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1. Interview with Ashok Mahendra Patel

Creator:
Patel, Ashok Mahendra
Date Created:
2012-02-02
Description:
Ashok Mahendra Patel was born in 1962 Kampala, Uganda. His parents were immigrants from Indore, India. Subjects discussed include: Early life and family - living in Uganda, India, and Canada - home life, doing chores, and being a kid - education, medical school, and coming to work for the Mayo Clinic - being involved in the community - calling Minnesota his home.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

2. Interview with David Ramirez

Creator:
Ramirez, David
Date Created:
7/22/75
Description:
David Ramirez was born in 1936 in North Dakota, delivered by his father in a chicken coop. His parents had come to the United States in the 1920s, and the family came to Minnesota in 1936. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in humanities and did graduate work at the university in industrial relations. At the time of the interview he was director of the Minneapolis Civil Rights Department, in charge of La Voz, a monthly bilingual publication, a professional photographer, and producer of a radio program. Subjects discussed include: Personal history including education, the armed services, and employment - community involvement - La Voz - racial discrimination - ethnic activism in Minneapolis - and the meaning of Chicano.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

3. 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

4. Interview with Jose Cung

Creator:
Cung, Jose
Date Created:
1980-11-14 - 1981-02-13
Description:
Jose Cung was born August 24, 1940, in Saigon, South Vietnam. Her father was a businessman from North Vietnam. She grew up in Saigon and in 1958 enrolled at the University of Saigon. After one year she transferred to the University of Sydney in Australia, where she received a bachelor's degree in political science in 1963. In 1964 she married Tien Cung, a popular singer and composer as well as an agricultural economist trained in England. Their son Raphael was born in 1967. Before the fall of the South Vietnamese government, JosTe Cung was employed first by the Ministry of Social Affairs and later the Commission for Tourism. She also served as local coordinator for a research project of the Rand Corporation under contract by the United States Department of Defense. With the collapse of the government in April of 1975, the family fled Saigon on one of many barges used to take evacuees out to sea. The family was picked up by ships of the United States Seventh Fleet and taken to Subic Bay in the Philippines, and later to Guam. They spent about four weeks in a refugee camp at Fort Chafee, Arkansas, before they were released to a sponsor in Washington, D.C. Shortly after that, Tien Cung was offered employment by a foreign aid agency of the U.S. Department of State, and the family spent a year in Canberra, Australia. When the job was finished, the Cungs returned to the United States and settled temporarily in Dallas, Texas, where Tien's parents and sister, also refugees from Vietnam, had relocated. In 1977 the family moved to Minnesota, where Tien was offered a job with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources. After arrival JosTe obtained employment in the city of St. Paul's Division of Manpower Services from 1977 to 1978 and again from 1980 to 1981. From 1978 to 1980 she also worked for the United Way. Cung was an early organizer and officer of the Vietnamese Cultural Association of Minnesota, which as early as 1977 sponsored a week-long conference, To Save and Maintain Our Culture
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

5. Interview with Kei-Leung Albert Lun

Creator:
Lun, Kei-Leung Albert
Date Created:
2012-02-18
Description:
Kei-Leung Albert Lun was born in 1947 in Shanghai, China. He came to the United States to attend college and worked for IBM. Subjects discussed include: Language and dialects in Shanghai - early life in China, and Hong Kong - John F. Kennedy's assassination - Martin Luther King's assassination - going to college in the US - the Vietnam War - events of the 1960s in the United States - family history - experiencing racism and prejudice - lack of an Asian community when he came to Rochester, Minnesota and then the area becoming more diverse - Rochester starting its Diversity Council, and his involvement - his view of the younger generation of Asians in Rochester - staying in Rochester despite experiencing racism - using his IT skills to help the community - Jeremy Lin - working for IBM - how being introverted can keep some Asians from advancing in their careers - how grateful he is to be an American.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

6. Interview with Kim Sin

Creator:
Sin, Kim
Date Created:
2012-02-18
Description:
Kim Sin was born in TakTo, Cambodia in 1977. He started the Cambodian Association of Rochester, Minnesota. Subjects discussed include: Early life in Cambodia and family - living in Cambodia during the Khmer Rouge War - living in a refugee camp - coming to Minnesota - adjusting to living in Minnesota as a child - being behind in school - starting the Cambodian Association of Rochester, Minnesota (CARM) - involvement in the community and assimilating - never quite being treated as an American - accepting his own identity - future generations of children coming to Minnesota - starting a non-profit organization - helping out all people, not just certain groups - judging people fairly.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

7. Interview with Margaret Woo Chinn

Creator:
Chinn, Margaret Woo
Date Created:
1982-05-27
Description:
Margaret Woo Chinn's father and some of his brothers (including Woo Yee Sing, whose son Howard Woo was also interviewed for this oral history project) came to the United States in the late 1870s and 1880s and worked in laundries and on railroads. Chinn was born in China in 1912, and in 1914 her father brought the family to the United States. They settled in Minneapolis and were involved in running a gift shop and a family restaurant, the long-popular John's Place that closed in 1967. Subjects discussed include: Family history and the early Chinese community in Minneapolis.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

8. Interview with Noi Sinkasem

Creator:
Sinkasem, Noi
Date Created:
2012-02-17
Description:
Noi Sinkasem was born in Bangkok, Thailand on September 20, 1961. At the time of the interview she owned a Sawatdee Thai restaurant in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. Subjects discussed include: Early life and family in Thailand - education - coming to the United States - applying to immigrate and waiting - going back to school in Minnesota - moving to Saint Cloud, Minnesota - owning Sawatdee Thai food restaurant in Saint Cloud - difficult owning a business and being a minority - her children.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

9. Interview with Phiengtavanh Savatdy

Creator:
Savatdy, Phiengtavanh
Date Created:
2012-01-14
Description:
Phiengtavanh Savatdy was born in 1981 in Vientiane, Laos. She enlisted in the Army National Guard, and attended St. Cloud College. Subjects discussed include: Early life in Laos - nicknames given to her as a child - coming to the United States - coming to Minnesota and going to public schools in Minneapolis - being different and wanting to fit in - educational achievements - becoming a citizen and enlisting in the National Guard - coming home from Iraq and going to college - being active in extracurricular groups in college - not being active in the local Lao community - personal, and career goals and goals for the Lao community.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

10. Interview with Vichita Ounchith

Creator:
Ounchith, Vichita
Date Created:
2012-03-14
Description:
Vichita Ounchith was born in 1983 in Lafayette, Louisiana. His parents were immigrants from Laos. At the time of the interview he was a high school football coach in Warroad, Minnesota. Subjects discussed include: Early life in Louisiana and California - family history in Laos and coming to the United States - being a junior monk in a Cambodian temple - moving to Minnesota as a child - living in Warroad, and being accepted by the white children - comparing California to Minnesota - going to school and ESL (English as a Second Language) classes - playing sports - experience playing college football - how proud he is to have graduated from college - teaching Lao and being active in the community - traveling back to Laos and feeling like a foreigner - coaching sports in Warroad - being in a leadership role within the school - not being involved in the Lao community.
Contributing Institution:
Minnesota Historical Society
Type:
Sound Recording Nonmusical
Format:
Oral histories

11. 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
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