20 10 212 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Description An account of the resource Video and audio oral histories can be viewed here. Histories are listed alphabetically by last name. Individual histories are indexed and transcribed and can be searched. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <p>Rights to oral histories vary depending on the history. The library owns the copyright to some histories, and has license to reproduce for nonprofit purposes for others. Please contact CSUSM University Library Special Collections at <a href="mailto:%20archives@csusm.edu">archives@csusm.edu</a> with any questions about use.</p> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Judith Downie Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Tomme Arthur OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=ArthurTomme_DownieJudith_2019-08-08.xml OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 5.4 Arthur, Tomme. Interview August 8, 2019 SC027-044 01:09:58 SC027 California State University San Marcos University Library Special Collections oral history collection CSUSM csusm Brewers -- California -- San Diego County. Brewing industry -- California -- History. Lost Abbey Brewing (San Marcos, Calif.) Microbreweries -- California -- San Diego County. Tomme Arthur Judith Downie ArthurTomme_DownieJudith_2019-08-08.m4a 1:|17(6)|44(4)|71(12)|94(8)|117(10)|139(3)|172(14)|214(13)|227(11)|264(9)|284(2)|311(5)|345(12)|373(2)|393(14)|427(5)|450(16)|474(12)|493(6)|523(7)|562(8)|583(6)|616(10)|634(16)|649(12)|670(14)|698(10)|717(5)|743(3)|760(6)|779(6)|802(9)|824(12)|843(10)|860(6)|877(13)|894(13)|911(17)|930(11)|953(3)|976(2)|991(14)|1021(12)|1039(7)|1062(14)|1098(8)|1146(15)|1159(9)|1189(15)|1231(3)|1246(10)|1270(9)|1300(3)|1321(3)|1342(16)|1363(2)|1384(4)|1401(4)|1421(14)|1439(11)|1459(4)|1475(10)|1499(6)|1521(2)|1535(4)|1559(5)|1590(9)|1610(2)|1627(6)|1643(11) Undefined 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/77ba455fa57d5b0079ba70f5e57ea2db.m4a Other audio English oral history Tomme Arthur has been involved in several San Diego breweries, most notably as founder and managing owner of Lost Abbey Brewing located in San Marcos, CA. His first professional brewing position was at the short-lived Cervecería La Cruda in San Diego, California. Arthur moved to Pizza Port Brewing in Solana Beach, California as an assistant brewer. After becoming Director of Brewing Operations for the increasing number of locations, he led the chain in garnering numerous beer awards. Arthur opened Lost Abbey Brewing in 2006 to focus on his interest in Belgian-style beers. In late 2023, Arthur separated Lost Abbey from Port Brewing operations in a ‘right-sizing’ plan in response to beer industry trends. Port Brewing retained the Hop Concept, Tiny Bubbles, and Kharisma brands in their portfolio and took over the San Marcos production space and closed the tasting room. Lost Abbey entered an alternating proprietorship agreement with Mother Earth Brewing to share their production space in nearby Vista, CA. &#13 ; &#13 ; In his 2019 interview, Arthur discusses his introduction to craft beer and home brewing ; entry into the profession and work at various breweries beginning in the 1990s ; founding Lost Abbey Brewing and other brewery ventures ; mentoring individuals in the industry ; and awards. &#13 ; Judith Downie: So today is August 8th, 2019 and this is Judith Downie, the Curator of the CSUSM Brewchive® with Tomme Arthur, founder and co-owner of Lost Abbey, the Hop Concept, Port Brewing, and myriad other projects that we're going to be asking about. So tell me, the purpose of this is to kind of record in one place things I've seen in a lot of places. You know, you've been very generous with your time with people mentoring and interviewing. And so this is for the Brewchive®, basically an overall history of your life experiences as a brewer, thoughts, things like that. So, we do have a list of questions here, which again I'll read them off, I may reword them a little bit and you are open to responding to them however you need. And I hope we have plenty of time that you've talked about things that maybe nobody's ever asked you. Tomme Arthur: That would be fun. JD: Yeah. So record these things for posterity. So, let's start with your background. To be clear, from what I've seen, you started home brewing in Arizona while you were in college and how did that start? TA: So I am a native San Diegan. My family's three to four generations on both sides. Went to Saint Augustine High School. When I was in high school, I decided that I really liked the English language and I wanted to study English and felt that teaching was a path that I would probably take. JD: Okay. TA: And so I fell in love with Flagstaff as a campus and community. And the school at Northern Arizona University had a really good education teaching program. So that's how I ended up in Flagstaff. When I got to school, I met a family, last name is Gardner and, and their son, Tom. And I became very close and the Gardner family really was into beer and they were sort of my mentors to beer. And they said, you know, we're going to teach you about better beer. And of course, I was only 18 at the time, but you know, I wasn't gonna say no. And they kind of pushed me in this direction of here's what better beer looks like, tastes like. American beer, imported beer, Canadian, very English, you know, all the, all the different countries where a great beer would have come from. A lot of it at that time was imported of course. JD: Right. Because really, you know, we're talking what the... TA: 1991 and 95 was when I was in school. JD: Okay. So there really wasn't much of a craft beer scene in Arizona I don't think. TA: There were very few craft breweries in Arizona. In fact, there were no craft breweries in Flagstaff at the time. We ended up having three open up in my last year of school. But there were no craft breweries in Flagstaff and at that time. There was likely to be 10 or 15 probably in the entire state. But we've got a lot of regional beers. There was a lot of beer from Oregon, Washington, Northern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado beer. So there was some American craft. But mostly from very older players, you know, Sierra Nevada Anchor, Deschutes (Brewery), big, bigger breweries. JD: And being that the craft beer scene in San Diego was still pretty young in that time period. Do you remember seeing anything from San Diego? TA: No. In fact we, we actually talk about this a lot, that prior to Stone Brewing coming into San Diego, nobody actually sent beer outside of San Diego. Karl Strauss (Brewing) had beer in San Diego at the time and packaged in bottles. But they, I don't believe much of their beer, if any, was leaving the San Diego area. So my understanding is that it really wasn't until Stone opened their doors and shipped beer to Arizona, likely maybe Nevada, you need to ask them, where they crossed the state line and perhaps were one of the original new craft breweries to actually make beer to leave San Diego. JD: Which is really interesting because I have in my pre-Prohibition research on San Diego craft brewing found Mission Brewing. They were brewing beer to supplement San Diego Consolidated Brewing, which is San Diego Brewing Company (today). They were San Diego Consolidated Brewing for a while and Arizona passed Prohibition in 1914, five years before National Prohibition and halted any shipment of even Hopski, which was a near beer Mission was brewing, into the state. They weren't even allowing that. And there was a big lawsuit and Mission Brewing lost and that was the contributing factor to the closure of Mission through that. TA: They actually lost out on a nonalcoholic or near beer. JD: Yeah. Hopski, and they didn't continue to brew that because J. H. Zitt, who was the president, the current owner of San Diego Consolidated Brewing had said ‘I will never brew anything but real beer.’ So he's the one who decided to close Mission. Because he actually owned it at the time because his father-in- law and brother-in-law, who had founded Mission, had walked away. TA: Yeah, the old San Diego stuff is really interesting. JD: Yeah, and it's a, it's an interesting kind of parallel between you being in Arizona and starting your interest in beer there and then coming back to San Diego. But I've also seen that you've noted that your favorite beers are Belgian style. What? TA: I just find them to be very unique and I think that there's, there's a pretty, I guess when I first got started in brewing in my sort of craft foundation, they were the most unique things out there. And that, that today is not necessarily the case. There's so many new producers and people that have really taken the boundaries and, and stretched them and moved them in directions. I think ostensibly under a Belgian influence or sort of what amounts to be a Belgian artistry, but there's a lot more to it these days. And I just think that if you, if you become imaginative about beer, you have to look at what the Belgians did or were doing at that time. Technique wise, yeast wise flavors, just process things. Very unconventional via what, what would amount to be a very conventional sort of brewing, you know, take four malts or take four ingredients. You can, you used a lot of water and hops and that's beer. And then you look at what they do. And it's completely different. JD: So you think the Belgians weren't constrained by the purity law that the Germans had and that's part of what led to their inventiveness? TA: Yeah, I just feel like they as a group embraced different methodologies and, and that sometimes weren't easy. And those methods at least preserved flavors that couldn't be found in beer, again, conventional beer. JD: Okay. Very interesting. So, onto your actual brewing experiences. You started home brewing? I read it was a homebrew kit... TA: So the Gardner’s bought me a home brew kit early for my graduation. So, I was gifted it in January of 1995 and that's when we started homebrewing. JD: Okay. And you didn't like the first beer you brewed? TA: The first beer we brewed, it was a black style, you know, sort of a dry Irish Guinness-style stout, but it came out very thin and didn't taste like Guinness or anything. So it wasn't, it was not a good beer. But you know, I think the expectations were high and probably should have set the bar a little lower. JD: Was this extract or all grain? TA: It was extract for sure. JD: Yeah. Because of course supplies even in the 90s, were still kind of hard to come by. TA: Yeah, we were pretty lucky there was a homebrewer outpost in Flagstaff, so there was a store that sold ingredients that we could've, we could've started in an all-grain basis. But I was living in a house with four people and it just wasn't really, I didn't have the resources to go build a full all grain brewing system, with the plastic fermenters and you know, boiling on the stove top kind of stuff was definitely where it was at. JD: Yeah, you got to start somewhere. So, then you came back to San Diego. Was that, what was the reason for coming leaving Arizona? TA: So I graduated in June or May of 1995. JD: So was this your bachelor's or your teaching credential? TA: This was my bachelors of arts in just English. And at that point I didn't really want to stay in Flagstaff and I wasn't gonna attend grad school there. So, I moved back home and so I left. And when I got home I kind of kicked around a little bit trying to figure out what I was going to do and really didn't have a plan necessarily I was able to go back and live with my parents. And you know, the only requirement was that I find a job. So, I found a job and that's kinda how I got in the downtown life. My dad had a printing business when I was growing up, so I was very, very well trained and I worked in the campus print shop when I was in school. So, I applied for a printing job in a downtown San Diego business and I was commuting, taking the trolley from La Mesa down into downtown San Diego every day. And I happened to be reading want ads, just, it was all that was left in the newspaper at that point. And stumbled upon a brew pub opening that had an ad in the paper for cooks, dishers, all that stuff in it said assistant brewer and I circled it. And I walked over the next day at lunch and applied for a job. And that was actually Cervecería La Cruda. JD: Right, with Troy Hojel? So, you actually opened Cervecería La Cruda in September of ‘96? TA: No, they, they would have opened, I think it would've been March of 96 ‘cause we ended up, we attended the great American beer festival in September, October of 96 and then it closed. It was less than a full year. I think I was hired in April, May-ish. and then I wasn't there even for a full year. JD: Yeah. I have, I have March ‘97 is when it closed. TA: So I think it probably was mid April-ish I would've been hired in. We didn't even make it a full year. JD: Yeah. This is the kind of thing I like because I have a very large Excel spreadsheet of every brewery from 1868 which was Chollas Valley Brewery through today. Whether they opened or closed, it never made it, pulled the license, whatever... TA: So, how many different breweries have attempted to open? Are we in the three hundreds or? JD: Well, my Excel spreadsheet also includes all the individual tasting rooms because generally they pull a separate ABC license. I'm up over 550 getting close to 600 I think, but I could certainly get back to you with how many tried and never even actually opened. I think there's a real object lesson there. TA: I think the most interesting thing is that we operate that there's 160 or whatever right now that are active, but it's really interesting to know kind of how many have kind of opened and closed and opened and closed and where you know, you can say, okay, since prohibition we've had 208 that have tried or participated in this, in this scene. JD: Yeah, because I break the whole history into three parts. There was a pre-Prohibition 1868 to 1919, 1919/1920 then 1933 to 1953 because Aztec, which had sold to Altes Brewing, closed and they were the last brewery operating post-Prohibition and then we didn't pick up again until the (19)80s so I can extract that information and get it to you because those numbers are always very powerful. TA: Yeah. I just feel like it'd be interesting to say since Prohibition, there's been 208 licenses that were issued or over, you know-- JD: And then there were others that announced a name or announced that they were going to open and never even got around to pulling a license. You know, so I have, I have every single possible name of any business that ever said ‘we are going to be a brewery or a brew pub, or...’ TA: No one ever drops on in front of you and you say, haven't heard of it. JD: Well actually not too long ago, I ran across one called the Royal Duffer. And that evidently they were contract brewing. They were in Carlsbad and they were like four golf buddies. And so they had beer for, again, I think it was less than a year. And I haven't been able to find out too much information from them, but I'm very alert to, ‘Oh, I don't think I've ever heard of that name before’ so this is the first one I've not heard of in a long time. So I think I'm pretty comprehensive. But yeah. Yeah, it's been interesting and a lot of work. But going back to Troy, is Troy still around? TA: He is in somewhere in Colorado outside of Denver. In fact, I just talked to him the other day. He texted me, I think his cousin opened a brewery in Texas and he had a question or two. TA: So yeah. He's in Colorado and doing the software. JD: Okay. So he's no longer in the brewing business. TA: No, actually he left the brewery business and ended up doing software in Northern California for a bit, I think, and then moved off to Colorado. JD: Well, it's gotta be sad to watch your dream die especially so quickly. TA: You know, it was a pretty aggressive life lesson, you know? It taught me a lot in the short time that we were into it. I still think that Troy is one of the best brewers I've ever met. And it would've been a really cool thing to see it succeed at, but certainly would've put me on a different life path, I think if it had. So I don't, I don't try not to, you know, revisionist history, that part of it. But the beers that he made and he was a very technical brewer, I think, I think it would've been, it would've added to the scene even more. JD: Yeah. What actually happened? Was it just lack of sales? TA: I think more than anything it was a bad, is a bad business model. I don't know if you know the story of Baja Brewing Company. JD: I'm familiar with the name, but not really the story. TA: So Baja Brewing Company opened up and they claimed to be the very first Mexican-themed brewpub in the United States. Now it was their claim to fame. But what happened is that the partners at Baja Brewing and the partners at La Cruda actually had a schism and they split. They were going to open the Baja Brewing Company together or something along those lines and they had a falling out and the partnership dissolved. And so these guys opened Baja Brewing Company and less than three or four months later Cervecería La Cruda opened up three blocks away. So the very first Mexican theme brewpub in this country opened up and three blocks later and three months and three blocks over the second one opened. So, very underfunded from the get-go. Very, it was a 13,000 square foot building at Forth and Island, you know, big, big building. Too much of it to just for the time I, I'd be nervous opening a 13,000 square foot building brewpub today. And you know, back when the Gaslamp was kind of still new and trendy and hot, I don't know what the rent was, but just overall a bad, a bad vision I think for what was going on. JD: Ahead of its time. Really. TA: Yeah. And the thing that's kind of crazy is that Cervecería La Cruda to them is a hangover brewery. So when you say ‘tengo la cruda’, that means I have the crud, I'm not feeling well. That's not a real great way to tell people you want to come here and drink. They opened up with a menu that they had sourced from the family that owned El Callejon in Encinitas. So, they had this really great, I would say deep, deep Mexican Sonoran source, you know, moles (sauces) and things. But that wasn't on anyone's radar with respect to craft brew at the time. So, good people, great, great opportunity. But not even something, that I think today, even if you attempted to tackle it, would probably work really well. JD: So as you say, a real experience. TA: Yeah, a lot I learned from, you look around and you see simplicity sometimes wins. JD: Or slow growth. Planned slower. TA: Or have more money than you think. Yeah. JD: Somebody said to me one time something like, you need five times more than you think you do. And I would, I think that's true with any business really. But the expense of equipment and materials and everything and you just can't do it all yourself. TA: No. You gotta be able to weather a lot of storms. JD: And you know, with this, I know in September of 2016 I went to the craft beer conference up in Sacramento and I saw you speak there and you at that time, this is three years ago now, said that San Diego was already over-saturated, and you would not open up a brewery at this point in San Diego. And how many breweries have we had open up? TA: Continues to be a head-scratching thing. Yeah. Well, we joke, I mean, we're here in San Marcos now. I've got three breweries within a one-mile stretch. Right. So yeah, that's just the way it is. Yeah. JD: But you're each different. Accommodating everybody at some point. But so when La Cruda closed, you moved to White Labs for just a couple of months in yeast sales. Was that based because you knew about yeast? TA: So White Labs had just kinda gotten their feet wet. So I remember the very first day when I was at La Cruda, one of the very first days I was at La Cruda. Chris White (founder of White Labs) walked in on a sales call. And so we were chatting and talking and at some point, and this is a part of my history that I don't remember all of that clearly, but I ended up moving in with them. I mean I was a roommate and I think there was a crossover point where I was working at La Cruda, but I already moved into their house. Cause he and Lisa had an empty room. I needed a place to stay. And then when La Cruda was on its way to be closing it became kind of obvious that I could help them in their infancy of their company with some just R and D and just different trialing and things like that. TA: You know, I had met a lot of brewers in Arizona at that time. So Chris said, well, why don't you come help me just kind of knock down some doors and you know, we just need somebody that can walk in and kind of talk about this in a very brewer friendly kind of way. So my goal was I was kind of like an ambassador really. You know, I didn't really do a lot of pure sales but my job was to talk about it and explain how my experience with different yeasts and temperatures and things like that. So it was kind of just yeah, I think it was more of a product, product knowledge and ambassador at that point. JD: Was there any conversation at that time about opening up a tasting room for yeast labs? TA: No. No. I mean, maybe Chris had it, but it you know, that was a pretty, it was a long time ago and there wasn't really a sense of yeast as a business outside of the yeast business. I don't think there was sort of that auxiliary layer to it. I'm sure Chris would have liked to have had a bunch of beers on tap, but I, I would imagine if he had had that thought back then that they would have probably just wanted 10 beers on tap for their customers to come sample them, but not necessarily not, not really treat it as an educational function for the consumer as much as an educational experience for a brewer who maybe hadn't worked a certain use and things like that. I mean there's just an enormous amount of yeasts that have been banked since we started. Since I got my first job in 1996 there's been an enormous amount of new yeast that had been added. So, they need an avenue to show people what those yeasts do. JD: And back then too, you probably had a lot of brewers, even professional brewers, would be how I see it. That didn't really understand a lot about the hops that were available. The yeast that was available, you know, cause a lot of them had, were coming out of the homebrew experience and you know, all of a sudden here's more stuff you need to know. TA: If you go back and look at it ‘95, ‘96 to, so that time, I mean we're talking about a dial up modem, you know, we're talking about low internet speed, we're talking about not... JD: A lot of people, not even having computers or knowing how to use it. TA: Not even a lot of Information online. Frankly. I mean you couldn't, you could not do all the kind of information that's out there today. And, and past that, a lot of the information that did exist in book format was highly technical through the ASBC (American Society of Brewing Chemists) and the big brewers. And then what was available that had been written about the sort of homebrew level and medium brewery. There wasn't a lot of medium brewery stuff in there, so you were getting a lot of books on how to brew ales, but they had this really big English, you know, sort of basis to them. Cask condition, real ale ingredients weren't American in their basis. So there was no ability to look up and say, Oh, how do I use this German hefeweizen yeast? You know, how do I, how much do I pitch it, what temperature, how does it behave? And none of that information existed. JD: So a lot of technical stuff. TA: Yeah. even just simplistic technical. What's the right temperature? JD: And around here San Diego was still something of a Coors town that's San Diego was test market for a couple of different, for Coors Light and for Herman Joseph's 1868 and you know, so really do you have much of a market for... TA: In fact, we joked about it here. This was the best, I think this was the best-selling Coors light town when I took in, when I got into brewing, this was the number one Coors Light in the country. JD: Yes, it was. TA: Well that explains to you, you know, where we're, where we were and where we came from. And on top of that you had all the import beers too, right? You still had Coronas and Pacifico and the Modelos in the world doing very well here at that time too. So yeah, it was a, it was a long ways to the top. JD: So you weren't at White Labs for very long before you were hired by Pizza Port. Pizza Port just had the one location then, right? TA: They had the one location in Solana Beach. Vincent (Marsaglia), Gina (Marsaglia) had been partners in the Carlsbad Public House with a guy named Brett. I think his last name was Stamp. JD: Tetley Ridden, I, it's a hyphenated name. (correct name is Redmayne-Titley) TA: Yeah. And then he became a, they, they had a falling out with Carlsbad Public House and they were in, they were in the process of converting the Public House, which is the Pizza Port in Carlsbad in the village into the Pizza Port at that time. So I was, I was brought into assist on Solana Beach because the head brewer was going to go have shoulder surgery and then they were supposed to move me up to Carlsbad to take over the production of the brewing and Carlsbad once, once he came back. So there was almost a second Pizza Port in line at that time. So they were, they were in the home stretch of the construction to convert it from the Public House to Pizza Port, which opened in July of 1997 so they were real close. And I always like to tell the story ‘cause I think it's very fascinating to me. I'd never stepped foot in Pizza Port before I got interviewed for the job. So I had no real perceived concept or notion of what exactly they did or what they didn't do. JD: Okay. And so you were an assistant brewer then? You weren't head brewer? TA: Yeah. Eddie Class, I think his last name was Classic. He was the head brewer at that time. And Vince was going to be the head brewer in Carlsbad when they opened. So yeah, Eddie was in charge of the brewery in Solana Beach and he was gonna go, I think I was going to have rotator cuff surgery and take about three months off. And then when he came back I was supposed to go take the job in Carlsbad. JD: Okay. but you, you obviously that didn't quite work out that way, but you were promoted to Director of Brewery Operations in June of 2005. TA: Yeah, that was a short stint ‘cause we were getting ready to open this place too. So yeah. JD: So you already knew you were going to be moving on? TA: We were having conversations at that point about how to get to here. We, I think in June it kind of was a collective. They terminated Kirk McHale, who was the brewer in Carlsbad in June of 2005 and then there was the San Clemente location, Carlsbad location, and Solana Beach. And I was asked to kind of tackle all three of them at the same time, make sure that they were more or less on the same page, collectively, kind of get them aligned. And then we also knew that we were having conversations about a new partnership and trying to build up the partnerships so that we could get this, this facility put into our orbit. JD: Okay. So that leads me into the founding Port Brewing in partnership with Vince and Gina. And you know, you have Port Brewing, you have Lost Abbey, you have the Hop Concept and I've also seen that you're involved in an Arizona brewery called Moto Sonora. So can you explain the structure of everything? TA: Yeah. When we started talking to Stone Brewing about buying this facility from them you know, my love of Belgian beers was pretty strong and I knew that we wanted to make some things out here that were very barrel aged, Belgian influenced and all that. And we had this, Vince had the idea for the brand called the Lost Abbey. So we were very, very keen on the fact that we knew that was going to happen. There were a lot of beers at Pizza Port that were being produced that needed to kind of stretch and grow and needed to get from get out from under just being a pub-based beer. And that allowed, you know, people who had been asking for more, you know, basically Pizza Port beer. And that's where the Port Brewing came from. So the Port Brewing beers, many of them when we opened our doors here came from Solana Beach recipes that I had produced, Hop 15, Santa’s Little Helper, Shark Attack. We brought the Wipe Out recipe over from Carlsbad and those beers had a lot of legacy towards the pubs and, and kind of, you know, grew them out of that realm. But we knew that there'd be the Port brand’s very West coast centric, you know, kind of that Ballast Point, Coronado, Green Flash, Stone kind of mentality. You know, higher hopping rates, you know, sometimes imperial, things like that. We always knew that that wasn't really that wasn't going to be our principal focus in the sense that we were going to have the two brands, but we also knew that having the two brands side by side allowed us to walk in and have a wide range of beers without having everything be a Lost Abbey beer or Port Brewing beer. JD: Okay. And then the Hop Concept is a fairly recent addition to the portfolio. TA: So a few years ago I walked into a bar and all the beer names on the wall really just confused me. There were so many new beers and I had no idea what they tasted like. And I didn't want to be a bother to the bartenders and try to, you know, ask them this or that. And I'm not an Untappd person. I don't really use digital media to tell me what I should be drinking. So, it kinda came back to we wanted to create a line of beers that were very fresh and simplistic in their makeup. So, the Hop Concept beers, we had a line called the Hop Freshener series and they were basically we had ‘Dank and Sticky’ and ‘Citrus and Piney and ‘Lemon and Grassy’ and ‘Tropical and Juicy’. And it was essentially taste and smell. And we, all we were trying to do was tell the consumer and the bartender, this is what you should expect the beer to taste like, or smell like. And it was a quick, straightforward deliverable and it was meant to be a, I use the word simple, but simple deliverable like you knew what you were getting. We were setting you up to understand how that beer should taste and behave. JD: Yeah, it does seem like naming beers because they do have to be registered names or whatever, becomes a bigger and bigger challenge. And in just looking at a name on the board, you frequently have no idea of what that beer really is. So, something like this where you're going back to the basics, this is what you're going to get. I think must be very attractive. TA: I thought so. I thought the cleanliness of it for us, which was just straightforward and nomenclature and deliverable, like this is this is what you can expect and... JD: Your label designs are very clean and very clear. Where Lost Abbey looks much more European, Medieval in a lot of ways. TA: And we went out and we went out and hired a firm for the first time to really, we told them this is what our vision is and this is why we're doing it this way, but we want you to make sure we produce this with a very crisp look to it. And they, they certainly executed that and I, and I think that's always been a strength of that brand. JD: Yeah. Let me ask you a little bit about the latest venture, Moto Sonora. I read that this was evidently your college roommate you are in partnerships with and his younger brother. And, of course, this is taking you back to Arizona. TA: It is. Tucson, not Flagstaff. I wish it was in Flagstaff, but I'm going to come to like Tucson cause it's closer. But yeah, my, it's kind of ironic because this was a random sort of thing back when, when I was in college with Jeff. Jeff really wasn't a big beer drinker but it turns out but his brother Jeremy really fell in love with craft beer and the two of them kind of decided that they have a high value for the city of Tucson. They loved that area. They've got deep roots in the community there. Their family, the DeConcini family's been a, been a big part of the Arizona scene and they just wanted to do this project. And I started talking to them as a consultant and just kind of saying, let me, let me hear what you're thinking. And then they said, well, maybe you could spend some more time on it. And I said, yeah, I've got the time to do that. TA: Let's, let's do this. So, I am coming in as one of the co-founders on that project. Port Brewing is not involved in the sense that we're not invested in it. JD: That was a question I had. TA: We're not, Port Brewing is not an investor in the company. Although I have permission with my partners to supply as many ingredients and things, you know, that we can, we can work to make sure that the beers there are at the highest, you know, sort of capacity. And if it means we're buying the hops and selling them hops and things like that, that's gonna happen. You know, I see it as potentially a training ground where if one of our brewers wants the position when we get going or they, you know, we want to move people out that way. But this is not anything more than a co-founding situation where I have the freedom to go tight, you know, take on other projects. I, I kind of liken it to chefs having multiple locations or bar owners having, you know, other projects and things. But I'm not moving to Tucson and I'm not going to be the head brewer there. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to establish what we're doing and push the company in the right direction and make sure that we become a really valuable part of that community. We've been definitely looking forward to the, just being involved in it and you know, a different beer scene at the same time. JD: Well, this kind of jumps over some of the questions I have because it leads into the amount of mentoring and work with newer brewers and the collaborations you do with the more established brewers. You are renowned in the industry for how people can come to you and pick your brain and you support and mentor in so many different ways. I see you as a one-person campaign to ensure craft beer success. And, and this is in comparison with efforts like Stone's True Craft where there were more financial assistance. Have you always been a remarkable mentor? It sounds kind of like, you know, you're, you're thinking to become a teacher. TA: Yeah. I think that's a big part of it, right? It's a, it's a sense of, you know, that shared piece. You know, I remember very, very early in my, in my Solana Beach days, I wanted to make a Saison-style beer and I needed to find somebody who could give me the answer for how much ginger I was supposed to put in the beer. Cause I wanted to make the beer with some ginger. And there weren't many places where I could turn to. And I picked up the phone one day and I called the owner of Left-Hand Brewing Company, his name was Dick Doore. And I said, Dick, you guys have this amazing Juju, ginger pale ale. I love it. Would you be willing to share that information with me? And he did. And he, you know, and we'd barely met. And it was one of those things that, okay, yeah, that's how the industry works. Right. And you know, this is something that I think Troy had put in my head back in the day was like, there are the right people to be talking to and then there's the wrong people. And the wrong people are the ones that don't freely exchange the information, or they don't, they don't try to push it uphill. And for the longest time we had so much work to do in this town to push the level uphill that we collectively had to talk about it. I mean, everybody I think that you would interview would have the similar sense of if we didn't all work together then we wouldn't have gotten to where we were. JD: Isn't that the principle behind the San Diego Brewers Guild? TA: Of course, you know, the very first Guild meeting was out at La Cruda. So yeah. Yes, for sure that the Guild, you know, I think we were the very first city in the country to have its own brewers guild. And that, that's kind of a, you know, a feather in the cap for what I think, you know, the old, the old guard or the people that really did, you know, hunker down back in the day was that there was a true sense that there was going to be something really good about the scene here. But we had to work really hard at it. So, I've always liked that conversational aspect of it. I believe that I can, I can ask the right questions with friends and people and, and if I can turn around and get that information back out, it makes sense. So yeah, why not? I mean, there's, there's very little, I guess I don't feel very competitive or threatened by it by that, you know, that dialogue or that sharing of information. JD: I think that's, I mean, I, I'm on certain, like the San Diego Plexus Facebook group and stuff, and your name comes up and everybody says, Tomme Arthur, he's the person to talk to. He is the god locally, you know, I mean, your name is always used in very positive way, which I think really speaks to the efforts that you have put into the community and supporting, especially newer brewers, but also working with other established brewers and not treating it as competition but treating it as we can all be better. TA: And I think the one thing that's kind of maddening these days, and this is, this is my personal soap box, is that there's a lot of people that are collaborating on things. And I'm, I'm very concerned about this new sense of collaborating because I don't know that it's doing much other than it's bringing people together. And then you say, well what did we change and what did we do? And I'm like, okay. But I think the collaborative narrative of old was we collaborated on something because it was going to be something demonstratively different than we could have done singularly. And I'm not sure that much of that's going on today. So, when we collaborate with an old guard or with someone new, we're, we're really trying to have a sense of purpose. And I hope that people continue to realize that just collaborating with someone for the sake of sales isn't always, I guess from where I come, from isn't always the best course of action. JD: Again, going to your mentoring, have you had the opportunity to open doors for specific groups? And I'm thinking women or minorities or people with disabilities, people, you know, because the standard concept of a brewer is a male, white guy, you know, I mean that just still is. It's not that way anymore. But have you had opportunities to work with or speak to groups to encourage them? TA: I was thinking about this the other day because you know, I look at our staff, it is generally mostly male. We have had a few female employees on the beer side in the past and they've been phenomenal employees. And I was thinking the other day that we haven't done enough in our world to cultivate that specifically. And I know the Brewers Association is pretty keen on promoting diversity and things these days. And I'm wondering as an educational mentor, et cetera, where I should be looking to do some of those things or how I get involved in that. You know, where, where can I be impactful in that, in that space. And I don't know if it's through the university or through, you know, there's a big Latino population up here in San Marcos and Vista. But clearly, you know, being white and being white isn't always the best thing. With respect to trying to, you know, we've got to find new, new people to energize and really enthuse about what we do. And preaching to the 40-year-old male white choir isn't, isn't the best place to live in. JD: Well, I don't know if you're aware of Border X (Brewing), which is of course down in Barrio Logan has, is sponsoring a women's beer club called Mujeres Brew Club. I'm sorry, I, my Spanish isn't that swell. And they invited me to be their first speaker and they're doing a meeting each month on a different aspect and at the end they are going to brew a beer at Border X. And the women that are in there, many of them don't know even beer styles. I mean, one woman evidently asked the question, what's an IPA? And so, you know, and it's, it's a safe space for women and it does have a large number of Latina women, which I think is phenomenal because maybe some of these will become brewers and there are women are working in the beer industry in San Diego who are also members. Some of them are speakers and some are just attending the meetings because they're always eager to learn more. So maybe reaching out to, or you know, helping sponsor a group like that or Pink Boots Society (international organization for women and non-binary people in the fermentation industry. The first chapter was founded in San Diego.) of course, you know, is always looking for speakers and educational opportunities and things. But you know, there's a growing presence, but it is hard to, when women are so scattered or you know, like you say it's underrepresented with the minorities or you know, and there are certain positions that probably someone with a physical disability couldn't perform in a brewhouse, what could they do? Can they be the quality control people, things like that. So, it seems like there are places that we need to increase. TA: Yeah. It's interesting because I was thinking about this again the other day. I was like, we just don't have that many women apply for jobs. It's, it's you know, I, you know, I have a, a fairly good amount of men working, you know males, working on the floor. But I can't remember the last time I saw an application come in for a brewing position from a woman. So somehow the outreach needs to get further than, you know, I'm talking entry-level packaging jobs, things like that. There's, there's clearly, you know, there's, it's not a bias in our world. They're just not coming and knocking down our door. So somehow we have to convince them that this isn't, this is a pretty good place where they could, you know, they can, they can find careers and homes. JD: Well, if you do want to advertise positions, I have a couple of resources. I can push things out to Pink Boots San Diego for one. And then there's another Facebook page of women interested in beer. Some are working in the industry ; some are maybe looking to get into the industry. And of course, maybe pushing the word out to the EngiBeering® program at Cal State San Marcos. ‘Cause there are, there's at least a couple of women enrolled in that program. But yeah, it's hard because there aren't many women available to bring in. But then, you know, we do have a, you know, a fairly strong Hispanic population in this area. So, you know, why can't we leverage that? And it's finding those points of contact. That's a, that's a continual problem that I have seen. Also, to kind of jump back, I mentioned Stone's True Craft effort, which, you know, obviously died. It was a great idea to help small, small breweries with financing to where they didn't have to sell themselves to big beer. What did you think of that idea when you thought, heard of it? TA: You know, I had a lot of friends that took meetings with them. I mean, at least on the surface I was told, you know, Hey, we've, we've gone and talked to them about it. I think the biggest challenge was, is that that was at a time when there was a lot of unrealistic expectations about valuations and what, what things were worth or how, how long term, you know, how companies would be out, people would work long term together. You know, it's an interesting model because this business is such a, almost a loner thing. Like most people open their own little brewery and then at some point you need more investment in that comes with a lot more triggers and kinds of parameters and stuff in some small breweries never outgrow the small, you know, model. They, I'm the single proprietor, not me. They are a single proprietor, ownership kind of environment and you know, they borrow money from the bank and that's what they get and that's what they want to be. You know, there's a very passionate pursuit for them. And then there's the big business side of it, which says if you're going to scale and grow and you know, buying equipment is not cheap and putting concrete in the ground and copper piping and just every single thing you could think of. JD: And the length time it takes to just deal with all the permitting within the city, within the state, with the ABC (California’s Alcoholic Beverage Control agency in charge of licensing alcohol production, distribution and sales.) TA: And the regulatory. Yeah. All of those pieces. So I applaud Greg for, and Steve, for putting the platform together. You know, the, I think the biggest hurdle for a lot of people is just how, how do you entrepreneurially sign up for something like that? Right? It's, it's, you know, it's a different, it's a different (unclear) in you. You're talking about an environment where you went from being in charge of your own facility to now having new investment that comes with different, again, different triggers and things. I think it's interesting cause nobody signed up to do it and I don't know if that was that the metrics didn't align or how that was. But I know a lot of people took meetings and so I guess the question is, is what, what was, what was unrealistic on both sides for, for that, how come it, how come they didn't get anybody to, to partner with? JD: Yeah. I'm, I don't know who took meetings, but it would be interesting to talk to them to ask them why they didn't pursue that, and did they find an alternative that worked better for them. So that's on my list of things to do. Since we've mentioned big beer, have you ever been approached by big beer with an offer to purchase you or to work with them in some sort of way? TA: No. In the 13 years that we've been open no one has put an offer sheet on the table and said, we want to buy you for XYZ dollars or otherwise. We have met with some family offices, venture people, people, you know, my thing is we'll take any meeting just to say hi. Mostly to learn about what people are looking for, what they're doing. But pretty emphatically we've never actually been offered, no one's ever actually offered to purchase us in, in a minority capacity and majority otherwise. So no. JD: Good. I won't ask you what your response would be, but do you think that maybe partly it's because, I don't want to say you do extreme beers, but you do less run-of-the-mill beers in many cases that might just be something that big beer would not find attractive. TA: If we live in a fringe world, we're, you know, we're sort of known as a super-premium producer and we have a lot of niches that we feel from barrels and sour. You know, they've, big breweries have a need in sometimes to do that, but they, they, I think they've found those elsewhere and they want scale and they want all kinds of things. You know, San Diego is an interesting model, right. We had Ballast Point sold, you know, Green Flash had sold and we've had a lot of big, bigger companies come through and, and, and have taken investments. And so I don't know if there was any real need beyond, I think big beer came and found what they needed from San Diego. I'd be surprised if, if there's any big beer-ness left in San Diego. I mean, I say that, and you know, we'll see. But you know, I, I don't, I don't really feel like that the big beer is kind of be knocking down the doors in San Diego anytime soon. JD: They got their toe in. TA: Potentially because of the desaturation and just some of the difficulties that they might experience. ah, it's a, it's a whole, it's a whole run of things and it really has to do with, you know, where can they, where can they scale and where can they find their return on their investment and things like that. JD: Yeah, no, that's what they're looking at is a bottom line. TA: It is 100% about how much can they make on what they're buying it. Yeah. JD: Because your beers are not run of the mill Coors-type beers, not to bash Coors, but just, you know, as an example, where did you get your early inspirations? I mean, you, you said you like the Belgians and you were exposed to a wide variety of European and, and what craft beer was made in the US. But things like oak aging and sour beers, were those things that you were exposed to early on or were those things that you found out later while you were experimenting? TA: Yeah, it was early. I remember, I remember my first Chimay Red. I remember my first Guinness and I vividly remember the very first Rodenbach I ever had. And I, you know, the Rodenbach I think hit me more than anything else in that really portend, you know, that really does explain why, you know, like, Oh my God, that's