Immigrant's $1.3B Powerball win spotlights the Iu Mien community
Time:2024-05-01 05:36:51 Source:businessViews(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:Box office: ‘Challengers’ scores with $15 million in ticket sales
Next:CRAIG BROWN: The killer who wants to be Donald Trump's running mate
You may also like
- Chinese astronauts return to earth after six months in space
- Comedian Elayne Boosler says she was arrested at a Los Angeles Dodgers game because of a 'power
- Brian Tobin, former president of the International Tennis Federation, dies at age 93
- Homeowners share their incredible DIY renovations
- US challenges 'bogus' patents on Ozempic and other drugs in effort to spur competition
- Bam Margera gets into a street brawl in Los Angeles and claims self
- A blast near a ship off Yemen may mark a new attack by Houthi rebels after a recent lull
- Hairy Biker Dave Myers 'left £1.4million windfall for his wife Liliana'
- Kazakhstan arrests ex