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1. Interview with Ben Brochin

Creator:
Brochin, Ben
Date Created:
1979-07-01
Description:
Ben Brochin was born in Minneapolis on Sept. 2, 1909, to Solomon Brochin (1878-1958) and Anna Levinson Brochin (1883-1947), who came to Minneapolis from Lithuania in 1906. Solomon Brochin ran a grocery store (later a delicatessen) in North Minneapolis. Ben Brochin began work in his father's store as a child and later took over the business. Brochin's Delicatessen had four locations and finally closed in 1967. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: The North Minneapolis Jewish neighborhood - Brochin's store, with a vivid description of its contents - his father, an ardent Zionist, grocer, and agent for a steamship company that brought immigrants to the United States - boyhood work in the store, including selling newspapers - amateur boxing as a source of income for young men - celebrating the end of World War I at the Glass Block in Minneapolis - his father's practice of staking new immigrants to food on credit at his store - the Talmud Torah picnic at Longfellow Gardens and Zoo - and the Emanuel Cohen Center. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: The MHS photo collection includes a photo of Solomon Brochin in his store.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

2. Interview with Benjamin G. Arriola

Creator:
Arriola, Benjamin G.
Date Created:
1979-01-13
Description:
Benjamin G. Arriola was born in Manilia in 1931, and grew up in Cebu, in the central Philippines. In 1960 he came to the United States as a student, along with his wife. The couple first stayed with Ben and Belen Andrada, who had encouraged them to immigrate. He became a U.S. citizen in 1970. He is the father of Benjamin S. and Melissa S. Arriola. At the time of the interview he worked in insurance.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

3. Interview with Benjamin S. and Melissa S. Arriola

Creator:
Arriola, Melissa S.
Date Created:
1979-01-13
Description:
Benjamin S. Arriola was born in Minneapolis on February 26, 1961, and his sister, Melissa S., was born on July 20, 1963, in Golden Valley, Minnesota. Their parents arrived in Minnesota from the Philippines one and a half years before Benjamin was born. They have both attended public schools in Richfield, and Benjamin, a high school senior, plans to study engineering at the University of Minnesota. Unlike their first cousins who live a block from the Arriola home (see interviews of Marietta and Cristeta Andrada, also in this oral history project), the Arriola children have not been active participants in Filipino cultural activities, but instead have focused on social activities with school friends. Nevertheless, the four children, whose mothers are sisters, have always spent a great deal of time in each other's homes, and the Filipino cultural tradition of their immigrant parents has been an important influence in their lives. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Benjamin and Melissa discuss the ways in which they are more adapted to American ways than their parents and also the influence of Filipino values on their early development. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: This very short interview is interesting mainly for the children's statements near the end, in which they describe the importance of their parents' cultural background in their own development, despite conscious efforts to be American. Part of the tape is marred by poor audio quality, but all of the interview is understandable.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

4. Interview with Cheng-Khee Chee and Sing-Bee Ong

Creator:
Chee, Cheng-Khee
Date Created:
1979-12-07
Description:
Cheng-khee Chee was born in 1934 in a rural village near the city of Xiamen (Amoy), in the Xiangyu District of Fujian Province, China. He attended the village school for four and a half years before his family immigrated to Malaysia in 1948. Chee completed elementary and high school in Penang, Malaysia, and graduated from Nanyang University in Singapore. He arrived at the University of Minnesota in 1962 as a graduate student in library science. He completed a master of arts degree in 1964, and in 1965 he took a position as librarian at the University of Minnesota, Duluth. Chee is an active member of the American Watercolor and Midwest Watercolor Societies. He paints in watercolors in both Asian and Western styles, has exhibited in both national and state exhibitions and won numerous awards, including the Gold Medal of Honor from the Allied Artists of American, 1980, and the Colorado Centennial Award from the Rocky Mountain National, 1976. Sing-bee Ong was born in Penang in 1934 of a Chinese family. She and Chee were classmates at Nanyang University. Ong arrived at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, for graduate study in education in 1965. Chee and Ong were married in August of 1965, and all their four children were born in Duluth. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family background in China and Malaysia - Chee's decision to seek professional training in the United States - the later decision of Ong and Chee to remain in the United States and to raise their family in Duluth - their feeling of acceptance by the University community and townspeople - concerns on bringing up children in an area where few other Chinese live - Chee's work and recognition in the field of watercolor painting in addition to his work as librarian. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: The family background of both Chee and Ong illustrates the traditional pattern of emigration from Fujian Province in China to Malaysia. Their later experience also exemplifies the secondary migration from Malaysia to the United States that has occurred among overseas Chinese since the 1950s. Their interview provides material on the experience of Chinese in Minnesota who live outside the Twin Cities metropolitan area.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

5. Interview with De los Reyes Family

Creator:
De Los Reyes, Carl
Date Created:
1979-03-16
Description:
The De los Reyes children: Carl (born in 1959), Alfredo (1961), Gene (1962), Nelson (1964), Marie-Rose (1965), and John (1969?). All were born in Manila, Philippines, except for John. The family moved to Seattle in 1968 and to Minnesota in 1969. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Fil-Minnesotan meetings and activities - importance of family and respect for parents.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