okay. I know there's weird beer out there, but this is way to the left, right? This thing is way, way downstream from anything I'd had at that point. You know, I was, when on the four years I was in college, I was sampling a lot of beers and then I continued to continue to buy beer. And, and it's just when you get one that's put in front of you and you say, wow, how did they do that? And that was kind of the, the aha that was the light bulb, I think was, was that first Rodenbach. That somebody who's living in a world where that, that's so to the extreme and delicious. But why can't, why can't I, why can't I think about beer like that? And that's, that definitely pushed me in that direction. JD: Well that's great to have such an open mind. Do you remember who, if anyone else was doing things like barrel aging and sour beers or anything when you started doing it? TA: Vinnie (Cilurzo, founded Blind Pig Brewing in Temecula, CA before moving to Northern California to found Russian River Brewing.) and I joke about this a lot cause Vinnie at Russian River and I are pretty good friends and a lot of it comes back to when we first picked up oak barrels and really got into that, you know, late 19, late 1990s, you know, the first batch of cuvée that we were making and they were making beer called Temptation. There was very little of that going on and I knew Belgian had (inaudible. in the market. But out West there weren't a lot of people making sour beer in barrels. And so we had to just kinda kick the can on how to do it. Talk collectively. Again, it got back to, we were not we did not, you know, you know, withhold the secrets. And we talked a lot about the what ifs and things and that I think was a big, big part of the success was just, okay, how are we going to do this in this environment? Because again, you couldn't open a book and read how to do it. Today you can open plenty of books. JD: Or just find it out there on the web. TA: I mean, you pick up the phone and call someone, but then back then it isn't, you know, how do you manage your barrel program or what do you, how do you do this? It was, well, I'm going to try, I'm going to try this. Okay. That sounds like that. That seems reasonable to me. JD: Oh, so you can't think of anybody specifically locally though? You, I mean, Vinnie, to me, is still local as they were nearby-- TA: For sure, it’s California. JD: but I'm thinking in San Diego. TA: You know, I don't know if we, I always say we, being Pizza Port. I don't know if we were the first ones to make intentionally sour beer in San Diego. I don't recall running into it anywhere at that point. But for the sake of clarity, I never say we were the first ones because I truly don't know. There was some oak aging going on the guys at Rock Bottom (Restaurant and Brewery) in La Jolla specifically ‘cause I got barrels from them. AleSmith (Brewing Company)I think was right about that same time, ‘97, ’98-ish where they were getting into having some bourbon barrel kind of things going on. JD: But that was Skip (Virgilio founded AleSmith Brewing and later sold to Peter and Vicky Zien.). TA: Skip doing that. There was not a lot of sour beer in California at that point. So, or even San Diego can that I can recall. JD: I’m glad sour beer’s around. Okay. You just mentioned cuvée. And I've seen it said that that is your favorite beer. TA: Perhaps. JD: Yeah. Perhaps. TA: It’s the only one that bears my name (Cuvée du Tomme). How's that? JD: That's true. That's true. On the other hand, is there a beer that you ever made that you didn't care for, but everybody else said, no, we've got to put this on tap. TA: Ooh, that's a damn good question. JD: Did they, did it actually sell well? TA: There is a running joke here at the brewery. We made a beer a few years ago called Spontaneous Cheer. And the Spontaneous Cheer was a peach sour and it was actually spontaneously fermented. So we, we've got some spontaneous fermentation barrels and things that we do from time to time and we have a large library of barrels. We have over a thousand oak barrels full of now and we made this batch of beer and it tasted pretty darn good. That being said, I struggled with it personally because it didn't really manifest our house culture. We have a very strong sour beer sense. Like there's a terroir in our world. You can taste the Lost Abbey beer and it's white grapey and it's stone peach fruit. And you can tell that there's something about the way that we blend in and package. And that beer had none of it, even though it was a peach beer. But that's because all of the cultures came from the spontaneous portion. And so, people were like, you have to release this beer. And I can't in good conscience release it because you could open it in a tasting room in Texas and you'd have no idea it came from us and what's the point of that? So that's probably the one in this environment that had garnered a lot of energy I would say, okay, that's not what I was, didn't hate the beer, just wasn't keen on it. Bearing the name Lost Abbey being sour and didn't, didn't exude us. JD: And so you have not brewed it again since. TA: No, we haven’t. Even though we likely could, and people would freak for it, but it doesn't, again, it gets really to the point of, you know, we're really trying to have that identity in a big sea of imitations. I would think that that was probably a one-and-done. I'd be surprised if it came back. JD: Okay, if I ever see an unopened bottle of it, I'll know that that's truly special. TA: So we never bottled it. That's the only bottle that I think, I mean it was, it was literally only one oak barrel, so 50 gallons. But I think we only bottled it. I had a friend who had a baby and there was a request, but I, there shouldn't, there shouldn't be any bottles of that out in the world. There are, they probably aren't real. JD: Yeah. Well, we'll know that they are shams. What was your very first award for brewing? TA: That's a good question. JD: You've had so many. TA: I know like, let's see. We had strong ale in 19... Well, okay. The very first award that I know for certain was the gold medal that I participated in at La Cruda. We won a gold medal (awarded at the Great American Beer Festival) for the Makanudo Porter, but that was not my beer and I was not the recipe generator. So I would say probably a beer that we brewed at Pizza Port and that was part of the Strong Ale Festival in ‘97 or ‘98. And then at that point we started entering the Real Ale Festival in Chicago or some California State Fair stuff. We did not win a GABF (Great American Beer Festival.) award until 1999, 2000. JD: Shame on them. TA: It took me a little while to figure out where our beers sort of fit in the competitive landscape. JD: The pantheon of beers. TA: So once I figured that part out, we got on a roll pretty, quickly. JD: That does seem to be a little bit of a challenge cause I'm a member of the Society of Barley Engineers when they talk about submitting for homebrew (competitions). Sometimes there are quite intense discussions about where a particular beer, that somebody’s having everybody sample, what category that fits into. And you do then deal with judges’ taste buds. Which, you know, it's a constantly moving landscape. TA: I’ve been a GABF judge since ‘99-ish. And that has afforded me an enormous amount of opportunities to watch the process, participate in it, and even potentially piss off brewers and people who maybe didn't, you know, like the way that it went. It's fascinating to watch the competition evolve at a table relative to the dialogue, the strength of the judges, the opinions of the judges. Even just the sheer age of the, the judging has come from, there were only this block of people that used to do it and now it's expanded and now the categories have morphed and they're different. And the, you know, we talk about it a lot because it's, it's interesting to see how difficult, first of all, there's so many more beers, but the sheer, the sheer perspective that people are operating under relative to, I've had these style beers or I've never been think about, okay, I'm supposed to judge a Kölsch-style beer, but I'm a judge and I've never been to Cologne and had the six beers from there that are the, that are the standards. Well, how do you judge that? Like that's, that's a, it's an interesting scenario because you're being asked to read this against what was written, how this is how a standard should taste. Yet. You've never been in situ and had that environmental condition. JD: Right, with that terroir and all everything else, all those factors that work into it. TA: 100 percent. I do agree with you that there's, one of the things about entering competitively is that there's so many different places beers can fit and sometimes it's really environmentally like time and place. Sometimes the beer exudes more oak and sometimes it doesn’t, and it wants to be in an oak category, but it can't cause it has brett (industry jargon for Brettanomyces, a fungi used to sour beer.) We did a sampling a couple months ago back in early July and I think we went through 20 different beers for GABF trying to get down to the five that we wanted to send. And in order to do that we had to kind of pick the beers. We'd, you know, we brought out all the beers that we thought were really well done and then we had to go say, well that would fit here, wouldn't fit here, but it probably fits best here, but we don't want to send that beer there because we already have another one that wants to go there. So, you don't wanna compete against yourself either? JD: Now are you limited to five beers for competition? TA: Of late? They've been in the four to five range. Okay. A few years ago, you could send up to eight and prior to that it was kind of unlimited. But when it went from eight to five it got a lot harder. JD: Yeah. But it just seems like, I mean you can see what thousands of entries that seems like and yeah-- TA: I think there's over 8,000 beers that'll be judged. But we always say this, it's like if, if back when we were going to sending eight beers, I don't know if we make eight world-class beers every fall. Right? So how many are really well done and how many of them are like, you know, that far up the channel. I think we make eight great beers but are they going to sit at the table and really, really compete. But I think when you have eight versus four, your odds are better. But perhaps being in categories that some, some years are strong, and some years are weak, is, is where it kind of comes from. JD: Yeah. But you're also trying to be selective. I'm sure there are people that “I'll send as many beers as I can to increase my odds of winning an award.” Because of course the GABF awards still mean a lot. TA: Yeah. There was a year, I know this to be true, where at least one or two breweries that don't need to be, and they're not from San Diego, sent somewhere between 30 to 50 beers. And didn't win an award. And these are pretty good breweries. So, you know, you're talking about the shotgun approach. You hit the side of the barn. But it was pretty interesting to see that they didn't win. You know, the years of late where we haven't, we haven't managed to win an award. You know, we look up and we talked to the guys and we say, you know, look at the breweries that didn't win. Like, you know, these are, these are still some, you know, solid, solid producers and congratulations to the ones that did. But yeah, there's no guarantee anymore. I mean, winning one is a pretty dang good achievement. JD: Yeah. Well then in some cases, like just recently, what happens to the beer while is being transported? It could completely knock a perfectly good beer that left here out of any consideration because what happens to it or it doesn't even get there. TA: Yeah. So we've tried to mitigate that as best we can. Where the consolidation point and we have been for a long time that helps with refrigeration and, you know, just really making sure that the beer is better taken care of, competitive, you know, competitive judging or, you know, competitive brewing. I would say this is far different than it was 10, 15 years ago. JD: I guess for good and for bad both. But back to your awards, is there any award that you have one that is the most meaningful to you? Not to discount the other awards. TA: Sure, I think two really come to mind. The, we've been lucky to win a (GABF) Brewery of the Year award four different times. And I'm, I'm personally, I really want to get to five. I want to have that. I want to have that, that last one on the, you know, in that, you know, if I, if they gave out rings, I want to have the handful. The last time we won was 2007, so it's been a long time. And we may never get that opportunity again. I think the one that I won last year, which was the Russell Schehrer Award for Innovation and Craft Brewing, that that's you know, that's a hall of fame landscape kind of thing. And it just speaks to the community involvement and the, you know, being, being a participant in this, you know, only 22 people have won it at that point. And I, I, yeah, the legacy award, you know, something like that. I mean, I, I still love, I love the GABF and World Beer (Cup) Awards, a couple of awards cause they're, you know, they're purely blind. They're your peers. They show your team that they're, you know, they're making the right decisions. But the Russell award was probably the one that was singular in the sense that that was, you know, personally with my name on it. Where it's almost every other award that we've had that we've been lucky enough to garner comes with somebody else, you know, participating in doing work in that regard. JD: Yeah. Okay. Well, very good. So, we're just about at the end of all my questions, from your experience, is there anything in the way of advice or a lesson you've learned or anything else that you think either can't be said enough or you haven't ever had the opportunity to say? TA: You know, I think that we were talking yesterday, it's kind of interesting. We were talking about how difficult this business has become and there's a lot of noise and chatter and 50 years from now when someone's looking at this, they'll say, wow it's not as easy as it used to be. And I don't know where the fall line's going to be. We're going to get to 10,000 breweries in this country. I don't doubt that that'll happen. And I don't know where, where the relevancy will be. I don't know what it will look like. I feel pretty strongly that in the time that I've been lucky enough to be in this business, a lot of what's made us successful has come from a very strong sense of this is the beer I want to produce. And nowadays there seems to be a lot of, you have to just do what the consumer is saying they want. And tons of breweries I think are kind of losing their way, respectful of an identity. And I don't know if the artist in me can, can sort of reconcile that for the long haul. I think there's this sense that if, if that's the way the industry is going, you know, is that what I signed up for? Part of me wants to see the consumerism shift and I, I talk about this a lot, but it's kind of like when you throw the boomerang out, it comes back a little slower than it went out and maybe the boomerang is coming back. You know, that there's just too much ubiquity right now. But maybe not. Maybe with 10,000 brewers, you just, there is ubiquity and that's just part of the nature of it. But you know, I think the success that I've had, you know, in this business has been built on beers that, that, that have something that look and tastes like things that I've, you know, imagined and there's been a lot of success for that. But I don't know how you continue to do that when there's 10,000 imitators and people trying to, trying to find the same sort of, you know, sense of their worth. So for me, I think the biggest thing moving forward is just where, where do we all fit in? It's just dense stuff. JD: Giving everybody a chance to attain their dream. But yeah, you know. TA: Yeah. I think that we're going to see, I think in the next two years we're going to see a lot of dreams getting crushed because it's getting, it's getting even harder today than it was probably a year ago. But there might be a light at the end of the tunnel in the sense that, you know, there's been a lot of distributor consolidation. There's been a lot of breweries, what they say, you know, rightsizing or trying to figure this all out. But it's a business. It's gonna eat people alive, you know? And, and that's what businesses do, right? There's, there is this, there's, there's a success rate attributed to craft beer that's not as high. I mean, it's higher than most consumer goods, and there will probably be a little bit more reckoning that will come along with it because you just can't, you just can't all swim in the same ocean. It just doesn't work. And so we're going to find some sense of corrective correlations. I mean, we're going to find smaller, you know, people are going to be making less beer for the next few years and if you're actively making more beer, you're one of the very few people that's, that's winning in that, in that space. JD: It does seem like we had a real bump up in numbers of breweries that opened in 2016-2017 which is being that this is 2019, we're looking at entering the fourth and fifth year of leases for a lot of the breweries. And I think that might be a time where people are going to have to sit down and assess. TA: Sure. I mean, if you've got a five-year lease and you're about to come into that fourth year, you're in the fourth year and you're now triggering the, am I going to renew? Right. I haven't, I haven't been taking a paycheck or I've been taking very little. And then at some point you're like, are we, is this a real thing? You know, I don't, I don't know. You know, people, people certainly I think come into it, you know, really, you know, eager and excited about it. And then little by little you're, you're grinding and there's a lot of grinding going on right now, which is okay, but you know, there's, but grinding isn't fun. JD: No. And when people come into it with a passion, which is a term you used earlier, passion cannot sustain you forever, unfortunately. I mean, it's what maybe gets you up the next morning, but at some point it's not paying the bills and you have managed to raise a family, you know, other people, you know, that they've got investors that may or may not understand the actual brewing industry and cause and effect and impacts. And, you know, yeah, it's going to be real interesting to see what happens. TA: Yeah. I've been pretty lucky. My partnership here hasn't had an unrealistic expectation of financial return. And, and you know, so, you know, we, we opened our doors, we borrowed some money, we repaid the money, and then we've basically reinvested all of that money into the company when we needed to. So we are not sitting here saying okay, you're, you know, you were relying on us for a dividend. And you know, that doesn't, it doesn't work like that. But the, the business of beer is very difficult. And you know, you, you talked about that word passion. We, when we opened our doors, I published this list of the 10 commandments of our brewery and one of the 10 commandments was that you, you know, passion isn't something you can buy at the corner store. And I meant that with a sense of like, if you come into this, you know, you can't just throw that term around. Like you've got to live it and breathe it. And I think that that kind of what you were speaking to earlier is, is, has always been like, I think there's a lot of people that will say, I am very passionate about what I do. And I have been, and that's, you know, over the 20 plus years I've been doing this. That's that, that is a word that I would associate with, with getting out of bed every day. And it's been very, it's been very conducive to being successful. That being said, you don't have to be overly passionate, but you have to be, you still have to be passionate about getting out of bed every day, even when you're struggling, even when you're not killing it. And I can guarantee you right now, there's a lot of people when they're getting out of bed who used to kill it and were, you know, who thought they were going to kill it and are saying to themselves, man, this is, this is real. Like, and you know, how do you, how do you put your game face on and, and, and really keep, keep grinding and to tackle the, you know, look, we want to get to the other side. JD: Yeah. Yeah. And you don't want to be a long face when your consumers come in because they're going to say, Hey, I came in here for a beer and a good time. TA: I am here. I am here for a good time. Right. Any happy people? JD: Oh dear. Oh dear. Something that just came to me, which is not on the list of questions, but we are sitting in the space that Stone originated at. And you had just mentioned that you've expanded. Talk a little bit about the physical plant. What was it like when you moved in as Lost Abbey? What did you have to do to it and how many times have you expanded? TA: All right. So, when we took over in January of 2006 and Stone moved out to the facility in Escondido, they controlled at that point about 30,000 square feet of I think the building is 85,000 square feet. So, they had about a third of it. And when they moved out, we collapsed the entire building back down to their original suite, suite 104, and that suite is 7,500 square feet. So, we started with a 30-barrel brewhouse in 19, I'm sorry, in 2006. And we had 30, 7,500 square feet, including the tasting room, cold box, and our barrel warehouse. In 2009, I believe we moved across the parking lot and took over another 10,000 square feet and moved the cold box, all the barrels and our distribution. So, for awhile we had that space. We were up to about 17,000 square feet. 2012 or so we took over this suite that we're sitting in here, which was another 7,500 square feet. So that allowed us to build our packaging hall, this office, the lab, things like that. We rolled for the next few years, for the next five years. We had that 27,000 square feet of space. And then we added we added a second, third, fourth warehouse across the parking lot. And that took us to almost 40,000 square feet. And then last January we moved out of that distribution warehouse into another building here, which is now connected from the front of the street to the back. Behind us. We control 40,000 square feet under one roof line for the first time. And we moved out of the facility across the parking lot, all of our barrels and everything. So we now are under one building, one roof line. We can't drive from the packaging hall to the rest of the building. But every other building we can drive forklifts through. And that never happened. Two years ago, we owned four (forklifts) ‘cause we had four different buildings. JD: Now does Port distribute all the beers here in San Marcos? TA: Everything comes out of this facility. We are doing a batch or two a year out of the Pizza Port facility when we need to, but we don't, it's this, this facility can handle a lot more beer than we're currently making. So most, most everything that has the word Port Brewing, Lost Abbey, or Hop Concept on it has come out of San Marcos. It's only been this year that we've brewed two or three batches of beer down the street at Pizza Port. And most of that was for efficiency to do big runs of things that we could, we did a giant Hop Freshener, Hop Concept release at Costco and needed to have beer all at the same time. JD: So are you, in Costcos outside of California as well? TA: No, and that has been something we haven't really tackled or looked at. JD: Like it would be just an overwhelming amount of production yet I think... TA: Costco's pretty, pretty keen on a lot of local these days, at least for beer. So, I don't know how relevant we would, you know, we might be able to get into some in Arizona, maybe in Washington and Northern California, but you know, there's a ton of breweries in each of those locations. Tapping the same buyer on the shoulder saying, can I get, can I get in here? And, and the buyers probably got enough options that they don't even need something from out of here. And frankly, the cost associated with getting it to them would almost make it prohibitive in terms of trying to put it on the shelf at their right price point. JD: Yeah. Have you ever had to turn down any kind of requests because you just knew that trying to fill that big an order was going to just break you? TA: No, we've, we've been pretty lucky in the sense that when we do get we just came off of couple of pretty good-sized Costco orders and they were about 40 pallets worth of beer. But the brewery can handle that without being too burdened in the sense. I mean, it's certainly a lot of attention on one thing but we're not overly stretched at our capacity right now. So, when those things pop up, we certainly snap at them and want, you know we wanna make sure we execute on it. If we were making a lot more beer, we probably would have, we would struggle with that a little more. But when you get an order for 40 pallets of beer, you figure it out, you know, you really do. JD: When we walked back here, we passed one of your employees building a bike. What other sorts of things do you do with the employees or for the employees to support maybe their self-education, other interests that they have, things like that. TA: We've definitely put it on our radar this year. We've lost a lot of employees in the last two years. I think we've turned over 20 employees and we only have about 50 total. So, we've put an emphasis on that level of communication, you know, what can we do to assist you in this endeavor? It's not something that we've programmed in the past or been terribly good at. That being said, we haven't, we have really seen that there are some simple opportunities to do things like that and Tim's running his own small bike shop and it's just a, you know, it's a pocket, pocketed space here at the brewery. You know, we've announced that if there's other brewer or other brewery employees from the tasting room all the way up that have an idea, we would love to hear about it. We don't make a dime on it. There's no, there's no real emphasis towards, you know, trying to co-partner on things. It's just we, we want to, we want to foster the opportunities if it makes sense. And Tim's the pilot sort of program right now with the bike, the little bike shop that he's running and it gets interesting, I hope. I hope it sparks other employees to say, okay, cool, I've wanted to do this, that or the other and it looks like I could and come to us and say, ‘Oh, could you carve out this space again?’ We are, we are under more, more efficient space right now and we do have a little bit of room. So, I hope that, I hope somebody else says, okay, I want to do this and it, and it fits the needs and the use and isn't a big deal. It'd be great because it means that we can, we can continue to lift what they want to be a part of and retain them at some time. JD: Yeah. Very good. It was fun. Oh, okay. Well, I think that pretty much has run through my list plus of questions for you about your career, your history, and what's going on with Lost Abbey/Port Brewing. And I want to thank you for that. And I'm going to go ahead and turn this off. https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en audio Property rights reside with the university. 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The researcher agrees not to record, reproduce, or disclose any Social Security number or other information of a highly personal nature that may be found. 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=ArthurTomme_DownieJudith_2019-08-08.xml ArthurTomme_DownieJudith_2019-08-08.xml https://archivesearch.csusm.edu/repositories/3/resources/19 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Arthur, Tomme. Interview August 8, 2019 Description An account of the resource Tomme Arthur has been involved in several San Diego breweries, most notably as founder and managing owner of Lost Abbey Brewing located in San Marcos, CA. His first professional brewing position was at the short-lived Cervecería La Cruda in San Diego, California. Arthur moved to Pizza Port Brewing in Solana Beach, California as an assistant brewer. After becoming Director of Brewing Operations for the increasing number of locations, he led the chain in garnering numerous beer awards. Arthur opened Lost Abbey Brewing in 2006 to focus on his interest in Belgian-style beers. In late 2023, Arthur separated Lost Abbey from Port Brewing operations in a ‘right-sizing’ plan in response to beer industry trends. Port Brewing retained the Hop Concept, Tiny Bubbles, and Kharisma brands in their portfolio and took over the San Marcos production space and closed the tasting room. Lost Abbey entered an alternating proprietorship agreement with Mother Earth Brewing to share their production space in nearby Vista, CA. In his 2019 interview, Arthur discusses his introduction to craft beer and home brewing; entry into the profession and work at various breweries beginning in the 1990s; founding Lost Abbey Brewing and other brewery ventures; mentoring individuals in the industry; and awards. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SC027-044 Subject The topic of the resource Brewers -- California -- San Diego County Brewing industry -- California -- History Lost Abbey Brewing (San Marcos, Calif.) Microbreweries -- California -- San Diego County Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-08-08 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tomme Arthur Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Judith Downie Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant San Marcos (Calif.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. California State University San Marcos Brewchive(r) https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/226612c0577f663c67ab24dd321c55c1.pdf cd7aae43e52969e82eec74a15793f4d1 PDF Text Text TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 Biographical Note: Throughout his career Tomme Arthur has gained a reputation in the industry for his focus on Belgianstyle ales, national awards, and mentorship of newer brewers. He is a frequent presenter at various brewing conferences. Tomme Arthur has been involved in several San Diego breweries, most notably as founder and managing owner of Lost Abbey Brewing located in San Marcos, CA. His first professional brewing position was at the short-lived Cervecería La Cruda in San Diego, CA founded by Troy Hojel. Arthur moved to Pizza Port Brewing in Solana Beach, California as an assistant brewer. After becoming Director of Brewing Operations for the increasing number of locations, he led the chain in garnering numerous beer awards. He opened Lost Abbey Brewing in 2006 to focus on his interest in Belgian-style beers. Lost Abbey remained in a partnership with Pizza Port under the Port Brewing umbrella. The Lost Abbey opened in the original location for Stone Brewing, vacated when Stone moved to Escondido, CA. The brewhouse underwent an extensive expansion in 2019 to accommodate the additional beverage brands Hop Concept, Tiny Bubbles and Kharisma. Lost Abbey expansion included tasting rooms The Confessional in Cardiff, CA, The Sanctuary in the San Elijio Hills neighborhood of San Marcos, CA, and The Church in downtown San Diego, CA. In late 2023, Arthur separated Lost Abbey from Port Brewing operations in a ‘right-sizing’ plan in response to beer industry trends. Port Brewing retained the Hop Concept, Tiny Bubbles, and Kharisma brands in their portfolio and took over the San Marcos production space and closed the tasting room. Lost Abbey entered an alternating proprietorship agreement with Mother Earth Brewing to share their production space in nearby Vista, CA. Mother Earth had closed a tasting room at this location when they moved the bulk of brewing operations to Idaho. Arthur announced plans to renovate and re-open the tasting room space. Judith Downie: 00:00:00 So today is August 8th, 2019 and this is Judith Downie, the Curator of the CSUSM Brewchive® with Tomme Arthur, founder and co-owner of Lost Abbey, the Hop Concept, Port Brewing, and myriad other projects that we're going to be asking about. So tell me, the purpose of this is to kind of record in one place things I've seen in a lot of places. You know, you've been very generous with your time with people mentoring and interviewing. And so this is for the Brewchive®, basically an overall history of your life experiences as a brewer, thoughts, things like that. So, we do have a list of questions here, which again I'll read them off, I may reword them a little bit and you are open to responding to them however you need. And I hope we have plenty of time that you've talked about things that maybe nobody's ever asked you. Tomme Arthur: 00:00:59 That would be fun. Yeah. JD: 00:01:01 So record these things for posterity. So, let's start with your background. To be clear, from what I've seen, you started home Transcribed by Judith Downie 1 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 brewing in Arizona while you were in college and how did that start? TA: 00:01:16 So I am a native San Diegan. My family's three to four generations on both sides. Went to Saint Augustine High School. When I was in high school, I decided that I really liked the English language and I wanted to study English and felt that teaching was a path that I would probably take. JD: 00:01:30 Okay. TA: 00:01:31 And so I fell in love with Flagstaff as a campus and community. And the school at Northern Arizona University had a really good education teaching program. So that's how I ended up in Flagstaff. When I got to school, I met a family, last name is Gardner and, and their son, Tom. And I became very close and the Gardner family really was into beer and they were sort of my mentors to beer. TA: 00:02:00 And they said, you know, we're going to teach you about better beer. And of course, I was only 18 at the time, but you know, I wasn't gonna say no. And they kind of pushed me in this direction of here's what better beer looks like, tastes like. American beer, imported beer, Canadian, very English, you know, all the, all the different countries where a great beer would have come from. A lot of it at that time was imported of course. JD: 00:2:22 Right. Because really, you know, we're talking what the... TA: 00:2:26 1991 and 95 was when I was in school. JD: 00:2:27 Okay. So there really wasn't much of a craft beer scene in Arizona I don't think. TA: 00:2:31 There were very few craft breweries in Arizona. In fact, there were no craft breweries in Flagstaff at the time. We ended up having three open up in my last year of school. But there were no craft breweries in Flagstaff and at that time. There was likely to be 10 or 15 probably in the entire state. But we've got a lot of regional beers. There was a lot of beer from Oregon, Washington, Northern California, Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado beer. So there was some American craft. But mostly from very older players, you know, Sierra Nevada Anchor, Deschutes <Brewery>, big, bigger breweries. Transcribed by Judith Downie 2 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 JD: 00:03:08 And being that the craft beer scene in San Diego was still pretty young in that time period. Do you remember seeing anything from San Diego? TA: 00:03:16 No. In fact we, we actually talk about this a lot, that prior to Stone Brewing coming into San Diego, nobody actually sent beer outside of San Diego. Karl Strauss <Brewing> had beer in San Diego at the time and packaged in bottles. But they, I don't believe much of their beer, if any, was leaving the San Diego area. So my understanding is that it really wasn't until Stone opened their doors and shipped beer to Arizona, likely maybe Nevada, you need to ask them, where they crossed the state line and perhaps were one of the original new craft breweries to actually make beer to leave San Diego. JD: 00:03:51 Which is really interesting because I have in my pre-Prohibition research on San Diego craft brewing found Mission Brewing. They were brewing beer to supplement San Diego Consolidated Brewing, which is San Diego Brewing Company <today>. They were San Diego Consolidated Brewing for a while and Arizona passed Prohibition in 1914, five years before National Prohibition and halted any shipment of even Hopski, which was a near beer Mission was brewing, into the state. They weren't even allowing that. And there was a big lawsuit and Mission Brewing lost and that was the contributing factor to the closure of Mission through that. TA: 00:04:28 They actually lost out on a nonalcoholic or near beer. JD: 00:04:31 Yeah. Hopski, and they didn't continue to brew that because J. H. Zitt, who was the president, the current owner of San Diego Consolidated Brewing had said ‘I will never brew anything but real beer.’ So he's the one who decided to close Mission. Because he actually owned it at the time because his father-inlaw and brother-in-law, who had founded Mission, had walked away. TA: 00:04:58 Yeah, the old San Diego stuff is really interesting. JD: 00:05:00 Yeah, and it's a, it's an interesting kind of parallel between you being in Arizona and starting your interest in beer there and then coming back to San Diego. Transcribed by Judith Downie 3 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 JD: 00:05:12 But I've also seen that you've noted that your favorite beers are Belgian style. What? TA: 00:05:16 I just find them to be very unique and I think that there's, there's a pretty, I guess when I first got started in brewing in my sort of craft foundation, they were the most unique things out there. And that, that today is not necessarily the case. There's so many new producers and people that have really taken the boundaries and, and stretched them and moved them in directions. I think ostensibly under a Belgian influence or sort of what amounts to be a Belgian artistry, but there's a lot more to it these days. And I just think that if you, if you become imaginative about beer, you have to look at what the Belgians did or were doing at that time. Technique wise, yeast wise flavors, just process things. Very unconventional via what, what would amount to be a very conventional sort of brewing, you know, take four malts or take four ingredients. You can, you used a lot of water and hops and that's beer. And then you look at what they do. And it's completely different. JD: 00:06:10 So you think the Belgians weren't constrained by the purity law that the Germans had and that's part of what led to their inventiveness? TA: 00:06:17 Yeah, I just feel like they as a group embraced different methodologies and, and that sometimes weren't easy. And those methods at least preserved flavors that couldn't be found in beer, again, conventional beer. JD: 00:06:33 Okay. Very interesting. So, onto your actual brewing experiences. You started home brewing? I read it was a homebrew kit... TA: 00:06:44 So the Gardner’s bought me a home brew kit early for my graduation. So, I was gifted it in January of 1995 and that's when we started homebrewing. JD: 00:06:50 Okay. And you didn't like the first beer you brewed? TA: 00:06:52 The first beer we brewed, it was a black style, you know, sort of a dry Irish Guinness-style stout, but it came out very thin and didn't taste like Guinness or anything. So it wasn't, it was not a good beer. But you know, I think the expectations were high and probably should have set the bar a little lower. JD: 00:07:08 Was this extract or all grain? Transcribed by Judith Downie 4 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 TA: 00:07:09 It was extract for sure. JD: 00:07:12 Yeah. Because of course supplies even in the 90s, were still kind of hard to come by. TA: 00:07:15 Yeah, we were pretty lucky there was a homebrewer outpost in Flagstaff, so there was a store that sold ingredients that we could've, we could've started in an all-grain basis. But I was living in a house with four people and it just wasn't really, I didn't have the resources to go build a full all grain brewing system, with the plastic fermenters and you know, boiling on the stove top kind of stuff was definitely where it was at. JD: 00:07:40 Yeah, you got to start somewhere. So, then you came back to San Diego. Was that, what was the reason for coming leaving Arizona? TA: 00:07:47 So I graduated in June or May of 1995. JD: 00:07:50 So was this your bachelor's or your teaching credential? TA: 00:07:52 This was my bachelors of arts in just English. And at that point I didn't really want to stay in Flagstaff and I wasn't gonna attend grad school there. So, I moved back home and so I left. And when I got home I kind of kicked around a little bit trying to figure out what I was going to do and really didn't have a plan necessarily I was able to go back and live with my parents. And you know, the only requirement was that I find a job. So, I found a job and that's kinda how I got in the downtown life. My dad had a printing business when I was growing up, so I was very, very well trained and I worked in the campus print shop when I was in school. So, I applied for a printing job in a downtown San Diego business and I was commuting, taking the trolley from La Mesa down into downtown San Diego every day. And I happened to be reading want ads, just, it was all that was left in the newspaper at that point. And stumbled upon a brew pub opening that had an ad in the paper for cooks, dishers, all that stuff in it said assistant brewer and I circled it. And I walked over the next day at lunch and applied for a job. And that was actually Cervecería La Cruda. JD: 00:09:00 Right, with Troy Hojel? So, you actually opened Cervecería La Cruda in September of ‘96? TA: 00:09:10 No, they, they would have opened, I think it would've been March of 96 ‘cause we ended up, we attended the great Transcribed by Judith Downie 5 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 American beer festival in September, October of 96 and then it closed. It was less than a full year. I think I was hired in April, May-ish. and then I wasn't there even for a full year. JD: 00:09:27 Yeah. I have, I have March ‘97 is when it closed. TA: 00:09:31 So I think it probably was mid April-ish I would've been hired in. We didn't even make it a full year. JD: 00:09:39 Yeah. This is the kind of thing I like because I have a very large Excel spreadsheet of every brewery from 1868 which was Chollas Valley Brewery through today. Whether they opened or closed, it never made it, pulled the license, whatever... TA: 00:09:55 So, how many different breweries have attempted to open? Are we in the three hundreds or? JD: 00:09:58 Well, my Excel spreadsheet also includes all the individual tasting rooms because generally they pull a separate ABC license. I'm up over 550 getting close to 600 I think, but I could certainly get back to you with how many tried and never even actually opened. I think there's a real object lesson there. TA: 00:10:18 I think the most interesting thing is that we operate that there's 160 or whatever right now that are active, but it's really interesting to know kind of how many have kind of opened and closed and opened and closed and where you know, you can say, okay, since prohibition we've had 208 that have tried or participated in this, in this scene. JD: 00:10:37 Yeah, because I break the whole history into three parts. There was a pre-Prohibition 1868 to 1919, 1919/1920 then 1933 to 1953 because Aztec, which had sold to Altes Brewing, closed and they were the last brewery operating post-Prohibition and then we didn't pick up again until the <19>80s so I can extract that information and get it to you because those numbers are always very powerful. TA: 00:11:05 Yeah. I just feel like it'd be interesting to say since Prohibition, there's been 208 licenses that were issued or over, you know, JD: 00:11:12 And then there were others that announced a name or announced that they were going to open and never even got around to pulling a license. You know, so I have, I have every single possible name of any business that ever said ‘we are going to be a brewery or a brew pub, or...’ Transcribed by Judith Downie 6 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 TA: 00:11:28 No one ever drops on in front of you and you say, haven't heard of it. JD: 00:11:30 Well actually not too long ago, I ran across one called the Royal Duffer. And that evidently they were contract brewing. They were in Carlsbad and they were like four golf buddies. And so they had beer for, again, I think it was less than a year. And I haven't been able to find out too much information from them, but I'm very alert to, ‘Oh, I don't think I've ever heard of that name before’ so this is the first one I've not heard of in a long time. So I think I'm pretty comprehensive. But yeah. Yeah, it's been interesting and a lot of work. But going back to Troy, is Troy still around? TA: 00:12:10 He is in somewhere in Colorado outside of Denver. In fact, I just talked to him the other day. He texted me, I think his cousin opened a brewery in Texas and he had a question or two. TA: 00:12:20 So yeah. He's in Colorado and doing the software. JD: 00:12:23 Okay. So he's no longer in the brewing business. TA: 00:12:25 No, actually he left the brewery business and ended up doing software in Northern California for a bit, I think, and then moved off to Colorado. JD: 00:12:33 Well, it's gotta be sad to watch your dream die especially so quickly. TA: 00:12:35 You know, it was a pretty aggressive life lesson, you know? It taught me a lot in the short time that we were into it. I still think that Troy is one of the best brewers I've ever met. And it would've been a really cool thing to see it succeed at, but certainly would've put me on a different life path, I think if it had. So I don't, I don't try not to, you know, revisionist history, that part of it. But the beers that he made and he was a very technical brewer, I think, I think it would've been, it would've added to the scene even more. JD: 00:13:05 Yeah. What actually happened? Was it just lack of sales? TA: 00:13:09 I think more than anything it was a bad, is a bad business model. I don't know if you know the story of Baja Brewing Company. JD: Transcribed by Judith Downie 00:13:17 I'm familiar with the name, but not really the story. 