In the first interview session, conducted on January 15, 2020, Choephel discusses her family background and early life in Rachu, Tibet; she speaks about her siblings and about life on a farm. She talks about how the Chinese invasion of Tibet affected her daily life, discusses the reasons her family fled to Nepal around 1959, and shares her memories of the journey. She talks about her life and education in Nepal during the 1960s and 1970s. She talks about her arranged marriage to Tsering Choephel, a Tibetan who had immigrated to the United States and was working as a lumberjack in Maine, and describes the process of immigrating to the U.S.