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Hello, this is Jarvis Sam. and Renuka Rege. Today, we are here with Ms.…. Maria Christina Season Panis Poisot. Through the Houston Asian American Archive through Rice University.

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And we’re here today in Razor Hall at Rice. So, um…I guess we can start with—so you were born in Houston. Yes. Right, but um were your parents also born in Houston, or somewhere else?

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Nope, they were born in a little town in the Philippines called Agoo, La Union it’s like the northern part of the island—you need like a plane, a train, an automobile or something to get there. Oh, is it really small? It’s fairly small—I think they’ve only just recently been declared a city.

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Uh huh. But, it’s usually a province. Oh, okay. So, how did they come to Houston? Well, they started off um—I think it’s my mom so…she started off taking nursing, nursing

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school in the Philippines and then immigrated over because there was an opportunity for jobs back in the ‘70s. Ok. So there was a mass migration of the Filipino nurses back then. I think it was the late ‘60s, early ‘70s uh due to what I’ve read—nursing shortages

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and um…my father, of course, came after her so… Ok. It really was the driver. Um he was actually an accounting major, but he happened to have taken some

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electrical courses because his father was an engineer and that in itself just got him the job here. Oh. So…but it was his desire to really be an American and be with my mom probably more in priority—the other way around.

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Right. Be with my mom, that uh he’s like: whatever it takes, you know, to get here and then if I happen to get a job that really pays, you know—we’ll figure, we’ll figure it out. I’m gonna be with my lady so that’s kinda how he–that was the driver

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and the funny thing is that um they ended up living in an apartment complex in the medical center and they built a community of other Filipinos and they all were doing the same thing so it was like

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there was all nurses and all the men had come over to seek…. Oh wow. …either their wives or girlfriends or to meet up with them so it ended up being this thing that blew up and then we kept in touch ever since then with the kids as the generations grew and

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I always thought they were our uncles and I said: aren’t we cousins in some past life you know that grandma can look back in the tree, but—it’s like—actually no, we just all lived in this apartment complex and that’s what brought us together so I was like only

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recently found that out you know. Wow. You know when one, you know, of them passed away unfortunately, but—we always asked: Well, how’s the--What’s the connection?

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How are we related? Show me on the tree and finally my dad said, we’re not. Except for maybe one or two of them. Grandma could probably figure that one out, but other than that it was just—it was the

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apartment complex and med center. Anyways, long answer to a short question. No. That’s fine. So the combination of the desire for labor and love… Yeah

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…had to build a family? Yeah, absolutely—yeah so it was really more you know the, I think the economy in the Philippines wasn’t doing well at the time and my father said inflation was very high

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and then of course you know I think you know of course—President Marcus had been president for how many years…Forever! Right. …four year terms like we have here—slowly after a while you

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begin to wonder is it you know—democracy, but um you know he said that ‘cause he had actually he told me he said he processed credit card statements in the Philippines and one of the credit card statements he came

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across was Frank Sinatra’s. Wow. Wow! He’s like…yeah they used to come over and party over in the Philippines all the time and all these famous people and ‘cause credit cards weren’t common back then. Right. Yeah. But he was an accountant by you know by his school trade and that’s what he

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did. They would process the statement back then and so...but he came here and that’s what—that’s what drove him here was to be with mom. Um she uh immigrated over you know with a whole class of other nurses, you know, they would come over in batches in like

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20-40 at a time and so they themselves also kind of became a sorority, you know… Oh ok …sort of a culture so they kinda—and of course when you’re in a foreign country you know you try to stick together um.

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I remember stories of them saying they didn’t even know how to go to the grocery store, didn’t know how to buy rice, I’m allergic to beef so I thought that chicken fried steak was chicken…you know Yeah …and they were just ….

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Yeah. And then one of them told me about how they roomed with another Japanese girl and you know the Filipinos and the Japanese didn’t you know…. generationally in World War II—not a

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good thing so she thought she was always trying to poison her…. Oh my gosh. And yeah so I mean it was just—why did—the, the nursing school at the time didn’t think to not pair them together.

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Right. You know, but they could probably arch-enemies back home, but—and the Japanese girl tried to be nice and make her a little boiled egg everyday because she knew she was starving because she didn’t know how to buy food for herself and she thought she was trying to poison

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her so she’d take the egg so it didn’t seem like she was being mean, but she’d hide it or throw it away. But I mean, that’s just to show you how being in a foreign country… Right. …and you were just terrified and you know and on who to ask for help… Yeah. …and very much stuck to their community when they came over so those are the stories

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I grow up with and I’m just like…uh uh…. why did they put me with this… Ja…? So you know, those were my, you know…I was like oh gosh, you know, if I ever meet somebody who’s Japanese will I ever think that too?

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So it’s certainly is a cultural experience in itself. Yeah. So…but uh hopefully that helped. Yeah! So that was, you said, in the ‘70s? Mhmm. When then they came over…and so I guess you were born not long after

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Right so I was born in 1973. Ok. September 14. Ok. And I remember that was the same day that my father said he had found out he’d gotten his job. Oh ok.

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So it was just a very significant day. So what did he do? What was his job? His job it was um in electrical engineering he could, you know, over time…you know I’m how old now and I can’t honestly tell you what my father did for a living.

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But, he’d always fill out like on his taxes wireman or electrician. Ok. And then there would be photos of him you know over these gadgets you know piecing together and later I asked him: You know, like what is it you do exactly?