7 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 TA: 00:13:20 So Baja Brewing Company opened up and they claimed to be the very first Mexican-themed brewpub in the United States. Now it was their claim to fame. But what happened is that the partners at Baja Brewing and the partners at La Cruda actually had a schism and they split. They were going to open the Baja Brewing Company together or something along those lines and they had a falling out and the partnership dissolved. And so these guys opened Baja Brewing Company and less than three or four months later Cervecería La Cruda opened up three blocks away. So the very first Mexican theme brewpub in this country opened up and three blocks later and three months and three blocks over the second one opened. So, very underfunded from the get-go. Very, it was a 13,000 square foot building at Forth and Island, you know, big, big building. Too much of it to just for the time I, I'd be nervous opening a 13,000 square foot building brewpub today. And you know, back when the Gaslamp was kind of still new and trendy and hot, I don't know what the rent was, but just overall a bad, a bad vision I think for what was going on. JD: 00:14:31 Ahead of its time. Really. TA: 00:14:32 Yeah. And the thing that's kind of crazy is that Cervecería La Cruda to them is a hangover brewery. So when you say ‘tengo la cruda’, that means I have the crud, I'm not feeling well. That's not a real great way to tell people you want to come here and drink. They opened up with a menu that they had sourced from the family that owned El Callejon in Encinitas. So, they had this really great, I would say deep, deep Mexican Sonoran source, you know, for and things. But that wasn't on anyone's radar with respect to craft brew at the time. So, good people, great, great opportunity. But not even something, that I think today, even if you attempted to tackle it, would probably work really well. JD: 00:15:12 So as you say, a real experience. TA: 00:15:14 Yeah, a lot I learned from, you look around and you see simplicity sometimes wins. JD: 00:15:20 Or slow growth. Planned slower. TA: 00:15:22 Or have more money than you think. Yeah. Transcribed by Judith Downie 8 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 JD: 00:15:27 Somebody said to me one time something like, you need five times more than you think you do. And I would, I think that's true with any business really. But the expense of equipment and materials and everything and you just can't do it all yourself. TA: 00:15:40 No. You gotta be able to weather a lot of storms. JD: 00:15:44 And you know, with this, I know in September of 2016 I went to the craft beer conference up in Sacramento and I saw you speak there and you at that time, this is three years ago now, said that San Diego was already over-saturated, and you would not open up a brewery at this point in San Diego. And how many breweries have we had open up? TA: 00:16:06 Continues to be a head-scratching thing. Yeah. Well, we joke, I mean, we're here in San Marcos now. I've got three breweries within a one-mile stretch. Right. So yeah, that's just the way it is. Yeah. JD: 00:16:21 But you're each different. Accommodating everybody at some point. But so when La Cruda closed, you moved to White Labs for just a couple of months in yeast sales. Was that based because you knew about yeast? TA: 00:16:34 So White Labs had just kinda gotten their feet wet. So I remember the very first day when I was at La Cruda, one of the very first days I was at La Cruda. Chris White1 walked in on a sales call. And so we were chatting and talking and at some point, and this is a part of my history that I don't remember all of that clearly, but I ended up moving in with them. I mean I was a roommate and I think there was a crossover point where I was working at La Cruda, but I already moved into their house. Cause he and Lisa had an empty room. I needed a place to stay. And then when La Cruda was on its way to be closing it became kind of obvious that I could help them in their infancy of their company with some just R and D and just different trialing and things like that. TA: 00:17:15 You know, I had met a lot of brewers in Arizona at that time. So Chris said, well, why don't you come help me just kind of knock down some doors and you know, we just need somebody that can walk in and kind of talk about this in a very brewer friendly kind of way. So my goal was I was kind of like an ambassador really. You know, I didn't really do a lot of pure sales but my job was to talk about it and explain how my experience with 1 Chris White is the founder of White Labs. Transcribed by Judith Downie 9 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 different yeasts and temperatures and things like that. So it was kind of just yeah, I think it was more of a product, product knowledge and ambassador at that point. JD: 00:17:47 Was there any conversation at that time about opening up a tasting room for yeast labs? TA: 00:17:51 No. No. I mean, maybe Chris had it, but it you know, that was a pretty, it was a long time ago and there wasn't really a sense of yeast as a business outside of the yeast business. I don't think there was sort of that auxiliary layer to it. I'm sure Chris would have liked to have had a bunch of beers on tap, but I, I would imagine if he had had that thought back then that they would have probably just wanted 10 beers on tap for their customers to come sample them, but not necessarily not, not really treat it as an educational function for the consumer as much as an educational experience for a brewer who maybe hadn't worked a certain use and things like that. I mean there's just an enormous amount of yeasts that have been banked since we started. Since I got my first job in 1996 there's been an enormous amount of new yeast that had been added. So, they need an avenue to show people what those yeasts do. JD: 00:18:41 And back then too, you probably had a lot of brewers, even professional brewers, would be how I see it. That didn't really understand a lot about the hops that were available. The yeast that was available, you know, cause a lot of them had, were coming out of the homebrew experience and you know, all of a sudden here's more stuff you need to know. TA: 00:19:02 If you go back and look at it ‘95, ‘96 to, so that time, I mean we're talking about a dial up modem, you know, we're talking about low internet speed, we're talking about not... JD: 00:19:08 A lot of people, not even having computers or knowing how to use it. TA: 00:19:12 Not even a lot of Information online. Frankly. I mean you couldn't, you could not do all the kind of information that's out there today. And, and past that, a lot of the information that did exist in book format was highly technical through the ASBC2 and the big brewers. And then what was available that had been written about the sort of homebrew level and medium brewery. There wasn't a lot of medium brewery stuff in there, so you American Society of Brewing Chemists. Transcribed by Judith Downie 2 10 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 were getting a lot of books on how to brew ales, but they had this really big English, you know, sort of basis to them. Cask condition, real ale ingredients weren't American in their basis. So there was no ability to look up and say, Oh, how do I use this German hefeweizen yeast? You know, how do I, how much do I pitch it, what temperature, how does it behave? And none of that information existed. JD: 00:19:59 So a lot of technical stuff. TA: 00:20:00 Yeah. even just simplistic technical. What's the right temperature? JD: 00:20:03 And around here San Diego was still something of a Coors town that's San Diego was test market for a couple of different, for Coors Light and for Herman Joseph's 1868 and you know, so really do you have much of a market for... TA: 00:20:18 In fact, we joked about it here. This was the best, I think this was the best-selling Coors light town when I took in, when I got into brewing, this was the number one Coors Light in the country. JD: 00:02:26 Yes, it was. TA: 00:02:28 Well that explains to you, you know, where we're, where we were and where we came from. And on top of that you had all the import beers too, right? You still had Coronas and Pacifico and the Modelos in the world doing very well here at that time too. So yeah, it was a, it was a long ways to the top. JD: 00:20:42 So you weren't at White Labs for very long before you were hired by Pizza Port. Pizza Port just had the one location then, right? TA: 00:20:48 They had the one location in Solana Beach. Vincent, Gina3 had been partners in the Carlsbad Public House with a guy named Brett. I think his last name was Stamp. JD: 00:21:00 Tetley Ridden4, I, it's a hyphenated name. TA: 00:21:07 Yeah. And then he became a, they, they had a falling out with Carlsbad Public House and they were in, they were in the 3 4 Vincent and Gina Marsaglia Redmayne-Titley Transcribed by Judith Downie 11 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 process of converting the Public House, which is the Pizza Port in Carlsbad in the village into the Pizza Port at that time. So I was, I was brought into assist on Solana Beach because the head brewer was going to go have shoulder surgery and then they were supposed to move me up to Carlsbad to take over the production of the brewing and Carlsbad once, once he came back. So there was almost a second Pizza Port in line at that time. So they were, they were in the home stretch of the construction to convert it from the Public House to Pizza Port, which opened in July of 1997 so they were real close. And I always like to tell the story ‘cause I think it's very fascinating to me. I'd never stepped foot in Pizza Port before I got interviewed for the job. So I had no real perceived concept or notion of what exactly they did or what they didn't do. JD: 00:22:02 Okay. And so you were an assistant brewer then? You weren't head brewer? TA: 00:22:10 Yeah. Eddie Class, I think his last name was Classic. He was the head brewer at that time. And Vince was going to be the head brewer in Carlsbad when they opened. So yeah, Eddie was in charge of the brewery in Solana Beach and he was gonna go, I think I was going to have rotator cuff surgery and take about three months off. And then when he came back I was supposed to go take the job in Carlsbad. JD: 00:22:30 Okay. but you, you obviously that didn't quite work out that way, but you were promoted to Director of Brewery Operations in June of 2005. TA: 00:22:38 Yeah, that was a short stint ‘cause we were getting ready to open this place too. So yeah. JD: 00:22:43 So you already knew you were going to be moving on? TA: 00:22:46 We were having conversations at that point about how to get to here. We, I think in June it kind of was a collective. They terminated Kirk McHale, who was the brewer in Carlsbad in June of 2005 and then there was the San Clemente location, Carlsbad location, and Solana Beach. And I was asked to kind of tackle all three of them at the same time, make sure that they were more or less on the same page, collectively, kind of get them aligned. And then we also knew that we were having conversations about a new partnership and trying to build up the partnerships so that we could get this, this facility put into our orbit. Transcribed by Judith Downie 12 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 JD: 00:23:24 Okay. So that leads me into the founding Port Brewing in partnership with Vince and Gina. And you know, you have Port Brewing, you have Lost Abbey, you have the Hop Concept and I've also seen that you're involved in an Arizona brewery called Moto Sonora. So can you explain the structure of everything? TA: 00:23:49 Yeah. When we started talking to Stone Brewing about buying this facility from them you know, my love of Belgian beers was pretty strong and I knew that we wanted to make some things out here that were very barrel aged, Belgian influenced and all that. And we had this, Vince had the idea for the brand called the Lost Abbey. So we were very, very keen on the fact that we knew that was going to happen. There were a lot of beers at Pizza Port that were being produced that needed to kind of stretch and grow and needed to get from get out from under just being a pub-based beer. And that allowed, you know, people who had been asking for more, you know, basically Pizza Port beer. And that's where the Port Brewing came from. So the Port Brewing beers, many of them when we opened our doors here came from Solana Beach recipes that I had produced, Hop 15, Santa’s Little Helper, Shark Attack. We brought the Wipe Out recipe over from Carlsbad and those beers had a lot of legacy towards the pubs and, and kind of, you know, grew them out of that realm. But we knew that there'd be the Port brand’s very West coast centric, you know, kind of that Ballast Point, Coronado, Green Flash, Stone kind of mentality. You know, higher hopping rates, you know, sometimes imperial, things like that. We always knew that that wasn't really that wasn't going to be our principal focus in the sense that we were going to have the two brands, but we also knew that having the two brands side by side allowed us to walk in and have a wide range of beers without having everything be a Lost Abbey beer or Port Brewing beer. JD: 00:25:15 Okay. And then the Hop Concept is a fairly recent addition to the portfolio. TA: 00:25:20 So a few years ago I walked into a bar and all the beer names on the wall really just confused me. There were so many new beers and I had no idea what they tasted like. And I didn't want to be a bother to the bartenders and try to, you know, ask them this or that. And I'm not an Untappd person. I don't really use digital media to tell me what I should be drinking. So, it kinda came back to we wanted to create a line of beers that were very fresh Transcribed by Judith Downie 13 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 and simplistic in their makeup. So, the Hop Concept beers, we had a line called the Hop Freshener series and they were basically we had ‘Dank and Sticky’ and ‘Citrus and Piney and ‘Lemon and Grassy’ and ‘Tropical and Juicy’. And it was essentially taste and smell. And we, all we were trying to do was tell the consumer and the bartender, this is what you should expect the beer to taste like, or smell like. And it was a quick, straightforward deliverable and it was meant to be a, I use the word simple, but simple deliverable like you knew what you were getting. We were setting you up to understand how that beer should taste and behave. JD: 00:26:16 Yeah, it does seem like naming beers because they do have to be registered names or whatever, becomes a bigger and bigger challenge. And in just looking at a name on the board, you frequently have no idea of what that beer really is. So, something like this where you're going back to the basics, this is what you're going to get. I think must be very attractive. TA: 00:26:36 I thought the cleanliness of it for us, which was just straightforward and nomenclature and deliverable TA: 00:26:44 Like this is this is what you can expect and... JD: 00:26:47 Your label designs are very clean and very clear. Where Lost Abbey looks much more European, Medieval in a lot of ways. TA: 00:26:55 And we went out and we went out and hired a firm for the first time to really, we told them this is what our vision is and this is why we're doing it this way, but we want you to make sure we produce this with a very crisp look to it. And they, they certainly executed that and I, and I think that's always been a strength of that brand. JD: 00:27:13 Yeah. Let me ask you a little bit about the latest venture, Moto Sonora. I read that this was evidently your college roommate you are in partnerships with and his younger brother. And, of course, this is taking you back to Arizona. TA: 00:27:30 It is. Tucson, not Flagstaff. I wish it was in Flagstaff, but I'm going to come to like Tucson cause it's closer. But yeah, my, it's kind of ironic because this was a random sort of thing back when, when I was in college with Jeff. Jeff really wasn't a big beer drinker but it turns out but his brother Jeremy really fell in love with craft beer and the two of them kind of decided that Transcribed by Judith Downie 14 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 they have a high value for the city of Tucson. They loved that area. They've got deep roots in the community there. Their family, the DeConcini family's been a, been a big part of the Arizona scene and they just wanted to do this project. And I started talking to them as a consultant and just kind of saying, let me, let me hear what you're thinking. And then they said, well, maybe you could spend some more time on it. And I said, yeah, I've got the time to do that. TA: 00:28:18 Let's, let's do this. So, I am coming in as one of the co-founders on that project. Port Brewing is not involved in the sense that we're not invested in it. JD: 00:28:26 That was a question I had. TA: 00:20:28 We're not, Port Brewing is not an investor in the company. Although I have permission with my partners to supply as many ingredients and things, you know, that we can, we can work to make sure that the beers there are at the highest, you know, sort of capacity. And if it means we're buying the hops and selling them hops and things like that, that's gonna happen. You know, I see it as potentially a training ground where if one of our brewers wants the position when we get going or they, you know, we want to move people out that way. But this is not anything more than a co-founding situation where I have the freedom to go tight, you know, take on other projects. I, I kind of liken it to chefs having multiple locations or bar owners having, you know, other projects and things. But I'm not moving to Tucson and I'm not going to be the head brewer there. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to establish what we're doing and push the company in the right direction and make sure that we become a really valuable part of that community. We've been definitely looking forward to the, just being involved in it and you know, a different beer scene at the same time. JD: 00:29:24 Well, this kind of jumps over some of the questions I have because it leads into the amount of mentoring and work with newer brewers and the collaborations you do with the more established brewers. You are renowned in the industry for how people can come to you and pick your brain and you support and mentor in so many different ways. I see you as a oneperson campaign to ensure craft beer success. And, and this is in comparison with efforts like Stone's True Craft where there were more financial assistance. Have you always been a remarkable mentor? It sounds kind of like, you know, you're, you're thinking to become a teacher. Transcribed by Judith Downie 15 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 TA: 00:30:05 Yeah. I think that's a big part of it, right? It's a, it's a sense of, you know, that shared piece. You know, I remember very, very early in my, in my Solana Beach days, I wanted to make a Saison-style beer and I needed to find somebody who could give me the answer for how much ginger I was supposed to put in the beer. Cause I wanted to make the beer with some ginger. And there weren't many places where I could turn to. And I picked up the phone one day and I called the owner of LeftHand Brewing Company, his name was Dick Doore. And I said, Dick, you guys have this amazing Juju, ginger pale ale. I love it. Would you be willing to share that information with me? And he did. And he, you know, and we'd barely met. And it was one of those things that, okay, yeah, that's how the industry works. Right. And you know, this is something that I think Troy had put in my head back in the day was like, there are the right people to be talking to and then there's the wrong people. And the wrong people are the ones that don't freely exchange the information, or they don't, they don't try to push it uphill. And for the longest time we had so much work to do in this town to push the level uphill that we collectively had to talk about it. I mean, everybody I think that you would interview would have the similar sense of if we didn't all work together then we wouldn't have gotten to where we were. JD: 00:31:18 Isn't that the principle behind the San Diego Brewers Guild? TA: 00:31:21 Of course, you know, the very first Guild meeting was out at La Cruda. So yeah. Yes, for sure that the Guild, you know, I think we were the very first city in the country to have its own brewers guild. TA: 00:31:31 And that, that's kind of a, you know, a feather in the cap for what I think, you know, the old, the old guard or the people that really did, you know, hunker down back in the day was that there was a true sense that there was going to be something really good about the scene here. But we had to work really hard at it. So, I've always liked that conversational aspect of it. I believe that I can, I can ask the right questions with friends and people and, and if I can turn around and get that information back out, it makes sense. So yeah, why not? I mean, there's, there's very little, I guess I don't feel very competitive or threatened by it by that, you know, that dialogue or that sharing of information. Transcribed by Judith Downie 16 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 JD: 00:32:05 I think that's, I mean, I, I'm on certain, like the San Diego Plexus Facebook group and stuff, and your name comes up and everybody says, Tomme Arthur, he's the person to talk to. He is the god locally, you know, I mean, your name is always used in very positive way, which I think really speaks to the efforts that you have put into the community and supporting, especially newer brewers, but also working with other established brewers and not treating it as competition but treating it as we can all be better. TA: 00:32:34 And I think the one thing that's kind of maddening these days, and this is, this is my personal soap box] is that there's a lot of TA: 00:32:39 People that are collaborating on things. And I'm, I'm very concerned about this new sense of collaborating because I don't know that it's doing much other than it's bringing people together. And then you say, well what did we change and what did we do? And I'm like, okay. But I think the collaborative narrative of old was we collaborated on something because it was going to be something demonstratively different than we could have done singularly. And I'm not sure that much of that's going on today. So, when we collaborate with an old guard or with someone new, we're, we're really trying to have a sense of purpose. And I hope that people continue to realize that just collaborating with someone for the sake of sales isn't always, I guess from where I come, from isn't always the best course of action. JD: 00:33:25 Again, going to your mentoring, have you had the opportunity to open doors for specific groups? And I'm thinking women or minorities or people with disabilities, people, you know, because the standard concept of a brewer is a male, white guy, you know, I mean that just still is. It's not that way anymore. But have you had opportunities to work with or speak to groups to encourage them? TA: 00:33:51 I was thinking about this the other day because you know, I look at our staff, it is generally mostly male. We have had a few female employees on the beer side in the past and they've been phenomenal employees. And I was thinking the other day that we haven't done enough in our world to cultivate that specifically. And I know the Brewers Association is pretty keen on promoting diversity and things these days. And I'm wondering as an educational mentor, et cetera, where I should be looking to do some of those things or how I get involved in that. You know, where, where can I be impactful in that, in that space. And I don't know if it's through the university or through, 17 2024-01-04 Transcribed by Judith Downie �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 you know, there's a big Latino population up here in San Marcos and Vista. But clearly, you know, being white and being white isn't always the best thing. With respect to trying to, you know, we've got to find new, new people to energize and really enthuse about what we do. And preaching to the 40-year-old male white choir isn't, isn't the best place to live in. JD: 00:34:47 Well, I don't know if you're aware of Border X <Brewing>, which is of course down in Barrio Logan has, is sponsoring a women's beer club called Mujeres Brew Club. I'm sorry, I, my Spanish isn't that swell. And they invited me to be their first speaker and they're doing a meeting each month on a different aspect and at the end they are going to brew a beer at Border X. And the women that are in there, many of them don't know even beer styles. I mean, one woman evidently asked the question, what's an IPA? And so, you know, and it's, it's a safe space for women and it does have a large number of Latina women, which I think is phenomenal because maybe some of these will become brewers and there are women are working in the beer industry in San Diego who are also members. JD: 00:35:40 Some of them are speakers and some are just attending the meetings because they're always eager to learn more. So maybe reaching out to, or you know, helping sponsor a group like that or Pink Boots Society5 of course, you know, is always looking for speakers and educational opportunities and things. But you know, there's a growing presence, but it is hard to, when women are so scattered or you know, like you say it's underrepresented with the minorities or you know, and there are certain positions that probably someone with a physical disability couldn't perform in a brewhouse, what could they do? Can they be the quality control people, things like that. So, it seems like there are places that we need to increase. TA: 00:36:24 Yeah. It's interesting because I was thinking about this again the other day. I was like, we just don't have that many women apply for jobs. It's, it's you know, I, you know, I have a, a fairly good amount of men working, you know males, working on the floor. But I can't remember the last time I saw an application come in for a brewing position from a woman. So somehow the outreach needs to get further than, you know, I'm talking entrylevel packaging jobs, things like that. There's, there's clearly, you know, there's, it's not a bias in our world. They're just not International organization for women and non-binary people in the fermentation industry. The first chapter was founded in San Diego. 5 Transcribed by Judith Downie 18 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 coming and knocking down our door. So somehow we have to convince them that this isn't, this is a pretty good place where they could, you know, they can, they can find careers and homes. JD: 00:37:04 Well, if you do want to advertise positions, I have a couple of resources. I can push things out to Pink Boots San Diego for one. And then there's another Facebook page of women interested in beer. Some are working in the industry; some are maybe looking to get into the industry. And of course, maybe pushing the word out to the EngiBeering® program at Cal State San Marcos. ‘Cause there are, there's at least a couple of women enrolled in that program. But yeah, it's hard because there aren't many women available to bring in. But then, you know, we do have a, you know, a fairly strong Hispanic population in this area. So, you know, why can't we leverage that? And it's finding those points of contact. That's a, that's a continual problem that I have seen. Also, to kind of jump back, I mentioned Stone's True Craft effort, which, you know, obviously died. It was a great idea to help small, small breweries with financing to where they didn't have to sell themselves to big beer. What did you think of that idea when you thought, heard of it? TA: 00:38:01 You know, I had a lot of friends that took meetings with them. I mean, at least on the surface I was told, you know, Hey, we've, we've gone and talked to them about it. I think the biggest challenge was, is that that was at a time when there was a lot of unrealistic expectations about valuations and what, what things were worth or how, how long term, you know, how companies would be out, people would work long term together. You know, it's an interesting model because this business is such a, almost a loner thing. Like most people open their own little brewery and then at some point you need more investment in that comes with a lot more triggers and kinds of parameters and stuff in some small breweries never outgrow the small, you know, model. They, I'm the single proprietor, not me. They are a single proprietor, ownership kind of environment and you know, they borrow money from the bank and that's what they get and that's what they want to be. You know, there's a very passionate pursuit for them. And then there's the big business side of it, which says if you're going to scale and grow and you know, buying equipment is not cheap and putting concrete in the ground and copper piping and just every single thing you could think of. Transcribed by Judith Downie 19 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 JD: 00:39:07 And the length time it takes to just deal with all the permitting within the city, within the state, with the ABC6. TA: 00:39:11 And the regulatory. Yeah. All of those pieces. So I applaud Greg for, and Steve, for putting the platform together. You know, the, I think the biggest hurdle for a lot of people is just how, how do you entrepreneurially sign up for something like that? Right? It's, it's, you know, it's a different, it's a different <unclear> in you. You're talking about an environment where you went from being in charge of your own facility to now having new investment that comes with different, again, different triggers and things. I think it's interesting cause nobody signed up to do it and I don't know if that was that the metrics didn't align or how that was. But I know a lot of people took meetings and so I guess the question is, is what, what was, what was unrealistic on both sides for, for that, how come it, how come they didn't get anybody to, to partner with? JD: 00:40:01 Yeah. I'm, I don't know who took meetings, but it would be interesting to talk to them to ask them why they didn't pursue that, and did they find an alternative that worked better for them. So that's on my list of things to do. Since we've mentioned big beer, have you ever been approached by big beer with an offer to purchase you or to work with them in some sort of way? TA: 00:40:25 No. In the 13 years that we've been open no one has put an offer sheet on the table and said, we want to buy you for XYZ dollars or otherwise. We have met with some family offices, venture people, people, you know, my thing is we'll take any meeting just to say hi. Mostly to learn about what people are looking for, what they're doing. But pretty emphatically we've never actually been offered, no one's ever actually offered to purchase us in, in a minority capacity and majority otherwise. So no. JD: 00:41:02 Good. I won't ask you what your response would be, but do you think that maybe partly it's because, I don't want to say you do extreme beers, but you do less run-of-the-mill beers in many cases that might just be something that big beer would not find attractive. TA: 00:41:23 If we live in a fringe world, we're, you know, we're sort of known as a super-premium producer and we have a lot of 6 California’s Alcoholic Beverage Control agency in charge of licensing alcohol production, distribution and sales. Transcribed by Judith Downie 20 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 niches that we feel from barrels and sour. You know, they've, big breweries have a need in sometimes to do that, but they, they, I think they've found those elsewhere and they want scale and they want all kinds of things. You know, San Diego is an interesting model, right. We had Ballast Point sold, you know, Green Flash had sold and we've had a lot of big, bigger companies come through and, and, and have taken investments. And so TA: 00:41:57 I don't know if there was any real need beyond, I think big beer came and found what they needed from San Diego. I'd be surprised if, if there's any big beer-ness left in San Diego. I mean, I say that, and you know, we'll see. But you know, I, I don't, I don't really feel like TA: 00:42:13 That the big beer is kind of be knocking down the doors in San Diego anytime soon. JD: 00:42:16 They got their toe in. TA: 00:42:18 Potentially because of the desaturation and just some of the difficulties that they might experience. ah, it's a, it's a whole, it's a whole run of things and it really has to do with, you know, where can they, where can they scale and where can they find their return on their investment and things like that. JD: 00:42:32 Yeah, no, that's what they're looking at is a bottom line. TA: 00:42:35 It is 100% about how much can they make on what they're buying it. Yeah. JD: 00:42:41 Because your beers are not run of the mill Coors-type beers, not to bash Coors, but just, you know, as an example, where did you get your early inspirations? I mean, you, you said you like the Belgians and you were exposed to a wide variety of European and, and what craft beer was made in the US. But things like oak aging and sour beers, were those things that you were exposed to early on or were those things that you found out later while you were experimenting? TA: 00:43:10 Yeah, it was early. I remember, I remember my first Chimay Red. I remember my first Guinness and I vividly remember the very first Rodenbach I ever had. And I, you know, the Rodenbach I think hit me more than anything else in that really portend, you know, that really does explain why, you know, like, Oh my God, that's okay. I know there's weird beer out there, Transcribed by Judith Downie 21 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 but this is way to the left, right? This thing is way, way downstream from anything I'd had at that point. You know, I was, when on the four years I was in college, I was sampling a lot of beers and then I continued to continue to buy beer. And, and it's just when you get one that's put in front of you and you say, wow, how did they do that? And that was kind of the, the aha that was the light bulb, I think was, was that first Rodenbach. That somebody who's living in a world where that, that's so to the extreme and delicious. But why can't, why can't I, why can't I think about beer like that? And that's, that definitely pushed me in that direction. JD: 00:44:06 Well that's great to have such an open mind. Do you remember who, if anyone else was doing things like barrel aging and sour beers or anything when you started doing it? TA: 00:44:17 Vinnie7 <Cilurzo> and I joke about this a lot cause Vinnie at Russian River and I are pretty good friends and a lot of it comes back to when we first picked up oak barrels and really got into that, you know, late 19, late 1990s, you know, the first batch of cuvée that we were making and they were making beer called Temptation. There was very little of that going on and I knew Belgian had <inaudible. in the market. But out West there weren't a lot of people making sour beer in barrels. And so we had to just kinda kick the can on how to do it. Talk collectively. Again, it got back to, we were not we did not, you know, you know, withhold the secrets. And we talked a lot about the what ifs and things and that I think was a big, big part of the success was just, okay, how are we going to do this in this environment? Because again, you couldn't open a book and read how to do it. Today you can open plenty of books. JD: 00:45:06 Or just find it out there on the web. TA: 00:45:10 I mean, you pick up the phone and call someone, but then back then it isn't, you know, how do you manage your barrel program or what do you, how do you do this? It was, well, I'm going to try, I'm going to try this. Okay. That sounds like that. That seems reasonable to me. Vinnie Cilurzo founded Blind Pig Brewing in Temecula, CA before moving to Northern California to found Russian River Brewing. 7 Transcribed by Judith Downie 22 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 JD: 00:45:22 Oh, so you can't think of anybody specifically locally though? You, I mean, Vinnie, to me, is still local as they were nearby, TA: 00:45:30 For sure, it’s California. JD: 00:45:32 but I'm thinking in San Diego. TA: 00:45:34 You know, I don't know if we, I always say we, being Pizza Port. I don't know if we were the first ones to make intentionally sour beer in San Diego. I don't recall running into it anywhere at that point. But for the sake of clarity, I never say we were the first ones because I truly don't know. There was some oak aging going on the guys at Rock Bottom <Restaurant and Brewery> in La Jolla specifically ‘cause I got barrels from them. AleSmith <Brewing Company>I think was right about that same time, ‘97, ’98-ish where they were getting into having some bourbon barrel kind of things going on. JD: 00:46:06 But that was Skip <Virgilio>8. TA: 00:46:07 Skip doing that. There was not a lot of sour beer in California at that point. So, or even San Diego can that I can recall. JD: 00:46:17 I’m glad sour beer’s around. Okay. You just mentioned cuvée. And I've seen it said that that is your favorite beer. TA: 00:46:26 Perhaps. JD: 00:46:27 Yeah. Perhaps. TA: 00:46:28 It’s the only one that bears my name 9. How's that? JD: 00:46:30 That's true. That's true. On the other hand, is there a beer that you ever made that you didn't care for, but everybody else said, no, we've got to put this on tap. TA: 00:46:43 Ooh, that's a damn good question. JD: 00:46:45 Did they, did it actually sell well? TA: 00:46:48 There is a running joke here at the brewery. We made a beer a few years ago called Spontaneous Cheer. And the Spontaneous 8 9 Skip Virgilio founded AleSmith Brewing and later sold to Peter and Vicky Zien. Cuvée du Tomme. Transcribed by Judith Downie 23 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 Cheer was a peach sour and it was actually spontaneously fermented. So we, we've got some spontaneous fermentation barrels and things that we do from time to time and we have a large library of barrels. We have over a thousand oak barrels full of now and we made this batch of beer and it tasted pretty darn good. That being said, I struggled with it personally because it didn't really manifest our house culture. We have a very strong sour beer sense. Like there's a terroir in our world. You can taste the Lost Abbey beer and it's white grapey and it's stone peach fruit. And you can tell that there's something about the way that we blend in and package. And that beer had none of it, even though it was a peach beer. But that's because all of the cultures came from the spontaneous portion. And so, people were like, you have to release this beer. And I can't in good conscience release it because you could open it in a tasting room in Texas and you'd have no idea it came from us and what's the point of that? So that's probably the one in this environment that had garnered a lot of energy I would say, okay, that's not what I was, didn't hate the beer, just wasn't keen on it. Bearing the name Lost Abbey being sour and didn't, didn't exude us. JD: 00:48:15 And so you have not brewed it again since. TA: 00:48:18 No, we haven’t. Even though we likely could, and people would freak for it, but it doesn't, again, it gets really to the point of, you know, we're really trying to have that identity in a big sea of imitations. I would think that that was probably a one-anddone. I'd be surprised if it came back. JD: 00:48:35 Okay, if I ever see an unopened bottle of it, I'll know that that's truly special. TA: 00:48:39 So we never bottled it. That's the only bottle that I think, I mean it was, it was literally only one oak barrel, so 50 gallons. But I think we only bottled it. I had a friend who had a baby and there was a request, but I, there shouldn't, there shouldn't be any bottles of that out in the world. There are, they probably aren't real. JD: 00:48:55 Yeah. Well, we'll know that they are shams. What was your very first award for brewing? TA: 00:49:04 That's a good question. JD: Transcribed by Judith Downie 00:49:08 You've had so many. 24 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 TA: 00:49:09 I know like, let's see. We had strong ale in 19... Well, okay. The very first award that I know for certain was the gold medal that I participated in at La Cruda. We won a gold medal10 for the Makanudo Porter, but that was not my beer and I was not the recipe generator. So I would say probably a beer that we brewed at Pizza Port and that was part of the Strong Ale Festival in ‘97 or ‘98. And then at that point we started entering the Real Ale Festival in Chicago or some California State Fair stuff. We did not win a GABF11 award until 1999, 2000. JD: 00:49:44 Shame on them. TA: 00:49:46 It took me a little while to figure out where our beers sort of fit in the competitive landscape, JD: 00:49:52 The pantheon of beers. TA: 00:49:53 So once I figured that part out, we got on a roll pretty, quickly. JD: 00:49:57 That does seem to be a little bit of a challenge cause I'm a member of the Society of Barley Engineers when they talk about submitting for homebrew <competitions>. Sometimes there are quite intense discussions about where a particular beer, that somebody’s having everybody sample, what category that fits into. And you do then deal with judges’ taste buds. Which, you know, it's a constantly moving landscape. TA: 00:50:17 I’ve been a GABF judge since ‘99-ish. And that has afforded me an enormous amount of opportunities to watch the process, participate in it, and even potentially piss off brewers and people who maybe didn't, you know, like the way that it went. It's fascinating to watch the competition evolve at a table relative to the dialogue, the strength of the judges, the opinions of the judges. Even just the sheer age of the, the judging has come from, there were only this block of people that used to do it and now it's expanded and now the categories have morphed and they're different. And the, you know, we talk about it a lot because it's, it's interesting to see how difficult, first of all, there's so many more beers, but the sheer, the sheer perspective that people are operating under relative to, I've had these style beers or I've never been think about, okay, I'm 10 11 Awarded at the Great American Beer Festival. Great American Beer Festival. Transcribed by Judith Downie 25 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 supposed to judge a Kölsch-style beer, but I'm a judge and I've never been to Cologne and had the six beers from there that are the, that are the standards. Well, how do you judge that? Like that's, that's a, it's an interesting scenario because you're being asked to read this against what was written, how this is how a standard should taste. Yet. You've never been in situ and had that environmental condition. JD: 00:51:41 Right, with that terroir and all everything else, all those factors that work into it. TA: 00:51:45 100 percent. I do agree with you that there's, one of the things about entering competitively is that there's so many different places beers can fit and sometimes it's really environmentally like time and place. Sometimes the beer exudes more oak and sometimes it doesn’t, and it wants to be in an oak category, but it can't cause it has brett12. We did a sampling a couple months ago back in early July and I think we went through 20 different beers for GABF trying to get down to the five that we wanted to send. And in order to do that we had to kind of pick the beers. We'd, you know, we brought out all the beers that we thought were really well done and then we had to go say, well that would fit here, wouldn't fit here, but it probably fits best here, but we don't want to send that beer there because we already have another one that wants to go there. So, you don't wanna compete against yourself either? JD: 00:52:35 Now are you limited to five beers for competition? TA: 00:52:39 Of late? They've been in the four to five range. Okay. A few years ago, you could send up to eight and prior to that it was kind of unlimited. But when it went from eight to five it got a lot harder. JD: 00:52:48 Yeah. But it just seems like, I mean you can see what thousands of entries that seems like and yeah, TA: 00:52:56 I think there's over 8,000 beers that'll be judged. But we always say this, it's like if, if back when we were going to sending eight beers, I don't know if we make eight world-class beers every fall. Right? So how many are really well done and how many of them are like, you know, that far up the channel. I think we 12 Industry jargon for Brettanomyces, a fungi used to sour beer. Transcribed by Judith Downie 26 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 make eight great beers but are they going to sit at the table and really, really compete. But I think when you have eight versus four, your odds are better. But perhaps being in categories that some, some years are strong, and some years are weak, is, is where it kind of comes from. JD: 00:53:29 Yeah. But you're also trying to be selective. I'm sure there are people that “I'll send as many beers as I can to increase my odds of winning an award.” Because of course the GABF awards still mean a lot. TA: 00:53:41 Yeah. There was a year, I know this to be true, where at least one or two breweries that don't need to be, and they're not from San Diego, sent somewhere between 30 to 50 beers. And didn't win an award. And these are pretty good breweries. So, you know, you're talking about the shotgun approach. You hit the side of the barn. But it was pretty interesting to see that they didn't win. You know, the years of late where we haven't, we haven't managed to win an award. You know, we look up and we talked to the guys and we say, you know, look at the breweries that didn't win. Like, you know, these are, these are still some, you know, solid, solid producers and congratulations to the ones that did. But yeah, there's no guarantee anymore. I mean, winning one is a pretty dang good achievement. JD: 00:54:24 Yeah. Well then in some cases, like just recently, what happens to the beer while is being transported? It could completely knock a perfectly good beer that left here out of any consideration because what happens to it or it doesn't even get there. TA: 00:54:39 Yeah. So we've tried to mitigate that as best we can. Where the consolidation point and we have been for a long time that helps with refrigeration and, you know, just really making sure that the beer is better taken care of, competitive, you know, competitive judging or, you know, competitive brewing. I would say this is far different than it was 10, 15 years ago. JD: 00:55:00 I guess for good and for bad both. But back to your awards, is there any award that you have one that is the most meaningful to you? Not to discount the other awards. TA: 00:55:12 Sure, I think two really come to mind. The, we've been lucky to win a <GABF> Brewery of the Year award four different times. And I'm, I'm personally, I really want to get to five. I want to have that. I want to have that, that last one on the, you know, in Transcribed by Judith Downie 27 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 that, you know, if I, if they gave out rings, I want to have the handful. The last time we won was 2007, so it's been a long time. And we may never get that opportunity again. I think the one that I won last year, which was the Russell Schehrer Award for Innovation and Craft Brewing, that that's you know, that's a hall of fame landscape kind of thing. And it just speaks to the community involvement and the, you know, being, being a participant in this, you know, only 22 people have won it at that point. And I, I, yeah, the legacy award, you know, something like that. I mean, I, I still love, I love the GABF and World Beer <Cup> Awards, a couple of awards cause they're, you know, they're purely blind. They're your peers. They show your team that they're, you know, they're making the right decisions. But the Russell award was probably the one that was singular in the sense that that was, you know, personally with my name on it. Where it's almost every other award that we've had that we've been lucky enough to garner comes with somebody else, you know, participating in doing work in that regard. JD: 00:56:29 Yeah. Okay. Well, very good. So, we're just about at the end of all my questions, from your experience, is there anything in the way of advice or a lesson you've learned or anything else that you think either can't be said enough or you haven't ever had the opportunity to say? TA: 00:56: You know, I think that we were talking yesterday, it's kind of interesting. We were talking about how difficult this business has become and there's a lot of noise and chatter and 50 years from now when someone's looking at this, they'll say, wow it's not as easy as it used to be. And I don't know where the fall line's going to be. We're going to get to 10,000 breweries in this country. I don't doubt that that'll happen. And I don't know where, where the relevancy will be. I don't know what it will look like. I feel pretty strongly that in the time that I've been lucky enough to be in this business, a lot of what's made us successful has come from a very strong sense of this is the beer I want to produce. And nowadays there seems to be a lot of, you have to just do what the consumer is saying they want. TA: 00:57:38 And tons of breweries I think are kind of losing their way, respectful of an identity. And I don't know if the artist in me can, can sort of reconcile that for the long haul. I think there's this sense that if, if that's the way the industry is going, you know, is that what I signed up for? Part of me wants to see the Transcribed by Judith Downie 28 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 consumerism shift and I, I talk about this a lot, but it's kind of like when you throw the boomerang out, it comes back a little slower than it went out and maybe the boomerang is coming back. You know, that there's just too much ubiquity right now. But maybe not. Maybe with 10,000 brewers, you just, there is ubiquity and that's just part of the nature of it. But you know, I think the success that I've had, you know, in this business has been built on beers that, that, that have something that look and tastes like things that I've, you know, imagined and there's been a lot of success for that. But I don't know how you continue to do that when there's 10,000 imitators and people trying to, trying to find the same sort of, you know, sense of their worth. So for me, I think the biggest thing moving forward is just where, where