Transcript for the 59-min w/music in news hole version of Crossing East: The Post '65 Generation - Program Six
PROGRAM SIX
The Post ?65 Generation
BILLBOARD
ANNOUNCER: Major Funding for this series is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, with support from PRI ? Public Radio International.
HOST: From NPR?This is Crossing East? Our stories, our history, our America?
SOUND COLLAGE
BILL ONG HING: The United States continues to have this image throughout the world of this land of opportunity. The ?65 reform laws were very family oriented.
YOLANDA: After we immigrated to United States, we always think about to open a business, a family business.
ESTHER SIMPSON: We were the pioneers and we were the nurses who set up the policies, the procedure that this new hospital was going to use?
WILLIAM CHU: The newer immigrant really bring life to America like in Chinatown.
HOST: I?m Margaret Cho? Up next? the stories of the Post ?65 Generation? on Crossing East?
(NEWS BREAK)
SEGMENT A
HOST: I?m Margaret Cho and this is Crossing East?Our stories, our history, our America. We?re featuring the Post ?65 Generation.
SOUND JON JANG MUSIC
HOST: Composer Jon Jang got inspiration from the jazz artists of the 1960?s. John Coltrane?Miles Davis?their music reflected a time of great change in America.
HOST: Thanks to the achievements of the civil rights movement, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion or national origin. A year later, he signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 prohibiting any kind of requirement including a literacy test that discriminated against voters on the basis of race.
That same year President Johnson signed legislation abolishing national origin quotas restricting Asian immigration since the Immigration Act of 1924. The Immigration Act of 1965 removed the last vestiges of racial discrimination in this national?s immigration policies and made it possible for Asians to sponsor and bring over their families. Till then, Asian countries were each restricted to only one hundred immigrants each year. A trickle compared to the waves of European immigration.
HOST: The 1965 Act united families and welcomed highly educated, technical and professional workers from Asia. Many wanting better jobs came from India, China, the Philippines and Korea.
SOUND: STREET NOISE INTO STORE NOISE
DON: This is Trojan Meat Market. And right side have produce section. Walking in and front to the side is the meat department. And also left hand side getting liquor department and wine department.
HOST: Don Myoung runs the Trojan Market in Los Angeles. Don immigrated to America in 1971 when he was 22. A college student in Korea, he worked as a computer technician for a while. But his English was limited so he left the job. His wife, Floria, came a few years later. She was a schoolteacher in Korea but didn?t speak English well enough to get a job here. So they bought a mom and pop store in 1982 in a low-income neighborhood.
SOUND: CASH REGISTER
DON: Two year later I build up the business then I sold it then I buy another liquor store. Then I make good money. Believe it or not half million dollar I make. That time I was early thirty.
Most Korean immigrants after 1965 were college educated, but because of language barriers they had to find new ways to support themselves in the U.S. Today more than one million Korean Americans live in the U.S. Los Angeles has the largest Korean population outside of Korea. Nearly 30 percent are self-employed and businesses like Don and Floria Myoung?s market. Forty-five percent are small grocery and liquor stores.
Chapter One?. ? A Grocer?s Life?
SOUND: CHANGE
DON: Mr. Henry? Yes, I know He?s my good customer.
HENRY: This is a very nice store, very nice store.
DON: People used to be in this area, a lot of USC professor and a lot of good people living. Those people move. And also the other side, has good people living, family people, they moving out. And then start coming in to all the Latino community all coming, 70% coming in. And then you change your business. And I have to using to grocery store and meat market and produce market and I have to go with them. So it?s low profit and hired labor, a lot of hired labor and a lot of work. it?s very difficult to run business. Work like a donkey and try to survival to my life. That?s it.
DON: Get up at home, 6:30. And shower and 7:30. Then coming here twenty after nine. Long drive, I live in Garden Grove. Until stay ten o?clock, seven days a week. Then I go home and after twenty after eleven. Then shower after twelve o?clock. No personal life in run business. I want to quit sometime.
FLORIA: My husband working hard, better than me. I supposed to be just take care of the money and the kids. It?s a long time ago.
DON: My wife come, she work Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday. She work three days a week.
SOUND: PENNIES
FLORIA: This business is the penny business. This is a Penny business and everything small, small organized this is successful in a Penny business.
DON: She is a general manager, she handle everything. So I?m just worker and she?s the boss.
FLORIA: Everything watching the employee, supervising the employee, and the merchandise, check everything, receiving the merchandise and the count money and the money just organized, also the paperworking and the working in payment.
