The Most Inspiring Immigration Stories Of 2023

By Stuart Anderson

On December 14, 2023

The year 2023 saw immigrants make contributions and many heartwarming efforts to help refugees and others. Here are the most inspiring immigration stories of 2023.

Ethiopian Immigrant Teen Wins Science Prize For Fighting Cancer

Heman Bekele immigrated to America from Ethiopia as a four-year-old. Only ten years later, 3M awarded Heman the prize for America’s Top Young Scientist. Heman created a soap “with compounds that could reactivate the cells that guard human skin, enabling them to fight cancer cells.”

Heman’s insights from his experiences in Ethiopia explain why recent studies found immigration and a diverse population helped make America an innovation superpower. “Many, if not most, innovations arise from the recombinations of existing ideas, approaches and techniques that come together through the connections among diverse minds,” write Max Posch, Jonathan Schulz and Joseph Henrich.

“Heman’s idea for the competition came from the early years of his life in Ethiopia,” according to the Washington Post’s Praveena Somasundaram. “He harked back to his time in Ethiopia and wondered how many of the people he’d seen working in the sun were aware of the risk of sun exposure.” He focused on skin cancer and a product that, in Heman’s words, “could be accessible to as many people as possible.”

From Mexico To MIT And Entrepreneur

Maria Telleria immigrated to America from Mexico as a teenager and needed to adapt to a new life. “I think the biggest challenge was being 14 and being told you have to leave your friends, where you grew up,” said Maria in an interview. Joining the school’s robotics team helped her cope with life’s challenges. As a child, Maria’s father encouraged her to fix things with him around the house and arranged tours of manufacturing facilities he visited on sales calls to satisfy her curiosity.

Less than five years after coming to America, Maria was accepted to MIT, where she earned a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering and later became a successful entrepreneur. The company she cofounded, Canvas, developed a robot that uses artificial intelligence to increase worker safety and productivity when finishing drywall. “Immigrants have founded or cofounded nearly two-thirds (65% or 28 of 43) of the top AI companies in the United States,” according to a National Foundation for American Policy analysis.

Maria says she is glad her father and family decided to immigrate to America. “I don’t think I would have had these opportunities if I could not have come to the United States, expand my wings and challenge myself.” Maria became a U.S. citizen while in college, being sworn in at Boston’s historic Faneuil Hall. “I got to become a citizen in a place where America was born.”

An Oscar And An American Dream

Ke Huy Quan’s family fled Vietnam after the communist takeover and became refugees, eventually being resettled in California. In 2023, he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor as the husband in the hit film Everything Everywhere All at Once. “My journey started on a boat. I spent a year in a refugee camp. And somehow I ended up here on Hollywood’s biggest stage,” said Ke Huy Quan in accepting the award. “They say stories like this only happen in the movies. I cannot believe it’s happening to me. This is the American dream.”

Everything Everywhere All at Once producer Jonathan Wang dedicated the Oscar for Best Picture to his immigrant father. “This is for my dad, who, like so many immigrant parents, died young.”

Major League Excitement

Those who view immigrants as job “takers” might want to watch Cincinnati Reds star Elly De La Cruz for proof that some people possess unique skill sets that employers value. The Dominican-born De La Cruz debuted in 2023 and, within a month, was being called “the most thrilling man in baseball.” The video of Elly De La Cruz taking just 30 seconds to steal second base, third base and then home plate against the Milwaukee Brewers became a sensation.

She Stood Up To The Nazis When Few Did

As a young woman during World War II, Traute Lafrenz became part of the White Rose, a small group of primarily students who wrote and distributed leaflets denouncing the war, the Nazi regime and the killing of Jews. In 1941, she became romantically involved with Hans Scholl, a founder of the White Rose, later executed with his sister Sophie. Traute Lafrenz is credited by biographer Peter Waage with the distribution of the leaflets in Germany. She was awaiting trial and a possible death sentence when the U.S. Army liberated her prison in 1945, according to the New York Times.

In 2019, she was awarded Germany’s Order of Merit. The citation read: Traute Lafrenz “belonged to the few who, in the face of the crimes of national socialism, had the courage to listen to the voice of her conscience and rebel against the dictatorship and the genocide of the Jews. She is a heroine of freedom and humanity.” She immigrated to America in 1947. Traute Lafrenz, the last surviving member of the White Rose, died in South Carolina at 103.

Helping Jews Escape Nazi Germany

Carl Laemmle immigrated to America from Germany at 17 with $50 in his pocket. He founded Universal Pictures in 1912 and broke Thomas Edison’s monopoly on motion pictures. In the 1930s, after Congress passed restrictive immigration legislation and the State Department enacted tight rules on entry, Laemmle acted alone to save an estimated 300 Jewish families, many from his hometown. He overcame and fought the State Department’s rules by using his own money. He signed affidavits to sponsor individuals, guaranteed them jobs, provided room and board, and even put the equivalent of $21 million in today’s dollars in escrow to guarantee friends and relatives would not be labeled public charges and could leave Germany for the United States.