do we all fit in? It's just dense stuff. JD: 00:58:49 Giving everybody a chance to attain their dream. But yeah, you know. TA: 00:58:53 Yeah. I think that we're going to see, I think in the next two years we're going to see a lot of dreams getting crushed because it's getting, it's getting even harder today than it was probably a year ago. But there might be a light at the end of the tunnel in the sense that, you know, there's been a lot of distributor consolidation. There's been a lot of breweries, what they say, you know, rightsizing or trying to figure this all out. But it's a business. It's gonna eat people alive, you know? And, and that's what businesses do, right? There's, there is this, there's, there's a success rate attributed to craft beer that's not as high. I mean, it's higher than most consumer goods, and there will probably be a little bit more reckoning that will come along with it because you just can't, you just can't all swim in the same ocean. It just doesn't work. And so we're going to find some sense of corrective correlations. I mean, we're going to find smaller, you know, people are going to be making less beer for the next few years and if you're actively making more beer, you're one of the very few people that's, that's winning in that, in that space. JD: 00:59:51 It does seem like we had a real bump up in numbers of breweries that opened in 2016-2017 which is being that this is 2019. We're looking at entering the fourth and fifth year of leases for a lot of the breweries. And I think that might be a time where people are going to have to sit down and assess. TA: 01:00:11 Sure. I mean, if you've got a five-year lease and you're about to come into that fourth year, you're in the fourth year and you're now triggering the, am I going to renew? Right. I haven't, I 29 2024-01-04 Transcribed by Judith Downie �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 haven't been taking a paycheck or I've been taking very little. And then at some point you're like, are we, is this a real thing? You know, I don't, I don't know. You know, people, people certainly I think come into it, you know, really, you know, eager and excited about it. And then little by little you're, you're grinding and there's a lot of grinding going on right now, which is okay, but you know, there's, but grinding isn't fun. JD: 01:00:46 No. And when people come into it with a passion, which is a term you used earlier, passion cannot sustain you forever, unfortunately. I mean, it's what maybe gets you up the next morning, but at some point it's not paying the bills and you have managed to raise a family, you know, other people, you know, that they've got investors that may or may not understand the actual brewing industry and cause and effect and impacts. And, you know, yeah, it's going to be real interesting to see what happens. TA: 01:01:18 Yeah. I've been pretty lucky. My partnership here hasn't had an unrealistic expectation of financial return. And, and you know, so, you know, we, we opened our doors, we borrowed some money, we repaid the money, and then we've basically reinvested all of that money into the company when we needed to. So we are not sitting here saying okay, you're, you know, you were relying on us for a dividend. And you know, that doesn't, it doesn't work like that. But the, the business of beer is very difficult. And you know, you, you talked about that word passion. We, when we opened our doors, I published this list of the 10 commandments of our brewery and one of the 10 commandments was that you, you know, passion isn't something you can buy at the corner store. And I meant that with a sense of like, if you come into this, you know, you can't just throw that term around. TA: 01:02:06 Like you've got to live it and breathe it. And I think that that kind of what you were speaking to earlier is, is, has always been like, I think there's a lot of people that will say, I am very passionate about what I do. And I have been, and that's, you know, over the 20 plus years I've been doing this. That's that, that is a word that I would associate with, with getting out of bed every day. And it's been very, it's been very conducive to being successful. That being said, you don't have to be overly passionate, but you have to be, you still have to be passionate about getting out of bed every day, even when you're struggling, even when you're not killing it. And I can guarantee you right now, there's a lot of people when they're getting out of bed who used to kill it and were, you know, who thought Transcribed by Judith Downie 30 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 they were going to kill it and are saying to themselves, man, this is, this is real. Like, and you know, how do you, how do you put your game face on and, and, and really keep, keep grinding and to tackle the, you know, look, we want to get to the other side. JD: 01:02:54 Yeah. Yeah. And you don't want to be a long face when your consumers come in because they're going to say, Hey, I came in here for a beer and a good time. TA: 01:03:02 I am here. I am here for a good time. Right. Any happy people? JD: 01:03:06 Oh dear. Oh dear. Something that just came to me, which is not on the list of questions, but we are sitting in the space that Stone originated at. And you had just mentioned that you've expanded. Talk a little bit about the physical plant. What was it like when you moved in as Lost Abbey? What did you have to do to it and how many times have you expanded? TA: 01:03:34 All right. So, when we took over in January of 2006 and Stone moved out to the facility in Escondido, they controlled at that point about 30,000 square feet of I think the building is 85,000 square feet. So, they had about a third of it. And when they moved out, we collapsed the entire building back down to their original suite, suite 104, and that suite is 7,500 square feet. So, we started with a 30-barrel brewhouse in 19, I'm sorry, in 2006. And we had 30, 7,500 square feet, including the tasting room, cold box, and our barrel warehouse. In 2009, I believe we moved across the parking lot and took over another 10,000 square feet and moved the cold box, all the barrels and our distribution. So, for awhile we had that space. We were up to about 17,000 square feet. 2012 or so we took over this suite that we're sitting in here, which was another 7,500 square feet. TA: 01:04:35 So that allowed us to build our packaging hall, this office, the lab, things like that. We rolled for the next few years, for the next five years. We had that 27,000 square feet of space. And then we added we added a second, third, fourth warehouse across the parking lot. And that took us to almost 40,000 square feet. And then last January we moved out of that distribution warehouse into another building here, which is now connected from the front of the street to the back. Behind us. We control 40,000 square feet under one roof line for the first time. And we moved out of the facility across the parking lot, all of our barrels and everything. So we now are under one building, one roof line. We can't drive from the packaging hall to the rest of the building. But every other building we can drive forklifts through. Transcribed by Judith Downie 31 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 TA: 01:05:30 And that never happened. Two years ago, we owned four <forklifts> ‘cause we had four different buildings. JD: 1:05:37 Now does Port distribute all the beers here in San Marcos? TA: 1:05:43 Everything comes out of this facility. We are doing a batch or two a year out of the Pizza Port facility when we need to, but we don't, it's this, this facility can handle a lot more beer than we're currently making. So most, most everything that has the word Port Brewing, Lost Abbey, or Hop Concept on it has come out of San Marcos. It's only been this year that we've brewed two or three batches of beer down the street at Pizza Port. And most of that was for efficiency to do big runs of things that we could, we did a giant Hop Freshener, Hop Concept release at Costco and needed to have beer all at the same time. JD: 01:06:15 So are you, in Costcos outside of California as well? TA: 01:06:20 No, and that has been something we haven't really tackled or looked at. JD: 01:06:23 Like it would be just an overwhelming amount of production yet I think... TA: 01:06:28 Costco's pretty, pretty keen on a lot of local these days, at least for beer. So, I don't know how relevant we would, you know, we might be able to get into some in Arizona, maybe in Washington and Northern California, but you know, there's a ton of breweries in each of those locations. Tapping the same buyer on the shoulder saying, can I get, can I get in here? And, and the buyers probably got enough options that they don't even need something from out of here. And frankly, the cost associated with getting it to them would almost make it prohibitive in terms of trying to put it on the shelf at their right price point. JD: 01:06:59 Yeah. Have you ever had to turn down any kind of requests because you just knew that trying to fill that big an order was going to just break you? TA: 01:07:09 No, we've, we've been pretty lucky in the sense that when we do get we just came off of couple of pretty good-sized Costco orders and they were about 40 pallets worth of beer. But the brewery can handle that without being too burdened in the sense. I mean, it's certainly a lot of attention on one thing but we're not overly stretched at our capacity right now. So, when those things pop up, we certainly snap at them and want, you Transcribed by Judith Downie 32 2024-01-04 �TOMME ARTHUR TRANSCRIPT, INTERVIEW 2019-08-08 know we wanna make sure we execute on it. If we were making a lot more beer, we probably would have, we would struggle with that a little more. But when you get an order for 40 pallets of beer, you figure it out, you know, you really do. JD: 01:07:49 When we walked back here, we passed one of your employees building a bike. What other sorts of things do you do with the employees or for the employees to support maybe their selfeducation, other interests that they have, things like that. TA: 01:08:05 We've definitely put it on our radar this year. We've lost a lot of employees in the last two years. I think we've turned over 20 employees and we only have about 50 total. So, we've put an emphasis on that level of communication, you know, what can we do to assist you in this endeavor? It's not something that we've programmed in the past or been terribly good at. That being said, we haven't, we have really seen that there are some simple opportunities to do things like that and Tim's running his own small bike shop and it's just a, you know, it's a pocket, pocketed space here at the brewery. You know, we've announced that if there's other brewer or other brewery employees from the tasting room all the way up that have an idea, we would love to hear about it. We don't make a dime on it. There's no, there's no real emphasis towards, you know, trying to co-partner on things. TA: 01:08:56 It's just we, we want to, we want to foster the opportunities if it makes sense. And Tim's the pilot sort of program right now with the bike, the little bike shop that he's running and it gets interesting, I hope. I hope it sparks other employees to say, okay, cool, I've wanted to do this, that or the other and it looks like I could and come to us and say, ‘Oh, could you carve out this space again?’ We are, we are under more, more efficient space right now and we do have a little bit of room. So, I hope that, I hope somebody else says, okay, I want to do this and it, and it fits the needs and the use and isn't a big deal. It'd be great because it means that we can, we can continue to lift what they want to be a part of and retain them at some time. JD: 01:09:35 Yeah. Very good. It was fun. Oh, okay. Well, I think that pretty much has run through my list plus of questions for you about your career, your history, and what's going on with Lost Abbey/Port Brewing. And I want to thank you for that. And I'm going to go ahead and turn this off. Transcribed by Judith Downie 33 2024-01-04 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Transcripts Description An account of the resource Written oral histories and transcripts are available for researchers that prefer the written word, or to see the whole interview in a document. Transcripts of <a href="https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/collections/show/5">audio and video files</a> are also available as part of those video files. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Arthur, Tomme. Interview transcript. August 8th, 2019. Description An account of the resource Tomme Arthur has been involved in several San Diego breweries, most notably as founder and managing owner of Lost Abbey Brewing located in San Marcos, CA. His first professional brewing position was at the short-lived Cervecería La Cruda in San Diego, California. Arthur moved to Pizza Port Brewing in Solana Beach, California as an assistant brewer. After becoming Director of Brewing Operations for the increasing number of locations, he led the chain in garnering numerous beer awards. Arthur opened Lost Abbey Brewing in 2006 to focus on his interest in Belgian-style beers. In late 2023, Arthur separated Lost Abbey from Port Brewing operations in a ‘right-sizing’ plan in response to beer industry trends. Port Brewing retained the Hop Concept, Tiny Bubbles, and Kharisma brands in their portfolio and took over the San Marcos production space and closed the tasting room. Lost Abbey entered an alternating proprietorship agreement with Mother Earth Brewing to share their production space in nearby Vista, CA. In his 2019 interview, Arthur discusses his introduction to craft beer and home brewing; entry into the profession and work at various breweries beginning in the 1990s; founding Lost Abbey Brewing and other brewery ventures; mentoring individuals in the industry; and awards. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tomme Arthur Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Judith Downie Ernest Cisneros Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2019-08-08 Subject The topic of the resource Brewers -- California -- San Diego County Brewing industry -- California -- History Lost Abbey Brewing (San Marcos, Calif.) Microbreweries -- California -- San Diego County Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant San Marcos (Calif.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In copyright</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. California State University San Marcos Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context ArthurTomme_DownieJudith_2019-08-08_transcript Brewchive(r) Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Description An account of the resource Video and audio oral histories can be viewed here. Histories are listed alphabetically by last name. Individual histories are indexed and transcribed and can be searched. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <p>Rights to oral histories vary depending on the history. The library owns the copyright to some histories, and has license to reproduce for nonprofit purposes for others. Please contact CSUSM University Library Special Collections at <a href="mailto:%20archives@csusm.edu">archives@csusm.edu</a> with any questions about use.</p> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Jennifer Ho Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed Tony Ho Tran OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=HoTranTony_HoJennifer_2023-04-22.xml Interview Keyword This filed adds keywords to the Omeka Oral History item type. Keywords are included in the OHMS XML, this field in Omeka will allow for full data migration between OHMS XML and the Omeka Record. This field does not impact the OHMS / Omeka integration and is optional if you do not need to map the "keywords" field in the OHMS XML to the corresponding Omeka record. Vietnam War OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 6.0 Ho Tran, Tony. Interview April 22nd, 2023. SC027-106 00:00:00 SC027 California State University San Marcos University Library oral history collection CSUSM This oral history was made possible with generous funding from the CSUSM Faculty Center's Professional Development Grant. csusm Vietnam War immigrants AmerAsians community identity Tony Ho Tran Jennifer Ho moving image HoTranTony_HoJennifer_2023-04-22.mp4 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/e5132da1d047761a42e4f5b5bd9faf0a.mp4 Other video English 0 Introduction Oral history interview of Tony Ho Tran, April 22, 2023, by Jennifer Ho. 0 19 Childhood and family Tony talks about his childhood in Sioux City, Iowa. He talks about his family’s restaurant, their experiences running it together and his reflections growing up as a restaurant kid. Tony also discusses the communities he grew up around. Pittsburgh ; Tyson ; John Morrell ; The Cow ; family business ; immigrant businesses 0 836 Names Tony shares the stories behind his American name, his Vietnamese name and his family name, as well as reflections on immigrant children with dual identities. Catholic school ; Pittsburgh ; Mo Ngoc Tran 0 1516 Escaping from Vietnam and losing Nhung Tony says that his parents had wanted a daughter, and why that may have been due to the loss of his father’s sister, Nhung, as they fled Vietnam. He goes on to share his parents’ immigration stories. Fall of Saigon ; Malaysia ; Pulau Bidong ; Pittsburgh ; Phillippines ; China ; South Vietnamese Army ; American imperialists ; Saigon ; Da Nang ; bar girl ; AmerAsians ; Huynh Thi Sam 0 2909 Family relationships Tony talks about the relationships between himself, his mother and his grandmother, and between his cousins and their parents, as well as the prevalence of abuse within Asian families. mother-daughter relationships ; mixed-race children ; abuse ; ADD 0 3488 Who gets to say they are Vietnamese American? Tony reflects on the question: who gets to call themselves Vietnamese American? He also talks about his relationship with non-Vietnamese Americans and the ways he is embracing into his Vietnamese identity. Vietnamese identity ; Vietnamese language ; American identity ; Paris by Night ; Little Village, Chicago ; Pilsen, Chicago ; Hispanic ; Spanish ; Sioux City ; Asian jokes ; Randy Kim ; Vietnamese Student Association ; Pi Alpha Phi ; Black community ; Vietnamese language club 0 4438 Searching for grandpa Tony introduces the story of the search for his American grandfather. He talks about the search in detail and speculates on how his mother felt about this journey and its results. American soldier ; Saigon ; North Vietnamese Army ; Viet Cong ; Reeducation camps ; Finding Your Roots ; Henry Louis Gates ; Jr. ; 23andMe ; AncestryDNA ; genetic testing ; Saigon to Sioux City ; Keith Brown ; Clifton Brown ; FamilyTree DNA ; Colorado Springs ; Leggett, Texas ; Houston 0 6172 Identity and race relations Tony reflects on his newfound identity, and then on race relations in the community and within his family. Blackness ; Asian American ; Hispanic ; George Floyd ; immigrants ; solidarity 0 6632 Sharing our stories in the community and as a profession Tony reflects on secrecy and silence within the Vietnamese community, and the importance of storytelling and sharing. He then talks about his childhood dream of being a writer, and how he got started as an adult. He shares his career pathway and the memoir he is currently writing. Vietnamese community ; stories ; Harry Potter ; English major ; Patricia Sitzmann ; University of Iowa ; River North, Chicago ; Ramit Sethi ; Huffington Post ; Futurism.com ; Neel Patel ; The Daily Beast ; Diacritics ; Eric Nguyen ; Viet Thanh Nguyen ; Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network ; Christopher Schilling 0 7944 Uncle Clifton Tony talks about the day he met his Uncle Clifton and how he and his mother felt about the experience. He also talks about his attempts to reach out to other family members, and what he has learned about his grandfather. Denver ; Colorado Springs ; Clifton Brown ; Keith Brown ; sisters 0 8476 Visiting Vietnam Tony talks about wanting to visit Vietnam again with his family. The interview is briefly interrupted by a special visitor. Tony mentions his close relationship with his brother. Randy Kim ; Nghi Ho ; Richard Ho ; Sioux City ; Denver 0 Oral history Tony Ho Tran is a Vietnamese American writer in Chicago. In this interview, he talks about his family's immigration story, his childhood as a restaurant kid, and his mother's mixed-race heritage and his search for her father. He also speaks on his search for identity and embracing his Vietnamese heritage as an adult.&#13 ; NOTE TRANSCRIPTION BEGIN 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:00.000  00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:16.000 So, today is April 22nd, 2023. My name is Jennifer Hồ (Jennifer Ho), and I’m interviewing Tony Hồ Trần (Tony Ho Tran) for the Children of Refugees, the Vietnamese American Oral History Project. Thanks for being with me here today, Tony. How are you? 00:00:16.000 --> 00:00:19.000 I’m doing great! Thank you so much for having me. This is—I’m excited. 00:00:19.000 --> 00:00:26.000 Cool! All right. Okay. So, I just wanted to start from the beginning, the beginning of your life. Tell me when and where were you born. 00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:55.000 I was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1992, St. Francis Hospital. It’s a hospital that is no longer there. I had the opportunity to visit it years ago. It’s just a parking lot now. But, yeah. That’s where both my parents met each other and where they moved to after they left Vietnam. And yeah. That’s where I spent the first year of my life before moving to Sioux City, Iowa, where my family established themselves and where I grew up. 00:00:55.000 --> 00:01:00.000 Okay. Sioux City, Iowa. Why did your parents move to Sioux City? 00:01:00.000 --> 00:02:22.000 From what I understand, they moved out there because they had heard that there were meat packing jobs out there. Like Sioux City’s a big meat packing town with Tyson plants and the John Morrell plants. And there was a big like Vietnamese refugee community there—that was like established back in the ‘80s and the early ‘90s. And also, you know, as a consequence, also like Hispanic families as well. And so, I believe one of my uncles moved out there first before saying like “Okay, there’s some jobs here. We can move out here and have steady work.” And so, they moved to Sioux City where we all lived and shared the same trailer for, I believe, like the first two or three years of my life until my father got into his mind that they should open up their own business and, you know, stop working for the man, so to speak, and, you know, start generating their own income that way. So, he decided to open up a Chinese and Vietnamese restaurant in Sioux City, and yeah, it was a place called The Cow. They bought a space like this old, this hundred-year-old building out on West 7th and Omaha Street in Sioux City, Iowa. And yeah. That was the first home I can remember like if I really think about it. Like we grew up in the apartments that they had like right above the restaurant. (holds up his right hand to indicate above something) And yeah. Me and my cousins and my brother and I were all restaurant kids. 00:02:22.000 --> 00:02:27.000 Oh my gosh. That’s really cool! How old were you when the restaurant was opened? 00:02:27.000 --> 00:03:18.000 I think I was just about two or three. I don’t remember it opening, of course. But my earliest memories are of that restaurant. Like I remember like my brother and I, would al—my cousins would always play like on this wooden staircase that would lead up to our apartments all the time. We would fall off of it constantly (laughs) and like I remember having to bus tables like I wasn’t even as tall as this chair (tapping the chair he’s sitting on) like after running around. Helping fill up peoples’ waters and help take orders and what not. Occasionally bring food out. But yeah. It was a nice little quintessential sort of vision of like what the American dream is or that’s at least what I told myself growing up (laughs). It was probably like immigrants just really coming together as a family and just struggling together, working together, and just trying to make something for themselves. In the middle of the Midwest. 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:19.000 Yeah. 00:03:19.000 --> 00:03:20.000 Yeah. 00:03:20.000 --> 00:03:26.000 So, there was a Vietnamese community out there for you, even after you left, even after your parents left the meat packing business then. 00:03:26.000 --> 00:03:55.000 Mm-hmm. There was a like—Like I said, like you know with these big companies like Tyson or somebody, you know, they’re not really—they don’t really care. Like they just need people who could come in and work. And so, it’s low barrier and entry for someone who, you know, is fresh off the boat from Vietnam who just wants to make a steady paycheck for themselves and their family. So, yeah. 00:03:55.000 --> 00:03:56.000 Thank you for sharing that story. 00:03:56.000 --> 00:03:57.000 Oh, of course. 00:03:57.000 --> 00:03:59.000 How long was the restaurant open? 00:03:59.000 --> 00:05:05.000 The restaurant was open up until, gosh, I should know this. Well, it’s still open. But my parents and my aunt and uncles, they sold the restaurant back in 2019, I believe. Yeah, that’s right. Right before the pandemic happened weirdly enough. It was like one of those weird coincidences. But they were going to sell this restaurant to a woman who is now running it now and refurbished and revamped the whole place, which is strange because like when I went back to go visit it recently, it looks completely different. Like some of the old charm of it where it’s just like honestly like kind of dirty. Like I remember the floor used to have carpets for years and which is like what restaurant has carpets and carpeting like in there? Like and you know like the walls were dirty. It had like really old like ‘90s decorations and like the fixtures weren’t great and everything. But this woman came in and cleaned house. It looks nice but like it doesn’t look like the home I grew up in. You know what I mean? The restaurant which sort of like raised me and my brothers and my cousins. 00:05:05.000 --> 00:05:09.000 How did that feel for you, seeing that it was new and different? 00:05:09.000 --> 00:07:09.000 Oh, it was a trip. I mean like that might—I think my family really had a complex relationship with that restaurant, to say the least. You know, like especially like, you know, things are stressful enough like coming to this country, I can imagine, and trying to raise a family and trying to work with your family as well, you know. So, it was like my dad and his brothers. They were really kind of the owners of this restaurant. And you know, inevitably, you know, under the best of circumstances you’re still going to have issues, you know. When you’re family, like I don’t know, I feel like that created an environment where they just like butted heads a lot more. And so, I mean, like I can tell you, and my cousins could tell you, too, and so could my brother, about like just hearing fights like going on all the time like in the back of the house. And just like knowing that there was always sort of simmering tensions between the brothers because of this, just this restaurant that they had built together. That, you know, ironically enough had given us our entire lives. Like we were able to build a nest egg because of it. Like we were able to move out of the apartments and into like really nice houses because of it, you know. Like my cousins had a house with a pool. That was a big deal. I remember when they bought that. I was so jealous. But like it was a marker that they had—that we were kind of doing the right thing. You know, the right thing being like really working hard and trying to make something of yourself, you know. You know, and to think like a decade before, two decades before, you know, my uncles, my aunts, my mom, they were fighting for their lives, you know? In this war-torn country like not knowing if they were going to have a future. And so like, you know, that’s just one of the—that’s all I’ll say, you know, that tension, the fights that they had. It was just like it was a trade off from the alternative which was, you know, being in a country that they simply could not be in anymore. At least that’s what they tell me. Yeah. 00:07:09.000 --> 00:07:13.000 Yeah. Great. Okay. 00:07:13.000 --> 00:07:14.000 I’m sorry if I’m rambling. 00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:33.000 No! Don’t be sorry. Please don’t. (laughs) I just have to—I’m just marinating on what you said. Thinking about the next step. Thank you for sharing that. So, you said there were tensions between your dad and his brothers. Did you have any cousins? 00:07:33.000 --> 00:09:26.000 Oh yeah. I have—I grew up—I have cousins in Sioux City and I also have cousins in Texas. Chú Oh yeah. I have—I grew up—I have cousins in Sioux City and I also have cousins in Texas. Chú Vượng (Chu Vuong, Uncle Vuong) is one of my uncles. He lived in Texas. He didn’t—I guess he didn’t—I never asked why but I guess he didn’t want to go in on the scheme to like move out to the Midwest and work in meat packing and then open up this restaurant. But they built a nice life for themselves in Dallas. And I have three cousins there. But the cousins I grew up with in the restaurant there were, yeah, there were three of them. There’s Khanh (Khanh) who is the oldest. There’s Việt (Viet), middle child. And there is Thị, Em Thị (Em Thi, younger sister/cousin Thi). She was the youngest. She was kind of like my sister growing up. Like we were like the closest in age. So, yeah. It was nice. Like we all grew up in that restaurant together for years and it’s weird thinking about it. Because like I remember going to school and just like being so distinctly aware of how different our living situation was from like the rest of the kids, whose parents were like, you know, they’re like lawyers, accountants, like normal stuff. I don’t think there was a single person who worked in the service industry, let alone owning a restaurant. And so, you know, hearing them talk about their family and what they did like during the day. It’s like “Oh, you know, we had a barbeque in our back yards.” Or “We did this and that.” Or I—And if they ever told me like “Oh, yeah. We went to go over to grandpa and grandma’s house” or “Went to go play with my cousins.” It was always to a different house. But like to me it’s like now like the family unit was like one thing. Like we all helped raise each other. We all like interfaced and interacted constantly. There was rarely any private space and so yeah. I remember like being in kindergarten and just being like “Oh yeah. My family is like way different, isn’t it?” and not having realized it necessarily until that moment. Yeah. 00:09:26.000 --> 00:09:32.000 Yeah. Okay. What would you and your cousins like do for fun together? Or were you just always at the restaurant? 00:09:32.000 --> 00:12:04.000 Uh, I mean we were at the restaurant but like, you know, we’re kids. Kids are always going to try to like find ways to have fun. So, we would do that. We would play pretend a lot. We would always go to each other’s houses. My cousins, you know, since they had a bigger family, they were like they were making more money. So, they always had like more toys and like video games. I would always like always beg my mom to go over there. Because like, you know, Anh Việt (Anh Viet, older brother Viet) would have like a huge tub of Legos that I didn’t have. (laughs) And so I had to go over there and play with them. Or he would have—he had a Super Nintendo before me, and a PS1, that kind of thing. And it was fun. You know, kids, they try—they make their own fun regardless, you know, of where they are, you know. You really—you see that anywhere. And, you know, I think you can especially see it if you go to like an immigrant-owned business, like a service business. Like you go to any of these restaurants here in Argyle (motions behind him with his left thumb) inevitably you’re going to see a restaurant kid. You’re going to see a kid like on his iPad or his laptop or a book, drawing like in a corner. It’s a table that’s like their table, that kind of thing. You hear kids screaming in the background. And like—Or you also see like a Hispanic restaurant. Like my barber, he’s a Hispanic man who immigrated here from Guatemala and his family lives at that barber shop, pretty much. Like after school, all his kids are there. They’re running around. They’re screaming. And to me, I mean, like that’s a marker of a good business who’s like they’re putting in everything they can for you. (laughs) Because they need your business. But to me it’s the marker of a family, like getting by, doing the best they can, trying to make something of themselves in this country. And I think that’s beautiful. You know? Like I’m always really happy whenever I go into a Vietnamese restaurant. I see a kid there. I’m like, “Ah, I’ve been there, man. Like I know how it is.” And, you know, they might not like it but, you know, there’s a lot in that not to like. But like, you know, one day they’ll come back to look and appreciate, you know, having something like that. Having the ability to grow up with your parents so close to you all the time, you know. That’s not necessarily a luxury that, you know, even, you know, kids with like parents with normal jobs have, you know. Their parents are away like most of the time. But no. Not with me and my cousins. Like we were always there with our family. But yeah. That’s all to say that kids find their own fun. (laughs) No matter where you are, you just turn whatever into a playground. 00:12:04.000 --> 00:12:07.000 Do you still talk to these cousins? 00:12:07.000 --> 00:12:25.000 Oh yeah! Not like regularly but like we interact as much as we can with like social media. If I’m ever in their city, like I’ll be sure to hit them up. If they’re ever in Chicago, I mean, I hope they know they can always like give me the head’s up and we can meet up for coffee or drinks or something. But yeah. I love my cousins like dearly. Yeah. 00:12:25.000 --> 00:12:30.000 Yeah. That’s great. That’s really great that you have that shared experience together. That’s very special. 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:31.000 Of course, yeah. 00:12:31.000 --> 00:12:41.000 Yeah. That’s awesome. So, you mentioned that the other kids had families where their parents, you know, were lawyers or whatever, normal—normal office jobs— 00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:43.000 Quote, unquote, “normal” kids. 00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:51.000 Yeah. So, were these other Vietnamese kids that you’re referring to? Or like white kids? Or like what was— 00:12:51.000 --> 00:13:56.000 Oh sure, yeah! I mean, Sioux City, Iowa is like primarily white. The school that I went to growing up was a Catholic school. And I was in Catholic school pretty much all my life until university. Not pretty much, that was just all my life until university. And so, it being a Catholic school meant it was also a private school. So, it was like a lot of white kids. I remember we had maybe two Black kids and one other Vietnamese kid in my grade. But he didn’t—I didn’t like have him my class until like I think it was in maybe middle school. It was up until then. But yeah. Mostly white kids which I think added to the idea that I was like “Oh, my family is different.” Not only like is our living situation different but like racially I am a different sort of kid. Like I don’t look the same as everyone else. My name is considerably funnier to them like than some of theirs were. Yeah. Mostly white kids. 00:13:56.000 --> 00:14:01.000 Okay. You mentioned your last name. Is this your dad and mom’s last name? Like hyphenated? 00:14:01.000 --> 00:18:02.000 Yeah! So, I grew up—When I was born, I didn’t have a name. I don’t think my parents had decided what my name was (laughs) and they just had me and I’m not sure if my mom even knew my gender. They really wanted a girl. (laughs) When I came out a boy, it was funny, because they had a—my mom had sewn together a bunch of girls clothes and they had bought a bunch of girls clothes. So, I remember having like a pink hat and like they—my mom showed me all this later—of course I don’t remember it but she showed me later. It was like this little pink outfit for me and everything. And yeah. When I was born, I didn’t have a name or anything. So, they called me baby boy Ho, which is my mom’s last name, on the birth certificate. And yeah. It wasn’t until my mom had talked to a priest that had helped her and my grandmother establish themselves in Pittsburgh, because apparently the Catholic church was really helpful for them in sort of establishing Vietnamese refugees within Pittsburgh there. I’m not entirely sure what it is. I’ve been meaning to look it up for years like just so I can maybe go back and thank these people. You know, God willing, they’re alive. And—But she went to this priest, and she essentially just asked him like “Hey, can you come up with like a list of like American boy names for my boy?” (laughs) And—Because they, my mom and dad had decided on a boy name for me in Vietnamese which was Đông (Dong) which ended up being my name. It means winter in Vietnamese. It also means money. (Note: the Vietnamese word for money (đồng) is actually different than winter (đông).) I’m not sure which one my mom wanted more for me (laughs). But for the American name, they—this guy—this priest came up with a list of names and my mom chose the shortest one that seemed to be the easiest to pronounce as well, which is Tony. And so, not Anthony, just Tony. And so, they went back to the hospital, and they were like this is the boy’s name. It’s going to be Tony. And so, they had my birth certificate updated and everything to just Tony Ho. And yeah. I took my mom’s name for years. I believe it was because my parents weren’t officially married for, yet, for years, for like years and years. So, I had just kept my mom’s name up until sixth or seventh grade until I got to the point where I think my dad had finally—he was just like “No. We’ll get married, and we’ll just make this legit. Like it doesn’t make any sense that we’re, you know, this is happening.” And so, yeah. They—After that whole process happened, they ended up—I remember I had to go to court and everything. (laughs) Like we had to go to like a courthouse to get my name legally changed. So, officially the U.S. government recognizes me as Tony Tran. But I always write Tony Ho Tran. Like I don’t know. Like it’s for me I grew up Tony Ho, as Tony Ho for like so much of my life. That’s what I know myself as. Like and, you know, I’ll write Tony Tran on checks and everything and on the back of my credit card and any official government document. But I’m Tony Ho Tran. Like I need both those names. Like that’s—my mom is as much a part of my identity and forming that as much as my father is. Like I don’t think it makes any sense that like why I would drop her name at all, especially considering like the struggles that she went through to like raise me and also like my grandma went through to come to this country and everything. It’s kind of a disservice, I think, and kind of an insult if I just dropped that. But yeah. That is why my name is Tony Ho Tran. That’s why I always sign it that way if it’s not an official government document. That’s everything on social media, it’sTony Ho Tran. It’s my byline whenever I publish something in my job. And yeah. That’s kind of the origin of that. 00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:04.000 Okay. Thank you for explaining that and sharing. 00:18:04.000 --> 00:18:06.000 Of course. 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:11.000 Was it important to your parents that you legally change your name? 00:18:11.000 --> 00:19:20.000 Yeah. I think it was very important to them. I think it was—I’m not sure why. I think they wanted it to be cleaner (chuckles) essentially. They wanted it all to just look nicer in government documents and just to have a record straight. And I think, you know, also part of it like they recognize that like we’re in America now. In America, we take the guy’s name, someone can tell you take the husband’s name when someone marries. And, you know, everyone’s—the father’s name has to be there. It has to be clean. So, and it did help clear up a lot of confusion growing up because I remember, you know, I would have kids over and they would greet both my parents and they knew me as Tony Ho. So, they would go up to my dad and they’d be like “Hello, Mr. Ho.” And I was like that’s weird. I’d be like “He’s not Mr. Ho. He’s Mr. Tran. Like that’s not his name. You can call my mom Mrs. Ho. That’s totally fine.” But yeah. It did—It mainly made things a lot easier just to, you know— We don’t have to get over that like weird conversation where it’s like “No, my—” you know “His name is Tran. I’m Ho. My mom’s Ho.” We don’t have to deal with any of that. But yeah. It—That’s all to say that it was important for my parents that I change my name. 00:19:20.000 --> 00:19:22.000 Okay. And did your mom change her name as well? 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:26.000 Yes. I believe she’s Mô Ngọc Trần (Mo Ngoc Tran), now. Yeah. 00:19:26.000 --> 00:19:38.000 Okay. Okay. Hhmmm. You mentioned your Vietnamese name is Dong. Is that—This is a complicated question. 00:19:38.000 --> 00:19:39.000 No. (shakes his head) 00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:43.000 But how connected do you feel to that name? And who calls you—who addresses you by that name? 00:19:43.000 --> 00:22:17.000 That’s a great question. I love that question. Because like, you know, I feel like with immigrant kids who grow up essentially with two names, sometimes I think it’s kind of funny. But, you know, there’s good reasons behind it, you know. Like you want your kid to grow up essentially like normalized, like just like every other kid. You don’t want them to like have to struggle like with explaining their names to people and I understand that. But that’s all to say when I think about my name, you know, it’s always been family who calls me that. It’s always been Vietnamese people who call me that. No one else calls me Dong, except for mom, you know, Mẹ (Me, Mom), Bố (Bo, Dad), or Chú Vượng (Chu Vuong, Uncle Vuong) or Bác Chính (Bac Chinh, Uncle Chinh), you know, Chú Tuấn (Chu Tuan, Uncle Tuan). They’ll call me Dong. Or my brother will call me Dong sometimes. Or my cousins will call me Dong. When I hear that name, it’s like a hug, you know. It’s just like, oooh, I’m home. (chuckles) I like hearing it. I wouldn’t mind it at all. That’s all to say that I wouldn’t mind it, you know, if you, Jennifer, called me Dong. Like I’d be like “Ooooh, that’s kind of nice, actually.” Or like if my, you know, my partner she called me Dong, that’d be cool too. Like I’d love that. But yeah. I feel very connected to that name. Like I wish I had the gumption to use it more. I wish I had used it more when I was young and just sort of like kept that part of my identity instead. But it's weird, you know. Like I also feel very connected to Tony. Like people—everyone knows me as Tony. Like I think it’s silly that my name is just Tony and not Anthony. Like I love that. It’s just like, what a weird thing. Like I’m officially like Tony, like a nickname. Like I think that’s silly. (chuckles) And—But, you know, I love it and, you know, it has—it’s a story, you know. Like people’s names are stories. And I’m lucky enough to have like all these weird combinations of my name. Am I Tony Ho? Am I Tony Tran? Tony Ho Tran? Am I Dong Ho? Dong Tran? Dong “Trần”? You know, like it’s weird and it’s like I’ve been thinking about this. Because I’ve been trying to write more about like my background and where I came up from. And in a weird way, it really kind of illustrates beautifully like this idea of growing up an immigrant child, a second-generation immigrant child in like this country that like tries to put you into these boxes whether or not you’re Vietnamese, whether or not you’re American. And being second-generation—Are you second-generation? Or are you first? 00:22:17.000 --> 00:22:18.000 I was born here. 00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:19.000 You were born here. 00:22:19.000 --> 00:22:20.000 So, depending on the definition. 00:22:20.000 --> 00:22:22.000 Yeah. Yeah. It’s the depending on—I consider that a second-generation. 00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:23.000 I do too! 00:22:23.000 --> 00:24:58.000 Yeah, yeah. But, you know, like I also understand if it’s first-generation. I was always confused about the terminology as well. But like so you understand what it’s like, you know. Essentially, growing up, like not knowing like what identity you immediately fit into because you don’t immediately fit into any identity. And when we think about our names, that is your core—that is the first thing you tell people about you. Like “Hi. My name is Tony.” Or “Hi. My name is Jennifer.” “Hi. My name is Randy.” That’s a person’s immediate connection to you. That name will follow you until you die. That thing will be etched in your gravestone. It will be inked into an obituary about you. Historians years from now will know you by that name, by that identity. And the idea that immigrant, second-generation immigrant kids often have these dual names like these like all sorts of different names that they go by, I think, you know, it illustrates very beautifully sort of like that tension between—with us, like that sort of tension between us and the world trying to pull our identities into separate places, trying to fit them into these little boxes that they don’t fit into. But yeah. That’s kind of like my rant about like immigrant children names like. And, you know, in high school I talked to my cousin about this because Em Thi like because Thi went by Stephanie for most of her life growing up, up until she got out of high school, and she had a conversation with the teacher who asked her what her Vietnamese name was. And she was like “Oh. My Vietnamese name is Thi.” And he just called her Thi for the rest of it, for the rest of the school year. And that was a moment for reflection. It’s like why am I going as Stephanie? I’m Thi. Like that’s what I was born as. Like why would I choose any other name? Like why would I reject this sort of—my Vietnamese-ness, this core piece of my identity? Like I’m ashamed of it. And so now she goes by Thi. And I think that’s beautiful. Like I’m like good for you. Like if anyone can do that, like absolutely, 100%, go for it! Like embrace that, which is, you know, also raises the question like well, why don’t I do it? Like, I don’t know. Like, I like Tony. (chuckles) I also like Tony. Like I like that part of my identity, too, you know. To reject it would be to say like I wasn’t Tony for a while when I was. I absolutely was, you know? Like that’s who I was. That’s who I am. Like I’m Tony. I’m Dong, Ho, Tran, you know, all these different things. 00:24:58.000 --> 00:24:59.000 Thank you for that. 00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:03.000 Yeah. That’s really ranty. That was like me on a soapbox for a while. I was just thinking about it. 00:25:03.000 --> 00:25:11.000 No! Not a soapbox at all. I think about that all the time. Because, well this is about you. But I have the same thoughts. So, we’ll talk about me later maybe afterwards. 00:25:11.000 --> 00:25:16.000 No. Yeah. No. Absolutely. 