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Article: Aided by 'angels,' refugees find uneasy peace in U.S.: Chased to america by war, many long for their homeland
- Article from:
- Sunday Gazette-Mail
- Article date:
- April 11, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1999 Sunday Gazette-Mail. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Most refugees can tell a harrowing tale of how they came to
America, and Pahoua Yang is no exception. She was just a baby,
strapped to her mother's back, when her family fled war-scarred Laos
in 1975, stealing through the jungle and rafting across the Mekong
River into Thailand.
Yang remembers none of those defining moments of her life. What
she recalls, and what she would rather talk about, is being touched
by an angel.
Her family, Hmong villagers from the highlands of Laos, resettled
in Gahanna, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus. They spoke no English and
knew nobody, but a woman named Louise Blankenship took them under