DON: I do on my own everything but kind of burned out myself now and she come in kind of fresh and try to such and such and things, she want them more organized than I do. And more detailed organizing. Before I do, it?s not really problem, let them go, let them go. Because I?m already kind of burning here to work seven days work open to close.
SOUND: ISAAC GETS HIS MONEY FROM AMY
ISAAC: My name is Isaac Romero. I?m a representative of Interstate Bran and I come in here and I serve Twinkies and cupcakes to Donny and his store, Trojan Market.
ISAAC: Donny?s very good to the people in this neighborhood and he has a very successful business here. During holidays, Thanksgiving and whatnot he?s cooking outside for the low-income people and he?s very good to them, he?s a very good person. He?s just somebody that cares about his customers. And they in turn come here and shop.
SOUND: CHECKER SPEAKS IN SPANISH
DON: I do equal treatment as businessperson.
SOUND: CHECKER ANSWERS THE PHONE
DON: My father was a businessman. I try to run business because my father owned a bread company in Korea. And that time I try to get married and try to get some airplane fee and quick as possible get married. So I do building maintenance and daytime I go to school and repair computer. But at that time I didn?t speak English so getting job, and I quit myself two months later because so much call office to call repair shop but owner is out and I?m the person myself and I don?t understand what they say, so I getting depressed myself and I quit.
SOUND: CHECKER HANDS OVER PLASTIC BAG
FLORIA: I wished I really my own career. When I?m in college in graduation after I just was teacher 1972, 73, I met him this time. When I come to this country, I wish to do teacher?s aide, I want that kind of job, but I lost. When I come to this country, after two months I have a baby. No choice.
DON: We marry, start a family in this country. And no time to enjoy my life. I just work, work, so far what I see last thirty year. But riot hit me in 1992.
ISAAC: It?s a really tough neighborhood. Very tough. They can turn on you real quick. But after meeting Donny told me all about it. It was really kind of sad, the story that he told me, because he lost his business.
DON: April 29th is riot, Los Angeles riot. That day Wednesday I was day off day, I was stay home. And I see a TV and Trojan on it and then that time they call me. A neighbor, hey Don, your store burning. So my wife cry and my daughter and me cry and I?d no, never experienced a riot. And I didn?t know that they going to burning. Maybe looting and poor people, but I wasn?t respect to get burning.
FLORIA: After riot the other day, next day we came here. All just ash, smoke, all lost, everything lost.
DON: That life changed after that, we thinking so much how we going to be living?
FLORIA: After that, oh, ah me, what can I do? How am I living? We just go to the food stamps. Food stamps they give you only just 180 dollars, we never experience going to the food stamps place. Don made us go on food stamps, they pay 20 dollars.
DON: Then I say what is this letter? And I show to my daughter, honey, what is it? Daddy, you cannot open store. I have to go back to city hall, hey, what is this? City Government give me so much a hard time to reopening. A lot of thing to giving zoning problem and planning problem we have to go through to open store. And city government should have helped us, they didn?t protect good citizens. We are licensable and tax person, good citizen. They didn?t protect us to burning all the store. And they start giving problem to reopen back to store
FLORIA: So then after Don we just opened next door to the business and had to socks and the t-shirts, but nobody come. Nobody came. That lose money too. The riot lose money and that lose money, everything lose. We can?t do anything.
DON: Not even penny have income all year. think of how we?re living. so that?s how I lost my house, everything. So I use a credit card and all kind of what I can I use it. And right after store opening is not like it used to be. They change. A lot of good people move out after riot. I thought I open up the same thing like before. It?s not. It?s completely changed.
ISAAC: But I?ve been serving this store for about eight, nine years and I?ve gotten to know Donny really well. He?s a great person. He really is. I love him and Floria very much. He?s built it up again, he?s doing very well. He?s very successful out here.
FLORIA: After we got more, a stronger mind, my husband get a stronger mind, working hard. Everything more successful.
DON: I?m proud to be living here in this country. I?m citizen here and I?m go into die here. This is my country. I love the country here. But I do have a hard time living here the last ten years, after riots. But still I love country, I learn so much after riots. And I will support the country and I?m born in Korea but my life is here.
SOUND: CHECKER SCANNING
SOUND DOWN
HOST: ? A Grocer?s Life? by Dmae Roberts with contributing producer Mia Kim.
In a moment?a motel family in Chicago? This is Crossing East? I?m Margaret Cho.
ANNOUNCER: You?re listening to PRI ? Public Radio International.