00:25:16.000 --> 00:25:20.000 Briefly, I—you mentioned your mom wanted a girl. I’m kind of surprised by that. 00:25:20.000 --> 00:25:21.000 Yeah. 00:25:21.000 --> 00:25:22.000 Do you know why? 00:25:22.000 --> 00:31:16.000 I don’t know why. I think they might have thought it was going to be easier. Or like maybe they were sick of boys because my dad grew up with mostly boys except for one sister who died or, I should say, is like missing. We can get into that, too. But I think—actually, no. Now that I think about it, that could be a big part of the reason why they wanted a girl, at least for my dad. Because, you know, my dad grew up with his brothers. It was him and his three brothers and his younger sister, Nhung. And they, you know, they grew up together like in war. They grew up together through an abusive household. They grew up together through famine and like just being dirt poor, you know. Like that does something. I mean that builds something, that shared trauma, you know. They will always have that as siblings. And I—hearing my dad tell it, he was—he very much loved his sister. He was very protective of her. And like he wanted the best of her, the best for her, and everything. And, you know, and he very much loved her and everything. Like she was the first person he saw when he dropped his rifle and changed out of his uniform from the South Vietnamese Army and went back home after the fall of Saigon, you know. Like he went back and was like “I gotta make sure my sister’s okay.” He went back to go find his sister and his dad, you know. Like he very much cared for her. And, you know, he was able to make it to this country. He was one of the boat people, and he was able to make to this country after getting to—after a few difficult tries including one that didn’t work out that ended up—that resulted in him being arrested and being in a prison for a year. (chuckles) Which is a whole ‘nother story. If you want to interview someone, like interview my dad, like he has a story. He has stories for days. Like the things he’d tell you would blow your hair back. But, you know, any immigrant can do that. Like they—that’s the story. That’s the story of the Vietnamese people. That’s all to say my father loved his sister. And, you know, he was one of the boat people. He came here after spending like a week at sea. They ended up in Malaysia as a lot of boat people did at an island called Pulau Bidong. And he stayed at that refugee camp for I think a year or two, working there, learning English, trying to figure out a place where he could go afterwards. And that place ended up being America where, you know, he moved to Pittsburgh eventually. But all the brothers eventually made it over one way or another. Some waited years. Some tried to get out of it as quickly as possible. The—Nhung tried to make it out too. At this point, she had had a baby and had gotten married with a guy. I don’t know his name. I don’t know the baby’s name. I really should find out. (Note: the uncle was Chú Thịnh (Chu Thinh), and their baby was bé Ngọc (baby Ngoc).) But she had tried to find passage on a boat just like my father as well. But the boat didn’t make it or it just didn’t show up. And yeah. And so, my father just didn’t have—he just lost his sister. But it’s weird, right? Because like they don’t know what happened to her. They don’t know what—He doesn’t know what happened to his sister. I’m sorry. I get emotional about this (starts to wipe tears from his face). Yeah, he didn’t know what happened to his sister and he tried to—He’s always wondered about what happened to her exactly. But, you know, there’s always these rumors, especially with boat people. And I did a lot of research about this because I wanted to learn more about what my father went through—I’m sorry. I’m going to try to slow down my talking —about what my father went through. And, you know, those passages were harrowing. They were so harrowing. You know, not only are you fighting nature. It’s like the sea is trying to kill you essentially. You’re fighting the storms. You’re fighting the people on the boat sometimes who, you know, who just want to take advantage of you. You know, there were families like paying all of their money just to take a shot—like a one in a million shot to leave Vietnam. So, it’s true desperation. And one of the other things that, you know—So like one of the other things that these boats would frequently run them into are pirates. Like these boats would occasionally be absconded by like essentially pirates from Cambodia or Thailand. They would come in and they would just, essentially just take a horrible advantage of these people. They would go on. They’d kill all the men. They would rape the women. They would steal any possessions. And they would just leave the boat in flames sometimes. And I remember talking to my father like years—you know, as a child, you know, asking him essentially about his journey and just sort of asking him about what he thinks happened to his sister. And he’s just like “Yeah. Honestly, like she was probably like—Her boat probably got like attacked by pirates and that was that.” Just to think that like that’s something my father has to live with, you know. That’s a thing that, you know, he has to consider about his sister? (fights back tears) Like this girl he loved, you know? It’s tough. And I think about it. And, you know, this woman I don’t know, Nhung, you know, my aunt. I would love nothing more for him, just to have his sister back, you know. I—you know, you can’t give that to your dad. You can’t give everything to your parents, even though they give so much to you, right? (wipes away tears) I’m sorry. 00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:19.000 I can’t imagine going through that. 00:31:19.000 --> 00:31:20.000 No. Yeah, right? 00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:21.000 Absolutely not. 00:31:21.000 --> 00:31:40.000 No. It’s horrible. But it happens every day, you know, Jennifer? It happens every single day. There’s a family going through it right now somewhere in the world, right now. (wipes away tears) And we just let it happen. 00:31:40.000 --> 00:31:45.000 Was her baby and her husband in the boat too? 00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:52.000 Yeah. Some of them—From what I understand, the whole family went. So, the family’s just gone! Like a cousin I’ll never know, you know. 00:31:52.000 --> 00:31:53.000 Yeah. 00:31:53.000 --> 00:32:01.000 An aunt who I’ve never met, an uncle I’ve never met, just gone! 00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:04.000 Do you know—Did your dad ever meet the baby, the child? 00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:20.000 Yeah. I believe he was able to meet like his nephew. I believe it was a boy. I never asked him about, you know, what that was like or anything. I should. But yeah. 00:32:20.000 --> 00:32:23.000 Do you know the child’s name? [00:32:21 HO TRAN: No. No, I don’t. 00:32:23.000 --> 00:32:25.000 Okay. And your aunt’s name was— 00:32:25.000 --> 00:32:26.000 Nhung. 00:32:26.000 --> 00:32:27.000 N-H— 00:32:27.000 --> 00:32:28.000 N-H-U-N. 00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:34.000 U-N. Thank you for sharing that. That’s—yeah. 00:32:34.000 --> 00:32:35.000 It’s harrowing. 00:32:35.000 --> 00:32:38.000 Yeah. Absolutely. Do you know what year she tried to— 00:32:38.000 --> 00:33:18.000 I don’t think it was too long after he left. I think he left in ’80, ’80 or ’81. So, she must have left in ’82, ’83. That was sort of the peak period for these people who tried to escape Vietnam essentially, just for the boat people. Where you were just getting like thousands of people each month. Like just trying to make it to one of like Malaysia, or the Philippines, or China, or somebody, somewhere else where they could like find refugee status. (Note: There is a brief cut in the video.) 00:33:18.000 --> 00:33:20.000 —didn’t go through what your parents went through. 00:33:20.000 --> 00:33:21.000 No. 00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:31.000 But what do you know, or what else do you know about their journeys here? And also, in what ways do you carry that with you, that kind of trauma? 00:33:31.000 --> 00:47:17.000 Oh, yeah. No. I think that’s a great question. So, like, so yeah. As we discussed, my father’s journey was like incredibly harrowing. And it’s funny because he had—it was really tough for him. Well, it’s not funny, funny (laughs) but it was incredibly tough for him. And the fact that he did it—he tried to do it multiple times. Like I think it’s a testament to how rough things were for his life in Vietnam. I’m sure it was rough in a million different ways. But it couldn’t have helped that, you know, he had served in the South Vietnamese Army and essentially aiding and abetting with American imperialists. Or, you know this is like language that they used, not my own. But he—it couldn’t have been easy for him. It could not have been easy for his brothers or his sister or his dad. And yeah. So, he tried to escape like a lot of different times—two unsuccessful attempts before, you know, third times a charm. He was able to make it out. And his journey was hard even like afterwards having to like live at the refugee camp for years, not knowing like what was going to happen to him, essentially like where am I going to land up after going through all that? And he did eventually make it to Pittsburgh where, you know, he—in America, he just did like a lot of different odd jobs for a while. He worked as a bartender. He worked as a chef in a Chinese restaurant, you know, washing dishes, that kind of thing. Until, you know, he met my mom and my mom had kind of like I would say on the surface a much easier time about things. My mom was born in 1966, the child of an American soldier and my grandmother who, based on her retelling—she won’t tell me outright, but just between you and me and people that are watching this (waves towards camera, and both he and Ho laugh) and listening to this, my grandmother, my bà ngoại (ba ngoai, maternal grandmother), was a bargirl, which were essentially girls who would go out to bars in places like Sài Gòn (Saigon) and Đà Nẵng (Da Nang), like wherever there was like Americans soldiers posted nearby, and go there and just like flirt, kiss, maybe something more with them to make money, essentially, which is, you know, I think about it. It’s not something I’m ashamed of at all. That I know if I talked to my grandma about it, and I asked her outright about it, she would be humiliated, and she might never talk to me again. Don’t want that! My grandmother loves me like so much, and I love her dearly. And, you know, so it’s funny. Like this idea like this is a topic I could never possibly broach with her. But, you know, I just want to let her know that it is totally fine. Like I would never judge her for having to have done something like that, you know, especially, you know, at a time when things were truly kind of desperate for everyone. Like she had to make money some way and, you know, the way that her friends made a lot of money, the way that she ended up making a lot of money was being a bargirl. Prostitution is the oldest profession in the world. And so, the oldest profession for a reason. You know, I’m not a woman. I can’t—I, obviously, couldn’t imagine like the things that she had to go through. But, you know, she used the power that she had, you know, like just to survive. I think that’s something that frankly is like very empowering. Like she was able to wield her sexuality and like her womanhood in order to make money and survive during a very desperate time. And that’s more than a lot of people that she knew could say, like who ended up starving to death or like having their land taken away or whatever else or dying in the war. So, my grandmother was a bargirl at a—I believe it was a bar near Da Nang or if not in the city itself. But that’s where she grew up and she—or not grew up, but she actually grew up in a village hundreds of miles away. I think she was actually like supposed to be wed to a different guy who she didn’t want to like marry at all. Like her parents had arranged a marriage to a man from a nearby village. And she just did not want that. So, her and her friends escaped and, you know, it’s kind of a fun—When you think about it, it’s really kind of like a fun story. They kind of escaped together and they were just young girls. And they were looking to have fun, from what I understand. Like my grandmother wanted to go to the big city and she was just a farm girl trying to live the big city life. And I liked that—I like to think, and I like to hope she did have some fun along the way (laughs). But yeah. I mean—But, you know, that’s all I’ll say. I’m sure things weren’t easy for her as well, you know. Like it’s still prostitution. You’re still doing like just some really tough work. And like having to resort to something like that, you know, I don’t want to take that lightly. Like that was still something that she had to do. It was still trauma, I’m sure, she carries even to this day, into her 80s. And, but yeah. My grandfather, by the way, in the way that my grandmother tells it, was an American soldier who fell in love with her. And they—which is a thing that often happened with bargirls as well, based on my research. They would fall in love with American soldiers like all the time. They would have children with them. They would try to raise families with them. But, you know, tragically he wasn’t interested in like completely starting a family with her, like moving to Vietnam or anything like that, or trying to get her to America. But, he would come back to visit her and her specifically. I remember she, you know, she would tell me stories about how whenever he was stationed nearby, you know, they would go out on dates and stuff. He would take her out on a moped and they would go out and see the country and see the city. Or whatever else. They would go dancing, go drinking, that kind of thing. Eat meals. And yeah. He also had family, though, a family that he, like he was very clear with my grandmother like “I still have a family back home.” And, you know, it’s funny. I think, in times of war, sort of those kinds of things kind of go out the window. Like people, you know, it's easier to accept that kind of thing, you know. It’s war. Things, things are violent. Things are deadly. You don’t know if you’re going to survive the next day. So, you know, why not fall in love, have fun while you can. And he eventually left and by this point my grandmother was pregnant with my mom and she had my mom and was this mixed-race child of this American man. And yeah. My mom had to grow up without a father essentially, without a father, period, her entire life, which was tough for her because I know like—They call them AmerAsians or AmerAsians. Essentially, they’re just mixed-race kids, is what they would call them. Con lai (con lai, person of mixed race) or Mỹ lai (My lai, American of mixed race), they would call these people. And my mom was one of them. She was a My lai or con lai. And because of it, she was like horribly bullied which is something that these kids came up against like all the time, you know. Kids are mean to each other. Kids will bully each other for any little thing. You and I probably know. Like I grew up Tony Ho. That was a silly name. They would make fun of you for any little thing. But especially in Vietnam at that time, if you’re a mixed-race kid, a child of the oppressor, the child of the imperialist, the colonizer, the Americans who tried to come here and change the Vietnamese way of doing things, splitting our country in half, essentially, that to them was like a mark of true traitorous behavior. Like they looked at someone like my grandma and just said “You slept with the enemy, essentially. And you created this child with the enemy.” And they looked at someone like my mom, someone like the rest of the AmerAsian kids, you know, in the country at that time, hundreds of thousands of them, maybe perhaps even millions. And they looked at them as reminders of the violence of something that they did not want to go through, something that tore their country in half. And they took it out on them, you know. My mom was bullied horribly, horribly! Like the stories she tells me. Like it’s horrible. I couldn’t even imagine just being beat up every single day going to school. Being made fun of, you know. They used to do this rhyme with all the AmerAsian kids. I believe it goes like “Mỹ lai, Mỹ lai, mười hai lỗ đít (My lai, My lai, muoi hai lo dit) which means, you know, “AmerAsian, AmerAsian, you have twelve assholes” which is a weird, strange rhyme to bully someone with. (laughs) But they did! Like that’s something my mom heard like all the time growing up. It got so bad like my mom had to drop out of school. She just committed herself to just working on a farm that she lived on. And she was like “yeah. I’m not going to go back. Like I’m just going to—I don’t want to be bullied anymore.” It’s tough. Because like you look at my mom, you can tell she’s a mixed race right off the bat. Curly brown hair, you know, round eyes, double eyelids and everything. Like full lips and her skin was always like darker than everyone else. And she was also tall. Like she just looked different. And so, life was really, really tough for her. And it was also tough for her because like my grandma, my ba ngoai, wasn’t in her life for most of it. My—when my mom was born, my grandmother, she was like “I can’t take care of this kid. There’s no way I can take care of this kid. Like I’m still a bargirl. Like I can’t possibly do this right now.” So, she ended up talking to a family friend, a friend of hers who lived on the farm and worked on the farm, and I believe she owned the farm, and was like “Can you take care of my child? I can’t do this. Just give her a good home and everything.” And so, she did! This woman who ended up being like my, essentially, like my mom’s like other mom that like raised her on the farm, gave her a home, made sure, you know, she ate every day. Gave her a bed. And yeah, my mom was able to have some semblance of—some semblance of normalcy because of this woman. Growing up on this rice paddy. But yeah. Getting to how they got to America. You know, eventually, the United States came to realize that what they did by sending all these young boys over in their teens and some of them like the oldest were probably in their early twenties, over to Vietnam, having a bunch of kids, and then just abandoning them. They’re like “that’s bad.” And so, they—the United States government—made the fair decision to accept any AmerAsian people and give them a track, essentially, to citizenship. My mom was able to take advantage of this. And so, and back then the rules were such that you could bring your family as well, if you could prove that they were your family. And so, my mom and my grandma were able to take advantage of this program in order to essentially just get a plane ticket to America in the late ‘80s. I believe it was like ’88, ’89. Maybe even ’90. But yeah. My mom told me like the night before she went, she threw this big party with her friends, and she said it was like the only time she ever drank (chuckles). And they had some weird like rural Vietnamese stuff to drink. Like they just got a bunch of liquor, and they poured it into a bowl. She told me, I think it was “Yeah. It was very strange. And we would just drink it out of this bowl.” (laughs) With our hands. It’s like that is weird. She was like, “Yeah, yeah. We should try it some time.” I was like, “I don’t know.” (both laugh) Maybe. Maybe my next birthday that’s what we’ll do. But yeah. That’s how they ended up in Pittsburgh essentially. I think they might have had to spend some time in the Philippines just to get the feet underneath them. I know my dad had to do the same thing. Like after the refugee camp in Malaysia, they would send the Vietnamese immigrants to the Philippines where they had schools essentially that helped teach them English, helped teach them very basic things to get by—who’s the President? What a state is. Big cities. That kind of thing. How to order food. How to buy food. Very basic stuff. But yeah. After that my mom flew, landed in Pittsburgh where she was—Like this church helped her and my grandma find an apartment. And they lived in that apartment and my mom was able to find jobs doing tailoring and seamstress, doing it as a seamstress. I think she worked at a mattress factory for her, the first few years when she was in America. But yeah. That’s essentially my mom’s journey. So, like hard, obviously because like she was the child, a mixed-race child, of an American soldier. But also, easy because all she had to do was get a plane ticket. Eventually America was like “You can come to us. Like what we did was messed up.” Being able to recognize like “yeah. That’s our bad.” And yeah. That’s how my ba ngoai, my me, made it here. 00:47:17.000 --> 00:47:26.000 Wow. That’s quite a story! Can you—I want to—I have so many follow up questions. 00:47:26.000 --> 00:47:27.000 Of course. No, no. Take your time. 00:47:27.000 --> 00:47:31.000 So, this other grandmother, the woman who was your mom’s other mother— 00:47:31.000 --> 00:47:32.000 Yeah. 00:47:32.000 --> 00:47:32.000 —That’s not the woman who came to the U.S. with your mom. 00:47:32.000 --> 00:49:17.000 Nope. She, I think, she—Well, she wasn’t blood related to my mom. So, there wasn’t any way that she could have if she wanted to. But I also don’t think she wanted to. She had a farm. Like she had a farm. She had a life. Like she had her own kids and family to worry about there. They weren’t, they certainly weren’t coming to the United States. They were just going to stay, still be there, and still work the farm life and everything. Thankfully, I had the opportunity to meet her before she died. Yeah. My parents they took me and my brother to Vietnam when we were very, very young. I believe I was just five, and he was maybe three. And they just wanted to go back to their country, their home just to see how things were. (chuckles) And so, yeah. I had the opportunity to go to like the farm where my mom was raised and to see how and what that was like and meet the woman who essentially raised my mom. Obviously, being a kid, I didn’t have an appreciation for any of it at the time. It’s something that I desperately want to do which is to go back to Vietnam and see all these places with my parents, you know. Yeah. And just to revisit all these sort of touchstones and stories that they’ve told me over the course of my life about, you know, where they grew up. Like I want to see the apartment where my father grew up. I would like to see the trash heap where he used to dig for food (laughs) sometimes, and snacks, with his friends. I would like to see the river where my mom said that she and her friends would bathe naked and like go skinny dipping, and stuff like that. I’d love to see all these places with them there, you know. But, yeah. That’s all to say she didn’t leave. That woman didn’t leave. She stayed there. 00:49:17.000 --> 00:49:19.000 Okay. Do you know her name? 00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:29.000 No. I don’t know her name. I’ve been told it. I know her name. Like I’m sure if I call my mom, right now, she’d tell me her name. And I’d be like “Oh yeah, of course.” (throws up his hands) But yeah. (Note: her name was Huỳnh Thị Sẩm (Huynh Thi Sam).) 00:49:29.000 --> 00:49:37.000 Okay. Just curious. Based on your observation, what’s the relationship between your mom and your grandmother. Like— 00:49:37.000 --> 00:49:38.000 My ba ngoai? HO: Yeah. 00:49:38.000 --> 00:53:19.000 Yeah. My actual grandmother? So, it’s strange. It’s—Because like growing up, my grandma essentially also helped raise me like during the summers when my parents were working and, you know, we couldn’t—we had the restaurant like all of the time. My grandmother lived in an apartment like right next door. And so, my brother and I would often be there watching T.V., playing around, putzing around. And grandma would be there. And she—My ba ngoai is like the sweetest woman I know. She is, she is about as tall as this camera stand, here. (points straight ahead towards the camera with his left hand) Like she is short. She wears the thick, Coke bottle glasses, and she always looks up at me (both laugh. Tony looks up to the ceiling, imitating his grandmother) like whenever I see her, I’m like “Hey, ba ngoai.” It’s like “Aw, Dong”. Like “hello.” Like “How are you?” She’s the sweetest woman. She’s always like quick to laugh at something that me and my brother do. She’s always quick to ask us how we are doing. If I visit her, she’s doing the classic grandma stuff like trying to put food into me, trying to make me a pot of tea, trying to make sure that I’m as comfortable as possible. Sweet, sweet woman. But to hear my mom talk about my grandmother sometimes, like I understand that there was a side to my grandmother that I do not see. Like the way—And it’s something that I’ve seen when I’ve seen them interact with each other like where they’ll—They’re—You can tell, like “Oh wait. They’re still like mom and daughter.” They’ll still butt heads and like argue with each other. And my mom has told me stories before about how my grandmother, like while she was growing up, was very, very abusive to her, very abusive. Like just hitting her and just beating her, which is insane to me because I look at this woman and like it looks like a strong breeze could topple her over. But like to think that there was a side to her where she was very tough, or she was very—could be very almost malicious, like with my mother specifically, you know. It’s surprising to me. And, you know, even today like their relationship is a lot better, obviously. Like because, you know, ba ngoai’s still her mom. She still loves her mom. But I—my mom will even tell me today, like “Your ba ngoai, like she’s driving me up the wall right now. Like you’ll never understand, Dong, like how mean she used to be and like how vicious she used to be. Like you think you had it bad? Like let me tell you about grandma. Let me tell you about ba ngoai.” Their relationship, I would say, is like, it’s a tense one. The same sort of tension I think—I don’t know. You’ll probably see it with a lot of like gen–intergenerational Vietnamese families where I just like—everyone was just kind of like really tough on each other. But especially, you know, with my grandma and my mom. It could not have been easy for her, right? Raising the mixed-race child in Vietnam at that time. So, I’m sure a lot of it had to do with that, and just taking out her frustrations and everything and her anger like out on my mom, undeservedly, of course. Like this isn’t to make excuses for her. But just to offer up an explanation about, you know, why she might have been like that. But it’s weird, you know. Like I can’t gel it in my mind like this woman I know growing up and used to make me like rice and eggs, like whenever my brother and I were hungry and the woman who raised, who actually raised, my mother, you know. 00:53:19.000 --> 00:53:38.000 Yeah. Yeah. That kind of abuse really does seem prevalent in Vietnamese, in Asian families, which I don’t think they, like Vietnamese-Vietnamese people, would characterize it as abuse. 00:53:38.000 --> 00:53:39.000 No. 00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:41.000 It’s just more normal behavior. 00:53:41.000 --> 00:56:49.000 Yeah. It definitely is. And, I mean, it was something that like my cousins and like I like we experienced to a certain extent. Not nearly that bad. Maybe my cousins (laughing). But maybe, but like not my brother and I. We were still like ; I wouldn’t say spanked. Like my brother—My parents used to, you know, they would get like a wooden spoon or something, and smack us on the hand if we did something bad. I remember like the main form of punishment like she would—like if I hurt my brother or something. Like maybe I punched him or roughhoused him a little bit too hard. He came to her crying, you know. We would have had to like stand in front of her, explain ourselves, like fold our hands and explain ourselves in Vietnamese about what happened. And then, you know, then it was time to dole out punishment based on what she thought. She—her main thing was like “Okay. Go grab some chopsticks.” And then that’s when we knew, like oh no! That’s bad. And so, we would have to grab chopsticks and it was typically like one or two, depending on how big we were (chuckles). And yeah. She would just sort of like hold out your hand and she would like whack our hands if like I punched my brother, like “Which hand hurt your brother?” (makes a motion of whacking something with his right arm) “Whaack!” that kind of thing. But, you know, that doesn’t compare to like some of the things that I’ve seen from like my cousin, Viet. He had it really bad. Like I don’t think they ever hit the girls and if they did, I didn’t see it. If they did, it was probably something like what my brother and I went through. But like my cousin Viet was kind of a troublemaker growing up. I wouldn’t necessarily call him a black sheep, because I love Viet and like the whole family loves him. But they—He was diagnosed with like ADD like pretty early in his life, and it’s tough. Because like I don’t think they knew how to deal with it. They just had no—They couldn’t conceptualize about what that means, you know. Even though it certainly existed in their time. They just like dealt with it the way they knew how to deal with it, which is like by punishing him like severely, like physically. We remember like coming home and Viet being, doing something bad and I would just be like in their living room, playing like with toys or something. And like my Bac Chinh would come in and like just angry as hell and just screaming at Viet for something, like “Why did you do this? What did you do?” And like him just physically taking off his belt and he’d be like, “Come here.” And I was like “Oh my God.” That’s crazy. And just like I realize that. It’s like “Oh, it can—it could be really bad.” Just to hear stories from like second-generation or first-generation Vietnamese kids about like some of the stuff they went through, just casual abuse, you know, just super casual, just like. And I think in our parents’ minds, they didn’t realize like that it was bad. Like it was—Like this is not a thing we do here in America and for very good reason. Like you’re actively traumatizing everyone. Like this is horrible. And yeah. That’s all to say that yeah, that sort of idea where it’s like “This is just a normal thing that we do.” It’s very, very prevalent in Vietnamese and Asian cultures. 00:56:49.000 --> 00:56:50.000 Yeah. 00:56:50.000 --> 00:56:51.000 Yeah. 00:56:51.000 --> 00:57:06.000 Yeah. So, I want to talk about identity, and specifically—This is something that I think about a lot. 00:57:06.000 --> 00:57:08.000 Yeah. 00:57:08.000 --> 00:57:19.000 Who gets to call themselves Vietnamese American? Like what if—How would you—What does it mean to be Vietnamese American? Or Vietnamese? Or American? 00:57:19.000 --> 00:57:21.000 Yeah. That’s a deceptively hard question (rubs his forehead with his right hand). 00:57:21.000 --> 00:57:22.000 Yeah. (chuckles) 00:57:22.000 --> 01:01:37.000 Like it’s just like, well, obviously, I’m Vietnamese American. But yeah. Who—That’s a great question. (stares up at ceiling) I’ll put it this way. I wouldn’t call myself—I don’t know if I’d call myself Vietnamese, you know? Like I don’t know if like if I’m there. Like I know Vietnamese like a four-year-old toddler knows Vietnamese. It’s very bad. It’s part of the reason I mispronounce my own last name (laughs) like “Tran,” “Trần,” like it’s just I don’t—my grasp of Vietnamese is very tenuous. But like it’s still such a indelible part of my identity. I grew up like Vietnamese, surrounded by it. Like food, like the food was like—I literally grew up in a Vietnamese restaurant. I think—yeah. It’s tough. Like I—You can call yourself Vietnamese American, I suppose, if you grew up with Vietnamese parents and, you know, they pass on that sense of identity to you in one way or another. But yeah. I mean like I’ve thought about this. If I have kids, for example, if I have kids with someone who’s white, do I get to call that kid Vietnamese American? I would hope so. Because like I would hope that I could engrain enough of that part of my identity into them, where they could feel comfortable being called Vietnamese American. But, you know, at a certain point, like where do you lose that sense of Vietnamese-ness, essentially, where you’re just American? But then again, you know, who gets to call themselves American? Like for a long time, I felt like couldn’t necessarily call myself an American American. To be American, you had to be white. You had to have blue eyes. Your parents had to be married and not divorced, like have a steady job. You had to have a pool and a dog. Like that was to me, like then you could call yourself American. Those people were normal in my eyes. Like that was American. That was something to aspire to. And I couldn’t feel comfortable calling myself that. But also, like I don’t—yeah. Like I said, I don’t necessarily feel comfortable calling myself Vietnamese either because, you know, also growing up I wasn’t ever quite Vietnamese enough for like my parents or my uncles and aunts or the rest of the Vietnamese community in Sioux City. Because I didn’t know the language, I couldn’t read, I couldn’t write, I couldn’t sing the songs that they sang in karaoke, you know. I didn’t watch Paris by Night. And I didn’t do all these things like where—I also look different, you know. Like they didn’t necessarily consider me Vietnamese. They were like “Oh yeah. That guy’s American.” So, it’s weird. That’s all to say, though, I very much consider myself Vietnamese American. At this point, like I—I’ll tell you this. You get to a point where the identity—you realize like in order to figure out your identity, you know, it’s not something you’re born into. It’s something that you choose, and you take. Like I’m Vietnamese American, because I’m actively trying to be Vietnamese. Like I feel my Vietnamese in my bones. And it’s something that like I’m doing. It’s an action. I claim that identity, you know. You can’t let society look at you and put you into these boxes. You have to take it for yourself. And to me, I claim Vietnamese American. That is my identity and when you realize that it’s something that you want, it’s something that you want to claim, then it’s yours. Otherwise, you know, they’re just words. (chuckles) They’re just meaningless labels, you know. But I feel Vietnamese American because I live it, you know. I want it. I aspire to it. It’s something that I try to—I think about constantly, that I’m made aware of constantly. If I—And that’s how I know that it is mine to take. Yeah. 01:01:37.000 --> 01:01:39.000 That’s a great answer. Thank you. 01:01:39.000 --> 01:01:49.000 Yeah. No. Of course. I mean it’s a—I don’t know. Like I’m sure you’ve thought about it like plenty of—like do I—can I call myself this? Like especially since I don’t know the language and— 01:01:49.000 --> 01:01:55.000 I mean that’s like probably my most important question, honestly. Because that’s what I ask myself all the time. So, I want to hear what my peers think too, so— 01:01:55.000 --> 01:01:56.000 Yeah. What everyone else thinks. 01:01:56.000 --> 01:01:58.000 Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. 01:01:58.000 --> 01:02:00.000 I’d love to hear your answer to that. 01:02:00.000 --> 01:02:01.000 Sure. We can talk about that later. (chuckles) 01:02:01.000 --> 01:02:03.000 Yeah, yeah. We can talk about that later, yeah. (takes a sip from his water bottle) 01:02:03.000 --> 01:02:11.000 Um, how do—This is also maybe going to be a tough question. 01:02:11.000 --> 01:02:12.000 No. Please. 01:02:12.000 --> 01:02:19.000 How do people outside the Vietnamese American community see you? 01:02:19.000 --> 01:02:22.000 So, like— 01:02:22.000 --> 01:02:26.000 So, like other American people. Whether they’re white or Latino — x—whatever else. Yeah. 01:02:26.000 --> 01:08:14.000 Oh sure. It’s funny because like you only know so much of a person by just looking at them. And like people look at me, they don’t clock as Vietnamese right off the bat. You know, they don’t say “That guy’s Vietnamese American or that guy is a mix.” Like depending on who I’m talking to, it’s all very contextual. If I’m in a place like the Little Village or Pilsen, somewhere where it’s very Hispanic heavy, inevitably something that will happen to me is that somebody will come up to me and say something to me in Spanish because they think I’m Hispanic as well. (chuckles) Like that happens constantly and I’m always getting like directions asked of me like and stuff like that. Like “Oh, I’m sorry.” Like “Lo siento. No hablo Español.” And—But also, you know, white people will come up to me and, you know, I’ve talked about this a lot but like one of the main things that I feel like myself, you, any other Asian American person, especially mixed race people though, there’s a question we get asked all the time which is like “What are you?” Essentially, like what are you? Like what are you? And I get that kind of stuff even today, you know. And you see it form in their eyes. They’re not going to ask you it right away. Like they’ll be like “Hi,” you know, “My name is X-Y-Z. Like what’s your name?” Etc., etc. And then, eventually, it’s like “So, what are you? Like what are you? What’s your racial makeup, you know? Where are your parents from?” That kind of thing. And it’s weird being mixed race. It just makes everything a little bit more ambiguous for people. People don’t know what you are right off the bat. (laughs) It’s funny, the assumptions that people will make of you. Like people assume that like, you know, I’m Viet—Filipino, or like Hawaiian or something else. It's weird. And it’s something that like I don’t necessarily notice anymore. But there was a point where, you know, I’ll walk into a room, and I’ll be like “I’m the only like person of color here.” Like I—And I look way different than everyone else. Or, you know, and like it just feels—And I know everyone like immediately they look at me and they’re wondering. Like that’s the first question like “Oh. What’s that guy?” Like “What is he?” As if I wasn’t human, as if I was this alien species. And, you know, especially growing up in a place in the Midwest, like Sioux City, Iowa where it’s mostly white people. Like going to—you know, we went to church every Sunday and I was always very aware that we were the only Vietnamese family in our particular parish. Like all the Vietnamese people went to Vietnamese mass. We would always go to like the American mass (chuckles) because like me and my brother spoke English, so we wanted to listen to mass in English. And just knowing that people were always sort of like eyes on us, wondering like “What’s their story? Like what’s going on there?” And knowing right off the bat that we were different. I think that does something to you, when you grow up, you know. Being so made aware just of how different you are, you know. It’s always like in your face like right there (holds up his right hand near the right side of his face) wherever you go. And it honestly like resulted in a lot of like self-hatred. But it wasn’t necessarily I realized was self-hatred until like years later. Where I would do this thing where I would always preempt people’s jokes and people’s ideas of me like right off the bat and make fun of myself. Because, you know, like I would be the first one to make a crack about how Asians are bad at driving. Or like how I was bad at driving. Or how I was good at math. I was horrible at math. But I would still joke about it, you know. I would preempt it and, you know, that was a way that I realize like I could defend against the possibility that they would try to other-ize me. If I could beat them to it first, then they couldn’t hurt me with it. If I could hurt myself first (chuckles) like they couldn’t harm me with it. It’s weird, you know, like you can’t shoot me. I already shot myself. It’s a crazy way to think but it was a coping mechanism for me. And I didn’t realize it was like self-hatred until like years and years later. And reflecting back I was like “Wow!” Like I remember I watched a video of myself like just essentially like making a bunch of Asian jokes. And I was like in high school at the time. And I was watching this video and I remember just cringing and just being like “Why did I say all that?” And, you know, looking back now like the reason I did all that was because I was so made aware of it. Growing up I was so made aware of how different I was. And so, taking ownership of hatred, taking ownership of other-izing myself and like making fun of myself and, you know, making all these Asian jokes. Like I could say like “Oh, it’s okay if they do it. I do it. Like, it’s–it’s fine.” And really it wasn’t. Like I was just harming myself in a different way. Like I was just letting these things and these ideas harm me in a different way. It’s funny because like at a certain point like people weren’t thinking that anymore, you know. People weren’t like actively other-izing me, but in my mind they were. Because that’s what I had grown up accustomed to. And it’s weird. I should hope that, you know, we’ve come to a place in society where we wouldn’t necessarily do that to someone. But I can’t say that we have. (chuckles) Like if I ever have a kid, God willing, like they—I would hope that they grow up in a world that where they didn’t feel the need to do that. Because it sucks. (chuckles) It totally sucks. It sucks. It’s embarrassing. It’s embarrassing to look back on. Like I wish I didn’t do that. It’s nuts. I should have been way more proud of who I was and confident in who I was. But I wasn’t. Yeah. 01:08:14.000 --> 01:08:16.000 It was your learning process, growth. 01:08:16.000 --> 01:08:22.000 Mm-hmm. Exactly. 01:08:22.000 --> 01:08:33.000 So, you said that you’re actively leaning into your identity as a Vietnamese person —Vietnamese American person. So, do you have a strong community of peers then? 01:08:33.000 --> 01:12:03.000 No. And that’s embarrassing for me. (laughs) I wish—I was thinking about this. It’s so funny you mention that. Because I was thinking about this. Like I walk my dog a lot because it’s an easy way for me to like take a break from work. And I thought about like how I just don’t have a lot of Vietnamese friends. I have friends who are like people of color, of course. Like my best friend is a Hispanic guy, like but no real like Vietnamese friend that I interface with consistently. Other than Randy (Kim). Like Randy’s great. Like we’ll go out and grab a meal. But like someone I see every weekend or like every week to grab drinks with, just to talk and chew the shit, I don’t have that. And it’s something that like I think I kind of actively avoided for a while. Even in college like I was involved in like things like the Vietnamese Student Association. And I helped form a Asian American fraternity on campus, or a chapter I should say, Pi Alpha Phi. And that was cool because it allowed me to interact with all these other Vietnamese American kids, all these other Asian American kids, second generation. Like we all knew the score. And whenever I did hang out with them, it felt very comforting knowing that like these guys know what it was like growing up the way we did. No one else does. Like we know though. That was cool! But I would also find myself sort of like rejecting it occasionally, being, like opting to be less involved with them than I probably could have, opting not to form as close friendships as I could have. Because I think in my mind I was like “That’s boring. That’s something I already grew up with. Like I already know what it’s like to be Vietnamese. Like I want the exotic thing. I want white friends (chuckles) and like Hispanic friends and Black friends. Like I want these other things.” And, you know, places like the University of Iowa, very easy to make white friends. Like if you want to make white friends, go to college. Go to a public university in America. So, a lot of my friends, my core friend groups, you know, they ended up being mostly white kids. Even today like it’s mostly the kids I hang out with most, other than Miguel and Randy, is probably they’re just white people. My partner is a white person. And it’s something that like looking back now, you know, I regret deeply. I—Because whenever I hang out with someone like Randy, whenever I am lucky enough to be in a place where it’s a lot of other Asian people, it’s great! Like it’s just like “Oh, I’m back home, baby!” Like we know what—And it’s not even like we’re talking about Vietnamese things constantly. We’re not! We’re hanging out. We’re just eating dinner, having drinks. But you feel more comfortable because you know what—that they’ve been through sort of the same thing that you did. Like they know what it’s like to have dinners that your white friends might not have eaten. They know what it’s like to maybe have grown up in an abusive household, to speak Vietnamese as your first language, you know. They know the preciousness of karaoke at a party. They know what it’s like to nhậu (nhau, to drink and socialize) with your dad’s friends. It’s great, you know. And it’s something that like I really, really crave now and something that like I am—I want to actively work towards, making more Vietnamese friends, you know. I don’t know how. 01:12:03.000 --> 01:12:05.000 That was going to be my next question. How would you do that? (laughs) 01:12:05.000 --> 01:13:28.000 Yeah, shhh. I don’t know how. Like form a club, I guess, and just walk around Argyle. Ask people like “Hey. You want to hang out?” (both laugh) But, you know, it’s hard enough like making friends in your thirties, period. Regardless of whether or not they’re Vietnamese. But, you know, I really think what it is like is like I already know plenty of Vietnamese people. I think the idea now is just to reach out to them and just to talk to them and be like “Hey, you want to grab drinks? You want to grab coffee?” Like “hey, I’m going to be in your city. Like you want to hang out?” I think that’s really the only way I can do it now. (chuckles) I’ve thought about like one thing I’ve thought about because I really want to get better at speaking Vietnamese, especially as my parents get older. I’m like I realize like so much of our communication is just horribly limited because of my level of Vietnamese understanding. And so, I want to get better at Vietnamese, especially if I plan on going back to Vietnam. And I was thinking “Oh, maybe I should just like make like a meet—” Because the ability to speak any language, you know, relies on the fact that you need to speak it consistently and be immersed in it. And I was like “There’s nothing quite like that here in Chicago.” And I was like “I should do that, though. Like I should like make a Meetup group where like if there’s any other people who just essentially just want to speak Vietnamese at each other, bad Vietnamese at each other, or good Vietnamese at each other, like we can do that together.” So, that was one idea that I had, where it’s like “Oh, I should make up like a little Vietnamese club.” (chuckles) I think that would be fun! 01:13:28.000 --> 01:13:30.000 I should introduce you to my brother. 01:13:30.000 --> 01:13:31.000 Oh yeah? I’d love that. 01:13:31.000 --> 01:13:38.000 (laughs) He speaks Vietnamese, not super well. But he really tries. 01:13:38.000 --> 01:13:39.000 Good for him! 01:13:39.000 --> 01:13:40.000 And when he doesn’t know a word, he’ll ask. So— 01:13:40.000 --> 01:13:43.000 Good for him. Hey, I’m the exact same way. 01:13:43.000 --> 01:13:45.000 Yeah, that’s great! That’s great. So, you are trying, then. 01:13:45.000 --> 01:13:49.000 Yeah, I’m trying. Yeah. 01:13:49.000 --> 01:13:58.000 So, okay, this is maybe my last question on identity. But (sighs) how does your family see you, that you’re aware. 