03/28/2018 Tungol Law America Now, Immigration "NBA Star’s Immigration Story Profiled on 60 Minutes"

NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo plays professional basketball for the Milwaukee Bucks. Nicknamed the “Greek Freak,” Antetokounmpo is an immigrant from Greece.

He was born in Athens in 1994 into poverty on the lowest rung of Greek society. His parents had come to Greece from Nigeria and raised their family. They had no papers, lived in tiny two-room apartments, sleeping three or four to a bed. There was rarely enough food. It was Giannis’s father who encouraged him and his older brother Thanasis to pursue basketball as a possible career. He had given them Greek first names to help them assimilate, but it was basketball that helped them fit in, and the brothers began playing on this neighborhood court.

Watch Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes“ interview Antetokounmpo here.

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