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And he goes, well now I just uh print up all the labels for, for the turbines so I can tell all the rookies who don’t know how to wire together… …the uh…the…the electrical turbine—how to piece them together.

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Ohh So, he’s like so he basically maps it out and makes sure they understand like plug A into a socket so I mean I know it’s not rocket science, but you know—I can’t imagine they paid too much at the plants so…

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Yeah Uh huh ha…. unless it’s overtime or holiday um… Yeah. And uh…but that’s uh…that’s what I think he did although half of them think he should’ve been fishing the whole time.

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Yeah. So, I don’t know if you know about culture at plants and refineries and things like that, but it tends to be mostly male and I know it was in San Jacinto right? And, um half the time

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they’re, I guess exchanging jokes—so I never hear what my father actually does at work. I always heard about the social aspect. They’re exchanging jokes and they’re bringing over their hot peppers that they’ve mari— grown in their gardens, marinated them and having hot pepper eating contests…

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….. during the lunch break in the lunch room. So they-well my Mexican hot pepper jar is much more spicier than your Filipino peppers, but my Thai peppers are bettter—you know so it’s quite you know-it ….

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everybody…. are children…. and at the end of the day. That’s really funny. What he actually did from what I understood, but getting back to the topic is uh you know he called himself a wire man—an electrician so….

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Yeah. So.. Ok. Yeah. So with your parents’ professions, what type of lifestyle did this afford for your family? So um…I think it was still tough because dad and mom kept having kids.

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You know, ‘cause they were Catholic and so what goes with that is lots of children.. so um one kid eh, they probably figured it out, two? okay, after the third and fourth um my dad

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I think eventually started immigrating—he’s calling grandma back in the homeland saying, can you come help ‘cause I can’t afford daycare… Yeah …and after the fifth child comes, it’s like forget about it right? So, um we lived in a

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small house uh before we were 5 over on Hiram Clarke and that is a tough neighborhood…I don’t know if you all have…but it is a tough neighborhood even today and then um my dad’s like ok we need more room so we move into Missouri City in a house with only 3

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bedrooms and so eventually it was like 5 kids and then grandma comes over… Oh my gosh. …and then it’s like those 3 rooms, 5 kids, grandma, and then he’s like well you know I’m in a position where I can help my brothers and he sponsors them to come over. Oh gosh. So we’re all in a house together and so—the all the kids

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managed to fit in one room… Wow. …I remember it was a bunk bed and a twin bed and then I had my own bed because I was the oldest so I would be in the top. And then uh the two boys shared a bed and the two girls

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shared a bed. Ok. And so, and then grandma had her own room until the uncles came and then you know she had to like get twin beds and we were all…. so… Wow! Yeah it was like the whole generation in there—I just remember we were

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all jam packed in there and at the time, as long as I had my own bunk bed… You know, you don’t think about it um—well with that many kids you tend to uh…you entertain each other so you only remember you know playing in the bayou behind the house. Right. I would never let my children play in the bayou today.

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I’m like what were they thinking? Because there were crawfish and alligators and snakes in that thing… And chemicals… Yeah and chemicals and god knows what else, but yeah so we lived behind there

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and I remember we’d be on top of the swing set and we’d look behind it and there was even a landfill behind there… Oh my gosh! …so I was like…oh, probably not you know, we weren’t uh…aware of pollution and

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environmental conditions so we didn’t think anything of it—we just thought it was this mysterious big hill… Wow—what is that landfill over there? I don’t think it was trash—it was just them moving dirt around.

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Oh ok. But it wasn’t—I don’t—it wasn’t trash—we would’ve smelled it, but it was supposedly one of the newer neighborhoods back then and so it was an upgrade from Hiram Clarke. But my father considered and then we all um so the living conditions I guess were still okay

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because you don’t think—you don’t think beyond your means, right, you know what you think you need unless you’ve, you’ve seen things on TV perhaps, and so other Filipinos ended up buying houses next to us so it was like a row of us: 5 or 6 of us.

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Oh ok. And so they had kids and we’d just go back and forth and play. So the only thing…but my father, he’s very keen on education… Uh huh. …and religion so they made sure that the reason—so another reason probably why we had to do so much budget cuts-they wanted to make sure we went to Catholic

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school. Oh... ok. So at the point when ok after one kid goes to Catholic school ok, second goes ok, third kids okay….. and then when all five of us were in Catholic school he’s like ok—this is the last year,

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Christy graduates, then we all transplant and go elsewhere. And so, what he decided to do was to take all the money he was saving and bought us a house in Sugar Land. Ok. A bigger house.

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Wow and so with all this money we now accumulated to spending on private school we could have spent to live in a better neighborhood and go to a better school and so we ended up going to the Fort Bend um schools in Sugar Land, so. Ok, so then they went to public school, the rest...

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Yeah, And what—what he thought was a nicer neighborhood. Yeah. Because back then you know that neighborhood started getting rough when we were growing up into and then just—I would visions of bullies and things in my head.

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Aww Yeah ‘cause you only private school kids and nobody knows you. So then you go out to play and they want to pick on you, and so, but luckily it was a pack of give of us kids so we’d all you

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know… We would all –you know, elementary school and junior high you only do so much— very close knit, tight, they would, they would only stick to themselves though—not very often they would bring in strangers into our little community of people, so. And they were just

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neighbors with the people that they met at that one apartment. Yeah. So they all said, let’s all buy houses next to each other. Oh ok. So, it was all-I remember there was always somebody nearby that they could trust. So um, how far apart were you and your siblings?