01:13:58.000 --> 01:15:22.000 That’s a good question. I can tell you this. My family is very, very proud of me. And that’s not even like, oh, like me bragging. Like I know they’re actively like very, very proud of me and the work that I do. Sometimes, it seems like it’s not enough. But they’ve made me very aware of that fact. And I’m eternally grateful for it. They like that I’m writing. They like that I’m doing something with my English degree. They like that I’m also actively trying to tell our story, the story of my family. Like, I’m here, right now. I’m doing my best to do that. And, you know, like the reason I know that my family’s proud of me now is mainly because of what I did to try to find my grandfather. That, I think, that really did it for them. I suppose I should tell the story of that. But yeah. Going back to the story of my mom. She grew up mixed-race. Didn’t know who her grandfather was. I would always ask my mom if she remembered anything about him. And I had said that like, you know, he left and that she grew up without him. But she was actually able to meet him once. Like he was able to come back one time and meet her and gave her gifts and everything. But she remembers so little about that. 01:15:22.000 --> 01:15:24.000 How old was she? 01:15:24.000 --> 01:17:24.000 She was very young, I think three, maybe four. Like super young. But she remembers a tall man. Like that’s all she remembers, an American uniform. And he even gave her his dog tags, just for her to hold onto because there’s a daughter he has in Vietnam, this country where he was fighting. So, he should leave her something. So, he left her that. But, you know, after Saigon fell, after the North Vietnamese Army won and took over, a lot of rumors started flying around the villages in rural Vietnam, in the cities as well, that these Việt Cộng (Viet Cong, North Vietnamese military) they were rapists. They were going to come over. They were going to eat all the babies or kill all the babies. They were going to murder anyone who had anything to do with the American soldiers. They were going to do horrible stuff, essentially. Like they made them seem like this was the end. So, you know, one of the things that like my grandma had to do for my mom was like she took any memento that she had from my grandfather and just like burned it, burned it all. And the dog tags that like her father gave her they threw into the river where she used to swim naked with her friends. And it’d just be lost forever. And they also shaved my mom’s head. Because she had really curly hair when she was young. They shaved it completely, and just to try and hide any, any amount of fact, anything that might indicate that she was a child of an American soldier. Obviously, rumors were just rumors. Like they weren’t nearly that vicious. They were bad, obviously. Like people were taken to reeducation camps. And they established new economic zones where they forced people from the city to try to grow food where food couldn’t be grown. And incidentally that’s where my grandfather died. He was my dad’s dad. That’s where he died. Because they forced them out of his like apartment in Saigon and made him just like work a dirt farm until like he just got sick and died. 01:17:24.000 --> 01:17:25.000 Oh my God. 01:17:25.000 --> 01:24:35.000 Yeah. That’s really tough. It’s super, super tough. But that’s all to say they weren’t going around like killing babies or anything like that, as far as I know. They certainly didn’t kill my mom. Because she’s still here, obviously. And yeah. So, you know, growing up like my mom had no connection to her father. I would always ask her as much as I can. I would ask my grandma, as well. Ba ngoai would always tell me that she would be very vague with the details. She wouldn’t tell me his race, his name or anything like that. She was like “He was a tall guy. He had a beard. He was very handsome.” And I was like “That’s great! I would like to know more, though.” She would never let me know more. And it wasn’t until, ooof, gosh, 2015 or 2016. I had just moved to the city. I was in a job that I didn’t quite like, and I just needed a distraction from it. And I had watched a TV show called Finding Your Roots with Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a Harvard anthropologist who is like also a permanent fixture on my vision board. And the show is all about him like helping people connect with their identities and their ancestry through genealogy. And they would use tests from like 23AndMe, and Ancestry DNA, to accomplish these goals. And I was like, “Oh. That’s—I can do that now.” It’s weird, you know, growing up, that sort of technology wasn’t quite there yet, sophisticated enough for us to do that. But now it was. Like I was finally at a point where like “Oh, this is like feasible. I can find my grandfather.” It was always a thing we talked about, like we would love to find grandfather. And, you know, growing up, as I grew up, I know my mom really struggled with the fact that she didn’t know who her father was. And it was something that my brother and I had talked about wanting to do all the time. Like we should find this guy. We should find this guy for Mom. Because Mom, like it sucks for her that she doesn’t have a dad. You know, it’s something that she reminded us all the time. Like if we’re ever mad at bo for any reason, like if we were ever made at my dad for any reason, she was like “At least you have a father. Like at least you have a man who like is there for you, providing for you. Like it’s something that I didn’t have.” And I was like “Yeah. She’s right.” And that’s all to say that technology had caught up. For 200 bucks, I could send, I could get a DNA testing kit sent to my apartment, my crappy studio apartment that I was living in at the time. Spit into a vial. Send it back. And a few weeks later, I would have results about what I was. So, that’s exactly what I did, you know. I was able to get this DNA testing kit. Sent the results. And I remember the day I got the results. I was in a meeting at work and just—I got the ping on my phone, and I remember reading the emails like “Your results are in from 23andMe.” And I remember just being like eyes wide and just, just immediately just like “I need to get back at my desk as soon as possible, so I can pull up these, the questions to—the answers to a question that had plagued me my entire life.” Literally my whole life until that point. I didn’t know what I was. I knew I was Vietnamese. I knew my grandfather was an American soldier. But what else is, what else am I? Like there’s got to be more. And it was important to me because, you know, so much of who you are in this country is based off of your racial makeup. Being able to say like, “Oh. I’m 25% Irish and 75% German.” Or like “My grandparents came over here from the Ukraine. And that’s make me Ukrainian and a little bit Russian.” That was cool! Like hearing all my friends talk about like where they came and where their family came from and everything, I was always so jealous of that. Something that just simply was not afforded to me as a mixed-race person. Other Vietnamese people, they knew they were Vietnamese. That’s huge for them. Like they know that they came from Vietnam, maybe China. Like, you know, like they knew where they came from. I didn’t. So, to say that I was like really anticipating this thing would be like the understatement of the century. Finally, though, the meeting ended. I went back to my desk, pulled up the email as quickly as possible. I clicked on the link and it just laid it out for me. And I remember it was like almost anticlimactic, like just seeing like the results just laid out in plain English, this like, just these graphs saying that I was mostly Vietnamese, of course, like 70% Vietnamese. And then there’s something like 12% African American and like 10% European. (makes a gesture like his mind was blown with his hands) Like never in a million years would I have thought that like “Oh. Oh! Like he was Black, this guy. He was Black and a little bit European, like so many Black people are.” He was Black. I had an African American grandfather. That’s who he was. And not only that, but like the DNA testing site 23andMe also connected me with cousins. I had cousins. Like people who I had never met before. We share blood. Somewhere down the line, we have a grandparent, like, that we share together. It’s crazy. And it was a lot of Black people. It was a lot of these African American people who could trace their lineages back to slave ships. As such, I could do that too. All of a sudden, like which is inconceivable to me. And now this is a part of my identity, you know. Like this is something I have to carry with me, now. And like now I have to give to my brother and my mom. And this is something they have to carry with them. The fact that we come from slaves, like that’s nuts! We are the product of just, we are the product of disenfranchisement, you know? Of hundreds of years, centuries worth of just trauma and pain. On top of the trauma and pain that we already had as Vietnamese people. So, it was nuts for me, to say the least. And I realized that like this is something I needed to dig into more, because it didn’t tell me who my grandfather was right off the bat. So, I realized that, you know, I had to really undertake this journey in order to try to find him. From that, you know, it was 2015 at the time. So, I started a blog, a website, Saigon to Sioux City, (https://saigontosiouxcity.com/) where I essentially just tried to find my grandfather. And I just used that blog as a way to keep everything updated. People started following it. It hit a chord with people. And like that was, that meant a lot to me. Especially at that time. Because I was doing something I truly did not love. I was like the associate editor for some Pay-to-Play industry magazines. It was so lame. It was just like soul sucking. A job I eventually got fired from. And I remember after I got fired, I was like, “I’m just going to, just devote myself more to writing the stuff I want to write.” Which incidentally also had to do with like identity and my family on this blog. But, you know, going through this journey, I told my mom about what I was doing and she was like, “Why are you doing that?” And I was like “Because I want to find grandfather.” She was like “You think you can even do this?” I was like “Yeah. I can.” She was like “It’s okay if you can’t. Like it’s the past.” And I was like “No. Like I got to do this. I’m doing this for us.” And— 01:24:35.000 --> 01:24:36.000 Can I, can I interrupt? 01:24:36.000 --> 01:24:37.000 Yeah. Of course! 01:24:37.000 --> 01:24:43.000 Do you really—Do you think there was more to what she was thinking and feeling about this journey for you? 01:24:43.000 --> 01:29:54.000 Oooh. Yeah. No. That’s a very great question. Because, yes, there was a lot more. Because, you know, it’s something that my mom was very aware of as a AmerAsian. She had heard stories before of like AmerAsian kids reconnecting or finding their fathers. And having their fathers just completely reject them, which is a nightmare. Which would be the worst case scenario. Worse than death. Like having this image of a man like your entire life, and not even just this man, but this relationship with him that can’t exist, that you won’t so badly but cannot—it just doesn’t exist. And to finally meet this person that you’ve built up in your mind, and to have them completely reject you? It’s horrible. Like it’s having your heart ripped out. Like it sucks. And I think for my mom, as much as she wanted to find her dad and meet this man who she had built up in her own mind for her entire life, there was also a part of her who didn’t want to risk it. Who wanted to play it safe. If he doesn’t know, she can’t be hurt. She doesn’t know who this guy is, you know. He can’t reject her, which is totally fair. But, you know, and I understood that as much for her. But I also understood like she wanted this. But also, you know, in a way, more importantly, I wanted it. It was my identity too. It’s not just her. (laughs) I wanted to know. I had to know. And so, I just kept doing it. I just like threw myself to it. I got a lot of help, too. My partner’s mother, her name is Elizabeth Hazelton, she was really big into genealogy and ancestry. And she really helped me through, like, pretty much the entire process. She helped me build my family trees. And helped me give advice to reach out to different cousins and what not. But we just kept on running into walls. Like we just couldn’t find exactly who this guy was. And, you know, it’s tough when you’re just trying to find one person. Because, you know, it’s a needle in a haystack, you know. The way you—the way this happens is like you identify like one person you know you’re related to. Like I know that this man is my great-great-great grandfather. Like you need to find another person who’s related to him. You need to find another person who’s built a family tree who’s related to him. And that person might be related to—directly related to my grandfather. But they’re likely not. So, you have to find another person who we share that same grandparent with. And just essentially, it’s a process of like triangulation. You’re trying to pinpoint like this one dude. It’s like finding a needle in a stack of needles. It’s just—It seemed impossible. And one thing I realized, though, over the course of that whole journey was the importance of patience. Like you just have to be very patient on everything. Like it can be very frustrating. You’re going to want to quit. But you just have to just wait. And patience eventually paid off. Like I finally—I took a different DNA test from different DNA testing company because that’s what they say. They say if you want to increase your chances, you know, you have to check out all the databases. And that meant checking out DNA tests from 23andMe, and Ancestry DNA, and Family Tree DNA, which is the one where I eventually found the man who led to who my grandfather was. And I remember I took this test. and I got the results back and they were like “You’re related to this man by a lot. By so much that he’s likely your uncle, or something close to your uncle.” I was like “Holy crap! This is crazy!” And I saw that he had just taken a test, too. So, he was also like doing—on his own journey. And it was like very coincidental. And his name is Keith Brown, or Clifton Brown. Clifton, that’s who it is. Clifton Brown. And he’s a guy who lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado. And I reached out to him, and I emailed him essentially everything that I’ve told you. Like “Hey, my name’s Tony. I’m looking for a man who might be my grandfather, who served in the Vietnam war. Do you know who this—Do you know anyone of this description?” It’s like “Ah yeah. It’s my brother.” I was like “Holy crap.” He emailed me back and it’s like “Yeah, it’s my brother. And I’m your uncle.” And I’m like “Holy crap! That’s nuts!” He was like this heavy set, like African American guy. And he had this huge smile on his face, in the picture that he provided for the profile picture. And I remember just staring at Clifton’s picture. And I’m like “I’m related. This is my uncle right here. This is—That’s crazy—That’s my mom’s—Well, like this is my mom’s uncle. This is my great uncle.” And I’m like “This is crazy! This is—It’s finally happening.” He’s like “Yeah. It’s my brother Keith. And Keith is dead. Keith died in 2013.” And I was like “Fuck.” Right? 01:29:54.000 --> 01:29:55.000 Yeah. 01:29:55.000 --> 01:38:12.000 And it’s funny when I think about it. Like I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t sad to find out that this man was dead. I was angry. (laughs) I was pissed. I was angry at the fact that—for a lot of reasons. But I was angry at the fact that I didn’t do this journey earlier. He died in 2013. DNA tests were available back then. I could have tried. I was also angry at the fact that he died. I felt like he did that to me. I was like “How dare you. Like after all we went through, now you’re just gone. What the hell!” That I couldn’t give my mom the moment where she met her father. Something that I had inadvertently built up in my own head which is I think the moment where I came to realize and empathize with my mom about why we don’t necessarily want these things. And yeah. Died in 2013. Did a little bit of digging after he died of heart disease, and buried in a plot somewhere in Leggett, Texas outside of Houston. And he was dead! And now I had this bombshell though. I had this information that my mom wanted for a long time. But it didn’t even—Like I didn’t even think about this idea that he might have been dead. So, not only do I have to break the news to her that I found her father, but he was dead. I had to tell her that her father was gone. I, you know—And this kind of goes back to like the whole thing with my dad and his sister. But like he doesn’t know what happened to his sister. She could be alive. And in that small way, it’s kind of a mercy for him. She’s probably dead. But like there’s the chance, the off chance, that Cô Nhung (Co Nhung, aunt Nhung) and her kid, her husband are still alive. They’re living a good life. And that’s good for him. That helps my father get by. But now I know that I can’t give that to my mom. I can’t give her even that glimmer of hope anymore. Like I have to take that away from her. That’s like—I knew I had to tell her, of course. Because you can’t just hide something like this, you know. I feel like Vietnamese families we keep too much secrets from each other sometimes. As open as we can be, forthcoming with each other, like there’s also a lot of secrets. And I wasn’t going to keep this one from my mom. So, I knew I had to tell her. This happened. I even remember it happened October, or maybe it was November, 2017. And I didn’t know how I was going to tell her. I knew I probably should have just called her up and told her immediately that I found it out. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I was too scared. I was just like—It didn’t feel right, you know. Like I felt like—It’s going to sound dumb, but I felt like I had to make a moment for her. (laughs) Like how do you—You can’t just like have it be like such a banal thing, like after decades of not knowing who this man was. And so, I sat on the information for a long time. It’s funny because I told people. I told Mrs. H., Elizabeth Hazelton. I told my partner, obviously. I told my friends that this had happened. But I didn’t tell my mom. And eventually it got to January. And my parents were going to come visit to celebrate my birthday and also my mom’s birthday. So, we were just going to have a twin birthday. And I was like “You know what? This seems like the time. Like this just seems like the most epic birthday gift. It’s going to be better than any Hermes bag that I could buy her, you know? And the lotion set from Bath and Body Works that I can get her, a candle. I’m going to give her her dad. It’s gonna work because it's her birthday. When she was born, brought into this world from this man she never knew. And it’s also my birthday, and she brought me into this world with a piece of my identity that I didn’t know. Like this is poetry. This makes sense.” So, I remember they came over. They came to visit, and I had printed off a picture of him. And I put it in a nice little frame. I was able to find a picture of my grandfather, Keith Brown, from his obituary website. And I remember looking at that picture and just thinking, “I’m really related to this man. But I don’t see it.” He didn’t quite look like me, but like I was like “This guy could have been my grandfather. He could have been a dude that I saw on the weekends, like all my friends saw with their grandfather. Like what could that have been like? You know?” I think, that just added to the anger some more. It’s like “You took this from me.” (laughs) Like “You jerk! You took that sense of normalcy from me.” But I framed it up. I wrapped it for my mom. In my head, like they were just coming to visit for the weekend. In my head, it was like “I should just give it to her right off the bat. Like I can’t sit on this all weekend. It’s going to kill me.” But I couldn’t do it. I remember she came. My girlfriend was like “Are you going to do it?” And I’m like “No. Not yet. Like it’s not the right time.” Finally, like the whole weekend went by. It was fun, like it was—They came by, you know. We went out to restaurants. We ate and everything. And then finally it was like the last night. We were going to do cake and ice cream, like blow out the candles for our joint birthday cake. And it was going to be a fun time in our apartment. And we would exchange gifts. I was like “That’s going to be now or never.” Because they were like leaving the next morning. I remember my mom blew out her candles and everything. We sang Happy Birthday. It was fun. And we were giving out gifts and I was like “Hey. I have kind of a big gift for you.” And she was like “Oh! This is exciting. I hope it’s a new car.” I was like “Not quite.” And I handed her this small package. And she was like “I thought you said it was big!” I was like “Well, go ahead and open it.” She opened it, saw it was a frame. And she looked at it. It was just a picture of a Black guy. She doesn’t know him from Adam. Like she doesn’t know who this guy is. She was like “Who is this?” She thought it was a joke. And I was like “That’s him.” I was like—She was like “Who?” And I was like “That’s him. That’s your father. That’s ông nội (ong noi, paternal grandfather). That’s my grandfather.” And I remember like she was like “What??? No.” And I was like “Yes. Look.” She like looked down at the picture. And I wasn’t sure how she was going to react. And right off the bat, it was like this moment where I felt it was suspended in time. It was like everything just paused around me. And I was just waiting for her to like, to say anything. And finally, she just—tears. She started crying. Just heaving. Just crying like she could not believe it. And I started crying. My girlfriend started crying. My father, he was just like when he gets nervous, he just smiles. (makes a funny smiling face and Ho laughs) He was like “Holy crap!” It was crazy. Pulled out his phone and started filming everything. He was like “What?” And, but, and she looked at me like just through tears. And she was like—First thing she asked: “Is he alive?” And I was like “No. No. Sorry.” Man, I cried even more. “He died in 2013.” But there he was. I guess, you know, I explained to her how I found him. Who he was. How she had an uncle that we can meet. And it was great. And like it was a very cathartic moment. Like we sat there for nearly like—We sat there for hours, just talking through things. And it was very nice. And being able to just talk through, you know— She talked to me about like how bad it was not having a dad growing up. How she was bullied. All the stuff she used to tell me. We were just going over it again. And talking about like my own struggles with my identity and everything that I went through. 01:38:12.000 --> 01:42:16.000 And yeah. From that, I was able to finally make like the big announcement about it and let everyone know on social media. I remember I got calls as if I had like won a prize or something. Like people were calling me. Like old friends, old bosses that I hadn’t talked to in years, teachers. They would send me messages and they were like “Congratulations!” Like because they had seen—They were following my work and they had seen how hard I had worked for this and how much it meant to me. And yeah. Eventually I was able to use that story. I pitched the story to, I think it was Huffington Post and they published an essay about it. And weirdly enough, it kind of like really helped like my career and what I do now, which is as a professional writer and editor. And yeah. And from there, like I remember after that whole thing happened, after I got published like it was a big thing for my father. He was so proud of me. He called me. He didn’t say necessarily he was proud of me. But my mom told me later. So, you know, this is how I know. I was like “That’s so sweet!” She was like “Dong. Like your dad wants to know, wants you to send a link to that, to what you wrote.” I was like “Why?” and she was like “Oh, he’s going to translate it. He’s going to translate the whole thing so he can share it with his friends.” And I was like “Holy shit. Like that is so sweet.” Like my father would never tell me—He never told me he loved me, growing up. You know, he’d never said that to me or my brother. And I was like “Oh. That’s so—That is so fucking nice. Like that is exactly why I’m going to use that to carry me through the next few years.” And I remember like a few days after my mom left, I remember before we took her to the airport and everything, I was like “Are you going to tell ba ngoai?” Because that was a whole ‘nother thing. Like we had finally found this man that she also was wondering about. And she was like “yeah. I’ll tell her. I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry. I’ll let her know.” And I got a phone call a few days later. I was walking my dog with my partner. We were at the dog beach here in Chicago. And beautiful sunny day. I remember I got a phone call. It was from ba ngoai. I always pick up the phone when ba ngoai calls. She doesn’t call that much. So, when she does, it was like a call. I figured it was because my mom told her. So, I picked up the phone and she immediately, she was like “Dong! I’m so happy. You did it!” Like she’s letting me know like right off the bat, like how happy she was with what I did. How proud she was of me. And it was so funny because like she had seemed to have hinted like “You figured it out, my secret!” (laughs) Like in, you know, not so many words, but like she was like “Oh, you figured it out! Like the thing I was hiding from all of you.” Like it was like a silly, like a fun secret she was doing. And I was like “Yeah. I figured it out, grandma.” And I remember. I’ll never forget that phone call because it meant so much to me. And she was like “We’re so proud of you.” You know. (starts to tear up) To hear her say that, you know, I think, you know, as a Vietnamese person, as a Vietnamese American kid, you grow up not hearing that enough. You know? You don’t hear that from your family, do you? You don’t hear that. You hear “That’s what’s expected. That’s what is expected of you.” You know? You’re supposed to get a job. You’re supposed to do well. You’re supposed to be successful. You don’t hear “I’m proud of you” at all. And if you do, it’s not enough. (wipes tears from his eyes with a napkin). It’s never enough. And to hear my grandma say that, to say like “You did it. You did this thing, like this crazy thing that seemed impossible to us. We are so proud of you.” That’s—To answer your question, that’s how my family views me. (both laugh) They’re proud of me. And that’s all I could ever ask for. Sorry about that (laughs). 01:42:16.000 --> 01:42:19.000 No. Don’t be sorry. Thank you for sharing. 01:42:19.000 --> 01:42:20.000 Yeah. 01:42:20.000 --> 01:42:21.000 Wow, that’s amazing. 01:42:21.000 --> 01:42:24.000 Yeah. 01:42:24.000 --> 01:42:27.000 I don’t even know what “I’m proud of you” sounds like in Vietnamese. (laughs) 01:42:27.000 --> 01:42:38.000 Yeah! I’ve never, I’ve never, yeah. Exactly. It’s—I don’t even know the words. I couldn’t tell you. (laughs) 01:42:38.000 --> 01:42:39.000 Probably Google Translate wouldn’t even know. 01:42:39.000 --> 01:42:42.000 Yeah. Exactly. Like “Sorry. No, no results here.” (both laugh) 01:42:42.000 --> 01:42:44.000 Yeah! 01:42:44.000 --> 01:42:52.000 Oh, gosh. 01:42:52.000 --> 01:43:09.000 So, then, talking about identity, I guess that wasn’t my last question. Because now that you know that you are Black, how has that—how has your—I guess, how has that changed you? If it has. 01:43:09.000 --> 01:46:56.000 Yeah. I mean, that’s a great question. It’s one I’m still kind of asking myself. You know, like it kind of goes back to your question about how I’m trying to take back my Vietnamese-ness or how I’m trying to make more friends who are Vietnamese. This is a space in my identity I fully do not—I can’t—I don’t feel comfortable calling—I can’t say that I’m, I’m Black. I can say I’m related to a Black man. I have—I can trace my ancestry back to specific plantations in Texas. That’s cool. I mean, not cool, cool. But like that is a thing I can do. And I think that’s a very notable and quite frankly awesome thing I can do. I can–I can trace back to Americans born in America. I can trace back to Africans born in Africa. But I can’t say that I’m Black. I can’t say that. Blackness is it’s own thing. It’s its own culture. (sirens in the background) And it’s something that I’ve been trying to learn more about, obviously, because this is my family. Like inevitably like I’m related people who are Black. My uncle, my uncle Clifton, he’s Black. You know, I have aunts who are Black. I’m–I’m not. (chuckles) Like I’m just not at all. I don’t think I ever will be. It’s not a culture I grew up in. These weren’t people I ever like were able to associate with or hang out with. And I think partly through design, you know it’s the true irony, and I think it’s something I tell people all the time. Vietnamese people do not confront their own prejudices enough and their own racism enough. We talk all the time, for good reason, about the struggles that Asian Americans go through in this country to get by, the prejudices and racism that we face. But we, in turn, turn that on every other ethnicity, especially when it comes to Black people and Hispanic people. Horribly racist against them. And it was something, you know, growing up I heard it in my family, and I heard it with other Vietnamese people all the time, like “Watch out for Black people. Don’t hire Hispanic people. Or like da-da-da-da-da.” All these prejudices that you would hear anywhere else, regarding these people. And I’ve heard it from my parents. I’ve heard it from grandmother. And to find out the true irony is that it’s in our blood is hilarious. It’s partly funny but it’s also like partly like it gives me more impetus and drive to have a conversation about it, to like “You know, we got to talk to our elders and we got to confront this in our own community.” Because we’re not perfect. We’re—A lot of us can be horribly racist and horribly bigoted against other people for the same reasons that people are horribly racist and bigoted towards us. And it’s BS. It doesn’t make any sense. And yet, you know here we are. But yeah. My Blackness or my Black—Blackness, you know, my background, my ethnicity, it’s something that I’m still navigating. I’m still confronting. I’d love to learn more about it, you know. Like I’d love to learn more about the history of what my ancestors went through. But can I claim it? No. I don’t think I want to. It’s something that is a part of me, though. And I’ll always recognize that. It’s a part of me. It’s a part of my family. It’s a part of my grandfather. And, you know, that’s something I can be aware of and I accept that. 01:46:56.000 --> 01:47:04.000 Have you had conversations with elders about this kind of racism that we hold? 01:47:04.000 --> 01:49:36.000 Yeah. I—Especially around, yeah, around the time of like George Floyd, when that happened in 2020, like I think it was like the first time I really had a conversation about it with my mom. And just telling her just straight up like “Look at what they’re doing to people out there. Look at what they’re doing to us. That’s like—George Floyd like that could have been grandfather. That could have been someone—That could have been my uncle. That could have been someone you know. Like that’s what they’re doing to us.” And I think she kind of struggled with it. She was just sort of—We had a lot of arguments. It was probably like some of the most tense bit between my mom and I that it’s ever been. Because it’s so plain to me that this is something that they should care about. They should be aware of and passionate about. This idea that as people of color, we’re always going to kind of get the short end of the stick here in this country. That people are already, when we walk into a room, they’re already going to be aware of us and have, you know, ideas about who we are and what we’re trying to do. And to see that my parents don’t understand that. It’s maddening. It’s like how do you not? How do you not? Like you came into this country. I’ve watched you struggle with it. I’ve watched people be racist to you. Like how are you not confronting this right now? I haven’t really talked to my grandma about it. We fairly stay apolitical and that’s fine by me. I don’t think I want to talk necessarily to discern my grandma’s thoughts on these sort of things. Though I really should. I really should talk to her more. But I think these are conversations that are important to have. We need to talk about it more. Especially like, you know, Vietnamese people truly are like, can be very, very conservative. You go to a place like Orange County, like you’ll see it, you know. When you go to a place like Sioux City, you’ll see it. These are—At our core, we can be a very conservative community in everything. You know, from race relations to issues like gay marriage, abortion, extremely conservative. And, you know, the irony is (chuckles) we’re immigrants. Like conservatives hate us. Why do we hate other immigrants for doing the exact same thing that we’re trying to do, that we did? It doesn’t make any sense. It’s completely maddening. That’s all to say, it’s a conversation I think is very important to have and that we all need to confront constantly, like with our own families. 01:49:36.000 --> 01:49:46.000 Yeah. I agree. It is really important to have that conversation and also incredibly difficult. Like you said with your ba ngoai. Like—I can’t imagine having that conversation. 01:49:46.000 --> 01:50:01.000 I can’t talk to my bà ngoại about that! Like it might—then the pain thing is that it might ruin something about her for me. And I don’t want my vision of ba ngoai. Ba ngoai is ba ngoai to me. I don’t want to hear that she actually might actually have horribly racist and problematic thoughts. 01:50:01.000 --> 01:50:02.000 Yeah. Right. 01:50:02.000 --> 01:50:27.000 Yeah. But also, you know, what, yeah, what—Can I even convince her at this day and age? Then again, like we probably should. Like we have to. Like what—Because if we don’t, you know, like then it persists. Like these thoughts, the problems that they have. Yeah, I don’t know. It’s tough, Jenn. (chuckles) 01:50:27.000 --> 01:50:29.000 Yeah. It’s not easy. 01:50:29.000 --> 01:50:32.000 Yeah. 01:50:32.000 --> 01:50:42.000 So, going back to your parents’ journey, migration, I guess. 01:50:42.000 --> 01:50:44.000 Yeah. 01:50:44.000 --> 01:50:51.000 Do you feel like that’s your story in a sense? Or how do you carry that story with you, if at all. 01:50:51.000 --> 01:50:54.000 Yeah. That’s a good question. 01:50:54.000 --> 01:50:58.000 And including any kind of trauma, emotional baggage. 01:50:58.000 --> 01:54:48.000 It’s strange because, you know, as a writer I’m always trying to share the stories of my family in any way that I can. But I always come up to a point where I’m like “should I be sharing this? Like this seems like I want to share it. But like does my mom or dad? Like do my uncles and aunts? Does my brother?” But it’s my story, too. And, I mean, it’s something that I’m sure like you’re aware of, I would assume as a Vietnamese person. But like growing up my mom was always like “Don’t tell people this X-Y-Z fact about our family. Don’t talk about this.” Like, “we can’t let people know about this.” Sometimes it would be incredibly banal. Sometimes it would be important. I couldn’t tell anyone about it. But I—There’s a culture of secrecy in the Vietnamese community that I think persists now to this day. Like it’s a culture of like “Don’t talk about this.” And part of it is strategic, you know. Like for someone like my mom, it was always like people would judge us if they know this thing about our family. And appearances are so important to her and like the Vietnamese community, at least in Sioux City, where it’s just like we couldn’t let people on at all about what was actually going on in our house, you know. But yeah. It's hard. (chuckles) To think about like—To try to move past that as a writer where so much of my work is just sharing my thoughts on things and my experiences in my life. And it’s hard, frankly, like sitting here sharing some of these things, like I have to preempt myself (raises his left hand to his temple, and makes a twisting motion) like “should I share this?” And it’s sort of like “Eh, no.” It’s like “Ignore that. Turn that off for now.” Like—Because I think this work is more important if I am just upfront and just like let people know everything. But that is fighting against everything in me, you know what I mean? Like everything that I was taught growing up about like how much I should share with people, which is nothing (chuckles), how much I should let on about what goes on in my family and my community. It’s tough. It is really tough. And as a writer, as a communicator, as a storyteller, it’s tough to do that. But the work is important. Like I have to tell people. That’s all to say that the things that my parents went through, it’s their story. Of course, it’s their story. But it’s my story too. It’s, indelibly, it’s my story. Like you can’t rip their stories away from me. Like they’re mine, you know. It’s part of the reason I do what I do now as a writer. I love storytelling. I love the idea that I can come—I can claim this, these stories that were handed to me from my parents. They’re mine, now. After my parents die, after my grandmother dies, their stories are mine. And because there’s no one else there’s going to be. And if I don’t tell them, they’re going to die with me. And I can’t let that happen. I cannot let that happen, you know. This is why I think something like this is so, you know, damn important. It’s just like we can’t let these stories die. They need to persist somehow. Because it’s not any one person’s story, it’s our story. We’re Vietnamese. Like this is us! You know? We are Vietnamese people. We are Vietnamese Americans, and this is collectively our own thing. No one else can claim it. This is ours and this is ours for what to do with it. And if we don’t keep on telling the stories, if we don’t let people know what happened to us, then it dies with us. And that’s the real tragedy, right? That’s the ugliest thing that could possibly happen. 01:54:48.000 --> 01:54:49.000 Yeah. I agree. 01:54:49.000 --> 01:55:17.000 Yeah. A tree falls in a forest, does it make a sound. I don’t think so. Like if you don’t tell—If a story happens, and you don’t tell it, it doesn’t exist. And the idea that like someone could die, someone could live a life as full and rich as my parents, my grandma’s, or mine, and they die, and no one is there to remember it. That’s the scariest thing in the world to me. It’s the scariest thing. And we can’t let that happen to our community. No. You know? 01:55:17.000 --> 01:55:20.000 Yeah. 01:55:20.000 --> 01:55:27.000 This is the most important thing I’m doing today. (laughs) It’s the most important I’ll do for the rest of the year, for sure. Yeah. 01:55:27.000 --> 01:55:47.000 Thank you. So, that’s a good segue into talking about your career. I wanted to ask you about your career as a writer and what lead you here. And also, what are the most fulfilling aspects of your career and what would you like to change or see different in the future? 01:55:47.000 --> 01:55:48.000 Yeah! That’s a good— 01:55:48.000 --> 01:55:49.000 It’s a long question. 01:55:49.000 --> 02:01:41.000 Yeah, no, no. It’s a fun question. I mean, like my career as a writer, like I always knew I wanted to be a writer. I remember like my dad telling me and brother bedtime stories. And like I think like that was like the absolute genesis of like my passion to just like tell a good story, you know. Just listening to my father, like me with bated breath. It’s just like “Like what happens next?” you know, I love that. I love telling stories. I love hearing stories. And I remember being young and gosh, I must have been maybe ten, maybe nine. We—My aunt had saw me in the restaurant. I was just like messing around (gestures as if writing with his right hand) like I think just like, you know, when you’re young, you’re just trying to figure out what stories are like as a writer. When you’re a young writer, you don’t necessarily know like “once upon a time, da-da-da-da-da.” You don’t know, you don’t necessarily know how to make a narrative arc yet. So, you’re just sort of like doing what you can. I remember sitting there, just a pen and paper, just trying to write like a story. I think it was like honestly like a Harry Potter knockoff. (laughs) Like just directly a Harry Potter knockoff. Just doing my own little fan fiction before fan fiction was really a thing. And my aunt asked me like “Oh! What are you doing?” And I remember telling her, I was like “Oh! Like I’m writing a story.” She was like “Oh, why are you doing that?” It’s just such a—like “Oh. That’s fine. Like why are you doing that, though?” I was like “Oh, you know, I think I really want to be a writer one day. I think I want to be an author.” And she was like “You don’t want to do that.” (laughs and tilts his head back) It’s just like dang! “Why?” She was like “Oh, there might not be money in it.” And I was just like “No. No. I think I can do it.” I pulled out one of my Harry Potter books. “These books seem to sell pretty well.” And she was like “Okay. If that’s what you really want, you can do it. As long as you’re happy.” (laughs) Even then, being that young and hearing those words, I was like “She doesn’t mean that. Like she knows. She doesn’t actually believe in like my mission, my ultimate goal to be a writer.” And that’s something I heard a lot when I was a kid, from like my parents and like my grandma, always questioning. Like I remember when I chose my English major, they were all like “Why? Why are you doing that?” And we had talked before about how I was also a film major. I double majored, constantly, throughout college. The one constant, though, I knew was English. Like I knew I wanted to be a writer. I knew I wanted to figure it out somehow. So, I kept English. And growing up though, my parents, the Vietnamese community, no one really believed in that goal. Heck, like even in school, like teachers would just sort of tell me sometimes, like “Oh! That’s good but, you know, always have something in your back pocket. Like maybe you should also do pre-med.” (laughs) Right. Pre-med or pre-law. And I was like “That sounds boring. I’m just going to try to do the best I can with the writing thing.” But, you know, I remember I reached high school and I reached a point where it was just like all right, maybe writing is a thing, like it isn’t going to be like the best thing for me. Maybe I should focus on something else. And I remember like I flirted with the idea of like maybe I should start studying a little bit more and I should pursue like pre-veterinary. Because I like animals. So, like that would be fun. Or maybe architecture because I also had a creative mind for design. And it wasn’t until I took a class my senior year of high school. I was in English honors and we had written, it was like an essay, a personal essay. It was like this whole series of personal essays we had to write. And I remember I wrote a story that was essentially the story of—a story about my brother and I growing up in the restaurant. And it was a story about how one day my—This is dark. It’s completely like a tangent. But my parents brought home like this chicken duck because Vietnamese families then they would trade livestock, essentially, with each other. And they would sometimes raise them in like their apartments and their houses. But they brought me a chicken. They brought my brother and I like a chicken duck, just to raise as pets. And we, I remember we had them in like a cardboard box. And we watched as they grew up, chicken duck grew up and everything. And this story was about like me and my brother like raising them. But essentially at the end what happened my parents just slaughtered them. (laughs) Like we ate them for dinner. A totally, total immigrant thing to do. It was like—And obviously my brother and I were very upset. But the essay was about that. I remember it was just kind of like because the personal essay was like “Oh, just write a story about your childhood.” That was what I wrote. I remember as the teacher was handing back everyone their essays with a grade on it, she handed out the essays to everyone, like giving them their essays with feedback and everything. But she didn’t give me back mine. And I remember like she kind of had like a smile on her face. I’ll never forget it. But like she went up to the podium and she took my essay. She put it down and she just started reading for everyone. And I felt—I was like “What’s going on here?” And she read the whole thing. And people loved it. Like at the end, everyone clapped. And I was like “Oh! This is completely unexpected.” Like I did not expect that at all. And I remember afterwards, after class, she asked me to stay behind. And I was like “Hey, thanks for doing that! That was weird. I didn’t expect that.” She was like “No. It was a great story.” And like she looked me in the eye. She was like “Have you ever thought about doing this for a living?” And I remember being in high school, being a senior, fully planning to do something else with my life, completely ignoring like the dreams that I had of being like a professional writer. And at that moment, like listening to her, Mrs. Sitzmann, I’ll never forget her. If I ever publish a book, like she’s going to be the person I dedicate it to. 02:01:41.000 --> 02:01:42.000 Mrs? 02:01:42.000 --> 02:01:44.000 Mrs. Sitzmann. Patricia Sitzmann. Yeah. 02:01:44.000 --> 02:01:46.000 S-I-T— 02:01:46.000 --> 02:01:48.000 Z-M-A-N. 02:01:48.000 --> 02:01:49.000 N. Thank you. 02:01:49.000 --> 02:08:06.000 I think two N’s at the end. But yeah. She said “Have you ever thought about doing this for a living?” I was like “You know, I have but like I—not really serious.” And she was like “You should think about doing it seriously. You have talent. You can do this.” It’s the first time in my life that anyone told me that I could do writing and it was huge for me. That changed the course of my life. That changed everything. From then on, I was like “Okay. I’m going to pursue the English degree. I’m going to try to do creative writing focus. I’m going to go to a school specifically for creative writing, you know. University of Iowa has a great writing program, like the best in the world.” I was going to go there. I was going to do it. And yeah. That’s sort of like how I ended up being a writer. I remember after college it was kind of tough to find work. Eventually, I landed copywriting gigs. Like I remember like the most important thing for me, I realize, was like I can’t do anything else. If I do anything else, I might just do that thing forever. Like if I ended up doing like graphic design, like to try to support my writing career, I knew I would just end up being a graphic designer. I was like if I was going to make it, I was going to have to just find ways to write and make money. And so, yeah. After college, I found copywriting gigs and content writing gigs. Eventually, I found like my first fulltime job paying $30,000 a year in an office in River North here in Chicago, working as an associate editor for these pay-to-play magazines. And it was—I mean, you know, I was super grateful at the time because, you know, first real job, going into an office and everything. I’m not being paid a lot, but like still like I was grateful to have insurance, especially to have something that I could pay my rent and bills with. But it was horrible. It was a really tough job. Because I was not passionate about the stuff we were writing about. I just didn’t care at all. And it reflected in my work, obviously, because they fired me a year later (laughs). And it ended up being—Like I remember I got fired. I just felt like shit for myself, even though I hated that job. I didn’t want to go back. It was still losing a job. It still felt bad to be rejected, right? I remember I called my parents and my dad did something really nice for me. He was like “Oh, you got fired! Congratulations!” He just—He told me he congratulated me. I was like “Why are you congratulating me?” He was like “Oh, you can do something else now.” He was like—Because he knew I didn’t like that job. Like and he knew like—Because, you know, like one thing my parents—you know, as much as they want me to make money and like find a career that I liked and everything, one thing my mom always reminded me growing up and even to this day, she just wants me and my brother to be happy. Which is a huge mercy, I think. Like they don’t necessarily tell you they’re proud of you, but my mom always reminded me. It was only my mom. Like my dad would never say that. She just wanted my brother and I to be happy. She was like “Whatever you do, if you like it, keep doing it.” She was—She knew I didn’t like that job, so she was like, “Good. You don’t have a job anymore? Good. You’ll find something else. It’s not a big deal.” And I’ll never forget that. That really helped me like in a really tough time. But yeah. From there, I just—I tried to find other writing gigs. I eventually landed a very good job paying like considerably more money doing content marketing for a personal finance influencer named Ramit Sethi. He actually has a Netflix show now, I Will Teach You to be Rich. I think the show is called How to be Rich. I worked content marketing for Ramit for two years before I was like “I don’t actually want to be a marketer.” (laughs) Like this is fun. This is a good job. I’m learning a lot. But what I realized during this time, as I had this job, I was able to publish an essay in Huffington Post. And I realized then like this is what I want to do. Like I want to tell my family’s story. I want to be able to tell other people’s stories. What I realized, like I want to be a writer but not—I don’t want to sell anything. I just want to be a writer. I want to be able to tell a good story. And so, I quit that job and I really devoted myself to try to do freelancing fulltime, essentially getting published in places like The Huffington Post. And being able to tell my story. Incidentally, you know, my background with genealogy and ancestry was able to land me a job as a science writer, as a science journalist at a place called Futurism.com. And that’s where I worked about a year before I was able to—actually, I got a phone call from a man who’s now my boss, my managing editor, Neel Patel at The Daily Beast. And he essentially told me like, “Hey. We saw your work. We like your work. And you should apply for this deputy editor job that we have open.” And so, I did. And yeah. That’s pretty much where I ended up now. Like I remember writing out the cover letter and resume for them and essentially telling them the story of finding my grandfather, finding my identity and how this emergent piece of technology and science was able to get me there. And that’s how my interest in sort of like this realm started. And yeah. I was able to get this gig, and now like I’m doing the thing that I’ve always wanted to do like pretty much my entire life every day, which is awesome. Like it’s amazing. I’m interviewing people. I’m talking to them. I’m telling their stories. I’m telling—I’m breaking news about science and technology which is not necessarily a field that I thought I was going to get into when I started all this. But it’s one that I love doing now. But it also affords me the opportunity to write about other things and like to pitch to other places and tell stories, you know? I was able to pitch some stories to Diacritics, the Diasporic Vietnamese—I don’t remember what the “A” is, but an association and network run by Eric Nguyễn (Eric Nguyen) and Việt Thanh Nguyễn (Viet Thanh Nguyen). (Diasporic Vietnamese Artists Network, dvan.org.) And yeah. No, it’s great! It’s all to say that like I’m doing the thing that I wanted to do, like after many years, proving my aunt wrong, which feels nice. (chuckles) 02:08:06.000 --> 02:08:09.000 Have you followed up with her and said “I told you so?” (laughs) 02:08:09.000 --> 02:08:25.000 I have not but I know she’s proud of me too. She’s very happy about like where I landed up. Because like she’s on Facebook and everything. So, sometimes I’ll share articles and I’ll think about it. Like I’ll think like “I hope Cô Thủy (Co Thuy, aunt Thuy) sees this. I hope she sees this right now.” 02:08:25.000 --> 02:08:26.000 That’s awesome. 