Lue Her was born in Laos and spent his earliest years in a Thai refugee camp. When his family immigrated to the United States, he grew up in a crime-ridden housing project in St Paul. His mother insisted that he attend a mostly-white elementary school in order to learn English more quickly, and Lue was soon translating for other Hmong parents.
Lue excelled in high school and thrived at UMM, earning degrees in political science and secondary education and becoming involved in a number of student organizations. After graduation in 1997, Lue received a Coro Fellowship in Public Affairs, a program that matches Coro Fellows with top executives in business, government, and philanthropy. Through this fellowship, he worked with Hmong-American Community, Inc., an economic development group that serves immigrants in the Central Valley of California. While there he helped farmers start a cooperative which sells thousands of dollars of Asian produce every week.
Since 1999, Lue has worked with the Minnesota Higher Education Services Office, where he manages AmeriCorps/Get Ready!, a national service program that helps disadvantaged students succeed in school and go on to college. He also assists in the recruitment and placement of students enrolled in UMM's English Language Teaching Assistant Program, placing them in semester long teaching opportunities in Thailand and Laos.
(From the 2002 news story)
