Against all odds. Breaking down barriers. Fighting the stigma. These are common phrases heard in the stories of immigrants—and they’re not unfounded. Some of those who have made the greatest strides for America and changed the course of history for this country didn’t call this nation home. To many, they weren’t even wanted here. Here are five immigrants who have trailblazed in the land of the free, against all odds.

1. Madeleine Albright

Madeleine Albright was born in (formerly) Czechoslovakia in 1937 and, right off the bat, was swept into a whirlwind of political chaos. Fleeing from Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, her family settled in England for what she thought was for political reasons. She later learned that her family was Jewish and many had been sent to their death in German concentration camps. After a return to Czechoslovakia, her family was forced to flee to the United States in 1948 after a communist coup.

Albright received her Bachelor’s degree in 1959 and her master’s degree in 1968, and eventually her Ph.D in 1976. She worked as a fundraiser for Edmund Muskie’s presidential campaign. She later worked as the U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser.

During the presidencies of Ronald Reagan and George H.W Bush, Albright worked for nonprofit organizations.

After Bill Clinton was elected president, Clinton named her ambassador to the United Nations. Her reputation began to grow as a fierce advocate for American interests, and she was soon unanimously confirmed as Secretary of State in 1997. She became the first woman to hold the position of United States Secretary of State.

Albright forcefully pushed for democracy and human rights. In what many called “Madeleine’s War”, the Kosovo Conflict ended after Yugoslavia agreed to NATO’s terms, much of which Albright pushed for.

Albright left government service after the end of Clinton’s second term, and she adamantly supported Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaigns, notably stating, “There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other”.

2. Yao Ming

Yao Ming was born to basketball-playing parents in 1980, and by the time he was 12 years old, he was spending several hours a day running basketball drills. By 1997, he joined the Shanghai Sharks in the Chinese Basketball Association. In the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, he led the team to a 10th-place finish.

Standing at a whopping 7 foot 6 inches, Yao was eventually drafted by the Houston Rockets as the coveted first overall pick in the 2002 NBA draft.

Yao was selected to start in the All-Star Game, after leading the Rockets to win 43 games in the 2002-03 season, contrasting their previous season’s 28 wins.

Yao earned all-star honors during the six seasons and was credited with the five playoff appearances by the Rockets. However, during those years, he suffered a series of broken bones and surgeries that led to his retirement from the NBA in July 2011. He was inducted into the basketball hall of fame in 2016.

Along with being an international basketball sensation, Yao was also a successful businessman. Yao served as president and owner of the Shanghai Sharks and eventually became the president of the Chinese Basketball Association in 2017.

Yao Ming served as an important stepping stone and landmark player in American basketball history. He is largely responsible for the NBA’s efforts at globalizing its league to worldwide audiences.

3. Pramila Jayapal

Pramila was born in 1965 in India, growing up there, Indonesia, and Singapore. She came to America by herself when she was sixteen years old to earn her degree at Georgetown University. She later received her MBA from Northwestern University.

Pramila began working fiercely for nonprofit organizations, including the Program for Appropriate Technology in Health and went on to organize her own nonprofit.

After the wave of anti-Arab rhetoric following the September 11th attacks, Jayapal founded an advocacy group for Arab, Muslim, and South Asian Americans known now as OneAmerica. She was the executive director of the group until 2012.

Jayapal was elected as a Washington State Senator from 2015 to 2017, and then, from 2017 and continuously, she serves as a United States Representative. Jayapal is the first and only South Asian American woman ever elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. She is part of the small minority group of Congress that are naturalized citizens.

Pramila is a champion for human rights, striving for improved living and working conditions, racial justice, and climate action. She has spent decades organizing advocacy efforts for women’s and immigrant rights.

She is the author of two books, focusing both on cherishing homeland and using the power one has to never back down from sparking change.

4. Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein was born in Germany in 1879. He began his schooling at the Luitpold Gymnasium, and in 1896, he began his training as a teacher in physics and mathematics. He was unable to find a teaching position, so he became a technical assistant in the Swiss Patent Office.

In his spare time at the Patent Office, he produced some of his most notable work. He quickly rose in the ranks and taught Theoretical Physics in Prague and Zurich. Einstein became a German citizen in 1914, but later renounced his citizenship and went to America in 1933, due to political turmoil in Germany.

Einstein’s work was clear and determined. He viewed his major achievements as the foundations for his next advancements.

He formulated an explanation of the Brownian movement of molecules and his observations of the thermal properties of light laid the foundation of the photon theory of light. Einstein persevered with his work on the probabilistic interpretation of quantum theory in America. Many American universities awarded Einstein honorary doctorate degrees, and he lectured all across America.

While Einstein completed some exceptional work abroad, America serving as a safe haven for an immigrant like him, fleeing for safety and security, was foundational to his life and therefore to the rest of his groundbreaking work.

5. Christine Amanpour

Christine Amanpour was born in 1958 in London, England. Her father moved her family to Tehran, Iran shortly after her birth, and they led a wealthy and privileged life. Amanpour was sent back to England when she was 11 for her education. In 1979, the shah was toppled in the Islamic Revolution, and the Amanpour family was forced to flee. This experience is what Amanpour credited to lead her to journalism.

Amanpour moved to the United States, and after graduating from the University of Rhode Island with a degree in journalism in 1983, she was hired at the growing CNN as an assistant for the international news desk.

Amanpour’s big break came when she was promoted to a post in Frankfurt, West Germany, where she became CNN’s on-the-spot reporter for the pro-democracy movement sweeping across Eastern Europe.

She gained traction covering the Persian Gulf War and the Kurdish uprising in northern Iraq. Her most exceptional work was in Bosnia and Herzegovina, covering the outbreak of violence. She brought the savage nature of that conflict to attention, but many claimed she was biased against the Serbs.

She produced a series of programs for CNN, focusing on different topics like Kenyan children who had been orphaned because of AIDS and Islamic unrest in the United Kingdom. From there, she shuffled between CNN, PBS, and ABC, establishing different programs and correspondences.

Her work in news reporting and journalism in America is critical to what American news knows about many foreign conflicts. She was one of the leading war reporters in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.