A massive Powerball win draws attention to a little-known immigrant culture in the US
SALEM, Ore. — Cheng “Charlie” Saephan wore a toothy smile and a bright blue sash emblazoned with the words “Iu-Mien USA” as he hoisted an oversized $1.3 billion check above his head.
The 46-year-old immigrant’s luck in winning a huge Powerball jackpot in Oregon earlier this month — a $422 million after-tax lump sum that he and his wife will share with a friend — changed his life. It also raised awareness about the Iu Mien people, a Southeast Asian ethnic group with origins in China, many members of which fled from Laos to Thailand and then settled in the US after the Vietnam War.
“I was born in Laos, but I’m not Laotian,” Saephan told a news conference Monday at the Oregon Lottery headquarters, where his identity as one of the jackpot winners was revealed. ‘I am Iu Mien.’
During the Vietnam War, the CIA and the 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 controlled the North Vietnamese used to send troops and weapons via Laos and Cambodia to South Vietnam.
After the conflict and the Laotian Civil War, when the US-backed government of Laos fell in 1975, they fled in their thousands to avoid reprisals from the new communist government. They fled on foot through the jungle and then across the Mekong River to Thailand, according to a history on the website of Iu Mien Community Services in Sacramento, California. More than 70% of the Iu Mien population in Laos left and many ended up in refugee camps in Thailand.
Thousands of refugees were allowed to come to the US; the first waves arrived in the late 1970s and most settled along the west coast. The culture had rich traditions of storytelling, basketry, embroidery and jewelry making, but many initially had difficulty adapting to Western life due to cultural and language differences and a lack of formal education.
There are now tens of thousands of Iu Mien – pronounced “yoo MEE’-en” – in the US, many of whom are attending universities or starting businesses. Many have converted to Christianity from traditional animist religions. There is a sizable Iu Mien community in Portland and its suburbs, with a Buddhist temple and Baptist church, an active social organization, and businesses and restaurants.
Cayle Tern, president of the Iu Mien Association of Oregon, arrived in Portland with his family in 1980, when he was three years old. He is now running for council. Saephan’s Powerball win is important for other Iu Mien, he said.
“It means so much because we all came with so little,” Tern said. “I am proud to see our community members moving forward and thriving, and I feel so good for him.”
Saephan, 46, said he was born in Laos and moved to Thailand in 1987 before emigrating to the US in 1994. He graduated from high school in 1996 and has lived in Portland for 30 years. He worked as a machinist for an aerospace company.
He said Monday that he has had cancer for eight years and had his last chemotherapy treatment last week.
“I will be able to take care of my family and my health,” he said, adding that he would “find myself a good doctor.”
Saephan, who has two young children, said that as a cancer patient he wondered, “How am I going to have time to spend all this money?” How long will I live?”
He said he and his 37-year-old wife, Duanpen, will take half the money, and the rest will go to a friend, Laiza Chao, 55, of the Portland suburb of Milwaukie. Chao had deposited $100 to purchase some tickets from them.
Chao was on her way to work when Saephan called her with the news: “You don’t have to go anymore,” he said.
In the weeks leading up to the drawing, he wrote numbers for the game on a piece of paper and slept with them under his pillow, he said. He prayed that he would win and said, “I need help. “I don’t want to die yet unless I do something for my family first.”
The winning Powerball ticket was sold at a Plaid Pantry supermarket in Portland in early April, ending a winless streak that had lasted more than three months. The Oregon Lottery said it had to go through a security and vetting process before disclosing the identity of the person who came forward to claim the prize.
Under Oregon law, lottery players cannot remain anonymous, with some exceptions. The winners have one year to claim the grand prize.
The jackpot had a pre-tax cash value of $621 million if the winner chose to take a lump sum instead of an annuity paid over 30 years, with an immediate payout followed by 29 annual installments. Price is subject to federal and Oregon state taxes.
The $1.3 billion prize is the fourth largest Powerball jackpot in history and the eighth largest among U.S. jackpot games, according to the Oregon Lottery.
The largest US lottery jackpot won in California in 2022 was $2.04 billion.
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Johnson reported from Seattle.