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All two years. Oh ok. Like two, two, two, two… Perfect! So was it planned that way? Well, all I know is that my…my dad wanted two boys

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and um so I was born and you know ok that’s great and then have another one—ok, got a boy, so you got your boy and your girl. Uh huh One more boy would be good. Ok, and then my sister Judy was born.

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Ok well you know it’s ok—three’s a good number, but four might be a better number so we’ll try again and my sister Gina was born. Ok, and finally he’s like convinced my mom—one last time, let’s try for a boy and

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well finally my, my brother, Joey was born and so yeah. He really wanted to have two boys, a girl, but... 3 girls. Yeah now we got an entourage so... So that’s how that ended up happening so yeah we were all two years apart.

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I figured that oh my mom could probably manage. Yeah, she’s a nurse so at the hospital, they kept asking, he’s like: What’s in the water? It seemed like she was always in that condition so ….

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Yeah But... Wow! I know. Did your family ever travel back to the Philippines during your childhood? They did when I was….. I wanna say I was 4 and then my brother was there uh,

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Jun. They called him Jun because he Junior right. Oh yeah. He’s short for Junior. He actually has another real name legally, but… Jun is a very common reverent term for the 1st born male in our culture and so um I guess

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they wanted to show off you know their kids. And they told me it was right around Christmastime because I was singing Christmas carols in the middle of the aisle and then they were just like—they thought it was the cutest thing. So that was when we went back and then I went back again um

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and so keep in mind my parents have 5 kids. Right. So, it’s not very cheap to travel… Yeah …With that many kids and much less to a Third World country that you have to go planes, trains, and automobiles…

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Right …to get to…and um so in order to see the family, they decided that my mom—she’s very religious—so she would uh participate in a pilgrimage so she’s like: Oh! I can go on a

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discount. And bring the family through the pilgrimage. So it actually was a very educational experience for me and I was at an impressionable age of 14 by then. And so at 14, we’re traveling the island, visiting the—you know

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bishops, palace, and you know all the religious landmarks and it’s very impressionable so it’s almost a mix between you know very Paganistic and Catholic ‘cause you know if you think about how they probably integrated the

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cultures… Right. …into the religion—it was um so I remember walking up some mountain in a city called uh Agoo, and it’s not far from where my parents are, and there’s this statue and an open temple and

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its heart is like what they claim was bleeding real blood. Oh.. Right, it was some sort of apparition and it was this—I remember when we were going up that hill or mountain um there was just villagers carrying a 12 foot boa constrictor.

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Uh huh ha oh And they’re just like, oh we brought dinner and I’m just sitting there looking at it going is that—did that just come down the same mountain we’re about to go up? ‘cause I was like…I would be so…you know I’m Americanized and raised with Scooby Doo and whatnot, TV

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and you know—not hamburgers ‘cause parents didn’t buy hamburgers right. So, they—dad grew vegetables in his garden and then the—food he was used to from back home and so I guess you’d call it organic today, but um you know

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grandma when she was imported over, she made all the dishes so we were very much into that food. Yeah. Um so, uh hamburgers only every now and then for kids… For a treat. Oh yes, oh no no no—it’s only a special treat. So, I always think of Eddie Murphy and the house burger—I don’t know if you’ve ever

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heard of the skit that he does, but Google it sometime. But uh you know, I got a house burger so that was really exciting if we actually got McDonald’s. It was supposed to be a few rare occasions—we would get so excited. But um,

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that was when I, but uh getting back to where we were on our trail to, to the islands um that was when I was back last and so uh right now usually if my father needs to go back, I usually funded his trips or like right now I have, you know, uh unfortunately it’s like a sick

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uncle so I might have to…he wants me to go with him though and that’s in February so I’m thinking I’m going to do that and because I have work around—you know, my company’s global—I’m trying to see oh you know while I’m over there should I swing by Singapore and Malaysia?

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So I’m like, how can I—I mean it’s not often is it that I make it to the other side of the world. Yeah. How can I you know make this trip beneficial business-wise right? So, I’m plotting right now. It’s a win-win for the company I think so…

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Yeah, so what other um- other than—you mentioned the food—Where there other aspects of Filipino culture around you while you were growing up? Well, I know you were surrounded by

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Filipino people. Right, well I mean definitely I’d have to say you know I could go down the list right so um I meet other Filipino colleagues today right and they actually think I’m Mexican. Oh really?

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Because I don’t have an accent. Ohhh… And so it confuses them. Ok, And then, I’m also you know very dark and I look probably—‘cause you know Filipinos—The Spanish conquered the island for 400 years.