MUSIC BREAK
SEGMENT B
HOST: I?m Margaret Cho and we?re looking at the Post ?65 generation?The 1965 Immigration Act made it possible for families to reunite and live together in the U.S. And many of the worked together?
SOUND OF TRAFFIC
HOST: The Apache Motel is located on a busy street in Chicago. It?s one of thousands in the U-S owned by South Asian immigrants.
According to the Asian American Hotel Owners Association, more than a third of hotels and motels in the country are owned by Asian American entrepreneurs like Manu Patel.
He came to the U-S from the Indian state of Gujarat, following his brother-in-law.
Chapter Two. ?The Family Business? by Chicago Public Radio?s Catrin Einhorn.
MP: My name is Manu Patel
KP: My name is Kruti Patel
MP: I?m 60 year old
KP: I?m 28 years old
MP: I have a wife, four daughters.
MP ON SCENE: It?s a small little place. We have 27 units, bout 50 plus years.
KP: My dad runs around like crazy everyday.
MP: I am a hotelier, full time, for last 25 year.
KP: He has five properties
MP: I have three independent and two franchise, one is Super 8 and one is Days Inn
MP ON SCENE: I?m going to show you this room. KEY IN DOOR. Let?s see.
25-inch color cable TV, king-size bed, comfortable. Here?s a refrigerator [FADE STARTS] and you have a place to have, eat something?
MP: I am from India, small town called Syadla. My parents were farmers, 1967 I got married, 68 and I had the first daughter, and 1970 I had the second daughter.
Back home, the way our culture is, you have to have at least one baby boy, so in the older age, usually son take care of the parents. Daughter get married, and you?re left without anyone to take care in older age. So we had to try one more pregnancy, and I had a third daughter. We decided that was it, you know, and we were happy. My wife got pregnant, which we did not plan. And I had a fourth daughter.
KP: They had me, another girl.
MP: We were happy with whatever the children we had, but my parents were disappointed.
KP: So his friend was like, ok look, now you got four girls, you?re not all going to be able to survive here.
MP: To give them a good education, we decided that we should go to US.
KP: And so that?s why we came here. More or less because I was born.
PHONE RINGS
MP ON SCENE: Front desk. Yeah, how can I help you? Yes sir.
MP: I started working as a night clerk
MP ON SCENE: That?d be very fine
MP: And then I started working two shift.
KP: And my mom cleaned rooms, and then there was me, a year and a half.
MP: So we started saving money. And the way our community work?we help each other. So I had some money of my own, my relatives helped me some and so many friends of mine, they helped me like $2,000, $4,000, $10,000. One of our family friend own a 30-unit hotel in small town called Kutztown in Pennsylvania. They found out that I am looking for the hotel. So the family friend financed the place for me. That?s how I got in.
MP ON SCENE: BEEPING OF DOORS UNLOCKING. I?m going to take you to my other property, it?s called Budget Inn and Suites.
BEEPING, DOOR SLAMS, KEYS IN IGNITION, SEATBELTS [NOTE: SOUND CONTINUES UNDER FOLLOWING PARAGRAPH]
KP: Growing up in America, being a foreigner, even though I didn?t have an accent, it wasn?t bad until you?re young and you don?t understand why people are calling you Dot Head and Gandhi Lover, and all these things. And you kind of like, ok, why? You never stop to say, ok, because I?m brown. You know?
MP: The hardest discrimination I faced personally, one time, it was a long time ago, I had a customer refuse to check out passed the check out time. Call the police. And police officer told me, let him stay a couple more hours. I said that?s fine with me, but what about, you know, the rent? He said that?s your problem, I ask you to let him stay a couple more hours. And I say what if I not? He say I can find 10 things to arrest you. I say since you?re telling me to let him stay, I?ll let him stay. And he told me in my face, you better. For your own good.
MOM ON SCENE: PHONE RINGS Office, may I help you? Hello?
KP: I grew up in the hotel business, so I decided to actually stay in it. I just started working for Select Hotels Group, and prior to that I was working at home with my parents in their business.
KP, MOM, CUSTOMER ON SCENE: What are you looking for? Red Line. I have to go? Clybourn? Yuh huh. Ok, we?re right here. You can take the Western bus all the way to Clybourn.
KP: There?s money. It?s pretty good money, I can say that. It?s a good investment.
KP ON SCENE: NAT FROM PREVIOUS SCENE
MP: My youngest daughter, she?s a little precious thing for us. She?s still unmarried. We?re looking for?match.