02:08:26.000 --> 02:08:28.000 Yeah. 02:08:28.000 --> 02:08:31.000 Do you have any projects on the horizon? Like with writing or anything else? 02:08:31.000 --> 02:11:00.000 Yes. I am working on a book. I’m working on a memoir specifically. This time, right around this time last year, I was able to have a man named Christopher Schilling, I think it’s Schilling. I should pronounce his name better. He reached out to me, and he said like “Hey. I stumbled upon your website on Twitter, and I went through your blog, and I got to say I’m a big fan of your work. My name’s Chris. I am a literary agent. And I was wondering if like you’ve been represented. If you’re not, let’s get a conversation going. Let’s talk.” And I was like “Holy shit! That’s awesome.” I remember reading the email out loud to my partner. Like we were both driving to Iowa. And I was like “Yo! You won’t believe what I just saw.” And I just like read it aloud to her and we freaked out for a while. It was awesome, because we’re both writers and this is something we’ve always wanted to do. And, you know, I’ve always wanted to publish a book. I mean, like it’s the reason I became a writer in the first place. And like I knew it was going to take work and it was going to be hard. And so, it was always something I kind of put off. And I knew I wanted to tell the story of finding my grandfather. But I just couldn’t get the gumption to just sort of put everything together and actually do it. So, to have Chris reach out to me in a nice bit of serendipity and say that like “Hey, I saw this blog, this thing that you were working on very hard for years, to find your grandfather. And now it’s going to pay off because I’m going to try to help you get a book deal.” I was like “That’s awesome!” So, now that was a year ago. I’m still working on that book. But I’m getting closer to finishing it. And hopefully within the next month or so, I’ll be able to have that on its way to him. But that’s probably the biggest thing I have on the horizon. It’s tough, Jennifer. It is like, it is so intimidating. It feels like I’m trying to climb a mountain, you know. And I don’t know how to climb a mountain. But I’m trying. Because, you know, it’s a big deal. I have to—It goes back to this idea that like is this my story to tell? You know? Like because I’m not—with this book, with this memoir, I’m not only telling my story. It’s the story of my family. And I have to do it right. That’s a lot of pressure. Like I feel the weight of that every time I sit down and write it. I feel the weight of it now as I recount this to you. But that’s probably the biggest thing I have on the horizon. It’s a big thing. Yeah. 02:11:00.000 --> 02:11:02.000 And are your parents aware of this? 02:11:02.000 --> 02:11:17.000 Yeah. I told them about it. And they were like “Oh, that’s awesome! That’s so cool.” But I don’t think they’ll be really aware of it until, you know, they have the book in their hands, and they can see it, you know? Yeah. I think that will be a big deal for them. 02:11:17.000 --> 02:11:18.000 That’s really cool! 02:11:18.000 --> 02:11:22.000 Yeah! I’m excited about it. Yeah. It should be cool. 02:11:22.000 --> 02:11:25.000 Is there any—Are there any other projects that you want to talk about? 02:11:25.000 --> 02:12:13.000 Let me think about that. Nothing right now. I’m actually trying to do less projects. As I focus in on this memoir, I’m realizing I’m doing way too much, both with my fulltime job which I love doing. I’m not going to do less with that. But like I’m also freelancing. Like I’m still freelancing for like different marketing clients, just trying to make money. And also pitching stories to other publications. Like I realize as much as I love doing that like I don’t have all the time in the world. There’s only so much focus I have and energy in the day and I got to put it where things are important. And that means the memoir, and my work, my fulltime job. And so, I’m trying to do less projects. Yeah. 02:12:13.000 --> 02:12:17.000 How are you doing like with your energy— 02:12:17.000 --> 02:12:18.000 Overall? Or like right now. 02:12:18.000 --> 02:12:19.000 —right now. Like as we’re talking. 02:12:19.000 --> 02:12:21.000 I’m good, yeah. This is fun. 02:12:21.000 --> 02:12:22.000 You’re good? 02:12:22.000 --> 02:12:23.000 Yeah. Are you good? 02:12:23.000 --> 02:12:24.000 I’m good, yeah. HO TRAN: Okay, good. 02:12:24.000 --> 02:12:28.000 Okay. I want to go back to your uncle Clifton, if you don’t mind. 02:12:28.000 --> 02:12:29.000 Yeah, of course. 02:12:29.000 --> 02:12:30.000 Have you met him? 02:12:30.000 --> 02:17:30.000 Yes. We were able to meet him, mmmm, a few years ago. I don’t remember when. I think it might have—It had to be—Let me, let me, let me think about this. Oh gosh. It had to be 2019 or so. As soon as I told my mom, she wanted to meet him. She wanted to meet this man. Like she wanted to meet her uncle. Because, you know, for her this man was like the last connection she has to her father. I wanted to meet him, too. Because we had emailed. He seemed like a very nice guy. Also, a writer. I think he has a book published. He’s a fantasy writer, which is awesome. I love that for him so much. And he—I told him, I was like “Hey. We’re going to be out in Colorado,” because that’s where my brother lived at the time. Still lives there now. “We’re going to be out in Denver. Like do you want to meet up anywhere in Colorado Springs. We’ll make the drive out there and we’ll just meet up with you.” And yeah. He named a restaurant and I remember we all got dressed up for it. Like we’re going to church or meeting the Pope or something. And I remember all of us were so nervous for him. We were just like—my dad probably less so than me and my mom and my brother. My brother, I think he was also nervous for it, but he didn’t let it on. But my mom was like really quiet the whole day and so was I. And we were just like “What’s this guy like? What if he hates us? What if it gets awkward?” That kind of thing. But yeah. We went to this restaurant. We went in and he was there with his wife and his granddaughter. And we got to talking and it was great. It was genuinely very, very cool. Like we were—we ate dinner, eventually, and like the conversation went so well we went grab dinner together afterwards. And it was funny because talking to him I realized that he was also nervous. Like he was like “Yeah.” His wife was like “Clifton’s been nervous all day for this. He, yeah, he’s just a nervous wreck.” And I was like “Yeah, I definitely feel you. We’re there too.” And it’s funny because—And like when they met, I wasn’t sure how they were like going to interact with each other, my mom and Clifton. But it was funny because, you know, they were like they started holding hands and stuff and they would hug each other. And my mom cried. And Clifton cried. And like it was this huge cathartic thing for her and also Clifton. And it was funny, like talking to him, we were trying to learn more about my grandfather. And he let us know that things between him and my grandfather weren’t good. They weren’t good. And the implication seemed to be that my grandfather was kind of an asshole to be completely honest. And he was like “Yeah. We never—We didn’t really talk, like we didn’t really talk. We had the same father but I think Keith”—my grandfather, my ong noi— “I think Keith didn’t like the fact that I had a different mother. And he didn’t want to talk.” I was like “That sucks. I’m sorry about that.” I apologized on behalf of this, my grandfather, this man that I never met. And which, you know, it sucks. Like I wish my grandfather was a nicer guy. But thinking back, I’m like maybe it is for the best that we didn’t have to meet him, you know. This idea that like if he was kind of a mean guy, if he was kind of a jerk, then the idea that he could have possibly rejected my mom or been cruel to my mom, it would have killed me. That would have killed me. And I would have killed him (laughs). I would have been very angry at this man. I would have—That would have been horrible. And so, it was a moment where I was like “Yeah. Maybe it’s best that some things people just never find out. Maybe some secrets are best.” Going back to this idea that Vietnamese people, community love our secrets. But we know who Clifton is now. This very sweet, very generous, very creative man who welcomed this entirely new family in with open arms, you know. Because we didn’t know him until that day, when we finally did. It was amazing! We haven’t met up with him since that day. I’ve been meaning to. But we keep up with each other on social media which is nice. Yeah. I’m glad I could give my mom, at least, that. That I could give her her uncle who didn’t reject her off, right? Not only didn’t reject her, but embraced her, held hands with her, and cried with her. That meant a lot to me. That meant a lot to me to see. 02:17:30.000 --> 02:17:31.000 That’s lovely. 02:17:31.000 --> 02:17:32.000 Yeah. 02:17:32.000 --> 02:17:34.000 Have you met any other family members? 02:17:34.000 --> 02:19:26.000 No. So, my mom has two other sisters out there. She has two sisters out there. And we haven’t been able to connect with them yet. And part of the reason is I was able to connect with one of my mom’s cousins. And who’s—Her mom is my grandfather’s sister. She—And I emailed her back before and was like “So, is there any way you could connect me with your cousins? Like I know it’s kind of like a big thing for them to realize that they have another Vietnamese sister out there. Would that be possible?” And she’s like “Yeah. Let me check with my mom. Yeah. We could probably do that. I would love that.” And she got back to me. Like she emailed me back about a week later. She was just like “Hey. I talked with my mom. She doesn’t think that’s a good idea.” I was like “Oh, yeah. That’s fair.” And it’s a thing, like I’m not upset about necessarily. It would be awesome, of course, to be able to connect my mom to her sisters, her flesh and blood half-sisters. That would be so cool! It would be great to meet my aunts. Like that would be awesome. It would be great to learn more about my grandfather. I would love—That’d probably be the biggest thing for me. Is it worth like them rejecting her, like not wanting anything to do with us and finding that out? I’m not sure if it is. All that to say, I will eventually like one day like get it in me to try to reach out to them like and find out where they live and let them know that their sister is out there. Because, you know, they deserve to know too. This might be something that they want to know, they would want to know. That they’re aware of us. And so, that’s something I’ve got to give to them. It’s something I want to give to my mom. But yeah. One step at a time, you know. 02:19:26.000 --> 02:19:28.000 Does your mom know of their existence? 02:19:28.000 --> 02:19:29.000 Mm-hmm. I told her. 02:19:29.000 --> 02:19:30.000 Oh, okay. 02:19:30.000 --> 02:19:51.000 Yeah. I mean, yeah. Like I’ve told myself there’s nothing I’m going to hide from her regarding this. There’s nothing I should hide from her regarding this. Everything I find out she needs to know about. Because like I said, it’s her story too, you know. It’s her family. It’s her blood. It’d be wrong if I didn’t. 02:19:51.000 --> 02:19:56.000 Yeah. Okay. And so, you learned about these sisters from Uncle Clifton? 02:19:56.000 --> 02:20:04.000 I learned about it from Uncle Clifton. I also knew because my grandmother said that he had another family, right? 02:20:04.000 --> 02:20:06.000 Oh, I see. Right. 02:20:06.000 --> 02:21:16.000 And after I found out who my grandfather was, Keith, I looked into his background. And you can pull up a lot of things about peoples’ backgrounds for like 20 bucks (chuckles) like online. Whole records about where they lived, arrest records, DUIs, stuff like that. You can find out a lot. You can also find out their family. That was how I was able to find out their identities. Like I know their names, not off the top of my head. I’m not that good. But they—And I’ve tried to track them from afar. It makes me feel really creepy sometimes, because these people are still alive. It’s not like going through census records of dead people. Like this is two people who are just actively out there right now. And I know where they used to live and stuff like that. I know where they probably live now, phone numbers, that kind of thing. It’s really weird. But it’s strange because like I have all this information that could connect me with them. I could do it today. I could take some time after this right now, head to a coffee shop, get a cà phê sữa đá (ca phe sua da, Vietnamese iced coffee with milk), sit down and call this woman up. I’m not going to do it though. Because like it’s—I don’t know if I’m ready. 02:21:16.000 --> 02:21:31.000 Yeah. I understand. So, have you been to—I’m switching gears now. Have you been to Vietnam since you went as a little kid? 02:21:31.000 --> 02:21:47.000 No. I want to. It is a thing that I want to do soon. I don’t know if it’s going to happen necessarily this year or next. But I want to do it soon. I want to do it before my grandmother dies for sure. Definitely before my parents die. 02:21:47.000 --> 02:21:48.000 Do you want to go with them? 02:21:48.000 --> 02:21:53.000 I want to go with them. (doorbell rings and he looks to his left). I want to be there with them. I wonder who it is? 02:21:53.000 --> 02:21:58.000 I think it’s Randy (Kim, whose interview was scheduled after Tony’s). It’s Randy! 02:21:58.000 --> 02:22:04.000 Randy! 02:22:04.000 --> 02:22:06.000 (in the background) Oh, hey Randy! 02:22:06.000 --> 02:22:08.000 Hello, hello. Good to see you! 02:22:08.000 --> 02:22:10.000 You too! Oh my gosh. It’s cold out there. 02:22:10.000 --> 02:22:11.000 I know. 02:22:11.000 --> 02:22:12.000 Look what the cat dragged in. 02:22:12.000 --> 02:22:13.000 Hi Tony. (says something unintelligible). 02:22:13.000 --> 02:22:14.000 (gets up from his chair and walks off camera). How you doin’ brother? 02:22:14.000 --> 02:22:17.000 Oh, good. 02:22:17.000 --> 02:22:19.000 Um, Randy, we’re still filming. 02:22:19.000 --> 02:22:20.000 Oh, okay. 02:22:20.000 --> 02:22:25.000 Will you—Tony, do you want privacy while we continue? 02:22:25.000 --> 02:22:29.000 I’m fine. That’s fine. Randy can be here, yeah. He’s heard most of this already. So— 02:22:29.000 --> 02:22:30.000 Oh yeah. I’ve— 02:22:30.000 --> 02:22:33.000 You can sit over here, Randy. Because you don’t want to be in the line of the camera. 02:22:33.000 --> 02:22:40.000 Oh, yeah. Sure. How long have you got left? 02:22:40.000 --> 02:22:41.000 I don’t know. I don’t even know what time it is. 02:22:41.000 --> 02:22:42.000 It’s 1:35. 02:22:42.000 --> 02:22:44.000 Oh, we’ve been going for a while! 02:22:44.000 --> 02:22:45.000 Wow! 02:22:45.000 --> 02:22:48.000 That really flew by! I don’t know if it flew by for you. 02:22:48.000 --> 02:22:51.000 … This is so late. I’m like what have you been doing? 02:22:51.000 --> 02:22:53.000 Yeah. We really like, yeah, got into it. 02:22:53.000 --> 02:22:54.000 Yeah. 02:22:54.000 --> 02:22:55.000 That’s awesome! 02:22:55.000 --> 02:22:58.000 Yeah! Okay. You want to go to Vietnam with your parents and your grandmother. 02:22:58.000 --> 02:24:26.000 Yeah. I would love to go back with my parents and ideally my grandma being there too. Because you know it’s just important to be able to go back to a place that sort of raised them. Like it goes back to what we were saying about how important these stories are to our community and to us. For me, you know, being able to go back and to be able to look at all these places that my parents have told stories about and to me exists entirely ephemerally. Like completely, like I’ve never been there. I’ve never—No. I have been there, but I don’t remember it, you know. I want to see what it looks like now. I want to see what it smells like, and I want to taste the food. I want to taste the air. Like I really want to go back. Like it’s very important to me. But, you know, it’s—You’re also planning a big trip with your family and that’s always stressful! I didn’t—Yeah. I finally broached the topic with my mom recently and I told her I was like “I want to go back to Vietnam. We’re doing this soon. We’re going to do this this year or next.” And she was like “Okay. Okay, good. Let’s do it next year. Let’s do it next year for sure. Like this year is probably a little bit too late. But next year for sure.” Hopefully, like it’s easier to travel and tickets are easier and what not. But yeah. So, hopefully, this time next year, you know, like we’ll have been back and I can finally, you know, see all the places that I’ve heard about in these stories. 02:24:26.000 --> 02:24:27.000 Yeah. 02:24:27.000 --> 02:24:28.000 Yeah. 02:24:28.000 --> 02:24:29.000 That’ll be wonderful! 02:24:29.000 --> 02:24:31.000 Yeah. I’m excited. Have you been? 02:24:31.000 --> 02:24:34.000 No. I’m going in November for the first time. So— 02:24:34.000 --> 02:24:39.000 You’re going to let me—Oh no, we talked about this already. And I think you mentioned it the first call that we had together. 02:24:39.000 --> 02:24:41.000 Did we talk about it? I don’t remember. 02:24:41.000 --> 02:24:44.000 I think we might have. Anyway, I’m very excited for you. 02:24:44.000 --> 02:24:45.000 Yeah. Thank you. 02:24:45.000 --> 02:24:46.000 Please let me know how the trip goes. 02:24:46.000 --> 02:24:48.000 Okay. I want to know about yours too. 02:24:48.000 --> 02:24:50.000 Yeah, no, I’ll keep you updated. 02:24:50.000 --> 02:25:21.000 Yeah. Okay, so that pretty much covers everything I wanted to ask. And I really appreciate you being so like vulnerable and thorough with everything. I know that you have a memoir coming out and there’s going to be—all your stories are going to be in there, I assume. But is there anything else that you want to share about your parents and their background or anything you’ve gone through? Or are there questions I should have asked? Or are there any additional soapboxes or diatribes? (laughs) Or things that you want to share? 02:25:21.000 --> 02:26:47.000 Oh no! Uh, one thing that I’d feel silly if I didn’t mention it is my brother. My brother, Nghi, is his Vietnamese name, N-G-H-I. Nghi Ho. Nghi Tran. But he goes by Richard. He’s about two years younger than me, born 1994, Sioux City, Iowa. And he grew up next to me. He knows all the same things that I know. Probably less willing, he wants less to tell these stories. But I don’t blame him for it. He wants to do his own thing. But I love my brother. It’s just I want to get that on record. He was like my best friend growing up. He’s the closest thing that I have to someone who is pretty, who’s essentially just a clone of me, like went through the exact same things that I went through. Went through the exact same struggles that I went through. And he’s great. He lives in Denver, now. Sadly, for him, he doesn’t like it but he lives really close to my parents who moved there after they sold the restaurant. But yeah. He works in IT. And he’s a great guy. He’s just an awesome kid. And yeah. He’ll always be kind of a kid to me which is silly because he’s obviously in his late 20s now. But, yeah, just love my brother. 02:26:47.000 --> 02:26:51.000 That’s wonderful! I love my brother too. And he’s 37 now. But he’s still my little brother. So— 02:26:51.000 --> 02:26:57.000 Okay, yeah. Still the younger brother. Absolutely. 02:26:57.000 --> 02:27:00.000 Is there anything else that you want to share? 02:27:00.000 --> 02:27:04.000 No. Outside of my brother, that’s pretty much—I think we covered it. I think we covered a lot. (laughs) 02:27:04.000 --> 02:27:07.000 We covered it? Okay. If you’re sure. 02:27:07.000 --> 02:27:12.000 Maybe not everything but I feel like we went over a lot. Is there anything else? 02:27:12.000 --> 02:27:24.000 Anything, any specific childhood memories that really like stick out in your head or any dreams you’ve ever had that you want to share? 02:27:24.000 --> 02:27:34.000 Nah. I think anyone watching this in the future pretty much gets a pretty good idea of who I am. (both laugh) If you want to learn more, read the book. 02:27:34.000 --> 02:27:36.000 All right. Thank you, Tony. 02:27:36.000 --> 00:00:00.000 I appreciate you, Jennifer. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION END ]]> https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en video Property rights reside with the university. Copyrights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs.&#13 ; &#13 ; This resource is licensed for noncommercial educational use using CC NC-BY 4.0. 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The researcher agrees not to record, reproduce, or disclose any Social Security number or other information of a highly personal nature that may be found. 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=HoTranTony_HoJennifer_2023-04-22.xml HoTranTony_HoJennifer_2023-04-22.xml https://archivesearch.csusm.edu/repositories/3/resources/19 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ho Tran, Tony. Interview April 22nd, 2023. Description An account of the resource Tony Ho Tran is a writer in Chicago. In this interview, he talks about his family's immigration story, his childhood as a restaurant kid, and his mother's mixed-race heritage and his search for her father. He also speaks on his search for identity and embracing his Vietnamese heritage as an adult. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SC027-106 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023-04-22 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tony Ho Tran Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Jennifer Ho Subject The topic of the resource Vietnamese diaspora; Refugees; Ethnic identity; Vietnam; Amerasians Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Sioux City (Iowa); Vietnam; Chicago (Ill.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In copyright.</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Tony Ho Tran Asian Pacific Islander Desi American experience Children of Refugees https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/2c6cd504710fb1dced072f01b75cc905.pdf 4865e6e5c43cf9dd67246ebf360e4f20 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Transcripts Description An account of the resource Written oral histories and transcripts are available for researchers that prefer the written word, or to see the whole interview in a document. Transcripts of <a href="https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/collections/show/5">audio and video files</a> are also available as part of those video files. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Ho Tran, Tony. Interview transcript, April 22, 2023. Description An account of the resource Tony Ho Tran is a Vietnamese American writer in Chicago. In this interview, he talks about his family's immigration story, his childhood as a restaurant kid, and his mother's mixed-race heritage and his search for her father. He also speaks on his search for identity and embracing his Vietnamese heritage as an adult. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tony Ho Tran Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Melissa Martin Jennifer Ho Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2023-04-22 Subject The topic of the resource Vietnamese diaspora; Refugees; Ethnic identity; Vietnam; Amerasians Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Sioux City (Iowa); Vietnam; Chicago (Ill.) Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Language A language of the resource English Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">In copyright.</a> Rights Holder A person or organization owning or managing rights over the resource. Tony Ho Tran Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context HoTranTony_HoJennifer_2023-04-22_transcription Asian Pacific Islander Desi American experience Children of Refugees https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/07a30db156660d21bcc54bcf2578a48f.png e13aceb4ac3aad4e6fd69fef3dbf5efe Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource SpackmanA_250px https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/57472b9333efa19b9ebe8960b41ee200.jpg 78719f1ce978bea4311b31c24fd55ffe Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Joe's Pluming cartoon Description An account of the resource This cartoon was submitted by Greg Evans to Playboy Magazine when he was eleven years old. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Greg Evans https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/66a2b1c382db3edb43d61109e166cfd7.jpg a7bdc4a3ce73b3f1bb934a178c6fb8c9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Two Guys comic strip Description An account of the resource This is a photograph of one of Greg Evans' early ideas for a comic strip. https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/fb841c79c6e1cf90c170666c56a9e32a.jpg b9f360d9a7e6e072fc17c96afa546cf8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Seamy Heights comic strip Description An account of the resource This is a photograph of one of Greg Evans' early ideas for a comic strip. https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/c77ab444004d9f888e5725e96492b391.jpg e80723aa476b5a493714592d62bdf4cc Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource MaXwel the Robot Description An account of the resource This is a photograph of MaXwel the Robot. Running this robot for entertainment purposes was one of Greg Evans' early jobs. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Evans, Greg and Karen. Photographs, March 25, 2025. Description An account of the resource Four photos related to the oral history of Greg and Karen Evans. Photograph #1, "Joe's Pluming Cartoon," was drawn by Greg Evans for submission to Playboy Magazine when he was eleven years old. Photograph #2, "Two Guys Comic Strip," is one of Greg Evans' early ideas for a comic strip. Photograph #3, "Seamy Heights Comic Strip," was one of Greg Evans' early ideas for a comic strip. Photograph #4, "MaXwel the Robot," is a photograph of a robot. Running MaXwel the Robot for entertainment purposes was one of Greg Evans' early jobs. Click on the thumbnails to view the full images in more detail. https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/7f72e1cce3c6fed5bc5600bafc040034.png ba4bfc8c99a3d48117506493f5f2b84a Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource EvansG_250px https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/010490bb4e1eee6c6b68387114144d01.png a77bcbe5e028ea6754d6a4ff36186b85 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource EvansK_250px https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/2f5f1f5e8e2ab849149ddd2d77b15aa4.jpg ba32d71554e6120c0b7841a00e58146b Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Alphonso Cevera titled "Poc-Chuc Iteraciión 4" Description An account of the resource Guest artist choreographer Alphonso Cevera. Collaboration and Performance with Dance Studies Students: Vanesa Bedolla, Nicole Carr, Kati Echeverria, Xochitl Garnica, Alex Maravillas, Emilia Medina, Raelen Pellos, Karen Rocha, Maria Sandoval, and Nina Watts. This performance is part of the The Experimental Dance Project (EDP), which celebrates dance through interaction with professional artists and project-based learning. The EDP brings outstanding dance artists to perform, lecture, dialogue, teach and create with CSUSM students. Importantly, the EDP offers cutting-edge training and performance opportunities by hosting dance artists across the spectrum, including people of color, Latinx, Black, and LGBTQ identities. The EDP embraces our campus’ mission of inclusivity.  The EDP focuses on experimental and improvisational approaches to dance, with a particular emphasis on social justice and community engagement. The EDP aims to break down societal norms around dance and create a space where students can explore their own unique movement styles. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tim Richards https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/803d77588fbc77f28af85130979c60c1.jpg 9ced4a5c7480b90010047507e5db9e0e Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Jaamil Olawale Kosoko titled "The Chameleon Complex" Description An account of the resource Guest artist choreographer Alphonso Cevera. With Live composition/sound designer Malesha Tayloy, Professor/Dr. Karen Schaffman and Dance Studies students: Kevine Benitez, Xochitl Garnica, Alex Maravilles, Emilia Medina, Raelene Palos and Cornelius Stringer. This performance is part of the The Experimental Dance Project (EDP), which celebrates dance through interaction with professional artists and project-based learning. The EDP brings outstanding dance artists to perform, lecture, dialogue, teach and create with CSUSM students. Importantly, the EDP offers cutting-edge training and performance opportunities by hosting dance artists across the spectrum, including people of color, Latinx, Black, and LGBTQ identities. The EDP embraces our campus’ mission of inclusivity.  The EDP focuses on experimental and improvisational approaches to dance, with a particular emphasis on social justice and community engagement. The EDP aims to break down societal norms around dance and create a space where students can explore their own unique movement styles. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tim Richards https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/0e7e677cdb8596e444b17c80b2adfb8c.jpg 45067d84631621666986f8424dcf45c0 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Karen Schaffman and Ishmael Houston Jones Description An account of the resource Karen Schaffman and Ishmael Houston Jones at Think Gravity Dance Tank.Think Gravity Dance Tank: Celebrating & Reckoning with Contact Improvisation and Performance was an intergenerational research gathering in Boulder Colorado from March 21-26, 2022. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tim Richards https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/5f893935bd6c92420817c088e0d444cc.jpg 5e968aadd43e72d0487cb77679d8b7c9 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Karen Schaffman and Darrell Jones Description An account of the resource Karen Schaffman and Darrell Jones at Think Gravity Dance Tank.Think Gravity Dance Tank: Celebrating & Reckoning with Contact Improvisation and Performance was an intergenerational research gathering in Boulder Colorado from March 21-26, 2022. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Tim Richards Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Schaffman, Karen. Photographs, June 5, 2025. Description An account of the resource Four photos related to the oral history of Karen Schaffman. Photograph #1 depicts dancers in a performance of the Experimental Dance Project titled "Poc-Chuc Iteraciión 4." Photograph #2 depicts dancers in a performance of the Experimental Dance Project titled "The Chameleon Complex." Photograph #3 depicts Karen Schaffman with with Ishmael Houston Jones in the Think Gravity Dance Project. Photograph #4 depicts Karen Schaffman with Darrell Jones in the Think Gravity Dance Project. Click on the thumbnails to view the full images in more detail. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Oral Histories Description An account of the resource Video and audio oral histories can be viewed here. Histories are listed alphabetically by last name. Individual histories are indexed and transcribed and can be searched. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available California State University San Marcos University Library Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <p>Rights to oral histories vary depending on the history. The library owns the copyright to some histories, and has license to reproduce for nonprofit purposes for others. Please contact CSUSM University Library Special Collections at <a href="mailto:%20archives@csusm.edu">archives@csusm.edu</a> with any questions about use.</p> Oral History A resource containing historical information obtained in interviews with persons having firsthand knowledge. Interviewer The person(s) performing the interview Robert Sheehan Interviewee The person(s) being interviewed David Taitingfong OHMS Object This field contains the OHMS Hyperlink (link to the XML file within the OHMS Viewer) https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=TaitingfongDavid_SheehanRobert_access_2024-08-30.xml OHMS Object Text This field contains the OHMS Index and / or Transcript and is what makes the contents of the OHMS object searchable in Omeka 6.0 Taitingfong, David. Interview August 30th, 2024. SC027-083 00:00:00 SC027 California State University San Marcos University Library Special Collections oral history collection CSUSM csusm Guam ; San Diego (Calif.) ; Chamorro language ; Decolonization ; Colonization ; Language revival David Taitingfong Robert Sheehan audio file TaitingfongDavid_SheehanRobert_access_2024-08-30.wav 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/files/original/7dcf86c4fe6bc8b429316d83d49b9a41.mp4 Other video This interview is conducted in English and Chamorro 0 Introduction Dabit (David) Taitingfong sits down to discuss Chamorro, indigenous Guamanian, culture, heritage, and language. Chamorro ; language ; culture Guam ; Chamorro 0 23 Early Childhood and Growing up in San Diego David talks about where he was born and his early connection to the Chamorro community and culture. 0 183 Visiting Guam for the First Time David discusses how his first visit to Guam and his ancestral village, Yona, impacted his cultural and language learning process. 0 592 Colonial Occupation of Guam David talks about the history of colonialism on Guam and how that has affected the culture and the Chamorro language. 0 1481 Fluency vs. Literacy in Chamorro David talks about the two orthographies in the Chamorro language and how some Chamorro elders are only fluent in Chamorro and lack any education in Chamorro literacy. 0 2007 Chamorro Social Media David discusses how he created his Instagram page which is dedicated to teaching Chamorro language and culture. 0 2515 How the Chamorro Language Creates Connections within the Chamorro Community David talks about how his language learning process has reignited his family's and friend's interest in speaking Chamorro and learning more. 0 Oral history David Taitingfong is a member of the Chamorro community and involved with the group Prugraman Sinipok, which teaches a two week Chamorro language immersion program. David describes his involvement with Prugraman Sinipok and how his interest in sharing the Chamorro lanugage and culture has shaped his life. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION BEGIN 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.000 So today is Friday, August 30th, 2024. My name is Robert Sheehan and I'm here with David Taitingfong for an oral history interview with Cal State San Marcos. How are you doing today, David? 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:11.999 I'm good. How are you? 00:00:11.999 --> 00:00:23.000 I'm doing well, thank you. Thanks for being here with me today and dealing with our technical difficulties. Um, if it's all right, I'd like to start with your childhood, um, and your family. Could you tell me a little bit about where you grew up and how you grew up? 00:00:23.000 --> 00:01:24.000 Yeah, so I was born and raised in Southern San Diego. Um, my parents, we lived in Otay Mesa, which is real close to the border, about two or three exits away from the border. But because my parents had to work, we actually used my dad's mom's address as like, this is where we'll go to school. That way after school, I can go to my grandma's house. And so my childhood mostly was waking up, getting up, getting dropped off in a completely different neighborhood, like 30 minutes away. But that meant I got to be with my cousins because we all kind of went to the same, we all went to the same elementary school then like one or two middle schools, and then we branched out from high school. But, um, me and my brother, we did that growing up. Um, so that was more in Southeast San Diego. The, it was in the, the Jamacha neighborhood, which is near Skyline, which is, I mean, overall just, yeah, Southeast San Diego. And so that's where, that's where like most of my childhood was, honestly. 00:01:24.000 --> 00:01:32.000 Okay. And other than your nuclear family, did you have any sort of connection with the Chamorro community, uh, outside of your family? 00:01:32.000 --> 00:02:24.000 Yes, very much so. So my grandma, my dad's mom, um, in the neighborhood she lived in right next door was her cousin, and across the street was her cousin. And then down the street was my mom's sister. And then around the corner was like my mom's aunt. And so it was just, it felt like I grew up around the community a lot. And then also the thing I remember a lot is in Southeast San Diego, in the Lincoln area, there's a club, The Sons and Daughters of Guam's Club. I think it used to be, I don't know if it used to be called the San Diego Guam Club, but either way, the initials work out the SD Guam Club. And every year they host like little fiestas for the patron saint of each village on Guam. And the saint where my mom's mom was from. 00:02:24.000 --> 00:03:01.000 That fiesta always happened around my birthday. And so that's where I, I would say I got most of the interaction with the Chamorro community at large was going to the fiesta, going to the fiesta, which was for the village of Yona, the village of Yona and Guam's. They call it the south. It's like the middle south, but it's where I would say I feel most mostly attached to. 'Cause it's the fiesta we always went to, and it's my mom's side. And like traditionally culturally, Chamorros' are matrilineal. And so for me it's like, I feel like I've always gravitated towards my mom's side at least later on. For sure. 00:03:01.000 --> 00:03:04.000 And have you ever visited, is it Zonia? Yona? 00:03:04.000 --> 00:04:03.000 Yeah. Um, yeah, so I , I went to Guam two years ago, maybe for the first time in my life. I was supposed to go there for a language immersion program. I wasn't able to make it in time. I got there the day it ended and then I was like, you know what? My cousin was in it, let me just spend time with her. And then I got COVID and we all did actually. So I spent my entire trip with like five people, the same five people. But I was able to go to the village of Yona. I have a cousin who still lives there. I was like, I don't know if I should visit you because I got COVID. She's like, oh, I had it two weeks ago. You're fine. Like, come here. I have gifts for you . So I was able to visit, uh, I don't know exactly which parts within the village, my mom's side is from, but my cousin from my mom's side, she was there. So she showed me a little bit of her land and I was like, okay, this is cool. I, I'm, I actually going back next year. 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:10.000 Oh, very nice! It seems like a good way to connect back with family and cultural roots and stuff like that. Can you describe the village? 00:04:10.000 --> 00:04:59.000 Uh, you know, not entirely, because again, like when I had went, it was kind of like, I don't know if I should, my cousin was like, just come on through. But where she lived most of the houses, it was like a house, and then I would say a good chunk of land around each house. Because even when she invited me, she's like, you come over and see the ranch. And I was like, what does that mean? You know? And sure enough, we go there. It's like she has a house and I mean, I'm not even good with geography, but she definitely had enough land that I could probably do like, maybe it was like two basketball courts side by side. And she's like, yeah, this is like, we grow stuff and catch pigs here sometimes 'cause they try and eat all her stuff. 00:04:59.000 --> 00:05:34.000 But it's, yeah. And I want to say actually where she lives too used to be a lot of military housing. So it kind of has a feel like that where it looks modern American, but the military have since moved out of that specific area. I don't know if that's how it was, but that's how it felt like to me. Like I pulled up and I was like, okay, like a lot of these houses look like they were like, what's the -- cookie cutter? You know? Um, 'cause you go to other parts of Guam and it's not like that, like houses kind of tend to look different. 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:37.000 And there's a big military presence on, on Guam, correct? 00:05:37.000 --> 00:05:52.000 Yeah. Yeah. Biggest I think would be [US] Air Force and Navy and I know they're building, or no, they've already built a Marine Corps base there, which I mean a department of the Navy. 00:05:52.000 --> 00:05:58.000 How do local Guamanians and Chamorros feel about the United States military on Guam? 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:48.000 It's a, it's a mixed bag, I would say. Because after World War II, everyone was split. I know on my dad's side, they were more grateful. So there was, there's a story of a man, I believe his name was, Robert? Robert Tweed? Well, I just know his last name's Tweed. And he was one of, he was an American, service member who was hiding from the Japanese. And a lot of families helped him. My dad's mom, her family was one of the people who had helped him, like, helped him hide until more reinforcements came and stuff. And so I know on my dad's side of the family, they're very much grateful for that. I never really got much war stories from my mom's side. I don't know how they feel about that. 00:06:48.000 --> 00:07:26.000 But I would say where I'm at in my life now, most of my peers, most of the people I associate with are against it for sure. In the sense of like, at least against it in the sense of if you want to use our stuff, at least ask. 'cause that's currently not the relationship, right? It's pretty much anything at the federal level kind of just kind of just goes, GovGuam [Government of Guam] does a lot of stuff, but if the military's like, Hey, we want to do this. I think one of the requirements that they have to do is just like, conduct studies, but they conduct the study. So it's like, it's kind of kinda weird. 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:27.000 Who's watching the watchers kinda thing? 00:07:27.000 --> 00:07:29.000 Yeah. . 00:07:29.000 --> 00:07:35.000 Okay. Can I rewind a little bit back to high school? What high school did you go to? 00:07:35.000 --> 00:07:41.491 I went to Morris High School, also in Southeast, skyline area. 00:07:41.491 --> 00:07:45.000 Okay. And was there a large contingent of Chamorro kids who went to your high school? 00:07:45.000 --> 00:08:47.000 Uh, I wouldn't say it was large. There's definitely, we all knew each other. I would say that for sure. And there was enough of us, because again, the Guam Club is literally down the street from Lincoln. Lincoln, while I was in high school, had closed for renovations. And so all the kids who could have went there had to go to other schools. A lot of 'em went to Morris. And I did meet a lot of Chamorros that way. And then because again, of the big military presence on Guam and the other island, on the other northern islands, kids tend to find their way, either through their -- mostly, I mean, if I was in high school -- through their parents. Right. And so most of the people I met, they're like, oh yeah, like my parent, my family just moved out here 'cause they're stationed here, you know? And so not a lot. Well enough for sure. It was nice. Like, you see somebody, you see, in their papers or in class, they're doing roll call. You hear the last name. You're like, that's, that's a chamorro last name. 00:08:47.000 --> 00:08:51.000 Okay. Can you gimme some examples of what a Chamorro last name would be or how you can tell? 00:08:51.000 --> 00:09:50.000 Yeah. So like, my last name is, um, we would pronounce it Taitingfong. And so we have a lot of last names with T-A-I, it's a prefix that means like, without, and there's like a lot of history there, but if you heard someone Taitingfong, Taitano, Taimagung, Taisagui and then like on my mom's side, there's Acadino, and then there's some Spanish ones that are mixed in. But there's like, you, you could, if, so like my mom, her middle, um, her name was Mediola Acadino, and a Mendiola is not technically Chamorro, but if, if you say your name's Mendiola, and I look at you and I'm like you look Chamorro. Um, so there's some Spanish ones, but then yeah, like the Chamorro ones, [Chamorro surnames] there's like Q-U-I was another popular one, like a prefix where I was like, oh, that might be Chamorro. Because that's how the Spanish wrote it. But in our language, it would be like a K-E. 00:09:50.000 --> 00:10:09.000 And just like the US military, Spain has a long history in that area as well. And with language it seems to have bled through a little bit. Yeah. Uh, can you talk a little bit about how that heritage or history happened and how it affected language? 00:10:09.000 --> 00:11:08.000 Yeah. I want to say, I mean, 'cause Spain has, Spain had a presence in the Marianas for a long time, since like the 1500s. But from what I've read, it was primarily through commerce. They didn't have intentions of colonizing the islands. They were just like, we want a port here. We want to stop. 'Cause they were going from Mexico to the Philippines straight. But if they needed to stop, eventually at some point they're like, oh, here's Guam and here's the other islands, the Northerner Islands and stuff. But I wanna say Guam was the main port. It was the biggest island. And in terms of how that language spread, I mean, again, through commerce and stuff, and then through eventual colonization, primarily through a religious means, the language bled through. And one thing that I think is interesting though is that the Chamorros kind of took their words that they liked and they don't, sometimes they don't mean the same thing. 