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Right And my last name means bread in Spanish so there’s probably a little cross pollination going on, but uh so when I think about culturally, all the aspects of growing up is religion, you know the very Catholic-ness of it, um the—there

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were—and there are always all these unspoken rules, right, you know you um like you have to say the rosary or, you know, or even now as I’m growing up I always hear different unspoken rules that have to happen that I’m

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like…nobody told me this! You know—I write a blog and so I kinda write about that right—Two things people never write down there are recipes and oral history. And um ‘cause I wanted to reconnect with

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that part of myself the Filipino-ness. People don’t think I’m Filipino well maybe I’m not figuring out the Filipino-ness enough because I think I got lost on the language ‘cause I have such a good English accent, but my parents didn’t really speak the language to

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me. They tried ok so which you may or may not know about the Filipinos is there’s so many dialects. Thousands of dialects across the islands and so there’s a main one called Tagalog is the main

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language and so they’re from this tiny little province on the North side so they –when they talk to me in the language, they mix it up and so when I try to talk to other people—they’re like, I have no idea what you’re

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saying. You must—that must be some other dialect that your parents know. So I’m just like oh my gosh how am I ever going to learn this? Oh no. There are these different nuisances—so that--the language is always around. But I remember when I was 14 and I did a vacation there and I was there for a few

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months so it was like osmosis. I just picked up on it ‘cause you’ve heard it all your life, but you never really speak it, but then all of a sudden when you’re there and you have to survive, it just—I knew exactly what they were saying and then I had started to piece together words and so..

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it’s in me somewhere. Um but, depends on which island, right?! And now I’m like, oh gosh I’m confusing people—only if it’s around the Ilocanos so the Ilocanos is a dialect or the kind

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of culture that my parents are considered. And um, I was like Ilocano sound a lot like Tejano so, I’m wondering—I always wonder if there’s some kind of relation there—old conquistadors and things

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from the island, but um so that—the cultural aspect around language, food, uh the religion of course, go to church every day– so going to Catholic school, I went to church like three times a week so it was like church…church with your class, church

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with your school, and then Sunday church with your family. So, so it’s very much, you know, now I’m trying to think if I’m a religious person today—I always try to open to my daughter going—that’s what you want to decide,

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but then I came to respect that um there’s something about…ceremonies you know and respecting that you know even though you may not be a religious person—there’s still a rite of passage that happens that I find are important so the friends that I have that

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don’t want to get married- I kind of wonder you know—that the concept of ceremony could just be- it’s something that’s been missed as we get into our generation now. So um, or even my daughter—she’s the one who

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actually told me, I wanna do my first communion—and I go: Do you even know what that means? You know, and she goes well my cousin so and so is doing it—why can’t I? And I’m like, well you know, there’s a lot that goes into that so she actually made me

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reconnect back— back into Catholic. You know, I figure 8 years and praying the rosary everyday of my life when I was a child—I’m good! For a while…. And so my mom’s like, you strayed away from the church.

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And so that, that is very much cultural aspect of I think of all…. Your religion. Of Filipinos, one guy put it: well, you’re just born a Catholic—you can change later, but you’re just born it. Like, they’re cre—you’re just credo-Catholics. And so, that’s what the

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Spanish gave us—is that ingraining this… Yeah. You know, and then thinking back into the pilgrimage and the islands and always the concept of giving and community. Big families, it’s another Filipino thing.

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Big families and you know eating rice with everything. I mean—I can’t think of anything else that can get you there—karaoke—I don’t know where that came from, but it started becoming a huge thing in the family…

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Um, shame. That’s a big concept. Oooo. Mhmm. Yeah. You know and um not really being direct about—it’s almost like Japanese as well. It’s like they just walk into a room and they say—I think the room is uh..

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needs some cleaning. They won’t tell you directly tell you to clean it so you’ll just feel this you know pressure of—I think the room needs to be cleaning so you know so… I—it’s this passive way of speaking, right.

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It’s uh…. I can’t quite explain it. Some of my friends tell me that when I’m around my family, my diction and my language even changes. It starts to become very harmonious—like da da da da….

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duh duh duh duh…so even—though I’m speaking English, my atonation starts to get acclimated to the family—like your family has their own language and I go: What are you talking about? We’re speaking English. They’re like noooo…you start sound like you’re singing to

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each other. And I just…I don’t know what they’re talking about so…um and then having lots of kids—I don’t know why. I mean I guess the Catholic faith kind of dictates that—always surrounded by children. Right. And a small gathering is 20 people.

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Wow I mean—somebody asked me: Why—How can you Filipinos always afford these huge parties and I was like.. it’s potluck… All the time. It’s always somebody…. everybody just brings something over and it’s just 20

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dishes instantly on the table. And I don’t know why you can’t- they don’t have successful restaurants in Houston that are Filipino, but nobody makes it like your mama does basically. Right You know—that’s what it comes down to and the different regional

00:25:17.910 - 00:25:28.180

aspects so I mean- definitely very driven by food um so…I don’t know, those are a lot of other things I’m sure they’ll come up. Oh, and work—oh my gosh.

00:25:28.450 - 00:25:39.960

They have no shame in telling the salaries of the children at the dinner table. So all the moms will gather round at a party and they’ll just say, my son makes $100,000 a year—how much does your daughter make?

00:25:40.420 - 00:25:50.950

Well, my daughter makes blah blah blah, you know they just—usually in American culture, you don’t do that—they just have… You don’t talk about that. Nope, they’re just laying it out there ‘cause they’re very competitive in that sense.

00:25:51.400 - 00:26:04.670

Right. Um, respectfully of course. And so the women, you know, are in the kitchen—it may be like that in most cultures and the men are in the garage, you know, talking about god knows what. You know, there’s a rite

00:26:04.670 - 00:26:12.940

of passage that goes through that… Yeah. And so, yeah. When I intermarried, it became interesting. Yeah. We’ll get to that!

