A Life Shaped by Displacement Mark Rothko arrived in the United States as a young boy, part of a family moving from Dvinsk, Latvia, to Portland, Oregon, in 1913. His early years were marked by the heavy atmosphere of the Pale of Settlement, where his family lived amidst political unrest and the fear of pogroms. This sense of instability followed him across the ocean. The loss of his father, Jacob, shortly after their arrival in America added a layer of personal grief to the challenges of settling in a new culture. While he studied at Yale University, the pull of New York City eventually led…