6. Interview with Florence Glick Greene

Creator:
Greene, Florence Glick
Date Created:
1979-08-13
Description:
Florence Glick Greene was born January 1, 1900, in Muscatine, Iowa. Her parents came from Laskova, Lithuania, a small town near Riga. Her father came to the United States in 1890, and her mother came with their four children more than three years later. Florence Glick married Louis Greene on January 23, 1926, and they had two daughters. She died November 24, 1985. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Early life in a small Iowa town - life in Minneapolis in the 1920s - work experience - anti-Semitism - the Depression - social and cultural activities - immigrants' poverty.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

7. Interview with Francis J. Tsai

Creator:
Tsai, Francis J.
Date Created:
1979-01-04
Description:
Francis (Frank) Tsai was born in 1948 in South Bend, Indiana. His father, Hong-ji Tsai, had graduated from Purdue University in engineering in about 1937 and had stayed on to work for the Studebaker Corporation. During World War II the senior Tsai joined the United States Marines and was stationed as a liaison officer in Shanghai. While in Shanghai he married the daughter of family friends. After the war he returned with his wife to South Bend and the Studebaker Corporation. The company's executives planned to send Tsai's father back to Shanghai to manage a planned Studebaker plant in that city, but with the Communist victory in China in 1949 those plans were abandoned, and the family remained in South Bend. In 1951, when Frank was about three, the family moved to Benton Harbor, Michigan, and six years later they moved to the Twin Cities area, where Tsai's father had been offered a job by the Honeywell Corporation of Minneapolis. Tsai grew up in the Minneapolis suburbs of Glen Lake, where he attended the Immaculate Heart of Mary Elementary School, and St. Louis Park, where he attended Benilde High School. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a bachelor's degree in child psychology in 1970, and in 1972 he received a master's degree in public health from the university. During 1972 and 1973 Tsai worked as a health educator at the Neighborhood Health Center in San Francisco's Chinatown, a project funded through the Office of Economic Opportunity in Washington, D.C. He returned to Minneapolis in the fall of 1973 and accepted a position at Northeast Community Organization, working on a health planning project under a grant from Hennepin County. From 1974 to 1976 Tsai served as a public health counselor for the Minneapolis school district, and in 1977 he accepted a position as health analyst for the Minnesota Department of Health. While working at the state health department, Tsai began to work with early organizers of the Minnesota Asian American Project, a pan-Asian organization designed to serve the needs of the Asian-American community. In 1978 he became the first president of the organization and spearheaded efforts to establish an Asian cultural center in the Twin Cities. He left the state health department to work full-time at South Side Community Enterprises, where he focuses his efforts on raising funds for the project. In 1979, when adequate support for the project failed to materialize, Tsai accepted a job in Chicago as director of a feasibility study for the Cooperative Health Plan, a private, for-profit stock company offering a prepaid health plan. Later, after implementation of the company's health plan, he became director of the company. Subjects discussed include: Family background in Shanghai - child rearing in the immigrant community - intermarriage of second- and third-generation Chinese - the structure of the Chinese community in Minnesota - political attitudes - discrimination - and initiation of the pan-Asian Minnesota Asian American Project (MAAP), and efforts of its members to develop an Asian cultural center in the Twin Cities. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: As president of MAAP, Tsai had contact with leaders of various class and regional groups in the Chinese community, as well as with leaders of other Asian groups. His perspective on the Chinese and larger Asian community therefore reflects his broad experience with both the older Asian immigrant groups and those who have arrived recently. He is also very perceptive in his observations concerning the second and third generations.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

8. Interview with Hyun Sook Han

Creator:
Han, Hyun Sook
Date Created:
1979-01-03
Description:
Hyun Sook Han was born in about 1938 in Seoul, Korea. She was the oldest of ten children in her family, only seven of whom survived to adulthood. Her parents grew up in a rural area of South Korea but moved to Seoul as young adults. Her father was an office worker for an electric company. In 1945, when she was seven years old, Korea gained independence after 40 years of Japanese rule, but five years later the Korean War began. It was a period of severe hardship for residents of Seoul, who had to evacuate the city in January of 1951 and move with United Nations troops to the south. With widespread starvation and illness among the refugees, the three youngest children in her family died, and none of the others could attend school until they returned to Seoul in October of 1952. Seoul in 1952 was the scene of continuing food shortages and lack of adequate shelter, and although her father had a job, he was not paid initially. In 1958 she entered Ewha Women's University, and remembering the many abandoned babies and children she had seen during the wartime evacuation to the south she decided to prepare for a career in social work. After graduation from Ewha, she married and had a daughter, and in 1964 she accepted a job with International Social Services, an agency that handled American adoptions of racially mixed children born in Korea as a result of the American military presence. In 1971 she was selected by the U.S.-sponsored Council for International Programs for a four-month period of study and training at the University of Minnesota School of Social Work and the Children's Home Society of St. Paul. After her return to Korea she applied for a job at the Children's Home Society, and in 1975 she immigrated with her husband and two children to take a job in the agency's Korean adoption program. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Hyun Sook Han discusses her family background in Korea - hardships of the Korean War period - and the place of adoptions in the Confucian culture of Korea. She also describes the changing roles of men and women in the immigrant community in Minnesota - problems of child-rearing - difficulties for Koreans in forming friendships with Americans - the role of the church - and problems of many Korean wives of American soldiers in Minnesota. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Hyun Sook Han is an articulate representative of the women in the Korean immigrant community and provides valuable information on the changing family structure and special groups such as adopted children and servicemen's wives.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