00:26:13.050 - 00:26:23.840

Yeah! Um... Do your parents ever discuss some similarities between the influence of the Spanish culture and the Philippines and coming to Texas where there’s a large Hispanic influence as

00:26:23.840 - 00:26:33.890

well? They always go back to the language. Right? Gotcha. There’s the religious aspect of it –very similar and also they’ll say, you know, we didn’t

00:26:33.890 - 00:26:43.630

have a word for garbage in the Philippines until the Spanish came. It’s the same word in Spanish. Like, basura or the silverware right? We—or cigarettes.

00:26:43.630 - 00:26:54.840

We- I mean we didn’t have no cigarettes. Right. So, we’re like, we didn’t have cigarettes, a word for silverware, and a word for garbage until they came. And so, they’ll bring that up and then they’ll have um, you know, even

00:26:55.110 - 00:27:06.680

some versions of food like empanadas—we have our own version of empanadas. Um, so you know ours might be slightly different made from the differe…Asian-ness ingredients that were around

00:27:07.790 - 00:27:22.530

um but I also see it’s definitely in like the Catholic bit. So I get along with my Hispanic friends. We tend to get along on some of those aspects—the machismo aspect probably more so than Asian to Asian right?

00:27:23.000 - 00:27:35.630

Yeah. Right. You know, there is an integration of it, but I think it seems more that we relate a lot more with the Hispanics than they do with it. That’s really interesting. Yeah, but you would tend to still alter our ingredients

00:27:35.850 - 00:27:51.240

when we’re here and cooking. Yeah Like, well, back home we had this thing, but you know…a jalapeño will do. Yeah You know, we’ll just put a jalapeño instead or it’s like well we used to not have tomatoes in it, but pico de gallo has tomatoes and we’ll add tomatoes, you know, so

00:27:51.240 - 00:28:03.170

they kind of start making these hybrid dishes, you know, as a result of being Texan and here you know and so I appreciate that. But I have—I still have to figure out A.

00:28:03.170 - 00:28:13.770

how to cook the dishes. And B. what the recipe is…‘cause it changes each time you ask Yeah. A pinch of this, a pinch of that. Well, maybe some tablespoon I have in the kitchen I’ve

00:28:13.770 - 00:28:27.280

been using for years and you’re like…well how many? A stirring spoon—it’s how much? You know so it’s those types of things that we find that are similar you know so it’s very much integrated language, religion,

00:28:27.380 - 00:28:41.320

food, um but you know. It’s definitely fusion on food I have to say…you have some aspects, but um.. I don’t even know if I look Mexican like they said but.

00:28:41.730 - 00:28:54.230

That’s mean. No but I mean—but you know—it’s always.. Maybe Men you know endearingly um. Well, some people tell me I look Mexican. Yeah, that or you could be a spy. Probably, so you could be whatever you want, wherever

00:28:54.230 - 00:29:07.780

you go ‘cause you—you have that—you know—you’re not sure where you’re from or what you look like. Use that to your advantage in whatever country that you’re at so I kinda view it like that. And then when I’m in Mexico, I notice that they um have an easier time approaching me

00:29:09.010 - 00:29:22.380

than they do other people. They just start speaking Spanish to me and I just kinda you know try to respond in English to let them know—I’m not quite completely fluent but. I know enough to order a drink to my room.

00:29:22.670 - 00:29:40.760

I can survive so um, but it’s—it’s very much integrated for sure, but we’re like that. You wanna say that we’re…what’s the word….. that…we’re…not mutts, but we’re kind of just this

00:29:41.510 - 00:29:55.520

integration of these two um cultures there in the—in those islands so that’s what brings about the uniqueness, but also probably helped us relate and when other countries came over like the U.S.

00:29:55.660 - 00:30:07.030

and stuff… So essentially your childhood was like a crux of three different cultures—The American, the Hispanic, and the Asian somewhat. See, and I didn’t even think about it like that because you know his—because we did

00:30:07.030 - 00:30:19.590

learn Spanish in um elementary school, but then I always kept finding that a lot of the words were the same—zapatos and pantalones so I… So I’d pick up on some of it, but then you know, my parents were

00:30:19.590 - 00:30:29.940

speaking—jokingly saying you know- ‘tagolacano’ and ‘toglish.’ ‘Cause you’re mixing it all together and uh it’s no wonder we have miscommunications. Sitting there….

00:30:30.040 - 00:30:44.480

kinda lord…you know, which language are you thinking that one in? So um, then—one of my godmothers is even Hispanic so yeah… Wow. Yeah, I mean—yeah, I didn’t think of it that way. I guess we’re—we’re sorta just

00:30:44.520 - 00:30:53.080

hybrids—all of it together. There’s the word. You know so…yeah, that’s the word. Not ‘mutt.’ Right, yeah!

00:30:53.870 - 00:31:09.900

I couldn’t think of it at the time. Definitely a much better place word for the cross-section. Yeah. It does bring about questions on how you learn to belong too, you know, growing up, is it here is it there?

00:31:10.030 - 00:31:24.680

Do you have to choose? So… So, I guess as you were growing up, were you—what were your friends mostly Filipino or all kinds of different—or Hispanic or just everyone—I guess maybe in high school?

00:31:24.680 - 00:31:40.480

So in private school, very small private school—you are stuck with the same 20 people. For life, like for 8 years, but it was a very diverse Catholic school in the middle of Houston. It was Corpus Christi Catholic School and it was off –it’s still around –it’s off of Stella Link and it was very diverse.

