war, Emeagwali spent three years in a refugee camp. In 1974 he came to the United States and later graduated with degrees in mathematics, computer science and civil, coastal and marine engineering. Emeagwali’s advances in computer engineering earned him the prestigious Gordon Bell Prize in 1989.
Photo 3:
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EMBED: © AP Images
ALT: Albert Einstein at blackboard (AP Images)
Albert Einstein
One of the world’s greatest scientific minds, Einstein won prestige and acclaim for his discoveries, including the theory of relativity. In 1921 Einstein won the Nobel Prize in Physics. In the 1930s, when the Nazis came to power in Einstein’s home country of Germany, he faced anti-Semitism and persecution and fled to the United States, taking a teaching position at Princeton University. Einstein lobbied vigorously for the protection of German Jews and remained in the United States until his death in 1955.
Photo 4:
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ALT: Koor Garang, Gabriel Bol Deng and Garang Mayuol standing together (Courtesy of David Morse)
Gabriel Bol Deng (center), Garang Mayuol (right) and Koor Garang (left)
As young children in 1987, Deng, Mayuol and Garang were forced to leave their homes in southern Sudan during the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005). One of the “Lost Boys” — the more than 27,000 southern Sudanese boys who were displaced — the three fled to a refugee camp in Ethiopia. From there they went to a camp in Kenya and arrived in the United States in 2001. Individually the three have raised money to help bring better health care and education to villages in southern Sudan. In 2007 they returned to southern Sudan as part of the documentary film Rebuilding Hope.
Photo 5:
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ALT: Gloria Estefan holding Grammy Award (AP Images)
Gloria Estefan
As a baby, Estefan and her family fled Cuba following the Cuban Revolution and resettled in Miami. Estefan went on to become a successful singer with more than 90 million albums sold worldwide. She has won five Grammy Awards and is referred to as the “Queen of Latin Pop.”
Photo 6:
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ALT: Close-up of Li Lu (AP Images)
Li Lu
After participating in the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations, Li left Beijing for Hong Kong and made his way to the United States, where he enrolled in Columbia University in New York. In 1996, Li became the first person in the school’s history to graduate with three separate degrees in a single day, having simultaneously earned undergraduate, law and business degrees. Li became a successful investment banker and serves on the Reebok Human Rights Award board of advisers.
Photo 7:
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ALT: Wyclef Jean singing and playing guitar on stage (AP Images)
Wyclef Jean
At the age of 9, Wyclef Jean and his family fled Haiti for the United States, eventually resettling in New Jersey. Jean was a member of the Fugees (taken from the word “refugees”), a popular and critically acclaimed hip-hop group. Jean has since gone on to have a successful solo music career and is an advocate for development in Haiti.
Photo 8:
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ALT: Roberto Suarez seated at table (Courtesy of Jeep Hunter, The Charlotte Observer)
Roberto Suarez
At the age of 33, Suarez left his native Cuba after Fidel Castro seized power and came to the United States. He worked in the mailroom of the Miami Herald newspaper for a minimum wage. He rose through the ranks to eventually become the president of the Miami Herald and went on to found the Spanish-language paper El Nuevo Herald. Suarez was an active voice in South Florida’s Hispanic community as well as in the field of journalism. He died July 6, 2010.
Photo 9:
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ALT: Close-up of Ivonne Cuesta holding photograph (Courtesy of Miami Herald)
Ivonne Cuesta
In 1980 at the age of 7, Cuesta and her family were part of the Mariel boatlift, when 125,000 people left Cuba for Florida. Cuesta went on to become an assistant public defender in Florida’s Miami-Dade County. She is now under consideration to become a Miami-Dade judge. If elected, Cuesta would become the first sitting Miami-Dade judge from the Mariel boatlift.
Photo 10:
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EMBED: © Jason Kempin
ALT: Madeleine Albright holding her book in bookstore (Jason Kempin/Wire Image)
Madeleine Korbel Albright
Born in what is now the Czech Republic, Albright and her family fled to the United States in 1948 when communists took over the government. The family settled in Denver. Albright went to Wellesley College and got involved in politics. In 1997, she became the first female secretary of state and the highest-ranking woman in the U.S. government at the time.
Photo 11:
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ALT: Close-up of Anh “Joseph” Cao (AP Images)
Anh “Joseph” Cao
Cao was born in Vietnam in 1967. His father was an officer in the South Vietnamese Army and was imprisoned by the North Vietnamese. In 1975, Cao and two of his siblings escaped to the United States and settled in New Orleans. After college Cao became an advocate for refugees, eventually earning a law degree. In 2008, he was elected as a U.S. representative from Louisiana, the first Vietnamese-American elected to the U.S. Congress.