On the first day of her college internship in the late summer of 2007, Jenna Liao waited amid the baggage carousels of O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. Just 21 and newly assigned to an agency that helps refugees, she had been told only to expect a family of 10 from Myanmar. She and a caseworker were to drive them here to the first temporary home of their new lives.
The family trudged into Ms. Liao’s view after 19 years in a refugee camp and 30 hours of trans-Pacific travel. All their belongings fit into two plaid plastic bags, and in that moment, as Ms. Liao recently recalled, she winced at the memory of starting college with four times as much luggage.
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