9. Interview with Joe Huie

Creator:
Huie, Joe
Date Created:
1979-03-25
Description:
Joe Huie was born in about 1892 in a rural village in the Taishan District of Guangdong Province in southern China. He immigrated to the United States at age 17, arriving in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1909. Through a friend from his village who had arrived earlier, Huie got a job as dishwasher in a Chinese-owned restaurant, the St. Paul Cafe, where he later worked as cook and manager and eventually became part owner. In 1915 he returned to China for a visit to his family and village. Upon his return to Duluth in 1917 he was drafted into the armed services but discharged almost immediately because of his lack of knowledge of the English language. In about 1920 he got a job at the Chinese-owned Arrowhead Cafe and worked there for more than a decade, sending remittances to Taishan for the support of his family and saving money for a future business of his own in China. In 1933 he returned to China and established a small business in Taishan. He remained there with his family until 1937, when the Japanese invasion of China threatened his business and he decided to return to Duluth. After World War II Huie again went to China and established a business in the provincial capital of Guangzhou (Canton). With the Communist victory in China in 1948, Huie realized that private businesses were in jeopardy and returned to Duluth with two sons. In 1951 they established the Joe Huie Cafe, which became a landmark in the city, attracting patrons from every walk of life. Huie operated his restaurant for 22 years before retiring in 1973 at the age of about 81. Because of restrictive American immigration laws and Chinese tradition, Huie's family remained in China during most of his years in Duluth before World War II. Although he brought two sons to Duluth in 1949, after liberalization of U.S. immigration law in 1943, it was not until 1954 that his wife and two youngest children arrived in the United States. His youngest child was born in Duluth after the family had been reunited. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Joe Huie's early life in China - his struggle to survive as a young immigrant in Duluth - his many inventions - and his interest in healing and folk medicines. Huie also provides information on the early Chinese community in Duluth. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Joe Huie is one of the few early twentieth-century Chinese immigrants to be interviewed for this oral history project, and he provides invaluable information on the experience of early Chinese immigrants in Duluth. Portions of the tape are somewhat difficult to understand, but for the most part Huie's spoken English is understandable.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

10. Interview with Joyce Yu

Creator:
Yu, Joyce
Date Created:
1979-06-04
Description:
Joyce Yu was born in 1946 in Washington, D.C., where her father was employed as a Chinese area specialist by the U.S. Department of Agriculture during World War II. Her parents, Robert and Victoria Yu, arrived in the United States from China in about 1939. They lived in southeast Minneapolis from the time of their arrival until 1941, while Robert Yu was a graduate student in agricultural economics at the University of Minnesota. Two sons, Robert and Victor, were born to the family during this period. The elder Yu completed his degree in 1941, but the family could not return to China because of war conditions in the Pacific, and they moved to Washington. In 1947, after Joyce's birth and the war's end, the family returned to China, where Robert Yu accepted a job as vice-president of the Farmers' Bank of China in Shanghai. Postwar conditions in China grew increasingly unstable, however, and the family returned to the United States in 1949, when Joyce was two and a half years old. The Yus settled in southeast Minneapolis again, and Joyce spent most of her childhood and youth in this neighborhood. She attended University High School and the University of Minnesota, from which she received a bachelor of arts degree in sociology in 1968. After graduation she was employed by the university's Office of Student Affairs from 1968 to 1973, and she also completed a year of graduate study in educational psychology. From 1973 to 1975 she worked for VISTA on the West Bank in Minneapolis. In the fall of 1975 she went to Taiwan for a year of study in Chinese language and tai chi (martial arts). Upon her return to the United States, Yu worked as student internship coordinator at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota, and in August of 1977 she took a job with the Otto Bremer Foundation in St. Paul, working as a program officer, reviewing and evaluating grant proposals. In 1979 she left the Bremer Foundation to become the director of the Women's Funding Assistance Project for the Ms. Foundation, and in 1981 she was appointed executive director of the Ms. Foundation. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Family background - class and regional differences within the Chinese community in Minnesota - family structure and child rearing in the state's Chinese settlement - and the developing ethnic consciousness of young Asian Americans at the University of Minnesota during the 1960s. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: This interview provides valuable information on the northern intellectuals (Mandarin speakers) in the Chinese community in Minnesota, the subgroup in which Yu grew up. It also provides insight into the experience of Chinese families who have settled in the state since World War II, and of Asian students at the University of Minnesota in the 1960s.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

11. Interview with Marvel H. Chong

Creator:
Chong, Marvel Hum
Date Created:
1979-06-08
Description:
Marvel Hum Chong was born in Minneapolis in 1910. She is the youngest daughter of Bing Hum, an immigrant from China who arrived in Minneapolis before the turn of the century. He was a native of the Taishan District of Guangdong Province in South China, and before he came to Minnesota he worked on a railroad in Montana. He married an Irish Canadian, Sarah Cassidy, and they settled in Willmar, Minnesota, a railroad transfer center west of Minneapolis. Hum opened a laundry in Willmar and later purchased the Glarum Hotel, which he operated for many years before moving his family to Minneapolis in 1908. In Minneapolis Hum opened another laundry and three different restaurants in succession. Marvel Hum Chong attended Marcy and Wittier schools in Minneapolis during her elementary years and West High School in her first year of high school. She then moved to Hibbing, Minnesota, to live with her older sister and brother-in-law and graduated from Hibbing High School in 1927. She attended the University of Minnesota from 1927 to 1931, and following graduation she worked as a hostess at John's Place Uptown and the Chinese Gift Shop, both Chinese-owned businesses in Minneapolis. In 1941 she married the owner of the Gift Shop, Stanley Chong, a Chinese immigrant's son from the West Coast. The shop was sold when Chong was drafted into the army for a brief period during World War II, and after his discharge the couple lived on the West Coast for a few years. In 1944 they moved back to Minneapolis and established the International House of Foods, a highly successful wholesale and retail business in Asian foods. Their daughter, Siu-linn, was born in 1946. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Marvel Hum Chong discusses her father's background in China and the United States - his varied interests in such fields as Christianity, Western law, and languages - his role as interpreter for Chinese in court in the Twin Cities - his part in the organizing of the Chinese Students Club, which included students from China at the University of Minnesota and the children of Chinese immigrants of high school and college age. She also discusses Chinese activities in the 1970 Aquatennial in Minneapolis - Chinese community organizations - and discrimination in housing for Chinese immigrants. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: This interview is particularly interesting because Marvel Hum Chong grew up in one of a half dozen intermarried families in the Chinese community in the Twin Cities during the pre-World War II days. She provides considerable insight into their experience as an interracial family.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

