Going Retro

Text by Sarah Lưu with Kim Lưu

“I was the tetherball king in Texas. In California, I was average. But in Texas, I was beating everyone. And this is gonna sound bad, but I would trade my wins for milk. So, if a kid wanted to win against me he had to bring me a carton later.” -Kim Lưu

My Uncle Kim was born in Vietnam and was only 5 years old when my family escaped. Growing up in the states, he would be considered to be a part of the 1.5 generation of the Vietnamese diaspora. After our program trip to Houston last spring, I grew curious about what my mother’s siblings remember about that city. My family briefly lived in Texas in the early 80s, ran a Dewey’s convenience store and also lived in it. Reflecting on how many of the stories I grew up with were centered around the experiences and observations of my mother, who was already well into her 20s through the experiences of immigrating and assimilating, I decided to speak to my Uncle Kim, who was just a kid when he first stepped foot on American soil.

After 2 beers and a hearty bowl of beef noodle soup, he spoke fluidly about his memories as I attentively listened. Just as memories ebb and flow, so did our conversation. From cricket fighting to New Wave music, we jumped the family timeline as I slowly realized how family narratives can further continue to transform itself if we just keep asking. 

Sarah Lưu: You were five years old when our family escaped. Do you have any memories of life in Vietnam? 

Kim Lưu: The earliest memories I have are of 公公 (Grandpa). We had a farm and a few ponds. I remember he got bitten by a crab from one pond, and that I once almost drowned in another with lobsters. 

Also, I would join him every morning when he’d have cà phê, and I do remember that he’d always give me some of it.

Your mother said we had to go to Quy Nhon and wait there until our escape. I can’t visualize where we stayed, but I do remember selling tea on the beach. Those are the few things I remember about Vietnam, I was just really young.

Sarah: What are your earliest memories of coming to the states and growing up here? 

Kim: Well, first, I remember arriving at the immigration hall in California. All of us were wearing thick jackets. We were coming from Hong Kong where we lived at a refugee camp, and with a humid subtropical climate, someone told 婆婆 (Grandma) that California was going to be really cold. So she bought us cold weather jackets. 

The next thing I remember is getting a needle stick and it hurt BAD. 

Sarah: Oh! Yes, because Vietnamese immigrants were required to get immunizations. 

Kim: Yes, and it left a mark. 

My earliest memories of growing up in the states was when we first lived on Bird Avenue near Montague Elementary. Growing up in that house, I remember going to school or hanging out with the neighborhood kids. It was the 80s; it was safe for kids to walk anywhere. 婆婆 (Grandma) and 公公 (Grandpa) purposefully found that house because it was close for us to walk there and back home ourselves. 

Sarah: Were there other Vietnamese kids in your neighborhood or at school?

Kim: No. Well, at that time, I don’t remember much. But there was a Mormon family- Scott, Jared and Stephanie. Two brothers and one sister, who were Uncle Tai’s age. They helped us acclimate quite a bit. They brought us to our first drive-in movie on Snell, which was Clash of the Titans!

Sarah: What was that experience like? Did you have any perception of what America would’ve been?

Kim: I was too young to really know what was happening. I was just there. Maybe Uncle Tai’s perspective was a little different because he was about ten years old, five years older than me.

Sarah: Did you ever talk about it with each other?

Kim: No. Well, I don’t think I did. Probably not, because I was the youngest. Our family didn’t talk much about the experiences of escaping and acclimating at all.

In terms of identity, just being so young, it didn’t really matter to me. From my own experience, I was just another classmate and just another kid. I don’t remember if I had an accent, but if I did, it didn’t bother anyone as long as we were able to communicate. 

Sarah: What were some things you did after school?

Kim: Uncle Tai, Uncle Duc and I would play a lot of traditional games. We didn’t really have too many opportunities to do much other than play Tháng, which we played a lot of. 

We played cricket fighting. We captured crickets, and Uncle Tai had the strongest crickets. His crickets beat all of ours. We did a lot of stuff that most people would do. 

Sarah: What were some of your fondest memories?

Kim: Once, when we got a TV…the reception was so bad we had to put clothes hangers where the antennas would go and wrap it with aluminum foil. 

