Many celebrities and well-known persons have been immigrants at some point in their lives, and by sharing their experiences, they enable us to understand the millions of people who are displaced all around the world. Despite their difficulties, they have contributed significantly to society. Here is a list of well-known celebrities who had to abandon their home country:
1. Freddie Mercury
Freddie‘s parents were Parsis from Western India, but they resided in Zanzibar, where Freddie was born. Zanzibar, now known as Tanzania, was a British Protectorate at the time, and that meant Freddie was a British citizen too. His father continued to work there, although he spent most of his youth in India. His family fled to the United Kingdom in 1969 to escape the Zanzibar Revolution, which targeted and killed many Arab and Indian minorities.
2. Mila Kunis
Raised by her Jewish family, Mila Kunis grew up in Soviet Ukraine. Her parents had suffered immensely during the Holocaust, and thus they instilled in her a strong sense of self-identity whilst hiding her religion. When she was seven years old, her family fled their home country owing to religious persecution. They relocated to Los Angeles and were granted religious refugee status. The family had only US$250 as their savings and they didn’t even speak English. Kunis received her first acting assignment three years later.
3. Tom Stoppard
The future author of great plays such as “Arcadia” and “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead” escaped the war and survived the Nazi mass slaughter of Jews on the day Nazis invaded Czechoslovakia. His parents relocated him to Singapore, where his father’s company was relocating staff. His four grandparents, who were unable to flee their home country, were murdered by Nazis. When the Japanese invaded Singapore two years later, Stoppard’s family had to flee once more. When his father enrolled in the British army, he, his siblings, and his mother moved to Darjeeling, India. They relocated to London after the war in 1942.
4. Iman
Well recognized as the world’s first Black supermodel, Iman is also the late David Bowie‘s wife. She was born in Somalia in 1955, but the Somalian government was overthrown while she was abroad at a private school in Egypt. Her father’s job as an ambassador put him in jeopardy, and the family became refugees when she was 16 years old in 1972. They left their home country and moved to Kenya, where an American photographer encountered Iman in 1979. She relocated to New York to seek a modeling career and later became a political and social advocate, fighting worldwide poverty and advocating for young women and girls.
5. Andy Garcia
In the 1990s, Andy Garcia was one of America’s top stars. However, he began his career in Cuba, where his mother worked as an English teacher and his father worked as an attorney and farmer. Garcia was five years old when the Bay of Pigs invasion took place. His family fled their home country to Miami and began a new life there. They started a thriving perfume business and built completely new lives for themselves. Garcia has a strong emotional attachment to his homeland, despite the fact that he hasn’t visited it in many years.