00:31:40.880 - 00:31:53.770

It must have been—you know you had, you know: Indian, black, Hispanic, Asian, white—we were all-it was just like I don’t know why that particular area was so cross-sectional.

00:31:53.860 - 00:32:11.470

So growing up um I guess my friends were—I tended to drift toward the ones that were very smart you know and I didn’t really discern culturally—there was maybe one Filipino girl, but she had—was not born and raised in Houston so to

00:32:11.470 - 00:32:24.670

an extent we really didn’t relate to some level. Yeah. I mean-I know I apologize that if anything I’m saying is in bad taste, but seemingly as I grow up I sometimes think that gosh, I’m the whitest girl I know.

00:32:25.180 - 00:32:40.460

It comes to the way I was raised, but then when I do come across other of Filipinos, I’m like ‘Hey’ you know I can handle the dishes ‘cause I bet you haven’t had home cooking in a while ‘cause I can now. Why don’t you come to my house—you know we’ll have the vegetables in the

00:32:40.460 - 00:32:57.300

garden and we’ll get you going so um…but it –also just looking around and the friends—it came down to the personality at the end of the day, you know, you kinda…and then maybe it’s more evolved thinking for a 10 year old at the time right?

00:32:58.450 - 00:33:09.980

Yeah. So, um but a lot of the kids in the neighborhood were just that Filipino group of families. My parents do not cross that line culturally, you know.

00:33:10.290 - 00:33:19.860

Every—I remember one guy put up some blinds—that’s like the only different culture that they let him in the house. And another guy tried to sell him insurance and another guy tried to sell him a water purifier.

00:33:20.540 - 00:33:30.480

I remember those three incidents. The only time we had different cultures allowed in the house and I think two out of three of them got kicked out because they said something that my father did not appreciate….

00:33:32.380 - 00:33:49.480

Wow. Yeah, he’s very you know uni-cultural and I guess influencing me made me to, you know, made me think I had to be very discerning about people, and but also respectful especially if you’re in somebody else’s home—especially with my father so….

00:33:51.110 - 00:34:06.510

you can’t be too direct. You have to be respectful, but if you’re coming across a very sensitive topic you’ve gotta be walking on egg shells, culturally, to make sure that it’s not offensive, right?

00:34:07.110 - 00:34:23.920

But then my father picks up on it pretty quick. If you are trying to take one on over him, it’s just I don’t know maybe that’s a survival mechanism of being very suspicious and how you protect your children, too um. Yeah. So culturally, an individual’s possessions are very

00:34:23.980 - 00:34:39.450

important? Mhmm, um…to me it’s mostly the family—your children, you know. I guess you see all these shows on, you know, kidnappings, you know, and whatnot and they’re very suspicious

00:34:39.480 - 00:34:53.900

about strangers being let into their community um and it does take a little –a lot of time to gain trust especially if you’re from the outside in um….. but even then though my father—it’s very

00:34:53.940 - 00:35:10.680

easy to—he was always—I remember growing up, even a Filipino neighbor borrowed his tools and didn’t return them and so they never spoke again and he worked with this guy. So he was just you know—he’s very just disciplined about the respect thing. You know, you

00:35:10.750 - 00:35:24.930

just cannot cross that integrity because he gives so much himself. If you’re in good, it’s like come to my home, whatever, here’s some vegetables. He opens his home to his brothers,

00:35:25.040 - 00:35:39.240

immigrants from all over, he brings them in, he pays for whatever they need in order to get them going. Wow. And so when you’re in—you know—they always say in like that movie…I can’t remember the movie…you’re in the circle of trust you know. It’s very much like that and I think about

00:35:39.740 - 00:35:50.270

where they came from in the islands and it’s the same thing. ‘Cause they’re in that isolated community that it takes a while to get into and everyone knows everybody and so there’s this

00:35:50.390 - 00:36:04.090

sorta you know um…organizational consciousness that happens in there and I think he kinda just re-established that in the Houston community. Ok. Yeah, and so I can imagine there’s probably different groups like that…

00:36:04.090 - 00:36:22.610

Right …Within even our own culture where you trust your little hobble in the neighborhood and that’s how they survived right in that community and so growing up, being American was tough sometimes because um…I think at an early age I

00:36:22.830 - 00:36:32.960

was asked to be the interpreter. Oh. Can you talk to the people? Can you make the travel plans? Can you uh make sure that we

00:36:32.960 - 00:36:44.380

have reservations? Can you… You know? Can you see—can you tell them we’re unhappy with their service? You know I’m just like—and after a while I’m like come on.

00:36:45.630 - 00:36:59.090

It just became…but you know, being the oldest of five, I think after a while I just kinda assumed spokesperson. So, my grandmother—she—I would say she practically raised me because my parents were working all day long.

00:37:00.030 - 00:37:12.670

Engineer and nurse right? And um, they came home um we carpooled. So we went to Corpus Christi, lived in Missouri City. Somebody—my mom would bring- pick us up from

00:37:12.710 - 00:37:27.340

school—I mean my mom would take us from the house and take us to um medical center where the Catholic school was located and then another one of the moms who lived in our area would then take me home to you know—brothers and sisters and all and their kid and that’s

00:37:27.340 - 00:37:38.020

how we did it. We’d exchang duties that way and so it was you know making sure—and grandmother was waiting at home ‘cause my parents weren’t there to receive us. My mother worked til midnight.

