When Salih Hudayar was born in the small city of Artux, East Turkestan, in May, 1993, the land of his birth had been under Chinese control for 44 years.
A Uighur by birth, Hudayar was just seven years old when he and his family moved to the US in 2000, arriving as political refugees before settling in Oklahoma, where he went to school and eventually joined the US Reserve Officer Training Corps.
Always aware of his background and family heritage, however, in 2017 Hudayar established the East Turkestan National Awakening Movement, and within 12 months was meeting members of the US Congress