Another time, we were expecting a guest to come over. We also didn’t have a vacuum cleaner despite living in a carpeted home, so we had to hand pick any dirt, debris…tiny tiny pieces of lint.

We didn’t have much, but we made do.

Sarah: So, our family first came to Santa Clara and now most are settled in San Jose, but it seems we gave Houston a try. What was that like?

Kim: Sometime in ‘83 or ‘84, we went to Texas. There was one other Vietnamese family that we didn’t hang out with and there was one Korean kid at my school. The rest of the students were non-Asian. Houston was probably the first time I realized we were a little different, but it was mostly outside of school.  To my classmates, I was like any other kid. It was the adults that treated me slightly differently.

I remember at my grade school, there were three levels to each grade: entry, intermediate and advanced. Within the next few weeks or months, my teacher, Mrs. Thompson saw I was very good and fast at math and kept moving me up. 

Also, I was the tetherball king in Texas. In California, I was average. But in Texas, I was beating everyone. And this is gonna sound bad, but I would trade my wins for milk. So, if a kid wanted to win against me he had to bring me a carton later.

Sarah: I was just in Houston last month for a program trip and I was able to find the Deweys convenience store our family used to run. Would you be able to tell me what you remember about that?

Kim: When we moved to Texas, everyone was working in some way, especially when we practically lived in it. We had rented an old apartment unit next door, but out of convenience, we also lived part-time in the store’s back room where 婆婆 (Grandma) had built a make shift kitchenette with places to nap, which we did often because the store would be open early morning and close late night. 

Everyone had a function, a role, a purpose. 婆婆 (Grandma), Uncle Tai and your mom worked at the store while Uncle Duc and I helped with laundry and other house chores with 公公 (Grandpa).

One year, we had a hurricane scare. People began panic buying gas at 婆婆 (Grandma)’s station across the street from Deweys. Normally, it would’ve been 78-79 cents a gallon, but with the panic buying, she raised the price to a dollar. An RV came and the owner needed to fill their two fifty gallon tanks. The total was one hundred dollars, so he handed us a single hundred dollar bill. That was the first time I had ever seen one in real life. 

Sarah: Did the ideologies of the “American Dream” have an impact on our family work ethic? 

Kim: That’s kind of hard to say. Because I was so young, I don’t remember ever hearing about that. It wasn’t a thing to be impacted by because it wasn’t a term or concept that ever existed to me. 

Looking back, it did give us the opportunities to “make it”, but truthfully, hard work was how I understood life was about. It was always work, work, work. To me, our family are small business people and it was just how we lived. And again, I was just too young to know the concept of the American dream. 

We wake up, eat, work to make money. We try to find more profit. We adapted. For example, running a convenience store, we bought our stock through a distributor but our profit margins were smaller. So, when big supermarket chains had items on sale, such as sodas, we’d go and buy a few packs from their stores and resell them at Deweys to squeeze a bit more profit that way.  

婆婆 (Grandma) was very very good with customer service. Even with imperfect English, she befriended a lot of locals, and they loved her because she would always give them extra food or drinks. She was very friendly and always gave something. 

She also would sell beer on Sundays, which is a huge no-no as we were right in the Bible belt. 

Sarah: How did you spend time with 公公 (Grandpa)? My mom said he didn’t work much.

Kim: When we first immigrated, 公公 (Grandpa) had back surgery where the doctor fused part of his vertebrae to ease his back pain. He wasn’t able to work much because that surgery ended up limiting his mobility. 

So, since he wasn’t able to do heavy labor, he would take care of family outside of the store. Even though 婆婆 (Grandma) cooked extremely well, he loved going to restaurants and would take me with him whenever he found time to.

He was a great driver and knew all the roads. He drove anyone and I would tag along.

Sarah: I know there weren’t many Vietnamese people at your school, but what about the city? What was our community like in Houston at the time our family was there?

Kim: The Vietnamese community was quite small, only a few plazas, but 公公 (Grandpa) would take us downtown, often to take us to eat phở.

Sarah: When I went to Houston, I actually took a walk along Bellaire Boulevard and it’s so much more than a few plazas now. It almost looked like San Jose.

Kim: Yeah, it’s definitely growing. As an immigrant community, when you feel you don’t have much, you want to fight more. The families that came and stayed since the ‘80s, they’ve done a lot and did quite well by working hard and sticking to it.  