00:37:38.780 - 00:37:58.970

Wow. And so…and dad maybe came home around 6 or 7 and so until then I guess between the hours of like 2-5, 6, or 7, you know, grandmother ruled the roost. Yeah. And so imagine being raised by yet another generation older. Yeah. She’s old school, she was no grandma that made—baked cookies, happy to see you

00:37:58.970 - 00:38:15.680

kind of thing—she made sure—and there were so many of us that you know we did chores—we watered the vegetables in the back… Wow. We…you know, she had us marching in a line… We ate these exotic foods that we liked or didn’t like, we cleaned the

00:38:15.680 - 00:38:30.190

house, we did—you know, she made sure we were occupied… Yeah …and kept track of each other and it was always these sayings: You’re the oldest, you have to set an example. You always get the—there were always those different kind of well, you

00:38:30.190 - 00:38:42.280

know – you have to make sure your brother is safe. You have to make sure you can keep track…you have to…. I still even hear ‘em today so those are the kind of…I don’t know if you were been raised by grandparents or not either, but it’s kind of

00:38:42.280 - 00:38:54.830

around—it’s like the same thing. It’s like this different. It was very…I was raised old school so you know there’s some conservatives— conservative views that I have, but I you know I try to take that in as a

00:38:54.930 - 00:39:05.020

mother today. Going okay, there’s a middle road here today. I can’t be all extreme. So I’m a working mom, and grandmother you know her life was

00:39:05.110 - 00:39:16.050

us. Yeah. And so that being said though, it was, you know, once we were grown, she moved to the next uncle’s house who had kids and watched their kids and once their kids were grown, she moved to the next uncle’s house.

00:39:16.520 - 00:39:26.370

Wow. She raised the generation—the food, the cooking. She taught me how to crack an egg and fry it in a pan you know. So... then for myself even.

00:39:28.480 - 00:39:41.000

So did you go to a Catholic school all the way through high school? M-mm…No, ‘cause if you recall uh it was uh in high school when we moved to the public school arena in a nicer neighborhood in Sugar Land. Ok, so you also went to a public school.

00:39:41.220 - 00:39:55.560

Right, so then my dad bought the better house in Sugar Land and used all that money in private school to move us to a better neighborhood and to make room for all the five kids that were growing out of their shoes and needed space and so

00:39:56.060 - 00:40:07.460

that’s where they are today and so... How old were you when you all moved? It was in ’87 so I had just graduated from high school–I mean from junior high so

00:40:07.840 - 00:40:22.500

what…like 13? 13, 14 right around that time. Ok. But everyone else was two years below me. So they had a completely different view of public school… Yeah. …at that time so…I was the only one that got to complete the full 8

00:40:23.770 - 00:40:38.830

in that atmosphere so I can imagine it was probably a big cha-–I know it was a big change for them…um in that area so…and then the weird thing is that at the time, they bussed us over to a different school a little

00:40:39.130 - 00:40:50.700

further down in—I don’t know if you know Clements High School? Mhmm. Yeah, so we went to Clements High School our first year because you know they didn’t have enough room. It was like gangbusters –they were just blowing up neighborhoods at that

00:40:51.090 - 00:41:00.730

time and um uh the year after that, they built another high school close to my parents’ house and so our class actually didn’t even have a senior class.

00:41:01.940 - 00:41:16.960

So it was .. you know it was like you were the kings of the roost for like two years. So I was uh…there was a class above us that was the first graduating class and I was the second graduating class of that high school so it was a different—so even then when I

00:41:16.960 - 00:41:31.650

transferred over I was like this is different ‘cause there’s no four classes. It’s just two and then, you know, then as we prog—so you were like kinda ruling the school really—you’re like juniors and seniors for two years in a roll— Woah ….3 years in a row so it was definitely a different—

00:41:32.400 - 00:41:45.350

What school was that? Kempner High School. Ok. Oh ok. IH Kempner High School off of Voss near Highway 6 so that—they built that we all joke that it was on prison land. We’re going to the prison school and there were like these–at the time–you know ‘cause

00:41:45.430 - 00:41:58.440

they had just built it on the prison land—we’d all look out the windows–there’d be cows out in the pastures. And we’d just –and so I headed up the yearbook and um I was like gosh there’s nothing to take pictures of around here!

00:41:58.740 - 00:42:11.960

I was like, well, I guess you could take a picture of that cow… …and uh.. And so…that’s what I did to stay entertained or get involved. So I’d always have a knack for that growing up.

00:42:13.330 - 00:42:26.640

Ok. So how did your parents continue to instill the Catholic culture now that you were no longer in Catholic school? Uh…. that’s hard. Well, we still- um even now if I was living in my parents’ house today,

00:42:27.070 - 00:42:38.500

we will go to church so we went to church every Sunday. Hands down. It didn’t matter, you know, even when my brother you know he still lives there today. When he got older, it didn’t matter,

00:42:38.500 - 00:42:49.450

it’s like he woul—going to church and my dad even he’s like…well I want to go fishing so…. if I go to church on Saturday, can I go fishing on Sunday? I mean you work it in.