00:11:08.000 --> 00:11:51.000 And then we also treat them as if they are Chamorro words, if that makes sense. Like, we affix them as if they're our own words. And one, one of my friends told me, he's like, the true tale of if we have fully adopted a word is if we afix it however we want, there's some words where we don't, we still -- there's certain phrases I think that stay through. Like, um, if someone says sabe dios, like, we took the word dios for God and say Yu'os, but we also don't say sabe. So like in that context of the phrase sabe dios, it's like, well, we kept that otherwise though. Yeah. We just took words and we're like, we're gonna say it how we say it. Hey, fix it how we affix it. 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:56.000 Very interesting! I like you kind of flip it around and say, no, this is our word now. 00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:57.000 Yeah, yeah. 00:11:57.000 --> 00:11:58.000 Are you said that happens quite a bit in the Chamorro language. 00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:00.000 Yeah. 00:12:00.000 --> 00:12:06.000 And did you start speaking Chamorro at home when you were little or later on? 00:12:06.000 --> 00:13:35.000 Later on. Much later. When the pandemic started, my teacher at the time, Dr. Michael Lujan Bevacqua, he was doing a weekend class on Guam at a coffee shop, maybe like at max 10 people. When the Pandemic started, coffee shops closed, he was like, oh, I should just do it online. And a few months before he had actually like, kind of trial ran it with another group, a group that was based outta the east coast of the United States. And he did like a, I forgot how long it was, but he did a few classes online and was like, oh, this is a feasible way to instruct and so -- excuse me --. And so he was like, okay, I'll open it up to the public at large, you know, Saturday Guam time, Friday in the States. And that's when I, that's when I like really found a good schedule because the first time, technically when I learned online with him was when he did that trial run. And it, quite interestingly, I was on my honeymoon and I was like, Hey, can I do this? And she's like, if you're okay with the time difference, like, sure. You know, and so I was up at like 2:00 AM in Barcelona, in a class for an hour, you know? Um, but that's when it started for me. So I really only started 2020. At the beginning of 2020 00:13:35.000 --> 00:13:37.998 Okay. Do you consider yourself fluent? 00:13:37.998 --> 00:14:05.000 I would say pretty, I would say, I could definitely hold a conversation with most speakers. Um, like the real, real fluent elders. Sometimes they speak really fast or if they're, if they're chewing pugua, which is a bit, um, beetle net, which is just something like we, we chew out on the islands sometimes, like the words can get jumbled. I can't catch it. Um, but I would say I'm pretty fluent now. 00:14:05.000 --> 00:14:12.486 How popular is Chamorro on Guam? Do people still speak it as a primary language? 00:14:12.486 --> 00:15:02.000 Not right now. There's definitely a cultural shift to get there, especially recently, just within the past, I think month, there is a school that's been running for I think 17 ish years. The Chief Hurao Academy, they do [an] immersion program for children. And I know sometimes they try and do it for adults as well. They just got charter status. And so I want to say it's gonna grow to become even more. But definitely on Guam, it's been in a decline. It's been in decline since World War II. And then I can't speak much for the northern islands for Rota or Saipan. I know folks still speak it. Um, and I want to say though, it is still mostly a at home thing. 'cause even when I went there, I was like really excited to flex my tongue. And I was like, okay. 00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:39.000 And then I'd go into a coffee shop, you know, I'm just like, hafa adai and they're like, hafa adai. And then like, that's it, you know? Or the first, actually the first time I was, I had a full conversation was I went to a cemetery to look for family, like family graves and stuff. And I saw this lady and I heard her speaking Chamorro to another coworker. So I walk up and I, I talk, I'm talking to her in Chamorro. And it's funny 'cause she's like snacking on something and she's like, oh, nen, how are you? And nen is short for neni, which is just like, it means baby, but, you know, and a term of endearment, oh nen, how can I help you? And I was just like, oh. 00:15:39.000 --> 00:16:28.000 [Speaking Chamorro] Which is like, oh, I'm sorry, like, if you don't mind, can you help me? And she like wiped her mouth and put her food away. And she was like, whoa. You know? She was kind of like -- and I think it's because I looked younger than somebody who she would assume can speak Chamorro. And I also, I think she could tell I wasn't from the island, you know, the way I was dressed and my accent wasn't good, or like, as typical sounding. And so she started talking back to me and she gave me instructions. And I was just like, okay [speaking Chamorro]. And then, yeah. But I could tell she was like, what is going on? Which was when I realized like, okay, out here, it's still, it's still blossoming, it's still, seeds are still being planted and it's definitely not as much. 00:16:28.000 --> 00:16:38.000 Why do you think that the Chamorro language was in a decline and it's needed this revitalization? 00:16:38.000 --> 00:17:26.000 So post World War II, effectively it was made -- I don't know the correct, like legal terms -- I wanna say it was made law made mandate. I don't know what legal term they used, but effectively they were saying, you can't speak Chamorro in public. You can't speak Chamorro at schools. And then at schools, if you were speaking Chamorro, you were like fined financially or physically punished. And because of that, when, you know, you go home and that word gets to your family, they're like, okay, well learn English then. Like, well, maybe we'll speak Chamorro more to you at home. Like, I know my grandparents spoke Chamorro to each other, and I know my parents grew up hearing the language, but because of that, it, it just bled out into all of the villages. 00:17:26.000 --> 00:18:22.000 They're like, don't speak this language, it's your language, but don't speak it. And in public, in schools, you know, save it for the home. And because of that, the language -- maybe if it's only being spoken at home, you go out in public -- it's you, you go out in public and now post World War II, life is different, right? There's so many other things happening now. There's industries that are coming to fruition because of post-war. And, now it's like, well, if I can't speak Chamorro, I can't even create new terms for this. So it's like, I can't communicate, oh, we all speak English though, so, or we're all trying to learn English. So it was, I think it was definitely one of those things, 00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:26.000 And that's horrible. First off, ut that, that kind of historical trauma, does it still have its kind of finger around moral culture? 00:18:26.000 --> 00:19:15.000 I would say yes. Um, and I actually didn't feel that way until recently. I tend to be on the optimistic side, I tend to feel very optimistic about the future of the language and the future of many things. Because, on my mom's side, I have one native speaker left. I might have -- my mom understands, I know her, one of her other sisters understands. I actually haven't talked with my uncles in a while. Should probably do that -- I don't know if they understand, but I know a lot of, like my mom's generation, they understand but they don't speak it. And so my mom's eldest sister, um, when I started learning, my mom was like, Hey, by the way, Dabit is learning the language, Dabit is what, like David in Chamorro, like Dabit's learning Chamorro, you should talk with them. 00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:50.000 And at first my aunt was like, for real, you know? And I think she even said something to me like, really fast. And I was like, Ooh, I didn't catch that. So she said, it began slower. And I was like, okay, I have someone I can at least try to talk with. And when I finally sat and had a conversation with her, she did open up to me. And we actually had a good long cry, which just like it was, we were at a party and then we just kind of sat off to the side talking about our own thing. And she told me something that like her sisters didn't even know, you know? So when I asked my mom later -- like in the moment, I was already crying 'cause it was sad -- And then later I was like, Hey mom, how come you didn't tell me this? 00:19:50.000 --> 00:20:34.000 And she's like, I have no idea what you're talking about. And I was like, wow. Um, and then I found that to be the case with a lot of the elders, at least who I was talking to in my circles. And, you know, I would go to certain events and I would try and find someone who looks like they'll talk to me or maybe someone I already know and I'm like, oh, I can speak Chamorro now, let me try this. And some of 'em were receptive. Um, but I guess it would depend on where you're at. Because recently I had some family file from the east coast and my dad, it's on my dad's side, and he's like, Hey, your uncle speaks Chamorro, you should talk to him. And when I would try to talk Chamorro to him, he would acknowledge me, but respond in English, you know? 00:20:34.000 --> 00:21:24.000 And after a few sentences, he was like, why are you trying to learn the language? It's dead, you know? And I was like, whoa. Like, it was the first time I had an elder say that. So I was like, oh shoot. And so there's definitely, there's definitely people like that. There's definitely people out there and Chamorro's out there who were like, there's no point. Even though they have the, the knowledge and to share. It's the, I would say the trauma is still there. And then there's also the, um -- my, my mom's sister, the fluent speaker, one reason she was hesitant to converse with me -- primarily the way I asked her, I was like, can you teach me stuff? And the first thing she said was, I can't read the language. And I don't know, like the grammar, you know? And so I was like, okay, let me rephrase this. 00:21:24.000 --> 00:22:01.000 Can we just talk in Chamorro? You know, because like, I didn't care, right? Like your my [aunt], your mom, my grandma wasn't a teacher. Her mom wasn't [a teacher], her mom wasn't. Right. Like these official titles I think sometimes can prevent the elders from wanting to pass down the generation. 'cause they're like, oh, I don't know if it's right. You know? But it's like, but if this is the language you speak with all your peers, like it's technically right, right? Like we have grammar based rules, but at the same time, you know, language has changed, languages fluctuate. 00:22:01.000 --> 00:22:10.000 Especially with the influx of all the new technology post World War II, we were talking about. How have the Chamorro people in the Chamorro language incorporated those new terms into language? 00:22:10.000 --> 00:23:05.000 I would say there's like three routes that I can think of off the top of my head. The first route is kind of a common sense approach. Like do we just, do we try to make a word for it or do we just call it what it's, right. So like the word bus, they just say bus. For truck, they just say truck for a machete, they just say machete, right? So like there's that where it's like, just take the word and say it in our tone. There's another approach which is like to take -- oh, and actually in that regard too -- it's like, take the English word or take the Spanish word or whatever and just kind of funnel it into the language. I would say the second approach is trying to create the word or change the word using our own words. 00:23:05.000 --> 00:24:37.000 So I would say one example is, -- excuse me again -- Um, the word escuela, we use it for school, but with a lot of my peers, we also have interest in like reclaiming the language, so to speak. And so when possible it's like, can we recreate this word? And so instead of saying escuela, um, I have friends, actually, I think this is a more accepted term now is fa'na'gue yanggen. And the word [speaking Chamorro] means to learn by doing. And then one of my favorite things about the language, we have a circum-fix. Something that encompasses a word. So it's fan and an if it ends in a consonant or fan and yan if it ends in a vowel. And so [speaking Chamorro] means like a place of learning. So there's like, there's that approach. Um, and then the third approach would be, if it's just too complicated, just spell it how it's, so one example is the app WhatsApp, right? Like, Chamorro's love WhatsApp. And if you have to literally write it, if there's like legal text or something, again, you might see escuela, [speaking Chamorro] and blah blah blah. But they'll put a single quote and just write WhatsApp single quote. And that's kind of how they take, that's kind of how we take the approach to the language. It's like what's actually being said? What can we create so that it's said? And then if not -- like no one's gonna translate X-ray. We're just gonna write X-ray. Just leave it alone. 00:24:37.000 --> 00:24:55.000 That's really interesting. I like that. You'd mentioned, um, kind of the grammatical structure of the language and also writing. You said your aunt was not fluent in a written way, but she was in an oral way. Are you fluent in Chamorro writing? 00:24:55.000 --> 00:26:05.000 Yes. And I would actually say maybe more so than some of my peers because in the current moment there are two official orthographies, orthography being the, like the written rules about how we portray the language. And so there's the Guam orthography and the NMI orthography, the Northern Marianas Island orthography. Um, the Guam orthography is a one word, one spelling approach. And the NMI orthography is a one sound, one symbol. And this comes in, I think they both have strengths, they both have weaknesses. Um, but I know both and right now, because, I mean Guam's the bigger island and, I would say they have more resources. I think more people know the Guam orthography than they do the NMI orthography. And so for me, I started with the Guam orthography and I was getting confused at some points. But once I started teaching I realized I liked the NMI orthography more for helping people pronunciate things. 00:26:05.000 --> 00:27:00.000 Because when you read something written in the NMI, it's written how it sounds, which is useful for reading. Um, I would say for new people it's confusing. Because like the word tiningo', which means like knowledge tiningo' that last syllable was like, ooh. Um, but when you start to afix it and change it, like if I wanted to say my knowledge, I would say tiningo'-hu right? And so that difference in sound when you read it, it's like, okay, yeah. But now if you're trying to learn the word, you don't know which one to look up really. Guam doesn't have that problem one word, one spelling, no matter how you say it. Which I think has created interesting variations in speakers already. Like I have friends who only know the Guam orthography and they pronounce words the way they see 'em. And I would say that's due to a lack of speakers around them. 00:27:00.000 --> 00:27:33.000 But again, like that's probably just what's gonna happen. There's gonna be like a dialect of folks who learned by reading. Not a problem. But it's just like, it's something I've started to pick up on through my, through listening. Whereas like with the NMI orthography too. If I give somebody something in the NMI orthography, they think they're looking up like three or four words, you know? I'm like, oh no, this is the same word. It's just they spell it based on how it sounds and so that it can get confusing there. Uh, but yeah, to answer your question, I would say I'm pretty good with it. , 00:27:33.000 --> 00:27:45.000 It sounds like it! Your pretty knowledgeable about both just sets of orthographies. Is Chamorro a gendered language? Like Spanish is where there's a masculine and a feminine 00:27:45.000 --> 00:28:15.000 For borrowed words. Yeah. So like for teacher you would say most folks would probably say maestro or maestra. Uh, but we do have like, let's say an indigenous term fafa'na'gue, which isn't gendered at all. Um, and then we have like the word saina, which means like elder. But we do also have mom and dad, Nana and Tata. But I believe even those are borrowed. So in its the truest sense, no, but when we borrow words, definitely. 00:28:15.000 --> 00:28:22.000 I see. Alright. Rewinding once again after high school, um, did you go to college? 00:28:22.000 --> 00:29:07.000 Yes. Yeah. So, well, I went to college and then I got DQ'ed, I got academically disqualified, went to community college and then was too proud to pull out loans or ask for money. So I was working. So I did that. School, got kicked out, work. I did that for four years. 2012, joined the military. A lot of irony there. Got out in 2016, went back to school. Well, I went back to school before I even got out. But at 2016, went back to Southwestern College in Chula Vista, got my associates, transferred to Cal State Long Beach. And then I finished up in 2019. 00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:08.000 Okay. And what was your degree in? 00:29:08.000 --> 00:29:09.999 Computer science. 00:29:09.999 --> 00:29:12.000 Computer science. And what branch of the military were you in? 00:29:12.000 --> 00:29:13.998 Marine Corps. Yeah. 00:29:13.998 --> 00:29:26.000 Okay. And after you graduated, did you immediately go into the computer science field or was there a time where you were kind of figuring out what you wanted to do? 00:29:26.000 --> 00:30:33.000 So I went right into it because during my last semester, I had an internship when I was at Cal State Long Beach. I had an internship with Northrop Grumman in their, like, aerospace sector. They like renamed it. At the time it was called Aerospace. It might be called something different like space. Oh, it's called, I think now it's called Space Systems. And they have aeronautical systems. 'cause they wanted that elevation difference . Um, but I, so I was doing that. And yeah, it was a mix of like computer science, computer engineering, what I was doing there. When they gave me a job offer, I asked them if I can go to San Diego. They got me one, went down to San Diego, one of the offices in RB (Rancho Bernardo). And yeah, I was doing, I would say it was still like a mix of what I was doing. There was like a little computer sciencey somewhat IT, like some--they call it DevOps. Like it's kind of like the middle boat. And then now I work at Apple and I'm doing like legit software development. 00:30:33.000 --> 00:30:44.000 Very cool. Congratulations! And do you meet Chamorro software engineers frequently or Pacific Islanders software engineers? 00:30:44.000 --> 00:31:55.000 Yeah. I wouldn't say frequently. 'cause that definitely whenever I meet even a Pacific Islander in, in tech, it's always like, oh wow. Um, in terms of Chamorro's though, I wanna say the first software engineer I met was through one of Dr. Michael's classes. I'm not, I'm gonna just call him Miget , um, Miget's classes. And he's a software engineer for Costco. I think he lives in the Pacific Northwest. And I was like, oh wow, that's cool. Like, I've never met another one. He's like, oh, have you met Benny? And so he introduced me to another, another guy older than me. I was like, should I call him uncle? I don't think so. But Benny, he's a, he's been a software developer for like 20 something years. Doing mostly like web development. And so I was like, oh wow, okay. There's more of us. But aside from that, I don't think, I know there is, I haven't met this person, but I know someone is running, there's like an online dictionary. They took this Chamorro dictionary and made it into a website. And I know they're running it or like they were given the grant to do it or something. And so I know, I don't know who that person is though. I, I should reach out. 00:31:55.000 --> 00:32:03.968 That's very cool. So they're like a, so it sounds like there's like a network--Or at least loosely? 00:32:03.968 --> 00:32:28.000 If there is, I'm not a part of it yet. I have always wanted to, because even though my interest started in computer science, because I got so deep in the language space, I, I have always wanted to do something in the computational linguistics field. Ever since I started learning, I'm like, man, this would be really cool. But I just haven't because I've been too busy trying to learn the language and trying to teach the language. 00:32:28.000 --> 00:32:48.000 Do you feel like you're close to a point now where you might be able to move towards that computational linguistics? Because from an outsider's perspective, it sounds like you're very fluent and very knowledgeable about the language and how it's structured and you could teach it. 00:32:48.000 --> 00:33:27.000 Yeah, I don't think so. I think it's, to me, it's still a dream just because I have found so much community and love and appreciation for the work I'm doing. Like, just like on social media, you know, or just by meeting with people and speaking the language to them. I think right now, that outweighs my desire to try and beat Google at creating a translate. Because if you go to translate.google.com, they have Chamorro. And in the past month we've been roasting it 'cause it's incredibly wrong. It's so wrong. It's funny. 00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:42.000 Okay. Um, speaking of social media, I noticed that you have an Instagram page that's kind of devoted to the Chamorro language and Chamorro culture and experience. What caused you to want to create that? 00:33:42.000 --> 00:33:53.000 There was a time, I think I started last year. So currently I'm on break because I have a four month old at home. 00:33:53.000 --> 00:33:54.000 Congratulations! 00:33:54.000 --> 00:34:32.000 Thank you. But I was like, I'm gonna take a break because I'm probably not gonna have the time. And then my wife's back in school, so it was like, okay, really no time. But when I had started it, my cousin had showed me a video from TikTok and there was a guy, he's not even Chamorro, but I think his wife is Chamorro, and he was just speaking Chamorro. He was a student of the Chief Hurao Academy. He did their adult program. He's like, uh, he's like, I should learn because my kid, I want my kid to learn. And so he had a video and he made stuff he like, was just saying, I think, I don't even remember what the video was about. 00:34:32.000 --> 00:35:14.000 I think it was just phrases. But you can tell from the video that he was on island because he was making references that like, you probably only understand if you're around the culture. And specifically on the island though. And my cousin showed me this and she was like, Dabit, you should do this. You should make videos like you're a good teacher. 'cause at the time too, actually, I was doing my own Zoom class with my cousins, which reminds me, I told them I'd start back up and I haven't, but I was doing that and they're like, you should do this. You're so social, you're so out there. Like, you should just do it. And yeah, that's really it. I just, one day I was like, you know what, here's some lines. Make a video. I put it out there. And then I did it again. 00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:51.000 I don't think it was until maybe the fifth video where people were like, who is this guy? Why are you, you know? And then I had people comment, I had friends who were like, do you write scripts? And I was like, not really. They're like, you should write scripts, blah, blah, blah. They're like, it looks like you're doing all your videos in one take. I'm like, I am. They're like, don't. They're like, just say what you can. Don't stop recording if you mess up. Just like kind of run it back and just stitch things together. And I was like, oh my god. Yeah. This is so much better. Um, and then it's actually funny because I haven't made a video since like four or five months ago. But recently I went to Oregon. They had the first annual, the first ever, I don't know what the correct term is. 00:35:51.000 --> 00:37:01.000 There was a Mariana's Festival in Fair, Fairview, Oregon. And I went there and there's another Chamorro social, um, like social media person who doesn't make language content necessarily. It's like, not the focus, but she's trying to incorporate it. And she was like, we should go around and ask people stuff. I'll ask in English, you ask, you want, and when I checked this morning, I think the video, the video's been up for like a week and it has like over a hundred thousand views. Wow. People are texting my mom and she's like, is this your son? Because it came up on my feed. You know, people are, people are texting my wife, they're like, is this your husband? Like, what? he popped up on my feed? You know? Or like my sister-in-law, she's like, oh my God, look what just popped up on my feed. You, you know? And I'm just like, wow. Um, and yeah, like, man, like practically every comment is like, wow, it's so cool to hear the language. Because at the festival I knew the, I knew like my friends who were there, who were speakers who were in the same classes as me, so I felt comfortable asking them, you know, I was like, yeah, like blah, blah, blah. And people were like, wow, these people, these kids, you know, they look at me and they're like, these kids know the language and Okay. 00:37:01.000 --> 00:37:15.000 It, it's a very cool video. I actually watched it before our meeting today. It's really interesting. And I actually had a couple questions regarding the video. Mostly to do with kind of food and culture and how those two kind of intersect. You have mentioned that one of your favorite foods was apigigi'? 00:37:15.000 --> 00:37:19.000 Apigigi' 00:37:19.000 --> 00:37:21.497 Apigigi'. And what is apigigi'? 00:37:21.497 --> 00:38:02.000 So it is a, it's a cooked dessert. So you get like coconut shreds. Well, I used coconut shreds. I don't know if some people use the shredded coconut. I'm not sure. Actually. I use coconut shreds. But you put that and then you have, um, we call it mendioka. It's, I think it's tapioca like the starch and stuff. Um, with some leche niyok , which is the coconut milk and sugar, you mix it all together, you slap it in, traditionally a banana leaf and then you wrap it up, close it, you grill it, and then you wait until it closes down and then you can eat it. 00:38:02.000 --> 00:38:03.499 Sounds delicious! 00:38:03.499 --> 00:38:07.000 It is! Yeah. And it's not that many ingredients, you know, so it's like really easy. 00:38:07.000 --> 00:38:11.000 And the other dish that I heard mentioned was, um, Kelaguen? 00:38:11.000 --> 00:38:12.000 Kelaguen. 00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:16.000 And it sounded like you could have kelaguen with multiple different kinds of protein? 00:38:16.000 --> 00:38:17.000 Yes. 00:38:17.000 --> 00:38:18.998 So what is kelaguen? 00:38:18.998 --> 00:39:18.000 Kelaguen is effectively, it's kind of like an escabeche. That's how we say it. I don't even know what the?...a ceviche? Okay. Um, I think technically the term comes from a Filipino word, kilawin. And their kilawin was, I wanna say more fish based. But yeah, you, you effectively take a protein and cook it in acid. Like that's really all it is. I think. I was actually taught recently that the traditional word before kelaguen was just, um, naynay. And I could see how that can fall out of use. Mm. Um, but technically that, yeah, that it's just cooking something in like acids. So the most popular one is kelaguen mannok or chicken kelaguen. You grill your meat, you chop it up, not too big, not too small. And then you get like, salt, lemon, add your decorations, like your green onions and stuff. 00:39:18.000 --> 00:39:57.000 But effectively the salt also helps cook it. And it come and you serve it cold though, you know, so you, after you cook and everything, you mix everything. You don't serve it, you can eat it the same day. Growing up, my family always did it, and then we ate it the next day. Because it's a bit softer. The first and last time I made kelaguen katne, which is beef kelaguen. Um, I cut it too big. But yeah, it was just that. And then it was like lemon vinegar, soy sauce or something. So I forget all the ingredients I added. Put it in the fridge the next day we were eating it, you know, and I was like, I was like, is this really gonna cook it? And they're like, yes, chemistry, it's gonna work. I promise 00:39:57.000 --> 00:40:05.000 That's great. And when you prepare food, is it a communal thing or is it a single chef preparing meals for everyone? 00:40:05.000 --> 00:40:50.000 You know, growing up it was definitely a communal thing. At least when it came to, I mean, especially when it came to the Fiesta, you're doing a lot of things. You know, at the Guam Club, they have an outdoor kitchen, or they had, I haven't been there in a while, like the kitchen area, but I remember they had a table that was really just like a cutting board. The, the whole table was like a cutting board. And yeah, they would have people grilling, they'd bring the chicken over and you chop it up, you know, you're doing everything and then you pass it on to the next person. Each person kind of had a role, you know. You had people grilling, you had the people tearing the meat off the bone, then you had the people cutting, then you had the people mixing, you know, and then you had the people like, um, setting it aside, preparing it and stuff. 00:40:50.000 --> 00:41:44.000 When I, the last, the first and last time, no, no, no. It wasn't the first last time I made apigigi' I did it for the language immersion program we did here. Prugraman Sinipok. And I taught the class. And so like, that was a communal thing. We had everybody make it. I was worried at first 'cause like, oh, they're not gonna all be the same. But I think it gave it a kind of like, nice little style. It's like, oh, some people made it this way. Some people made 'em real small. Some people made 'em big , you know. And, and I remember when we brought it to the, the following day, there was a picnic for the Guam Liberation. And I brought it and people were so surprised. They were like, nobody ever does this. And in my mind I was like, what? This is the easiest thing to make . And so now it's like something I want to do, kind of a tradition. Like I almost wanna start in my family now. Maybe with just me first, like, oh, I think I can show you how to make it if you like it. Um, so traditionally I would say very communal thing. 00:41:44.000 --> 00:41:58.359 And you mentioned your family and bringing the Chamorro culture into your family and making it a part of your own family. Do you speak Chamorro to your children? 00:41:58.359 --> 00:42:50.000 So I try to with our 4-year-old, gonna be five in October. I try to as much as I can with him because he is more cognizant and more responsive. It can be hard, but I know he's getting it. With our baby. I only speak Chamorro to the baby. Sometimes I'll say things to my mom in Chamorro because I know she understands. Not so much with my dad though, because I know his understanding is less. And so I guess it would depend on what it is. Like, if it's like, I'm like, oh, where's mom? I'll say that, you know. But with my mom, I can say like, oh, are you gonna go outside because if you are, can you do this? You know, like longer thoughts. My wife picks up the things I say to the kids. So she knows those words, but I don't talk to her in Chamorro. 00:42:50.000 --> 00:42:52.000 Okay. 00:42:52.000 --> 00:42:56.000 And my sister lives with us. She said she wants to learn. She's waiting for me to start teaching 00:42:56.000 --> 00:43:00.000 So you gotta get on it. . 00:43:00.000 --> 00:43:02.994 Yeah, gotta get on it. 00:43:02.994 --> 00:43:09.000 Has your wife or your father or mother, have they shown more interest now that you are so into the language? 00:43:09.000 --> 00:43:23.000 Yes. My mom, especially now that I only speak Chamorro to this baby. And so within the last four months I've heard more Chamorro come out of my mom's mouth than the last two or three years we've lived together. Which is something, you know. 00:43:23.000 --> 00:43:24.000 That's wonderful. 00:43:24.000 --> 00:44:01.843 Yeah. Even if it's funny little things like, did you poop? Or why are you stinky? Let's change your diaper. But because it's the only way I communicate with this baby, I think it makes my mom want to. And my dad will say words like, you're stinky, you know, or you pooped, you threw up. You know, very short things. But definitely again, like the most Chamorro I've ever heard, leave his mouth, you know? Um, yeah. 00:44:01.843 --> 00:44:09.000 That's great! And, you mentioned the Prugraman Sinipok and that's a cultural immersion program. For two weeks or so outta the year, they take students from all over and immerse them in the Chamorro cultural and language. 00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:09.500 Yes. 00:44:09.500 --> 00:44:11.995 And how did that start? 00:44:11.995 --> 00:45:35.000 So this was the third year. This was the first year I helped though. It started through someone else. Uh, her name is June Pangelinan. She lives in like the Bay Area (near San Francisco, CA). Or near there, I would say. But she, it, it was like her thing. She was also a student of Miget's and was like, I think we should, I think we should do a language immersion program. You know, and Miget was just like, if you plan it, I'll do it. You know, 'cause Miget is always down, but in, in the same way. For me, it's like, I'm always down, but I don't want to plan. Like, if you tell me what I can do or give me a spot, I will fulfill that role for however long. I'm just not good at planning though. But yeah. So it was, it was June's like, whole vision. You know, she linked up with Miget and the first two years they actually did it on Guam. And like, so yeah, like that first year I tried to go. It, it didn't work out for me 'cause I was actually in the middle of switching jobs. So when the program was happening, that's when I was going to join Apple. And so it didn't line up. I tried to, I tried to make it line up. I was like, no, okay, I'll leave work, go to Guam, come back, start working. 00:45:35.000 --> 00:45:37.495 Just didn't quite line up. 00:45:37.495 --> 00:45:38.495 Yeah, exactly. 00:45:38.495 --> 00:45:45.000 And how many students in general have you seen the program grow over the last three years? Or has it stayed kind of the same core group of students? 00:45:45.000 --> 00:46:29.000 It's stayed the same number of students. I would say. Like no more than 20, maybe especially the first two years. Because they had to fly to Guam and then pay for the program and then probably get housing if they didn't have family or know anybody out there. Out here, it was less of a, I would say a burden, but maybe less of a interest for some people. Because from my understanding, from what I was told the first two years, I would say we're definitely more culturally focused. Not as much language. This year, there was a lot of language, but we didn't have as much culture. We definitely had culture and they definitely had language, but the offset was there for sure. 00:46:29.000 --> 00:46:34.000 Because it was harder to do here in San Diego. Couldn't go to the same Island towns? 00:46:34.000 --> 00:47:04.000 Yeah. I, we had a Liberation picnic at Balboa Park. They have a house of Chamorros, which is like amazing within itself because usually it's relegated for countries. Right. and then the Guam Club. And then we have local folks whose parents are still alive. And so like, there was a day where we went out, we went down to Chula Vista and, you know, tried to get with them and hear the language come from them. 00:47:04.000 --> 00:47:12.000 Very cool. Is it, is it common that elders will want to participate in the program? 00:47:12.000 --> 00:47:54.000 I would say not common. Definitely not common. We have some elders. We have some elders in the classes that Miget teaches because for them they're like, oh, I know the language, but I don't know how to read it. You know, or I don't know how to write it. So that's what they join for, but they speak the language mm-hmm. So it's like a big benefit to the other students who join. 'cause they could hear it come fluently. But then, and it's always funny too. Yeah. 'cause when I started communicating with, with these folks and when they would write stuff, I'm like, they're literally writing it the way they say it. And to me, that was amazing. You know, it's like, oh, I wasn't sick. 00:47:54.000 --> 00:48:15.000 But yeah,it was really hard. This wasn't my job and I'm thankful it wasn't my job. It was my friend, Clarissa Mangiola, I call her mames, which just means sweet. Reese, it was, it was, it was her job to find folks who would want to participate. And from what she told me, it was really hard. Yeah. 00:48:15.000 --> 00:48:17.000 Why do you think that is? 00:48:17.000 --> 00:48:49.000 There's, I think this goes back to maybe the trauma part where some folks might not see use in the language. A lot of times they don't feel qualified to teach us. And I, I think it's part of the approach of the way we approach them, where it's like, can you teach these kids what you know? Or can, you know, impress upon them your knowledge or whatever. And they feel like, well, oh, they don't want to hear me speak because I don't speak like academically or I don't speak professionally. 00:48:49.000 --> 00:49:45.000 I don't speak eloquently. You know, which is to me always been funny because that's not the Chamorro I've ever wanted to learn. Like, I didn't want to learn like a city academic, Chamorro, you know, I wanted to hear the way my grandparents spoke, specifically my mom's mom. When I think back, my dad's mom did kind of feel, she definitely had an accent and stuff, but it definitely felt more proper. And where, and the village she's from is like the capital of Guam, you know? So it's like, very much surrounded by the like American culture, but where my mom's mom is from, considered the south and very much different. You know, more rural, you know, country living, so to speak. And so that, that's when I actually started learning the language. She, my mom's mom is who I picked to model my speak chapter. 00:49:45.000 --> 00:50:04.000 And my aunties are like, that's not how mom sounded, you know. But it's gotten me a lot of compliments from elders. They're like, wow, you're good. Like, where did you learn to speak? You know? I'm like, memory really? Because I don't have any audio recordings or anything of my grandmother. Just kind of what's embedded in me. 00:50:04.000 --> 00:50:07.000 Were you able to speak more with your grandmother while she was here? 00:50:07.000 --> 00:50:36.000 No. So I didn't start learning until 2020. My dad's mom passed in, 2009, 2010. And then my mom's mom passed in 2012. And so yeah, I did not. The closest I would say is my mom's sister. She's still around, thankfully. And every time I get the chance I talk to her in Chamorro. 00:50:36.000 --> 00:50:44.397 If you could have a conversation with your mom's mom, what would you like to talk about? 00:50:44.397 --> 00:51:30.000 Wow. That's a good question. I would probably, I would ask her about her childhood and just start from there. Because there's, when we started learning the language, when Miget started teaching the language, he told everyone, if you have speakers in your family, talk to them. He's like, don't ask them about the war. Do not ask them about the war. You know, he was always very, you know, because it's definitely not something they like to talk about, you know? Um, but I would definitely just be like, where did you actually grow up? 'cause I don't know if she grew up in Yona, it's the village. She repped and claimed, but I don't know if she like spent her childhood there. I would ask her what she remembers about her grandparents or her parents. What her favorite foods were, what her most annoying chores were. 00:51:30.000 --> 00:52:16.000 Things like, what did you do for fun? You know? 'cause that's like another thing that I came to realize was, something that kind of skipped--it would come into this language barrier where the things, as I've talked to other elders, I asked them what they used to do for fun. It's like stuff I wouldn't consider fun. It's like, not stuff I thought they would say. You know, like I had an elder tell me, oh, when we were cleaning, we would race to see who could clean certain-- a board of the house faster. You know, they would like, okay, these are my two boards. These are your two boards and we'll race. And the reason it was fun though, is because for scrubbers, they would literally use coconut shells, you know, the really husky ones and they would just like scrub it. 00:52:16.000 --> 00:53:03.000 They're like, whoever can do it first, you know, wins. And he told me that and I was like, oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, I could see how that could be fun if you're doing it with your siblings. You know, your friends. And so I definitely would like to know what my grandmas liked doing for fun, what her favorite foods were. 'cause they're definitely, I would assume different, you know? 'cause even something like kelaguen mannok, I wouldn't even consider that like an everyday meal because it takes so much labor. It's not, it's definitely not something you're doing all the time. You know, we have like soups for that, you know. If she remembers what kind of music. As I've learned, as I've delve deeper into the language, I've become more aware of cultural things. I'd probably ask her that. I'd ask her if there were any talageros who's in her family, which are like the fisher people who go out and throw the nets. 00:53:03.000 --> 00:53:39.000 If any of her family sang. Kantan Chamorrita, which is like a, it's like a free verse style singing, which I've come to been told is some folks used to communicate like that. Like just through singing they would say the language, they'd be singing what they're doing. And then if the other person knows the tune, they do it back. You know, some kantan chamorritas are meant for competition. Some of 'em are meant to be endearing. Some of 'em are meant to be wooing someone, you know. So I definitely would ask her like very specific her things, maybe village things. But then definitely would like, I'd be interested about the culture, 00:53:39.000 --> 00:53:45.000 That would be a very cool way to communicate with somebody in kind of a song. Call and repeat kind of thing. 00:53:45.000 --> 00:54:33.000 Yeah. When I went to Oregon, actually, when I was hanging out, I went there with two of my-- I went there to visit two of my friends, they live there. They're speakers. They're like, I would consider them my teachers now, you know? And we were out in the city, we were like walking back from dinner or something, and my friend just starts going with a tune, like, you know. And he was like and then he looked at me and I was like, oh, shoot, okay. I was like, you're not done with your verse, but I'll go, you know . And we just, we did that for a good couple of blocks and I was actually surprised. I was like, wow. Like I was able to do that, you know? 00:54:33.000 --> 00:54:35.000 I was like, sometimes they didn't make sense, but-- 00:54:35.000 --> 00:54:48.000 You just stuck with it and you were right there in the, the melody and verse.--and I know we're running out of time here, but did you have anything that you wanted to talk about or anything that you wanted to say? 00:54:48.000 --> 00:55:51.000 I don't know if I have anything specific. Just that I'm very grateful that I'm able to learn the language because I've had tremendous support from my family, from my friends, from my wife, my kids, you know. I know people who struggle to find the time, you know, struggle to fit it within the typical schedules, right? Like Miget's class used to be Fridays at 4:00 PM until-- 4:00 PM or 5:00 PM and 6:00 PM all the way up until 7:00 PM. And then, once November rolls around. We do daylight saving times. Guam doesn't. And so it's like 3:00 PM--, you know, now though, it's Saturday in the States 'cause he does 'em on Sunday, so it'll probably be a little bit easier. But, I just know so many people. There's people who we started in the same classes 2020 January. Right. And I'm so far ahead of them. 00:55:51.000 --> 00:56:53.000 It's, and I don't know if that's a testament to just how deep I went or also how much time I've been able to give because, yeah, like, at the festival I ran into someone and I was, we've been in classes for years and I was, I didn't have a good grasp of how fluent they were, but when I saw 'em, I was so excited. I hugged them really tight and I was like, oh my God. And then I just started going, you know, and she was just like, you're so fluent now. What happened? You know? And so, yeah, like honestly, I'm just incredibly grateful that I've been able to learn as much as I can. And actually recently, well not even recently, it's been since December, I have another teacher who's teaching me stuff too. I would say like deeper context of things because as much as I love Miget's class, there was a point where he has to start over. 00:56:53.000 --> 00:57:25.000 You know, it's like college for him. Gotta start over, gotta start over. And so there came to a certain point where I was like, shoot, I need more. You know? 'cause I definitely don't think staying in his classes forever will benefit you as much as getting the taste. It's like college, getting the taste and then going on. And so I'm just happy that I was able to find other people who also want to go deeper into the language, learn as much as we can. We found a teacher and so, I mean, that's really it. I'm just incredibly grateful. 00:57:25.000 --> 00:57:31.000 That's awesome. We're very grateful for you coming out here and spending the time and giving this interview. So I just wanna say thank you very much. 00:57:31.000 --> 00:57:33.545 Yeah, of course. Thank you. 00:57:33.545 --> 00:57:38.545 Alright., take this. We were an hour on the dot. NOTE TRANSCRIPTION END ]]> https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en video Property rights reside with the university. Copyrights are retained by the creators of the records and their heirs. This resource is licensed for noncommercial educational use using CC NC-BY 4.0. Please contact Special Collections at archives csusm.edu if you need reproductions made. Please see the related “Preferred Citation note” for language on citing materials&#13 ; from this collection. Permission to examine Library materials is not authorization to publish or to reproduce the examined material in whole, or in part. 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The researcher agrees not to record, reproduce, or disclose any Social Security number or other information of a highly personal nature that may be found. 0 https://archivesoralhistories.csusm.edu/ohms-viewer/render.php?cachefile=TaitingfongDavid_SheehanRobert_access_2024-08-30.xml TaitingfongDavid_SheehanRobert_access_2024-08-30.xml https://archivessearch.csusm.edu/repositories/3/resources/19 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Taitingfong, David. Interview August 30th, 2024. Description An account of the resource David Taitingfong is a member of the Chamorro community and involved with the group Prugraman Sinipok, which teaches a two week Chamorro language immersion program. David describes his involvement with Prugraman Sinipok and how his interest in sharing the Chamorro lanugage and culture has shaped his life. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context SC027-083 Subject The topic of the resource Language revival Chamorro language Chamorro (Micronesian people) -- History Chamorro (Micronesian people) -- Social life and customs Colonization -- Spain -- Oceania Colonization -- Japan Colonization -- United States -- Guam Decolonization -- Guam Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 2024-08-30 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource video Asian Pacific Islander Desi American experience Community history