From White Boxes to Pink
When my family first came to the US 40 years ago — from England, and India before that — we landed in El Toro, 10 miles inland from the Southern California coast. From those early days, Winchell’s Donuts were part of our family’s weekend routine, one of our first links to American culture that would seed my lifelong passion for donuts.
We eventually moved to Arizona and I didn’t return to California for more than two decades. When I did, it was from Boston — corporate and spiritual home of Dunkin Donuts. Other than a few scattered Krispy Kremes, there was no “Big Donut” chain in the Bay Area. But I was okay with that because soon I found my regular spots, all independents. In Berkeley, it was Kingpin, Happy, and Dream Fluff. In Oakland, it was Colonial, where I once ate a ham and cheese croissant for Thanksgiving dinner. I was surprised to learn that these shops had one thing in common — they were all started and run by Cambodian families. Unlike the white Winchell’s boxes before, these shops all tucked their donuts into pink boxes, a signature of the Cambodian-run donut shop.
Every couple years, I come across a California newspaper or magazine that writes the big story of how Cambodians and donuts came to be. I’ve been interested in going deeper. Maybe it’s because I’m an immigrant, or an entrepreneur. Or because I love donuts, or California. Maybe it’s all of these. I want to find the stories behind the stories. Inside every shop, behind every counter is a family with its own story. We have much to learn from these untold stories — about family, immigration, community, entrepreneurship, and each other.
For the past year, I’ve been working with a volunteer team of editors, writers, and researchers who are passionate about these “pink box” stories (and eating donuts). Today, coinciding with the start of Khmer New Year, we’re launching Pink Box Stories on Medium. Over the next year, we’ll be sharing these stories here and on Instagram. We hope to answer a number of questions: How can we preserve the legacy of the Cambodian donut community in California? What can we learn from these stories? With all the change that is happening today — evolving food preferences, residential displacement, donut kids who aren’t interested in taking over the family business — what happens next?
We hope you’ll join us in this journey, into the past and into the future.
Get Pink Box Stories five times a month by following us on Instagram at @pinkboxstories.