KP: I?m single, yes, I?m single.
MP: About the marriage part
KP: You know, it?s a process I guess in the Indian community.
MP: We have converted ourselves between East and West.
KP: I?m not supposed to be single and 28, it?s not a good thing.
MP: Back home when I got married, my parents decided the bride for me. With our children, if they find somebody of their own choice, that?s great.
KP: I unfortunately, have not found anybody on my own.
MP: If not, they ask us if we can provide them some information.
KP: When I was I think about 22 or 23 I had told my parents, you know, I?m ready to get married. I was done with school, just working at home, and I was like I want to get married. It?s the next step in life anyways, right? One of the things that really surprised me was I thought that growing up here, you would kind of lose that Indian mentality that?of we?re going to live with my parents, and we?re going to do this and it?s like, ok, I?m sorry. I grew up here. And I can?t follow that. Not all the way through. I?ll meet you halfway.
MP: She is a total combination of East and West. She got all the things that our country, our community, our culture says. And she got all the behavior, all the education, all the power from the West. She can clean the house, she can do the laundry, or in a motel, she will take a screwdriver, open up the outlet, and replace the receptacle. With a live wire.
CREDIT CARD SOUND.
MP ON SCENE: Hey Brian, this is Patel down at the Budget Inn in Burbank. Alright, how are you doing? FADE, CREDIT CARD SOUND STAYS UNDER
MP: I have not forgotten the help that I got from my family friends for me to grow. I?m doing the same thing today. Somebody wants to grow, wants to invest in a business, I still loan them money without any interest, as other people did for me.
MOM ON SCENE: Hi. Checking out? Is everything ok? Thank you, have a nice day, bye bye.
KP: The next thing for my mom and dad to do is to retire.
MP: About my plans for the future
KP: I think they?re just waiting for me to get married
MP: I?m waiting to see that daughter get married
KP: So they can pay for a wedding, and then they can retire.
MP: and she settle down on her own. And then I?m retired, I don?t need to work anymore.
MP: Back in the country where I lived for 35-some years, before I moved to America, in that cultural environment, that fitted with our lifestyle that having four daughters is more liability. And think coming back here, with a different culture, different environment, different place, it sound like myth, that you know daughters are not that good, or you have to have a boy. No, I think it?s changing in our culture, at least over here, it?s becoming daughters in your life the most precious thing, not the son. I?m not worried about my old age at all. They are there. They will be there. It?s so satisfying.
MP ON SCENE: You?re leaving? Was everything ok for you? Ok, come back and see us again.
FADE.
HOST: The Family Business? by Chicago Public Radio?s Catrin Einhorn. Featured voices were Manu and Kruti Patel of the Apache Hotel.
You can find photos and web links for any of our stories at
Crossing East dot O-R-G.
SOUNDS OF A HOSPITAL
HOST: Walk the halls of many U.S. hospitals and chances are you?ll find internationally trained nurses on staff. American hospitals recruiting overseas health care professionals is not new; the practice dates as far back as the 1950s. They tapped Filipina nurses in particular to fill staffing shortages.
Esther Simpson works at Seattle?s V-A Medical Center. She came to Chicago in 1973 as part of one of the largest wave of Asian migration to the United States. By 1980, the Filipino population in the U.S. jumped to half a million. So many medical professionals came to America that politicians in the Philippines feared a ?brain drain.?
Esther Simpson, like many Filipina nurses, have made a large contribution to the American healthcare system?
Chapter Three. ?In Her Own Words?
(OPEN WITH HOSPITAL AMBI)
ESTHER SIMPSON: Okay, let?s check your blood pressure one more time since it was elevated?
(BRING UP PUMPING SOUND, FADE UNDER TRACKS)
NARRATION: At the outpatient clinic, Esther Simpson checks in with patients get their vitals before they see the doctor?
(BRING UP HISSING SOUND, VALVE RELEASED, FADE UNDER CUTS)
SIMPSON: One forty over eighty. Okay, thank you. Now you can wait outside in the waiting and your doctor will call you next.
NARRATION: Simpson is a registered nurse. On her ID badge are two pins. One is dark blue and silver for her twenty year service at the hospital.
SIMPSON: The other one actually is a medal ?Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal has always been my companion. This was given by my aunt before I left the Philippines. (Laughs)
SIMPSON: I went directly to Chicago because that?s where my aunt and my younger sister was, and I lived with them. It was an extension of my life from the Philippines with my family.
