Naomi Girma is a proud daughter of Ethiopian immigrants and a Stanford University graduate with a degree in computational linguistics. She has been described as “one of the best defenders in the world” by one of her former soccer teammates. She may soon add Olympic medalist to her inspiring story, USA Today reports.
On Tuesday, the USA women’s national soccer team defeated Germany in the semifinals at the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, taking the team “one step closer to its first Olympic gold medal since 2012.” Viewers gushed over Girma, “one of the brightest stars in American soccer, on the men’s or women’s side.” USA Today previously reported how Girma’s immigrant roots led her to Paris:
Her father, Girma Aweke (in Ethiopia, children take their father’s first name as their last name), was a teenager when he fled Ethiopia during the “Red Terror,” a violent civil war that left more than 1 million dead. Aweke eventually made it to the United States as a refugee and put himself through school by working as a busboy and a dishwasher, becoming an electrical engineer.
Education brought her mother, Seble Demissie, to the United States, and she stayed after she graduated. She worked in banking and met Aweke through the Bay Area’s Ethiopian community.
Their children, Naomi and brother Nathaniel were born and raised in San Jose, where they participated in an informal soccer club. “As in most other countries around the world, soccer has a passionate following in Ethiopia, the equivalent of the NFL here. Still, none of the Maleda parents dreamed these weekend games in local parks would take their kids anywhere.” For Girma, it’s taken her to international stardom. Like many other immigrant children, she’s never forgotten where she came from.
“Diversity and embracing other cultures is what makes us so special, and I think that’s what has put us ahead for so many years,” Girma told USA Today. “I think that’s something that we should continue to do.”
USWNT head coach Emma Hayes gave Naomi Girma the highest praise after her performance against Germany. 👏#ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/g2LgVAKQf3
— NBC Sports Soccer (@NBCSportsSoccer) August 7, 2024
“An analysis by George Mason University’s Institute for Immigration Research found that 3.7% of athletes on this year’s US Olympic team are foreign-born, while more than 7% are children of immigrants or second-generation immigrants,” The Guardian reports. Joining Girma as a first-generation American is gymnast Paul Juda, the son of Polish immigrants. Last week, he and his team won a bronze medal, marking the first time the men’s gymnastics team won an Olympic prize in over 15 years.
“Paul Juda’s story begins with his father, Jozef, who grew up one of six kids on a small farm in southern Poland. With steady, decent-paying jobs hard to find, he decided to move to Chicago, a city with a vibrant Polish population and a reputation for welcoming Eastern European immigrants,” the Chicago Tribune reported. “A certified electrician, he arrived in the 1980s and quickly found a union job. He didn’t speak English at the time and had no immediate relatives in the U.S., but he worked hard and earned enough to support himself and send money to his family back home.”
Jozef met his future wife, Ewa, and together they had three children. At first, they enrolled young Paul in gymnastics because of his high energy level. But he soon began to show real talent, and as a teen won a full gymnastics scholarship to the University of Michigan. But his mom told the Chicago Tribune that Paul didn’t make it to sports stardom on his own. There were neighbors who gave Paul rides or offered moral support when Jozef and Ewa had to work in order to support the family.
“He’s not at the Olympics because we moved to the United States,” she said in the report. “He’s at the Olympics because we moved to the United States and met wonderful, wonderful people who helped us.” A photoset from Chicago Tribune photojournalist Brian Cassella shows Jozef wiping away a tear following Paul’s win:
Paul Juda meets his parents, Ewa Bacher and Jozef Juda, outside Bercy Arena in Paris after he and team USA took home the bronze medal in the men's gymnastics team final Monday https://t.co/4UP8NKLV3S pic.twitter.com/0yAXaxjaY7
— Brian Cassella (@briancassella) July 30, 2024
On Tuesday 20-year-old wrestler Amit Elor, a daughter of Israeli immigrants, “became the youngest U.S. wrestler, male or female, to ever win an Olympic gold medal,” Yahoo! Sports reported. The Washington Post said that for Elor, “this was almost destined to be the moment she arrived”:
She was born to Israeli-immigrant parents on New Year’s Day 2004, the same year women’s wrestling debuted on the Olympic program. Had she arrived one day earlier, she would have been eligible for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, instead of missing the age cutoff by a day. At 17, she might have been too young and too raw to make much of a mark. At 20, with multiple world championships under her belt, she came to Paris as a genuine phenom.
But the champion’s life has also been marked by tragedy despite her young years. In 2018, her older brother was murdered in a horrific home invasion, and her dad died suddenly in 2022. Following her historic win at the games, she tearfully said that she hoped that they were proud of her:
Walnut Creek native Amit Elor became the youngest American wrestler to win Olympic gold, finishing atop the podium in the women’s 68 kilogram final. The 20-year-old lost her brother in 2018 and her father in 2022. https://t.co/2EXSJBAD2D pic.twitter.com/SM1KxsVW0v
— NBC Bay Area (@nbcbayarea) August 7, 2024
HISTORY MADE.
At 20 years old, Amit Elor is the youngest-ever American Olympic gold medalist in wrestling! #ParisOlympics pic.twitter.com/Ut3HbFKsPZ
— NBC Olympics & Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) August 6, 2024
Luis Grijalva is also an American champion in every way, having lived in the U.S. since he was just one and coming in sixth in a recent game in Norway. The competitive runner previously made headlines when he qualified to compete in the 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo but was unsure he could attend due to his DACA status at the time. While the government allows some DACA recipients to leave the country and return under very limited circumstances, it can be a lengthy process, and Grijalva had no time to spare. Thanks to a last minute push from advocates and calls to Senator Mark Kelly’s office, he was able to attend.
“The runner now holds an O-1 visa, for people with extraordinary abilities or achievements in the sciences, arts, education, business or sports,” the Associated Press reports. “Not only has that made it easier for him to travel to the Paris Olympics, it also enabled him to visit his native Guatemala for the first time since he was a toddler.”
Due to rules, Grivalja still represents the Guatemalan team, as he did during the 2020 games. Dozens of refugee athletes, including Florida-based Cuban refugee Fernando Dayán Jorge Enriquez, competed as part of the IOC Refugee Olympic Team and won their first-ever medal in the current games. While Grijalva failed to qualify for the 5,000-meter race in Paris, Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo praised his “extraordinary effort” at the games, writing that he’s “represented us with great pride, and we are sure that you will come back stronger.”
Gracias, Luis Grijalva, por tu extraordinario esfuerzo en los Juegos Olímpicos de París 2024. Nos has representado con mucho orgullo, y estamos seguros de que volverás más fuerte.
Guatemala está contigo en cada paso de tu carrera. 🇬🇹 pic.twitter.com/TfgtUlexfp
— Bernardo Arévalo (@BArevalodeLeon) August 7, 2024
He’s also an inspiration to many here at home. “Sometimes I forget that I’m not just representing myself, but I’m representing a country as a whole, as well as the Latin American community, and on top of that, 600,000 Dreamers,” he said in 2022. “Even if I’m not the biggest speaker, I speak through my running, and then my running speaks for itself. Sometimes that’s all I have to do because more attention surrounding my story means more awareness for DACA as a whole.”