Sarah: Going back to the store, you would often get relegated to laundry duty. Were you ever involved with helping out?

Kim: Oh, yeah. I was only about 10 or 11, but 婆婆 (Grandma) still taught me how to ring up, how to stock…I swept the parking lot at night…quite a bit. 

Sarah: Why did we move back to San Jose? How long did we stay in Houston before we decided to move back?

Kim: We were only in Houston for two and a half years. The main reason why we returned to California was to reunite the family. Uncle Nhon and Auntie May stayed back when we moved to Houston. 

Also, 婆婆 (Grandma) wanted to protect us quite a bit. She also moved us back, and now I remember the conversation, because she “sợ lớn ở Houston hư”. Gangs were growing in prevalence, so she also wanted to protect us from that. 

Sarah: What happened after our family moved back? 

Kim: The Deweys and the gas station across the street got sold. In the early 2000s, I went back to visit and found that mostly nothing had changed. The gas station had been demolished and a freight truck repair facility took its place. But the Deweys was almost the same as when we left it.

The padlock was the same, the oil can was still there. I spoke to the current owner and he told me the store experienced a major flood, and I saw the flood line close to the window. The owner decided not to clean or remodel since they made all their business solely on selling cigarettes and drinks. All of the non-perishable merchandise never sold since they took over, so that’s why they never cleaned up after the flood.

(I showed him a photo of how it looks now. It has since been renovated into a barbershop. The only proof of the building ever being a ‘Dewey’s’ is on MapQuest. This is how I found the address.)

Kim: Wow, so this is the door. I remember there were two doors. There used to be a window up here, guess they closed it. 

Upstairs was where the original owner lived and they had a flower shop to the right of Deweys. Right in the back was a chimney stack and I used to put so much cardboard, the flame would go up to about 10 feet! 

Sarah: So, most of your time was spent at home or at the store, but being with 公公 (Grandpa) meant you could both explore the city.  Were you still going out on drives with him when you got back to San Jose? What was everyone doing?

Kim: When we moved back from Texas, we lived in Milpitas and I had started 6th grade. I think your mom, Uncle Nhon and Auntie may were working while the younger siblings attended school. 

It was a treat when 公公 (Grandpa) took us to downtown. That’s where most of the Asian restaurants were. One of the favorites was a restaurant called Dalat, which I believe was on 4th Street. As far and I can remember, downtown San Jose was where most of the Asian businesses were. 

Sarah: What sort of music did you all listen to?

Kim: I loved the Beatles…some 70s disco and rock. There was a record shop where Uncle Nhon bought his records. He and Uncle Tai introduced me to European New Wave.. 

Sarah: New Wave?! (I am very shocked, because I love Elizabeth Ai’s documentary on it.)

Kim: European New Wave. There’s a huge difference. American New Wave is Flock of Seagulls, Erasure, Depeche Mode, Alphaville. European New Wave is C.C. Catch, Sandra, Modern Talking, Bad Boys Blue…Modern Talking was huge. 

Sarah: What was home life like?

Kim: 婆婆 (Grandma) would cook for us every day, even if she was working graveyard shifts. Breakfast was leftovers, lunch was about 4 different dishes and dinner was about 7. I don’t remember any repeating meals for a few weeks. Everyday had something different with no repeats. 

Sarah: Wow! And that must’ve been difficult given that there were hardly any Asian grocery stores in the 80s. I asked my mom about that actually and she said our family would pack into a car once or twice a month to head up to San Francisco’s Chinatown because that would be the closest place to get staples like soy sauce and rice noodles. 

Kim: 婆婆 (Grandma) was an entrepreneur, a small business person. She actually teamed up with some guys and opened one of the first Asian markets on Tully Road. 

From what I’ve heard later in life, it was a bad partnership. She doesn’t talk much about it, maybe because of a lack of relevance or maybe they’re bad memories. 

Sarah: Business careers seem to run in the family, and I see that it influences a lot about your politics. And, respectfully, you’re quite outspoken in our family about it, too. What experiences shape your views today and what’s your reason for sharing them with us?

Kim: When you become a business owner through your own hard work and time spent, it can seem like the government takes, and takes, and takes. It seems like we get taxed and permitted to the point of burning out. Like, “Is it worth it to own a business?”. With all the obstacles I have to face, it’s like, “Do I want to keep going?”. 