(AMBI)
SIMPSON: Do you have problems with high blood pressure:
PATIENT: I?ve had it in the past?
SIMPSON: I received my basic nursing training in the Philippines. After graduation I worked in the Manila Medical Center. We were the pioneers and we were the nurses who set up the policies, the procedure that this new hospital was going to use?
(BRING UP AMBI)
SIMPSON: Keep your arm straight. Alright, that?s good;
(Machine beeping, fade under tracks)
SIMPSON: Even though I was holding a very top position in the hospital where I worked, my salary was not enough for me to be able to give something to my parents; the salary was just enough for me. And so I thought about the dollar converted to peso and how I would be able to help my family?if I was earning dollars in America.
NARRATION: For American hospitals, hiring Filipina nurses seemed like a natural choice. The United States has a long, colonial connection to the Philippines. Its presence in the archipelago between 1898 through 1946 established an education system, among other things?
CHOY: And this education also included an Americanized training hospital system that actively recruited young Filipino women, specifically to train professionally as nurses. I?m Catherine Ceniza Choy, I?m an associate professor of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley.
NARRATION: And America?s nursing shortage would continue to encourage the migration of Filipina nurses. In 1965 Congress changed American immigration policy that paved the way for nurses to come and stay?permanently.
CHOY: The 1965 U.S. Immigration Act was a watershed in U.S. immigration history?
NARRATION: The 1965 Act also created a preference system that favored applicants with certain professions.
(BRING BACK HOSPITAL AMBI)
PATIENT: I want to renew my prescription.
SIMPSON: Okay, just press this Window 1 ?NOW SERVING A13?
(FADE AMBI UNDER CUT)
NARRATION: The Philippine government tried to slow the flow of Filipina nurses leaving the country with little success until 1972, when then President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law, he shifted the country?s focus to exporting goods and human labor overseas. It was right about that time that Esther Simpson came to America.
SIMPSON: The lure of the United States to Filipino nurses is really salaries?and of course the comforts of living here.
CHOY: For some of the Filipino nurses that I interviewed these expectations were met. Some U.S. hospitals, under the exchange program, were exploiting Filipino nurses to do the dirtiest, the heaviest kind of nursing labor, to work on the most unpopular nursing work shifts. For those Filipino nurses who had those experiences, these were tremendous disappointments.
SIMPSON: We also met Filipinos who were discriminated against. They lost their jobs, they were demoted, or they were unemployed. I guess that was like a reality to me that Filipinos were actually having issues as minorities in America.
NBC TV news clip: (David Brinkley) Two Filipino nurses charged with multiple murders in a veteran?s hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan were arraigned today. One in Detroit and one in Chicago where she now lives?
CHOY: Filipina Narciso and Leonora Perez were targeted by the FBI for poisoning, murder and conspiracy at the VA Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan? although there was no direct evidence connecting Narciso or Perez to these crimes they were targeted by the FBI, they were repeatedly interviewed and then eventually tried and convicted on circumstantial evidence.
SIMPSON: The case of the Narciso-Perez was a definite eye-opener for everybody because Filipinos don?t believe they would be accused as murderers or made suspect because I think it?s just intrinsic in us, very innate in us that Filipinos are hardworking people, we are honest people, that we can do no wrong.
CHOY: During the time the FBI had targeted Narciso and Perez Filipina nurses in different parts of the United States were harassed, were suspected of perhaps doing something wrong on their jobs, not because of any direct evidence but because they, too, happen to be foreign trained nurses from the Philippines.
SIMPSON: This case galvanized the Filipino community because it has united all walks of life, different political leanings, different economic status?
NARRATION: Filipina nurses across the country began to understand their rights. They organized associations and chapters to support Narciso and Perez.
SIMPSON: We went to Detroit during the trials to witness the proceedings in court. It was so great to see Filipinos occupying the courtroom?on the outside of the courthouse were massive Filipinos. And at the same time we publicized the different rallies that was going around the United States.
NARRATION: In 1978, nearly three years after the FBI investigation of Narciso and Perez, federal prosecutors dropped the case for lack of motive and questionable eyewitness testimonies.
COUNCIL HEARING TAPE: (applause fading, Esther at the podium)
SIMPSON: My name is Esther Simpson, and I represent the Filipino Veterans Equity of Washington. We are part of the National Network on Veterans Equity?.
NARRATION: Simpson?s activism didn?t stop with the Narciso-Perez case. She has directed her lobbying efforts at restoring benefits for Filipino war veterans who fought alongside American soldiers during World War II?
