Uploaded July 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Abdi Nor Iftin was five when the civil war began in Somalia. As the years went on, amidst the famine and the daily shelling of the war, he went to school and scrambled to make money to help his family. Evading conscription by al-Shabaab while secretly filing stories for NPR under penalty of death, he stayed in Somalia until he had no choice but to flee to Kenya. While there, he had an incredible stroke of luck in 2014: he won the Diversity Visa Lottery. His story was chronicled on This American Life: “Abdi and the Golden Ticket”. Nor Iftin will talk with Frances Stead Sellers, senior writer on the America desk at the Washington Post, about immigration, being a refugee, and his life in America.
Abdi Nor Iftin was five when the civil war began in Somalia. As the years went on, amidst the famine and the daily shelling of the war, he went to school and scrambled to make money to help his family. Evading conscription by al-Shabaab while secretly filing stories for NPR under penalty of death, he stayed in Somalia until he had no choice but to flee to Kenya. While there, he had an incredible stroke of luck in 2014: he won the Diversity Visa Lottery. His story was chronicled on This American Life: “Abdi and the Golden Ticket”. Nor Iftin will talk with Frances Stead Sellers, senior writer on the America desk at the Washington Post, about immigration, being a refugee, and his life in America.