As a February 2023 Forbes profile of Laemmle notes, some people dedicate their professional or political lives to convincing others to fear immigrants and refugees. “Then, there are people like Carl Laemmle, who devote themselves to helping people, regardless of their place of birth.”

Every Year, A Refugee Thanks His Family’s Rescuer

In 1975, the North Vietnamese army approached Saigon, and Stephen Greene knew his friend was in trouble. Greene headed the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Vietnam and worked closely with Hoang Ly, his counterpart in the Vietnamese government. “Hoang had faithfully worked with U.S. officials for a decade, and I knew if the communists took over, he’d be in serious danger,” Greene said in an interview with the Washington Post. “I told Hoang, ‘This place is over—we need to get you out.’”

Greene got paperwork approved for Hoang Ly to leave the country, but Ly’s pregnant wife Ngo and eight-year-old daughter, Robin, could not gain approval and were twice blocked at the airport. “Greene went to the U.S. Embassy in Saigon and persuaded an officer to give him a document stating that Ngo was his wife and Robin was his daughter,” writes Cathy Free. “That did the trick, and on April 21, their third attempt to get on a plane leaving Vietnam was successful.”

Since 1976, every Christmas and Thanksgiving, Ly has written a note of thanks to Stephen Greene for saving his family. His daughter Robin has taken up the tradition, too. “I look at Steve as my Statue of Liberty,” said Ly. “Every Thanksgiving and Christmas, my family is reunited together. Without Steve, we might not be here.”

Immigrant Saves A Woman On The Highway
When a woman on a Boston highway lost consciousness and her car veered out of control, Adolfo Molina, an immigrant from the Dominican Republic decided to help. “In a video recorded by another driver that already has a million views, Molina can be seen running out of his truck, crossing four lanes of traffic on Interstate 93 and catching up with a blue car. He tries to open the door and can be seen waving for help,” reported NBC in Boston. With assistance from another man who joined him, Molina stopped the car. The mayor’s office in Lawrence, Massachusetts and the Dominican consulate in Boston cited Molina for his bravery.

Ukrainian Refugees Help Mississippi Tornado Victims

When a tornado struck Mississippi in March 2023, killing 25 residents and leaving many more homeless or without power, a group of seven Ukrainian refugees bought bottled water and drove more than 16 hours from Minnesota to deliver supplies to Americans in need in Mississippi.

Denys Pavliuk had arrived in Minnesota only weeks earlier following the Russian invasion as part of the Uniting for Ukraine program that paroled Ukrainians into the United States. “We had to leave our home,” Pavliuk told the Washington Post. “And they don’t have a place to go back, either.” According to Minneapolis-based relief organizer Aswar Rahman, “The backstory of the Ukrainian volunteers resonated, both in teary exchanges with other workers on the ground and with Volunteer Mississippi’s coordinators.”

American Buys Grand Piano For Immigrant Family With Autistic Child

Reading the polls, one might believe Americans have turned against immigrants. However, Americans have sponsored more than 200,000 Ukrainians who fled Russia’s invasion, primarily Ukrainian women and children, and tens of thousands of refugees from other countries through parole programs. Americans also have engaged in other acts of kindness toward immigrants.

In Colorado, piano tuner Bill Magnusson saw a local news story about an immigrant family from Ghana with an autistic boy who taught himself to play the piano with extraordinary skill. He bought a grand piano for $15,000 and had it delivered as a gift for 11-year-old Jude Kofie. Magnusson also paid for professional lessons and tunes the piano for the family. “He learned Jude’s parents immigrated from Ghana and were raising four children, as well as sending money back home to their family in Ghana,” according to CBS News. “What resources are left over to help this special little soul?” asked Magnusson. Jude’s father was overwhelmed with the generosity for his immigrant family.

America, Where You’re Always Home

Lingling Wei learned English in China by reading Mark Twain and listening to the Carpenters. She came to America as an international student at NYU, earned an internship at the Wall Street Journal and was hired as a reporter.

After becoming a U.S. citizen, she returned to China in 2010 and wrote about the economy and government decision-making during a tumultuous period. Shortly after the Covid-19 pandemic began, China expelled U.S. reporters, including Lingling Wei. Few things can be more devastating to a foreign correspondent, particularly one born in the nation where they’re reporting, than to be kicked out and possibly banned from returning to a country.

“Fifteen hours later, as I handed over my blue U.S. passport at JFK Airport in New York, a customs officer greeted me with the words, ‘Welcome home,’” writes Lingling Wei in the Wall Street Journal. “The two simple words brought tears to my eyes. I had thought of myself as Chinese, but at that moment I realized the essence of being American: You’re always welcome, no matter where you were born.”

This piece was republished from Forbes.