SIMPSON: I?m a justice-loving person. And any kind of makes me mad; makes me madder if the victims are minorities: women, people of color?it is in my blood that anything that is not just is something that can not be tolerated.
HOST OUTRO: Simpson is two years away from early retirement, but she has no plans to quit then; nursing is also in her blood.
To this day American hospitals look overseas to fill staffing shortages. Filipina recruits make up the largest group of foreign-trained nurses in America. Last year (2005), more than (43-hundred) Filipina nurses received U-S licenses. As it was then, money still drives thousands of Filipinos to leave their homeland or homes and work elsewhere.
Find out more on Crossing East dot O-R-G.
When we come back? a Chinese family restaurant in Minnesota? this is Crossing East and the Post ?65 Generation? I?m Margaret Cho?
ANNOUNCER: You?re listening to PRI ? Public Radio International.
MUSIC BREAK
SEGMENT C
HOST: I?m Margaret Cho with The Post ?65 Generation?
VOICE: (in Chinese) Ni chir la mah?
HOST: Haven you eaten yet?
It?s a common Chinese greeting. Like saying ?how are you??
For many immigrants from China, running a restaurant has often been the only way for families to earn a living. The first Chinese restaurants started in California in the mid 1800s. Now go to any city or small town in the U-S. Chances are you?ll find a Chinese restaurant.
Chinese restaurant families are an American tradition. After the 1965 Immigration act, new arrivals from Hong Kong, Taiwan and China followed the path of immigrants before them, starting family restaurants.
AMBIENCE FROM THE TEA HOUSE
HOST: In Plymouth, Minnesota, near Minneapolis, two sisters run The Tea House Restaurant.
Yolanda Wang and Melissa Ho arrived in the late 80?s from Anqing, [ahn-ching] in east central China. The sisters had completed college when they arrived, along with their mother, father and four other sisters. Sadly, within a year of arriving, their father died of cancer. Yolanda and Melissa found that running a Chinese restaurant was their best hope of earning a living.
Chapter Four. ?The Teahouse? by Mary Stucky.
1:00
PLAY PIECE-6:00
Ambience
?I?m looking for number two, number two for two, please follow me this way.?
?I am Yolanda Wang. I was born in 1968. I?m one of the owners of the Tea House Restaurant in Plymouth. That?s my sister Melissa.?
Ambience
?Ok, 20 minutes ok. Bye. Bye. Hi how are you. May I hlep you
I am Melissa Ho. I was born in 1965.
Yolanda: I grew up in small town. Anqing Province. My dad and my mom work for government. She and my dad had very low income. My Dad had a dream to send all his girls to the United States to have a better life. My uncle applied us. He helped us immigrate to the United States. We came into the United States back to 1989. After my dad brought us here then it?s about a year that he had cancer. He died in Beijing China. He went back. He said he doesn?t want to die here. And then we all married here and had our own life here.
Ambience
Can we order something to go?
Mother speaks in Chinese. Yolanda translates.
That?s my mom. Her name is Elaine Shi. She has six daughters of the family. She was born in 1944. It?s a really difficult time in China in that time when she grew up. I still remember at that time when we were young we couldn?t buy the shoes. My grandma made the shoes for us. And she always encouraged us, she said someday you have the chance you have to do your own business.
Ambience
Thirty nine twenty five
Yolanda: After we immigrated to United Staets, we always think about to open a business, a family business.
Melissa: The first year is hard to us. Right. We want to sold. We want to give up. Because we never do the restuarant business before. It?s very tough.
Ambience
Chicken with fresh mushrooms. Chicken with pork . Sure, thank you.
Yolanda: We spend so many hours at the restaurant. Whenever the restaurant need me I have to be here. I have no day off.
Melissa: We just take turn the work. Most of the time I work in the daytime because nighttime is home stay with kids. One daughter 11 years old, one son five years old.
Yolanda: I have one son. His name is Louis Wang, He is 14 years old. He thinks he will help a little bit on weekends in the restuarant, maybe start this summer
Ambience
Number 3 will be next, ok thank you for waiting
Yolanda: For this point, our husbands Daniel and Michael they help us a lot.
Ambience
You want to order something to go? Ok
Yolanda: Oh, by the way, Melissa and I are sisters but we are married to brothers. Our husbands? parents are my parents? friends. They suggest we make friends, and fall in love.
Melissa: It?s kinda easy
Ambience
We offer the authentic Szechuan style. You see a lot of Asian famileis. They sometime drive two hours here to get the hometown taste, that?s right.