12. Interview with Mary Kim Bilek

Creator:
Bilek, Mary Kim
Date Created:
1979-03-02
Description:
Mary Kim Bilek was born June 13, 1938, in Seoul, Korea. Her mother was a teacher, and her father worked for a newspaper. During the Korean War (1950-1953) the family had to leave Seoul and with tens of thousands of other Korean civilians fled to the island of Cheju, a small island off the southern tip of Korea. During the years they were refugees on Cheju, Mary's mother and grandmother both died. In 1954 the family returned to Seoul, and at age fifteen Mary attended school regularly for the first time. Although her education had been disrupted, her two older brothers had also fallen behind, and all three children graduated from high school in the same year. As the only girl, Mary assumed she would not be sent to college and decided to try to go the United States to continue her education. Before the Korean War she had corresponded with a pen pal in North Carolina with the help of an American missionary in Korea. After the war she wrote to the pen pal again, and the American's family was able to arrange a scholarship for her at a small liberal arts college in North Carolina. She graduated with a major in physics and then entered the University of Minnesota for graduate study in mathematics. She completed her graduate work in 1963 and married a college friend, Larry Bilek, a Minnesotan, the same year. She worked as supervisor of statistics for medical services at the University of Minnesota Medical School until her first child was born in 1968. She then became part-time senior research analyst for the Minnesota Department of Health and was also employed in research in the medical school's department of neurology until her second child was born. In 1975 she was employed by the university's College of Liberal Arts as head of data services, and since then has become the college's budget and planning officer. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Mary Bilek discusses her family background in Korea - experiences during the Korean War - her first impressions of the United States - college life - concern for her children growing up in an affluent society - marriage to an American - and differences in childrearing practices in Korean and American cultures. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Mary Bilek represents Koreans who have become well-acculturated to American society, and is apparently equally comfortable with Americans and Koreans. Nevertheless she is committed to teaching her children certain Korean values that she considers important.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

13. Interview with Michael Hong Wong

Creator:
Wong, Michael Hong
Date Created:
1979-06-07 - 1979-07-03
Description:
Michael Hong Wong was born in Austin, Minnesota, in 1948. His grandfather emigrated from Guangdong Province in southern China to Albert Lea, Minnesota, in 1927, by way of Canada and Seattle, Washington. At the time of Michael Wong's birth, his grandfather, father, and uncle were partners in a Chinese restaurant in Austin, but a few years later the family moved to Fargo, North Dakota. Because this city was a crossroad in the movement of military personnel during and after World War II, business opportunities were good, and the elder Wongs worked at the Pheasant Cafe, one of five Chinese restaurants in Fargo during the 1940s and early 1950s. When Wong was about five years old, the family moved back to Minnesota, where they established the Wong Cafe in Rochester. Wong attended public elementary schools in the city and graduated from John Marshall High School in 1966. He entered the University of Minnesota the following fall and graduated in 1970 with a bachelor of fine arts degree, majoring in painting. Later he returned to the university for graduate study and received a master of fine arts degree, with a major in photography, in 1975. During his undergraduate years at the university, Wong was actively involved in the Asian American Alliance, organized on the campus during the 1960s. In 1976 Wong returned to Rochester and worked in the family restaurant, while his wife, Isabel Joe, completed an internship in dietetics at Methodist Hospital. In 1977 they returned to the Twin Cities, and Wong taught for two years at the Minnetonka Art Center (now the Art Center of Minnesota). He also engaged in freelance photography and was one of the early members of the Minnesota Asian American Project, a pan-Asian organization in the Twin Cities area. In 1980 and 1981 Wong was employed by Weigen Graphic Center in Minneapolis and also continued his work as a freelance photographer. He has frequently photographed special events in the Asian community, including those of the most recent arrivals, the Indochinese. He also participated in the collection of photographs for an exhibit entitled Asians in Minnesota" that opened in the spring of 1982 at the Minnesota Historical Society and was sponsored by the Society
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

