In this article, two co-authors share their immigrant stories of persecution and flight to the U.S. Txerthoj Vang is a refugee from Laos who supported the U.S. as part of the Hmong secret army during the Vietnam era. Mayra Pasayes is an immigrant from El Salvador who fled that country's civil war during the 1980s. Though they each faced a high level of violence in their home country, Txerthoj was granted official refugee status, while Mayra was not and only later obtained residency. The granting, or denial, of asylum to each would have major impacts on their lives and their perspectives. They each continue to support refugees with or without papers in their work as educators in public schools. Their individual stories mirror those of hundreds of thousands of others who fled Laos and El Salvador during the 1970s and 1980s, running from crisis and war, taking arduous journeys, and resettling, with or without official status, in the U.S.