Yolanda: At the beginning, we only prepared this menu for Chinese community. We even didn?t have in English. More and more Chinese customers bring their American friend over and the American friend bring their friends. We realize that yeah we were right American customers really like the authentic food just like we do.
Ambience
Yes that?s right .Good to see you back.
Yolanda: My mom and my sister and I very enjoy to work a business like a restaurant because have a lot of people come and go come and go. Just like when we grow up. All the staff from my dad?s department, all the families lived in the same courtyard. I still remember the nighttime after mom and dad came come and made the dinner, everybody bring out the tables and chairs in the courtyard. Every familiy do that. We all eat dinner together.
Mother speaks Chinese. Yolanda translates.
People at that time very nice to each other. If you have any problem everybody come to help you. We miss that a lot.
Ambience (laughter)
Both is good but it?s just different recipe.
It?s wonderful, excellent, very good.
Yolanda: A lot of regular customer here if they do not come, mom, my sister, we all ask about it, what happneend to that family, we haven?t seen them for a while. We think about them.
Ambience
Ok Bamboo tips in Szechuan spicy sauce, ok.
Customer: We really want the authentic food.
Oh yes, that?s the one. It is.
Yolanda: People come to see us everyday. We meet differnt people, hear different stories from each family. We share the stories with customers. We really enjoy to stay here.
Ambience
The fish, right.
Customer: Just tell the chef that I?d like to have the authentic. I?m from .....
HOST: ?The Teahouse? by Mary Stucky featured the voices of Yolanda Wang and Melissa Ho in Plymouth, Minnesota.
MUSIC FADES OUT
INTRO:
SOUND OF CHINATOWN
William Chu: We?re on the beginning of Fuzhou Street. The majority of people who walk on this street on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, is almost 98% is from Fuzhou. And that is why they call it Fuzhou Street.
FADE UNDER WEDDING MUSIC UNDER
HOST: William Chu greets people in New York City?s Chinatown. He heads one of Chinatown?s biggest community associations. Immigrants from Fuzhou (FOO-ZOH), Cantonese for the Fujian (FOO-jyen) province, now make up the majority in Chinatown.
Fujianese immigrants were left out of the 1965 immigration reforms because they had few relatives in the US. So, like the exploited coolie laborers of the 1800s, they come here seeking a better life, but face discrimination and harsh conditions.
Our final chapter? ?The Paradox of the Fujianese? by Reese Erlich.
Chinatown subway train roars by
William Chu: I still remember 34 years ago when I was first in America. I come to visit Chinatown, just like a dead place. On East Broadway, it?s a disaster area. After 3:00 nobody wanted to walk there. But nowadays you walk up 13th street, you?re still in Chinatown. You walk up Delancey and you say what?s going on, am I in Chinatown now? Yes, you are. Welcome to Chinatown. It is about 144 square blocks.
Hing: The revitalization of Chinatown and other low income areas of New York can be directly linked to the influx of immigrants from throughout the world.
Narration: Bill Hing, Law and Asian Studies professor at the University of California, Davis.
Hing: The US continues to have this image throughout the world of this land of opportunity. The 65 reform laws were very family oriented. It was about promoting family reunification. And the problem with the Fujianese migration is that the Fujianese who want to come to the US don?t have the relatives necessary to qualify under the preference categories.
NARRATOR: Fujianese immigration harkens back to the days of coolie labor, when single men worked under inhumane conditions to pay off the cost of their passage. These days Fujianese may pay $70,000 or more and face a harrowing journey on cargo ships.
NPR NEWS/LINDA WERTHEIMER: A ship carrying illegal Chinese immigrants ran aground near a beach in Queens. The ship, the Golden Venture was one of several discovered bringing illegal immigrants from China into this country.
NARRATOR: Mr. Dong spent one-and-a-half years traveling from Fujian to New York. He arrived aboard the Golden Venture, a ship that gained nationwide infamy.
Mr. Dong through translator: During one of the boat trips, there was a time when I didn?t have any food, any drink for three days. All the women, all the girls that came on the same boat as me were either raped or a lot of things happened.
NPR News/Laura Sydell: It was just off this beach in the Rockaway section of Queens at 2:00 AM on June 6th, that the Golden Venture ran aground on a sand bar. Pandemonium erupted on board, and the crew told everyone to jump and run.
Mr. Dong through translator: I jumped out on the side near to the beach, but the person in front of me and the person in back of me all died because the waves were too big and they were all washed off. I almost thought that I would drown, because I drank a lot of the ocean water and I almost gave up myself, but I kept on swimming and swimming and I eventually hit the beach.