14. Interview with Philip C. Ahn

Creator:
Ahn, Philip C.
Date Created:
1979-12-07
Description:
Philip C. Ahn was born in Korea in 1928 to a family of third-generation Christians. His father owned a jewelry business, and his mother was a deaconess in the Presbyterian Church. When Korea was partitioned after World War II, Ahn's parents feared that the Communist government in North Korea would not look favorably on businessmen and Christians, and the family fled to South Korea. They arrived in Seoul at the height of postwar chaos and unemployment. At age 18, however, with five years of high school English, Ahn got a job as interpreter at the U.S. embassy. He also enrolled at a pharmacy school which later became part of the National University in Seoul, and he graduated with a bachelor of science degree in 1949. During this period a good friend, Young Pai, who was a student at Macalester College in St. Paul, urged Ahn to join him in Minnesota to continue his studies. Ahn was eager to do so and took the government examinations required for study abroad in 1949. He passed the examinations but did not have the necessary financial resources. With the onset of the Korean War and the arrival of United Nations troops, however, the demand for translators and interpreters increased, and from 1950 to 1951 Ahn worked as an interpreter for the U.S. Army's 17th Regiment. In 1951 he joined the Korean Army and served as a lieutenant in the liaison corps, where he was an interpreter for the Korean Military Advisory Group, a group of American advisors. In 1953, at the end of the war, Ahn left Korea and enrolled at Macalester College just as Young Pai was leaving. Ahn majored in biology and chemistry and graduated in 1957. He took a job in Austin, Minnesota, as a junior scientist at the Hormel Institute of the University of Minnesota Graduate School. While in Austin Ahn married Betty Engel, also a graduate of Macalester College. Ahn stayed in Austin from 1957 to 1960 and then became an assistant scientist at the U of M Medical School in Minneapolis, where he worked as a physiological chemist from 1960 to 1962, a period in which the basic analysis of nutrition and heart disease was being launched. In 1962 he transferred to the nutrition division of the Home Economics Department on the St. Paul campus, where he worked as a lipid chemist. In the early 1970s Ahn became an associate scientist in the newly established Department of Food Science and Nutrition of the College of Home Economics and College of Agriculture. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Ahn discusses his family background and early experience in Korea during the post-World War II and Korean War periods - the close-knit group of Korean students at Macalester during the 1950s - interracial marriages - difficulties of childrearing in American society - Korean wives of American servicemen who have settled in Minnesota - and the history of the Korean churches in the Twin Cities area. Ahn provides valuable information on the early Korean students at Macalester College during the 1950s, who were the first significant group of Koreans to arrive in the state, many of whom remained as permanent residents. He also contributes useful insight into the acculturation of those who intermarried.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

15. Interview with Robert Yu

Creator:
Yu, Robert
Date Created:
1979-02-01
Description:
Robert Yu was born in about 1915 in the city of Fuzhou, Fujian Province, China. During his childhood his father was postmaster general of China. As the eldest son, Yu enjoyed a favorable position in the family, and his father set aside a considerable sum of money to enable him to study in the United States after graduation from college. While studying at the University of Nanjing, Yu met his future wife, Victoria (Yu), and after their marriage Yu's father agreed to send them both to the United States. Robert and Victoria Yu arrived in the United States in about 1939. Although Robert Yu had intended to attend graduate school after his arrival, he had not made arrangements with any specific university. In Seattle, where they disembarked, they met a Chinese graduate of the University of Wisconsin who suggested that Yu attend the University of Minnesota and offered to accompany them to Minneapolis. After their arrival Yu applied to the University of Minnesota and was accepted as a graduate student in the College of Business Administration, and he later transferred to the College of Agriculture, where he majored in agricultural economics. While Yu was a student at the university, two sons, Robert and Victor, were born to the family. Yu completed his master of arts degree in 1941, but because of the Sino-Japanese War he could not return to China immediately. He took a job for a short time at the Pillsbury Company in Minneapolis and then took a job in Washington, D.C., where a third child, Joyce (the interviewer for this oral history interview, and who was interviewed for the project as well), was born. In Washington Yu worked as a Chinese-area specialist at the Department of Agriculture. During World War II the United States planned (but never carried out) a landing on the Chinese coast, and Yu provided information on Chinese agriculture in the proposed landing area. In 1947, with the war over, the Yu family returned to China, where Yu took a job as vice-president of the Farmers' Bank of China in Shanghai. As rampant inflation and civil conflict made living in postwar China increasingly difficult, the family returned to the United States in 1949 and settled in southeast Minneapolis, the area where they had lived during Yu's time at the university. Yu again took a job with the Pillsbury Company for a short time, but next he became a vice-president of First National Bank of Minneapolis. In 1979 Yu retired from that job and accepted a teaching position in Taiwan. While Victoria Yu also decided to live in Taiwan, where many relatives live, all three Yu children have remained in the United States. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Yu discusses his family background in China - his first trip to the United States, and his fears that he and his wife would be turned away by immigration officials - first impressions in Seattle - Chinese student life at the University of Minnesota's Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses during World War II, when the students were cut off from family resources - political views in the Chinese community in Minnesota - views toward normalization of U.S.-China diplomatic relations in 1979 - discrimination toward Chinese people - and problems of child rearing in the immigrant community. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Yu reflects the views of the intellectuals from northern China (Mandarin speakers), most of whom came either as students to the University of Minnesota or as political refugees settling in Minnesota after World War II. He is particularly perceptive about divisions within the Chinese community and about changing views of Chinese settlers over the years.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

