Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor
It’s so easy to hear about a refugee crisis in one part of the world or another and assume it has no impact on your day to day life.
The fact of the matter is that there are refugees all around us, in some form or another. It’s easy to tell yourself that these are merely disenfranchised people, poor vagrants from small countries, but anybody could become a refugee at any time if they’re no longer safe in their home country, regardless of status and position.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees released a report in early 2015 that stated that we’ve reached an all-time high for refugees crises at more than 60 million internally displaced peoples. This is the highest number of refugees the world has seen since World War II, and that number–thought it must be very hard to estimate–comes from before the crisis in Syria worsened to its current state.
Emma Lazarus’s engraving on the Statue of Liberty reads, “Give me your tired, your poor,” which is the image we have of most internally displaced people. You might just be surprised, however, to see which of the world’s biggest stars and most influential minds were refugees, too.
Credit: Michael Loccisano/ Getty Images
Start the slideshow below to see which celebrities were refugees, then SHARE this to change the stigma around displaced peoples!
1. Gloria Estefan
Source: wikipedia.org
Gloria Estefan was born in Havana, Cuba to the children of Spanish immigrants. During the Cuban Revolution, her family fled to Miami. She went on to win seven Grammy awards.
2. Freddie Mercury
Source: flickr.com
Mercury was born Farrokh Bulsara to Parsi parents in the Sultanate of Zanzibar, in modern-day Tanzania. His parents were originally from India and were practicing Zoroastrians. When Mercury was 17, his family fled their home during the 1964 Zanzibar Revolution and moved to England.
3. Albert Einstein
Source: wikipedia.org
Although non-practicing, Einstein was from a Jewish family. He was on a trip to the United States for research when Nazi Germany starting passing anti-Semitic laws; he was even declared an enemy of the regime, and a bounty was put on his head. Aware that he could not return home, Einstein took a post at Princeton and applied for American citizenship.
4. Rita Ora
Source: flickr.com
Famous for songs like “Radioactive” and “Coming Home,” this chart-topping performer was born in Kosovo to Kosovar Albanian parents; her father is Muslim, and her mother is Catholic. In 1991, when she was one year old, her family left Kosovo because of the ethnic cleansing against Albanians under Milosevic.
5. Karl Marx
Source: wikipedia.org
Born to a wealthy family in Prussia, Marx later lived in Germany and France before he was exiled to London with his family in 1849. Known for his extreme political views and support of socialism and communism, Marx was a refugee for most of his life and died stateless.
6. The von Trapp Family Singers
Source: wikipedia.org
The real-life inspiration behind The Sound of Music, the von Trapps lived through the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany and even encountered Hitler once at a restaurant. Unhappy with Nazism, the family fled to Italy and ultimately relocated to Stowe, Vermont where they opened a music camp.
7. Gene Simmons
Source: commons.wikimedia.org
Born Chaim Witz, this cofounding member of KISS was born in Israel but moved with his mother to New York City when he was eight. His mother and uncle were the only members of their family to survive the Holocaust.
8. Billy Wilder
Source: wikipedia.org
Famous screenwriter, director, and producer of Hollywood’s golden age, Billy Wilder was born to a Jewish family in Austria-Hungary but started his career in Berlin. As Hitler rose to power, Wilder and his family fled for Paris and then the United States.
He’s best known for movies like Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity, and Some Like It Hot.
9. Madeleine Albright
Source: wikipedia.org
US Secretary of State under Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Madeleine Albright and her family fled Czechoslovakia around 1940 because of their Jewish ancestry and political history during the rise of Nazi influence. Though they returned to Prague after WWII, the family once again left the country when communists took over. During her first exile in London, Albright appeared in a film about refugee children.
10. K’Naan
Source: Twitter @CKOI_Musique
We have K’naan to thank for the 2010 FIFA World Cup anthem “Wavin’ Flag.” Born Keinan Abdi Warsame, this Somalian artist was forced to flee his home when he was a teenager to escape the civil war. He came close to death several times before his family moved to New York and then settled in Canada.
11. M.I.A.
Source: Twitter @gringatears/ Getty Images
Mathangi Arulpragasam is an English rapper and recording artist known for songs like “Paper Planes.” Though born in west London, her family relocated to Sri Lanka when she was just six months old. For a large part of “Maya’s” childhood, her family had to live in extreme poverty while in hiding from the Sri Lankan army. They also lived in India before returning to England as refugees.
12. Aristotle Onassis
Source: wikipedia.org
Famous shipping magnate and second husband of Jacqueline Kennedy, Aristotle Onassis was born in Smyrna but fled the city because of the Greco-Turkish War of 1922.
13. Alek Wek
Source: wikipedia.org
Born in present-day South Sudan to the Dinka ethnic group, Wek’s family had to flee both government and rebel forces during the civil war in Sudan. She came to Britain in 1991 when she was 14, and she enrolled in London’s College of Fashion.
Wek has gone on to become a famous model and fashion designer, considered one of the first black models who stayed true to her sub-Saharan beauty and an inspiration to many other black women.
14. Victor Hugo
Source: wikipedia.org
Best known for works like Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo was forced to flee France several times because of his strong political stances. When Napoleon III rose to power in 1851, Hugo lived in Belgium and then Jersey before settling on the island of Guernsey, where he wrote some of his most famous works. He didn’t return to France until after Napoleon III was forced from power.
15. Jerry Springer
Credit: Stephen Lovekin/ Getty Images
Jerry Springer was born in London to Jewish refugees who had escaped Germany at the outbreak of WWII. His grandmothers and one great uncle died in the Nazi concentration camps.
Springer moved to Queens, New York in 1949, and later went on to become the Democratic mayor of Cincinnati. Today, he is best known for The Jerry Springer Show.