[UPBEAT MUSIC] The year was 1986. Space Shuttle Challenger exploded minutes after takeoff, killing all seven crew members. The catastrophic nuclear accident at Chernobyl and its fallout killed at least 4,000 people and over 350,000 people were displaced.

Microsoft became a publicly traded company, and its founder, Bill Gates became an instant billionaire. The Gates Millennium Scholarship has provided over $1.5 billion of scholarships to high-achieving minority students. The Statue of Liberty celebrated its Centennial.

Lady Liberty has, for over a century, become a symbol of freedom. She opened her arms and greeted immigrants onto Ellis Island. Her torch lit a new path for immigrants seeking the American dream. These are events I learned in high school and college. However, something was missing. The narratives and experiences of my family's immigration story and stories of countless more refugees from Laos.

1986 was also the year that my family arrived to the United States. We had escaped the aftermath of a Civil war, one that the US Central Intelligence Agency covertly intervened in as part of their fight against the spread of communism. We would become a product of a complex immigration system, one that allows families like mine access to the US as refugees, when a century earlier, it had excluded Chinese immigrants and had barred immigration entirely from much of Asia.

Unlike European immigrants who arrived on boats onto the open arms of Lady Liberty, my family arrived as refugees aboard Northwest Orient airline flight number 020. Our journey spanned 2 and 1/2 years in refugee camps and countless medical exams. I was a four-year-old malnourished child weighing 11.1 kilograms or roughly 24 and 1/2 pounds. The heart and lungs are within normal limits, reads the X-ray, a sign of final approval for entrance to the United States.

Much of this history is not well known, let alone taught in classrooms. It was not until college that I became interested in my family's experience and journey. My parents once told me that the day we left Laos, my name was written on the sandy shore of the Mekong River, reminding me that Laos will always be a part of me.

We continue to pave our path in this land and begin to tell our stories in the hope of inspiring others to tell theirs. What's your immigrant story?

[UPBEAT MUSIC]