By Dr Mehmet Oz - My father Mustafa Oz was born October 4, 1925 in the poor farming village of Bozkir near Konya, Turkey.  Although he participated in events that no one in his community and few in his country could have ever imagined, his heart never left this small town and he returned frequently to embrace the buildings that he built for future generations of students. Mustafa earned scholarships at every level of his education, which inspired his support of promising students who cannot afford education.  After graduating Cerrahpaşa Medical School at the top of his class in 1950, he was accepted into the general residency at Western Reserve University residency in Cleveland, USA (where Mehmet was born in 1960) and cardiothoracic training at Emory University in Atlanta (where Seval was born in 1961) before he began training other doctors in Wilmington, Delaware (where Nazlım was born in 1967). His biggest accomplishment was marrying my mother Suna Yıldız Atabay in 1959 and learning to take her advice over a 60-year marriage. He moved back to his beloved Turkey and operated into his 80s at top hospitals in Istanbul including his beloved Florence Nightingale.

By Mona Diamond Sunshine - “Three months after I got married, my husband and I traveled to Turkey. At that time, I was given Turkish citizenship as I was married to a Turkish citizen.  We settled in Ankara where I lived for two years before returning to the United States. We settled in Atlanta, Georgia where I had my three sons, Burak, Turan and Kamuran. After we settled in Atlanta, we became very involved with the Turkish community here in Atlanta. At that time, we were only 150 Turkish people living in the city. We were a very close knit group and I helped organize the Turkish American Cultural Association of Georgia. I became vice president on two occasions. I was also a member of ATAA in Washington, DC and would go to the yearly meetings of ATAA.

Lolita Zinke who worked closely with President Trump and served as a member of his Hispanic and women’s outreach committee during the 2016 campaign, has been invited by Serdar Kılıç, Turkish Ambassador to the United States in Washington DC, to visit Syrian refugee camps in Turkey. The group of people from diverse backgrounds who are to come together for this visit will have the chance to see what the Turkish government has done about Syrian refugees. Lolita Zinke, better known as Lola, was born and raised in Santa Barbara, California. She graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara and California Western School of Law. Afterward, she provided bilingual felony arraignment services for the San Diego Public Defenders Office. Lolita lived in Adana in the late 1980s and she fell in love with the culture, food, and people. She married Ryan Zinke, who served as United States Secretary of the Interior in the Trump Administration between 2017 and 2019, until his resignation.

Lawrence Kaye represents a wide range of domestic and international clients in complex litigations and commercial transactions. He also represented the Republic of Turkey in its successful efforts to recover the fabled Lydian Hoard antiquities, long held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and some 1,800 ancient Greek and Lycian coins which Connoisseur Magazine called "The Hoard of the Century." Larry talked to TURKOFAMERICA.