US$1.3 billion Powerball win draws attention to Laos’ ethnic group from China – the Iu Mien people

The winner of the Powerball jackpot is an immigrant from Laos, who identifies as a member of the Iu Mien, a southeast Asian ethnic group originally from China
‘I am born in Laos, but I am not Laotian,’ Cheng ‘Charlie’ Saephan said on Monday where he was revealed as one of the winners of the US$1.3 billion jackpot

Laos

Associated Press

Published: 5:39pm, 30 Apr 2024

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Cheng “Charlie” Saephan wore a broad smile and a bright blue sash emblazoned with the words “Iu-Mien USA” as he hoisted an oversized cheque for US$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 US$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 US following the Vietnam war.

“I am born in Laos, but I am not Laotian,” Saephan told a news conference on Monday at Oregon Lottery headquarters, where his identity as one of the jackpot’s winners was revealed. “I am Iu Mien.”

Saephan laughs after being introduced as a winner of the US$1.3 billion Powerball lottery at the Oregon Lottery headquarters on Monday. Photo: AP

During the Vietnam war, the CIA and US military recruited Iu Mien in neighbouring Laos, many of them subsistence farmers, to engage in guerilla 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.

After the conflict as well as the Laotian civil war, when the US-backed government of Laos fell in 1975, they fled by the thousands to avoid reprisals from the new Communist government, escaping by foot through the jungle and then across the Mekong River into Thailand, according to a history posted on the website of Iu Mien Community Services in Sacramento, California. More than 70 per cent of the Iu Mien population in Laos left, and many wound up in refugee camps in Thailand.

Thousands of the refugees were allowed to come to the US, with the first waves arriving in the late 1970s and most settling along the West Coast. The culture had rich traditions of storytelling, basketry, embroidery and jewellery-making, but many initially had difficulty adjusting to Western life due to cultural and language differences as well as a lack of formal education.

I take pride in seeing our members of the community advance and flourish, and I just feel so good for him

Cayle Tern, Iu Mien Association of Oregon president

There are now tens of thousands of Iu Mien – pronounced “yoo MEE’-en” – in the US, with many attending universities or starting businesses. Many have converted to Christianity from traditional animist religions. There is a sizeable Iu Mien community in Portland and its suburbs, with a Buddhist temple and Baptist church, active social organisation, 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 3 years old. He is now running for City Council. Saephan’s Powerball win is significant for other Iu Mien, he said.

“It means so much because all of us came with so little,” Tern said. “I take pride in seeing our members of the community advance and flourish, and I just feel so good for him.”

Saephan, 46, said he was born in Laos and moved to Thailand in 1987, before immigrating 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.

Saephan points to his sash that reads “Iu-Mien USA”. Photo: AP

He said on Monday that he has had cancer for eight years and had his latest chemotherapy treatment last week.

“I will be able to provide for my family and my health,” he said, adding that he’d “find a good doctor for myself.”

Saephan, who has two young children, said that as a cancer patient, he wondered, “How am I going to have time to spend all of this money? How long will I live?”

He said he and his 37-year-old wife, Duanpen, are taking half the money, and the rest is going to a friend, Laiza Chao, 55, of the Portland suburb of Milwaukie. Chao had chipped in US$100 to buy a batch of tickets with them.

Chao, was on her way to work when Saephan called her with the news: “You don’t have to go any more,” he said.

In the weeks leading up to the drawing, he wrote out numbers for the game on a piece of paper and slept with it under his pillow, he said. He prayed that he would win, saying, “I need some help – I don’t want to die yet unless I have done something for my family first.”

Saephan (left) speaks at a podium, while the Oregon Lottery External Communications Program Manager Melanie Mesaros listens. Photo: AP

The winning Powerball ticket was sold in early April at a Plaid Pantry convenience store in Portland, ending a winless streak that had stretched more than three months. The Oregon Lottery said it had to go through a security and vetting process before announcing the identity of the person who came forward to claim the prize.

Under Oregon law, with few exceptions, lottery players cannot remain anonymous. Winners have a year to claim the top prize.

The jackpot had a cash value of US$621 million before taxes if the winner chose to take a lump sum rather than an annuity paid over 30 years, with an immediate payout followed by 29 annual instalments. The prize is subject to federal taxes and state taxes in Oregon.

The US$1.3 billion prize is the fourth-largest Powerball jackpot in history, and the eighth largest among US jackpot games, according to the Oregon Lottery.

The biggest US lottery jackpot won was US$2.04 billion in California in 2022.

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