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
Burglar hurled stolen mobile phones at police from the top of 60ft high roof during nine
A burglar hurled stolen mobile phones at police officers from the top of a roof during a nine-hour s2024-05-22Former Pakistan PM Imran Khan gets 10
By Gibran Naiyyar Peshimam for ReutersFile photo: Imran Khan arrives at court in Islamabad last May.2024-05-22Kenneth Eugene Smith: Alabama carries out first US nitrogen gas execution
In 2022, Alabama tried and failed to execute Smith by lethal injection. Photo: AFP photo / Alabama2024-05-22Hamas airs video of Israeli hostages, says will disclose their fate
By Dan Williams for Reuters Relatives and supporters hold placards bearing portraits of Israeli host2024-05-22Dame Judi Dench's tears as she receives Sycamore Gap tree seedling at Chelsea Flower Show
Dame Judi Dench shed a tear yesterday after being presented with a seedling from the famous Sycamore2024-05-22Hamas airs video of Israeli hostages, says will disclose their fate
By Dan Williams for Reuters Relatives and supporters hold placards bearing portraits of Israeli host2024-05-22
atest comment