NARRATOR: Professor Hing says ships started bringing workers from Fujian 10 to 15 years ago.
Hing: These people live in very poor conditions. They scrimp and save. They send money back home. They are very much in a form of bondage.
NARRATOR: Golden venture survivor Mr. Dong.
Mr. Dong through translator: I earn about $2000 per month at the restaurant where I work. I spend $1000 on expenses. The other $1000 I send back to China to my relatives. I would ask my friends and my relatives both in the US and China for the money in full to pay off the snakehead. Then I would pay off my friends and relatives month by month.
NARRATOR: Mr. Dong is seeking asylum in the US as a political refugee. But Professor Hing says many Chinese Americans feel resentful when Fujianese are granted legal status as refugees.
Hing: When the Fujianese began arriving in the early 1990s on the west coast, the Chinese American community was not quick to embrace that because there was the sense the people were breaking into line. The immigration system today is based on family preference. Because of big demand from former residents of Hong Kong, Taiwan and China, there are backlogs that exist in various immigration categories.
[Garment sewing machine and people talking]
NARRATOR: Ironically, at the same time that the Fujianese are moving here, globalization means many US garment and textile jobs are moving to China.
Jimmy Cheng: I?m Jimmy Cheng, I?m the owner of Near Space Fashion Inc. We have about sixty workers working here, mostly Fujianese. We make sportswear, skirt, pants, shirt, like that. Between China and India and Vietnam, their labor is cheap over there, but our labor is $6 an hour right now. But over there, in a month they don?t even get $100 US dollars.
[Machine attaching metal hooks to garments]
Lana Cheung: I?m Lana Cheung. I work for Unite-Here which is the garment worker union.
[metal door opens]
Lana Cheung: We all work together and we are fighting very hard in the political, for example, register to vote and bring our issues to the politicians. After many years through the hard work by the union and the community group and the Fujianese organization and two years ago we finally elect the first Chinese councilman so it gave us courage for other voters that if we unite together we would get our job done.
NARRATOR: The Fujianese seem to be following a familiar pattern for undocumented immigrants. Initially intimidated from unionizing or overt political activism, they?ve begun to draw on their community organizations to take the first steps towards political participation and to assert their rights.
[women speaking Chinese on street, Chinatown]
William Chu: This is the chairman of an association.
Kai Yu Chem: Kai Yu Chem.
William Chu: Right now he is a store owner of American ginseng. You know ginseng?
NARRATOR: Mr. Chem is a Fujianese success story. Many immigrants like him arrived without documents and most have stayed. Their children are citizens. And their community associations help the newest arrivals.
Chem as translated by CHU: Right now we?ve got over 120 associations and each association really represent one of their commune, their place, their villages. And what they do is they try to help their new immigrant members or their relatives or their new village people, the communist people, facing the difficulties, solve the problems, so they can make a good living in here.
William Chu: The way I could see it, the newer immigrant really bring life to America like in Chinatown.
Crossfade ambience of women speaking Chinese on the street with wedding banquet. [fade out]
HOST: ?The Paradox of the Fujianese? by Reese Erlich.
MUSIC OUT
HOST: On the next Crossing East?.
PLAY CLIP
HOST: Refuge From War?stories of our Southeast Asian community?
MUSIC UNDER
HOST: We came in many waves and we built lives?
We left homelands to make a new home?
We brought our skills, training and education
to strengthen new neighborhoods
new communities?
This is Crossing East?our stories, our history, our America?
I?m Margaret Cho?
ANNOUNCER:
Crossing East is a MediaRites production produced with funding by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, Bill and Melinda Maginnis and individual donors of MediaRites, a non-profit located in Portland, Oregon.
Our lead scholar is Judy Yung Professor Emeritus of American Studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Music on this show was provided by Jon Jang.
We had additional help with The Family Business from Contributing Producer Scotty Iseri?
The Managing Editor is Catherine Stifter, The Associate Producer is Sara Caswell Kolbet. The Crossing East Engineer is Clark Salisbury with technical direction and recording assistance by Michael Johnson. The marketing and outreach director is Ping Khaw.
The Executive Producer is Dmae Roberts.
To find out more about Crossing East and this program?go to CrossingEast.org.
Support for Crossing East comes from this station and Public Radio International stations and is made possible in part by the PRI Series Fund, whose contributors include the Ford Foundation and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
MUSIC ENDS
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