Synopsis

Ruth Lor started life Chinese in a small Canadian town. Driven by curiosity, a yen for adventure, and a wish to be useful, she managed to spend her life fighting racial discrimination.

In Washington, D.C., she fought segregation by sitting in at “whites only” restaurants and swimming in “whites only” pools. She planted trees in Mexico, painted houses for Inuit victims of tuberculosis in the Canadian Arctic, and helped distribute food to refugees in Taiwan. When China reopened to foreigners after its Cultural Revolution, Ruth wrote the first English-language guidebook about that enormous country.

Ruth covered the war in Vietnam, crossed Himalayan passes on foot and horseback, and faced down an angry elephant in Africa. She worked in India to reduce prejudice against that country’s caste of transgender hijras. She and her husband housed refugees in their Maryland home after the Vietnam War ended.

Now in her nineties, Ruth still works with refugees, and she still brightens her corner of the world, wherever she is.