As a father and business owner, I work hard for my money and I want to pass it on to my kids. 

Sarah: It’s no secret that there is a substantial number of conservative right-wing folks in our Vietnamese community, and most of those people are first generation, or 1.5 generation. Second generation Vietnamese Americans tend to be left-leaning. Based on your personal experiences and observations, what do you think is the reason for this divide? 

Kim: I think it has to do with the majority of immigrants that came during the 80s when Ronald Reagan and the Republican party were very anti-communism, that may have influenced us. Did you know that the Vietnamese communist government took a large plot of land from 婆婆 (Grandma)’s father? 

I’ve had friends whose parents were POWs, and they said they don’t want to see communism because their parents lived through it. I was young when we escaped, so I didn’t live it. But there were people that did, and their experiences with that has a lot to do with their politics today.

You know, I’ve always wondered why Uncle Duc and I don’t speak Chinese. And I thought, for most of my life, it was because 婆婆 (Grandma) and 公公 (Grandpa) didn’t want to confuse us by teaching us too many languages in the home. But clearly you’re the antithesis to that. So I kept wondering about it until a year ago, I had a Vietnamese client and we had a conversation about it. He goes, “You know, when I was a kid, if the local government knew you were Chinese, they’d take your stuff. They’d even encourage young children to be ‘patriots’ and tattle-tell on their classmates if they knew their peers were Chinese.”

So I circled back to your mom, and she confirmed. No matter how young you were, you were encouraged to report anyone, even your neighbor. And that’s when I realized the truth as to why your Uncle Duc and I didn’t really speak it. For safety.

Sarah: Wow, I can’t imagine…I never knew that. Well, what else would you say about our people that many of us may not know? 

Kim: Downtown San Jose is home to the first established Vietnamese community. East Santa Clara Street used to be our Little Saigon before it got pushed to the Eastside. 

We had the first Tung Kee on Williams, next to it, a haircut place. The first Vietnamese record store was the one I used to go to with Uncle Nhon. Huong Giang in Lion Plaza was the second to open.

Sarah: Yeah, I’m quite curious about these music spaces our community has created for ourselves. The music store I went to in Houston was so nostalgic for me, the CDs I saw were ones my mom would’ve listened to or bought for me as a kid at Huong Giang. 

Kim: I think that’s the real difference between our generations. You guys are well adapted into American culture but you want to go retro. 

For my generation, it’s like, “What’s retro”? We have no concept of that, we look forward and move onwards. 

Sarah: And a lot of that is, I think, because our generation has no option but to look back in order to connect with our heritage and our family history. We don’t go to databases or written records because we can’t. The information we have is ephemeral, we rely on oral histories. We rely on surviving photographs, often ones that are deteriorating after being shoved in a bag across seas. And that’s if we are lucky. 

Kim: Music, art, food. You get that experience from a distance and interpret whether or not it’s part of your/our culture. For us, we lived it. We went through it. They’re how we went through it. We grew up needing to not look back. 

Sarah: And so how would you define “retro” in your own terms?

Kim: To me, “retro” is the past, but to “go retro” is to live in it.

————————————

Dr. Kim Lưu grew up in the Milpitas-San Jose area and obtained his B.S. in Dental Hygiene at the University of Southern California before proceeding to the dental program. During his education at USC, he volunteered as a student leader for the Children’s Mobile Clinic. He worked as an associated dentist for three years prior to opening Attuned Dental Care, his own dental office. 

He enjoys cooking and providing lemons to the family (he has an awesome lemon tree in his backyard). 

Sarah Lưu is an interdisciplinary artist and writer. As a second generation Asian American, her current research interests revolve around the diasporic experiences of her own Vietnamese-Chinese community. With a focus on memory as a primary source, she explores how oral family histories may bridge the gaps of silence between elder immigrant generations and their American-born descendants. She is deeply drawn towards migrational family archives, those that have physically traveled across oceans and borders.

She received a BA in Studio Art, Preparation for Teaching from San Jose State University in 2024 and is currently studying for an MFA in the Art and Social Practice program at Portland State University. After finishing graduate school, she hopes to have more time to hang out with her cat, learn a new instrument, and travel with her mom.