16. Interview with Rudolph F. Runez

Creator:
Runez, Rudolph F.
Date Created:
1979-01-17
Description:
Rudolph Runez was born in 1902 in the city of Caba, in the province of La Union, in northern Luzon, Philippines. He was the third of seven children of a government official in La Union, and although the family was not wealthy, all the children had good educations through secondary school, and several of them later went to the United States to continue their studies. Rudolph's older brother Sixto arrived in Minnesota with a cousin and two others from Caba in 1918, and Rudolph arrived in 1922. After three years of study at the University of Minnesota and the College of St. Thomas, Rudolph married Ruby Knutson, whose parents were Norwegian immigrants, and soon afterward left college to support his family. Even with several years of college education it was difficult for Filipinos to find employment in the Twin Cities, and with the onset of the Depression in the late 1920s almost the only employment open to them was service work in hotels or jobs as butlers in the homes of wealthy businessmen. From 1928 to 1938 Runez worked as a butler in the home of the John Pillsbury family in Minneapolis, and later he also served as butler in the home of the John Ordway family in White Bear Lake. With the onset of World War II he found a job in defense work at the Gray Company in Minneapolis, and he continued to work for the company until his retirement in 1967. While Runez was a student at the University of Minnesota, he was active in the Philippinesotans, a club organized by Filipino students, and the Cosmopolitan Club, which included a variety of foreign students. In 1925 he was one of the organizers and the first president of the Cabenan Club, a regionally based organization comprised of immigrants from Caba, and later he was the first president of the Filipino American Club. Both Ruby and Rudy Runez have been active participants in the First Lutheran Church in White Bear Lake since 1939, and since his retirement has been on the church's board of trustees and board of deacons. He has also been active in the Masonic Fraternity. The Runezes have two daughters, both of whom married men of Scandinavian heritage. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Runez points out that every year from 1918 to about 1928 several Filipino immigrants arrived in the Twin Cities from Caba, La Union, and that many of them were relatives or friends of the Runez family. He also points out that among those who remained in Minnesota, a large number eventually married daughters of Norwegian immigrants who had arrived in an earlier era. Runez discusses racial discrimination that caused interracial couples to experience severe hardships in finding jobs and housing, and the rude remarks and stares of bigoted individuals when the couples appeared in public. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Runez and his many relatives and friends who eventually immigrated to the Twin Cities illustrate the system of chain migration common to many immigrant groups, a system in which those who arrive first encourage others to join them in the new land through letters and offers of assistance. He also exemplifies the many Filipino students who were not able to complete their studies in the United States because of economic hardship. In the Twin Cities many of them married women of Norwegian or Swedish ancestry and became permanent residents of Minnesota. They were denied American citizenship until after World War II.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

17. Interview with Sang H. Lee and Young Kim Lee

Creator:
Lee, Sang H.
Date Created:
1979-12-19
Description:
Sang H. Lee was born in Taegu, South Korea, the first of six children. His father was a college teacher in Seoul during most of Sang's childhood. Sang finished college in Korea and then came to the United States for graduate study in engineering in 1969. He studied at Washington State University for two years and later at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston from 1971 to 1976. After completing his studies he accepted a position at Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company (3M) in St. Paul, where he is presently a supervisor of research and development of engineering materials. Young Kim Lee was also born in Taegu, the third of four children. She graduated from Yonsei University and then came to the United States in 1973 to study to be a medical technician in Philadelphia. She met Sang at a Korean church in Philadelphia and moved to Boston after their marriage. The Lees are active members of the Korean Presbyterian Church in Minnesota. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: The Lees discuss the favorable social climate for Asians in Minnesota, the history of the Korean church and community in the state, and the problems of bringing up their children with an appreciation of their Korean roots. They also mention the Korean Association and the Minnesota chapter of the Korean Scientists and Engineers Association. Kim Young talks about the changing roles of men and women in the Korean immigrant community. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: The Lees represent the many professionals among recent Korean immigrants to Minnesota, and the concerns of this group to develop a well-organized, active ethnic community in the Twin Cities.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

18. Interview with Sen and Helen Fan

Creator:
Fan, Sen
Date Created:
1979-12-01
Description:
Sen Fan was born in 1927 in Haimen, a rural village in Jiangsu Province, near Shanghai. He was about ten years old when the Japanese invaded China, and his father died during the Sino-Japanese War. After the war he went to Shanghai for about a year, and in 1948 he moved with his mother, sisters and brothers to Taiwan. He attended normal school in Taipei, and after he received a bachelor's degree he taught mathematics and ecology at Ching Kung University in southern Taiwan. In 1958 he accepted a position at Nanyang University in Singapore, where he taught mathematics until 1960. He then decided to continue his studies in the United States. He attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1960 and 1961 and received a master's degree, and late in 1961 he accepted a job at the University of Minnesota at Morris. With the exception of about three years, Fan has continued to teach in the mathematics department at Morris. In 1965 and 1966 he furthered his graduate studies at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, and from 1966 to 1968 he taught at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa. In 1958 Fan married Ying Ying Hsu (Helen Fan) in Taiwan, and the couple moved to Singapore together. Helen Fan was born in 1931 in the city of Changzhou in Jiangsu Province. Her father was a clerk for the railroad in Jiangsu. In 1948 she moved to Taiwan with her sister and brother. She attended normal school there, and after receiving a bachelor's degree she taught elementary school for three years. After the couple's marriage and move to Singapore, their first son, Paul, was born. When Sen Fan decided to go to the University of Illinois, Helen Fan and Paul remained in Taiwan until arriving in Morris in late 1961, by which time Sen had finished his studies and taken the job at Morris. Another son, Robert, and a daughter, Grace, were born after the family was reunited in Morris. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: They discuss problems they have encountered in raising their children in an isolated town in central Minnesota where few other Chinese live - differences in Chinese and American child-rearing practices - and adjustments they have made. They also point out that they and their children have been well-accepted in Morris, aside from some name-calling in elementary school. Although they would like their children to interact with other Chinese with whom they could identify, both agree that in the larger university settings such as the University of Illinois and Brown University, where there are many Chinese students and faculty, they found far less social intermingling between Americans and Chinese than occurs at Morris. The Fans point to the fact that they are frequently invited to the homes of faculty and other staff as an indication of the warm reception they have had in the university community in Morris. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Sen and Helen Fan are representative of the many professionals among the Chinese who have settled in Minnesota since the early 1960s. As the first Chinese to live in Morris, they provide an interesting commentary on the process of acculturation in an environment very different from what they had known in China.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

