Sedera, Sanje, 1970-

Born in Sri Lanka [formerly Ceylon] in 1970 into a middle-class family, entrepreneur and Realtor Sanje Sedera speaks of his childhood, his Buddhist home life, and his schooling; of learning English during his two years as a high school exchange student in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia; of returning to Sri Lanka to complete high school, and of arriving in the U.S. in 1992 on a student visa to attend Idaho State University. He recalls his paternal grandparents, who instilled in him his spirit of political activism, and he describes how the Sri Lankan political turmoil in the late 1980s derived from the Sinhalese takeover and domination of the Tamil people in the early 1950s. After graduating from Idaho State, Sedera entered the management program for K-Mart, which brought him to Las Vegas in 1996. He speaks of losing his mortgage business in the economic downturn in 2009, of running unsuccessfully for public office in 2008 and 2014, of forming the Asian American Democratic Caucus, and of the way his Buddhist upbringing shapes how he lives his life.