Mexican Pesos for Show-and-Tell: A Ziploc of Memories from My Cambodian Family’s East LA Donut Shop
One day in third grade, I stuck my hand into a hat to draw a piece of paper. I was so excited, feeling through the folded papers with names of countries we would get assigned to for a research project, wondering which country I’d get to look up books about at the local library. I drew “Mexico”.
I was going to ace this project. I was so excited to talk to all the customers at my family’s donut shop who spent hours telling me their stories of their lives in Mexico.
Since the days before I could even stand on my two feet, I spent much of my time at my family’s donut shop in East Los Angeles. Unable to find work as a 42-year-old Cambodian refugee, my grandfather felt frustrated and humiliated he could not provide for his family of six. It wasn’t until he saw another Cambodian person serving donuts at a Winchell’s that he had an idea to start his own donut shop. He joined a Chinese community loan system known as a “hui” and opened his first donut shop in 1983. Five of his children, my father included, provided labor at that shop, and ultimately opened their own stores.
A faded yellow brick rectangle on the corner with a Olympic Donuts sign towering on the edge of the parking lot, our family’s shop didn’t look like much. Until two years ago, before my parents remodeled, the inside was similar to a pit-stop diner, with long pale-yellow benches connected to chipped white tables with pieces of gum stuck underneath them. Now, it’s reminiscent of a modern coffee shop, with high bar stools, granite counters, and large LED TV screen menus. But they kept two tall bamboo plants in opposite corners, potted for good luck and prosperity. Eventually we got a maneki-neko, the iconic “Fortune Cat” figurine that beckons with an upright paw to attract good luck and fortune into the business.
This particular year, however, these customers saw an eager little girl with a project they could help with, the project about Mexico. I spoke with a group of regulars, older men who came every day for a cup of coffee and to play HotSpot, a popular California-lottery keno-style game where the player wagers money on numbers between 1 and 80 and watches a TV screen for the numbers drawn in that round. They were so thrilled to see how intrigued I was to hear of their stories growing up in Mexico and about their journeys coming to the US to find work to support their families. We sat down one slow afternoon in a little booth to look through books I checked out from the library. At the end, one man gave me a Ziploc bag of pesos he had rummaged around his home for, emptying the contents to show me every type of coin he had in detail. I was in such wonder of each thick coin, with such an intricate design of mixed silver and gold. Before this, I thought the new state quarters were the only fascinating coin to spot.
Growing up with parents working 14-hour shifts, I spent many slow afternoons and busy nights at the donut shop. Some days were exciting like this afternoon with the Mexico project. Others were long days scraping gum off the floors, getting paper cuts from folding the boxes for dozens, and peeling the coffee filters for what felt like hours on end.
There were times I didn’t appreciate it, times of frustration when I didn’t have time to work on my school projects or research papers between selling donuts and lottery scratchers. In elementary school, customers could help me with creative projects, and my parents’ knowledge of taking inventory or payroll was enough to help me with multiplication tables or long division. But in middle school and high school, those skills couldn’t transfer to helping me with geometry or algebra. Book reports were beyond my parents’ comfort with the English language, much less AP exams on European History or Biology. My senior year of high school, I felt robbed of my social life when I spent most Friday nights mopping the floor, closing up shop with my mother instead of going to football games or parties with my friends. Because of these experiences, I couldn’t appreciate what I had: that I didn’t have to give up school to sustain our family’s business, the way my father had to drop out of Cal Poly Pomona, nor did I appreciate the additional time I spent with my mom those nights when I only saw her for dinner every other night.
As I’ve gotten older, however, I’ve reflected more on memories like this elementary school project unique to my experience growing up in the donut shop. What I didn’t learn through teachers in my classes or my coach on the court, I learned through the people with rich experiences that I spent so much of my time getting to know at the donut shop.
And I aced that project. I proudly passed out the coins in my Ziploc, beaming at the wide eyes of my classmates who held them in their hands.
In that moment, I realized the country I was assigned for this small project, whose border lies six hours away, was home to these dear customers, and the donut shop I spent my childhood at with them was home to me.