19. Interview with Sinmin and Betty Wu

Creator:
Wu, Sinmin
Date Created:
1979-12-02
Description:
Sinmin Wu was born June 1, 1931, in the city of Yixing in Jiangsu Province, China. Betty Wu (Yun Aur) was born December 15, 1938, in the city of Tianjin, in Hebei Province. Both left China for Taiwan during the Communist Revolution in the 1940s. They were married in Taiwan in 1959 and soon left for Malaysia, where Sinmin became a teacher in a Chinese girls' high school. Their first child was born in Malaysia. Sinmin went to the United States in 1961 for graduate study in mathematics at Southern Illinois University. He received a master of arts degree and accepted a teaching position at the University of Minnesota, Morris, in 1965. Betty and their daughter arrived in Morris in 1966. Two additional children have been born to the family in the United States. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: The Wus discuss the experience of Chinese Americans in small towns outside the Twin Cities area - their activities and sense of acceptance in university and community affairs - development of their children's identities in an area where few other Chinese live - and the role of Asian families in resettlement of a Vietnamese refugee family in Morris in late 1979 and 1980. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: This interview focused on acculturation in a small town as opposed to an urban area, on family life, and on the concerns of a transplanted Chinese family for the future of their children. It should be noted that although they have no worry about the Americanization of their children, they also want their children to know their own cultural heritage and language.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

20. Interview with Stanley V. Chong

Creator:
Chong, Stanley V.
Date Created:
1979-06-28
Description:
Stanley Chong was born in 1912 in Yakima, Washington. His father, Sam Chong, had immigrated to the United States from a rural village in the Taishan District of Guangdong Province in South China. His mother, Yut-tai Lee, was an American-born daughter of a Chinese pioneer immigrant to Portland, Oregon. Stanley lived on his parents' ranch in the Yakima Valley until the age of about seven, when he was sent to live with his maternal grandparents and a widowed aunt in Portland. He attended Shattuck Elementary School and Lincoln High School in Portland and graduated from the University of Oregon in 1933. In 1934 Chong moved to Minneapolis, where his aunt operated a small enterprise known as the Chinese Gift Shop. Later he managed the shop with the help of Marvel Hum, whom he married in 1941. (See interview of Marvel Hum Chong, also in this oral history project.) During World War II the shop was closed when Chong was drafted into the army and the couple moved to the West Coast. In 1944 they returned to Minneapolis and opened the International House of Foods, a successful wholesale and retail business in Asian and Middle Eastern foods that they operated until 1981, when it was destroyed by fire. Chong was one of the organizers of the Chinese American Club in the Twin Cities in the post-World War II years and became the first president of the Chinese American Association in Minnesota (CAAM), organized in the 1960s. He was also active in the Chinese Chamber of Commerce, organized in the early 1970s. The Chongs have one daughter, Sui-linn, born in 1946. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Chong compares the differences in childrearing methods of early immigrants such as his parents and maternal grandparents, and those used by himself and his wife in rearing their own daughter - he also describes the Chinese community in Minnesota from the 1930s to the 1970s, including community organizations of the post-World War II years. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Stanley Chong is one of many Chinese from the West Coast who have settled in Minnesota. He makes several observations about the differences between the West Coast and the Midwest in terms of discrimination and business opportunities for Chinese during the pre-World War II years.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

21. Interview with Sung Won Son

Creator:
Son, Sung Won
Date Created:
1979-12-19
Description:
Sung Won Son was born in Seoul, Korea, in 1944. He was the fifth in a family of six children. His father was a banker. Son arrived in the United States in 1962 to study at the University of Florida. After his graduation in 1966 he entered a graduate program at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan, and completed a master of arts degree in economics. He also earned a doctorate in economics at the University of Pittsburgh. From 1969 to 1974 he taught economics and business at Slippery Rock State College in Pennsylvania, and in the 1970s he served as senior economist on the President's Council of Economic Advisors in Washington, D.C. In 1974 Son joined the Northwestern National Bank of Minneapolis, becoming the senior vice-president and chief economist in 1977. Son was married to the late Barbara Stevens and is the father of two daughters. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Son discusses the reasons he came to the United States, and to Minnesota in particular - the harsh Minnesota winters as a factor in the open social climate for Asians in the state - the unusually high number of large business corporations with headquarters in the Twin Cities - the lack of significant discrimination against Asians - and the unique situation of the early Korean community, considered to be well-organized and stable compared to larger Korean settlements on the West Coast. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Son is well-known in Minnesota and elsewhere as an economic forecaster and has made numerous television and radio appearances. His analyses of national and state economies also appear frequently in the press.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

22. Interview with Virgil Andrada

Creator:
Andrada, Virgil
Date Created:
1979-02-01
Description:
Virgil Andrada was born in Minnesota in 1933, the son of Benigno and Thina Andrada. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Mr. Andrada's father is Filipino and his mother is Norwegian. He discusses growing up in the Twin Cities with the influence of the two cultures, his family and discrimination against the Filipinos.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

