Hsa Win: From Refugee to Citizen

Story by Josy Jones, The Devil Strip

Hsa Win, 20, values community and activism. He came to Akron from a refugee camp in Thailand, where he and his mother had fled to escape the long-running civil war in Myanmar. They are Karen, two of some 200,000 members of the ethnic group confined to refugee camps in Thailand. The civic-minded Win became a U.S. citizen earlier this year and is excited to be voting for the first time this fall. He wants to run for political office one day and has already gotten a start in community organizing: he provides platforms for Karen Youth and is a well-known advocate for education. In his photo of himself and his mother not long after their arrival in the U.S., he smiles widely. He doesn’t remember where they were going, but he recognizes, even then, that he is on the threshold of a new world filled with new opportunities.