23. Interview with Vu Khac Khoan

Creator:
Khoan, Vu Khac
Date Created:
1979-19-09
Description:
Vu Khac Khoan was born in Hanoi, Vietnam, on February 19, 1917. His father was a literary scholar and his mother a devout Buddhist. Khoan was the fifth of seven children, most of whom are still living in North Vietnam. As a child he studied Chinese classics with his father, and later he was educated in French in elementary and secondary schools. In 1940 he enrolled in Hanoi University, first in medical school and later in the school of forestry, where he earned a bachelor of science degree. Next he enrolled in law school, but he quit to concentrate on writing, acting, and producing plays with a group of students around the university. In 1946 he joined the anti-French resistance movement along with many other students. After the division of Vietnam in 1954, he fled to South Vietnam with his wife and two children. There he was employed as an editor in the Information Ministry for a time, but he quit when he realized that President Diem was a dictator. In about 1955 he formed a group of writers and published a magazine, the title of which may be translated as Point of View. It was banned by the South Vietnamese government after a few months of publication. The group continued to publish many books, however, and another magazine, Propaganda. Khoan was also associated with the Third Force, a peace group which favored seeking an alternative governing force that was neither communist nor capitalist. After 1963 this group included many Buddhists. Khoan was professor of drama in several Vietnamese universities and professor of drama and literature at Dalat University in the highlands. His play The Last Three Days of Genghis Khan" was produced by students at the latter university and quickly became well-known
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

24. Interview with Vy Pham

Creator:
Pham, Vy
Date Created:
1979-07-07
Description:
Vy Pham was born in 1932 in a small town called Sept Pagodes, near Hanoi, North Vietnam. His father was an elected mayor of the town, named for its seven pagodas. He attended elementary school in Sept Pagodes but went to Bac Ninh, a larger city, for high school. He joined the anti-French resistance in the post-World War II period, but after the country was divided in 1954 he fled to South Vietnam with thousands of other Catholics in fear of religious and political persecution. He arrived in South Vietnam with his wife and child in 1955 and began to work on the French-owned rubber plantations. He became one of the early labor union organizers on the plantations and later was nationally and internationally known in labor circles. For five years he served as Vietnamese delegate to the International Labor Organization's annual conferences in Geneva, Switzerland, and visited the United States several times to meet with AFL-CIO leaders. He also served as economic and social adviser to the South Vietnamese government under both Diem and Thieu. When the South Vietnamese government collapsed in April of 1975, Vy and his family escaped the country with other labor leaders aboard a barge carrying about one thousand people. They were picked up by the United States Seventh Fleet and take to Guam, where they were visited by AFL-CIO leaders from the United States. Later they were sent to a refugee camp at Fort Chafee, Arkansas, to await resettlement. Vy and his family chose to settle in Minnesota, where he had a friend, and arrived in the state in October of 1975. Since then he has worked as an interpreter for Indochinese refugees at the Hennepin County Community Services Department and has also been called up to mediate strikes involving Indochinese refugees in California and Louisiana. Vy and his wife have nine children ranging in age from six to twenty-four years. Three are students at the University of Minnesota, one is at Augsburg College, three are in high school, and two are in elementary school. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: Vy discusses the long struggle of the Vietnamese for independence - the organization of the labor movement - the differences between the Vietnamese and American labor movements - Vietnamese family life - and his impressions of Minnesota. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Vy Pham provides valuable information on the labor movement in Vietnam and its ties to the international labor movement. He also provides insights into the refugee experience.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

25. Interview with Wing Young Huie

Creator:
Huie, wing Young
Date Created:
1979-03-25
Description:
Wing Young Huie was born May 3, 1955, in Duluth, Minnesota. He is the youngest son of Duluth restaurateur Joe Huie, who emigrated from China to Duluth in 1909 at age 17 and operated the widely known Joe Huie Cafe from 1951 to 1973. Because of restrictive United States immigration laws, Joe Huie's family remained in China until after World War II. Wing Young Huie, born after their arrival in Duluth in the early 1950s, is the only American-born member of the family. Wing Young Huie spent his childhood in Duluth, where he attended public elementary and secondary schools. After graduation from high school he enrolled at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and received a bachelor's degree in journalism in 1978. Since then he has been engaged in freelance writing and photography. He has had articles with his own photos published in Lake Superior Port Cities and Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine. One of his photos appears in a 1981 book published by the Minnesota Historical Society Press, They Chose Minnesota: A Survey of the State's Ethnic Groups. He also contributed photographs for an exhibit on Asians in Minnesota that opened at the Minnesota Historical Society in May of 1982. SUBJECTS DISCUSSED: He discusses the experience of growing up in a Chinese immigrant family, his sense of loss in knowing little about his own heritage, and his searching for roots by enrolling in Chinese history and language courses at the University of Minnesota. He also discusses the isolation of his mother, Lee Ngook Kum Huie, who does not speak English, and the cultural barrier between Chinese students and Chinese-American students at the university. He points out that although racial discrimination was relatively mild in Duluth, his father had a difficult time getting a haircut in the early years, and he himself encountered problems in interracial dating in high school. COMMENTS ON INTERVIEW: Wing Young Huie is an articulate member of the second generation who grew up in the Chinese community in Duluth, and his interview is particularly valuable for the insights into this experience. Part of the tape is marred by poor audio quality, but most of it can be understood.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories
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