00:42:49.630 - 00:43:06.380

Yeah. ‘cause I mean my mom was like those mmm you go and then um she started to um join a group called The Holy Rosary crusade and so it was that group then that not only did you go to church on Sundays, you would party at other people’s houses, but

00:43:06.380 - 00:43:18.720

not until you did the Novena and brought the giant four foot statue Virgin Mary to their home ‘cause that’s what The Holy Rosary crusade does. You move the Virgin Mary from house to house and then when you bring

00:43:18.720 - 00:43:34.570

the Virgin Mary to that house, you’d pray, and then we all can eat. Oh. And so… So that was another way culturally; I remember growing up there was always a huge statue in the house and we were always moving the, the Virgin Mary to different houses and so…

00:43:34.570 - 00:43:50.040

Wow. And so you wanna talk about, you know, instilling it still while I was there, but it wasn’t until I moved out that I was like, whoa! I need a break you know? And so you know I went to church, but not necessarily every

00:43:50.040 - 00:44:06.500

Sunday so…did I stray? You know, I’m always going to be Catholic—in my heart and also culturally—It’s still in me, it’s a part of who I am. Mhmm So um, you know people always say: well, but the Catholic Church believes

00:44:06.500 - 00:44:19.910

in this, that or the other. So without making this a political conversation, I just always look at it as…um you know there’s always going to be good and bad sides to every religion. Right. And, you know, it’s what you make of it.

00:44:20.160 - 00:44:36.530

Right? It’s about the community—what holds us together and then we—it’s like the Catholic Church—that’s probably their biggest marketing mechanism—they do the same mass all over the world. And so even if you’re uneducated, can’t read, third world

00:44:36.530 - 00:44:47.470

country, you can go from Rwanda to Houston and it’s going to be the same mass. Yeah. So, it’s –that’s the biggest marketing tool. And there’s something about common language

00:44:48.330 - 00:45:03.140

that people can relate to anywhere that… Mhmm …you go to so that’s one of our common languages so whether I don’t really know truly the dialect, I know that if I go to that little province town that my parents are from there’s going to be a church where I can- even though it might be in another

00:45:03.140 - 00:45:18.870

language—Latin—even if it’ll be in Latin—I can follow exactly what’s going on ‘cause I know exactly where we are in that part of the ceremony and there’s something to say to that about the strength in the community. So…

00:45:19.020 - 00:45:32.750

So, um I noticed on your form that you wrote about your first job at Fame City. How embarrassing. I was like god, I don’t want to write this down. Ok, so maybe my first real job was babysitting at home.

00:45:33.210 - 00:45:43.830

Ok! Yeah, but the first one on paper if people were to go back on my taxes…yes. Uh huh…what is Fame City? It’s called Funplex today. Oh wow… Do you not know where that is?

00:45:43.830 - 00:45:55.320

Yes. Wow. How embarrassing so it’s called Funplex, but it was Fame City back then, and they used to have a water park. Ohhh.

00:45:55.320 - 00:46:07.260

And uh…. um. I think it’s been dismantled. I don’t think it’s there though. I think so. I think they completely revamped it Yeah I think it’s like the number one Twitter thing right now to go roller-skating there. Right. That’s what I heard and I was like my niece is going there and I’m like, oh

00:46:08.000 - 00:46:18.990

lord, that place is still around? But yeah. I did not know how to swim. Ohh. And so all my friends worked at the water park and I wanted to work at the water park, too. Ohh. And so I ended up flipping burgers…

00:46:20.550 - 00:46:36.460

Ohh. …at the food and beverage concession stand ‘cause I wanted to hang out with my friends. Of course they all had the glamorous lifeguard style and uh…. I didn’t care—I was having a good time and—I wanted an official job on the record to just document that I doing something

00:46:36.460 - 00:46:50.350

to earn…‘cause my dad bought me a car. Being in Sugar Land, I got my first car… Ohh It was a Mitsubishi Galant, but I had to pay for the gas and I had to pay for all these other things and…you know, and I was eager to work and I don’t know if

00:46:50.540 - 00:46:58.080

you recall that age but you are just dying to get out of the house. Yeah. And if you got out of the house…and if you got a car…ooohh thank god I don’t have to do the Yellow Submarine anymore…

00:46:58.640 - 00:47:15.260

So you’re just ready to just get off the bus into a car and just be grown up as fast as you can. Mhmm Yeah And so, that’s where I was mentally at the time…you know just trying to…. Ok And so Fame City was the job that I decided to apply for ‘cause I

00:47:15.260 - 00:47:29.180

had heard a rumor that the guy who’s hiring knew all the tricks to get hired so they were telling me okay, this guy he’s kinda mean, but you know, be nice to him and he’ll probably

00:47:30.160 - 00:47:37.780

just…answer the question like so and so. I’m sure you’ll get the job, my mom is—- you know this one guy’s like, my mom runs the food and beverage stand. If you have an issue, just mention her name.

00:47:38.420 - 00:47:50.190

So it’s like, this name-dropping even back then. Wow. You know she’s, she’s running it believe me, she’ll put in a good word for you. And so that’s how you get hired even today right? Word of mouth sometimes even though

00:47:50.250 - 00:47:57.850

there’s a formality, but it helps. How much were you making at the job? Oh my gosh—that was minimum wage back then Uh huh Like three bucks? I don’t know.

00:47:57.850 - 00:48:11.510

It was nothing…. three… Yeah And then, you know, I would get excited if we got a 25-cent raise. I would be like, woo hoo! ‘cause you know back then you could probably go to Contempo Casuals and get yourself something between you know for 20 bucks you could get like 4

00:48:11.510 - 00:48:24.970

tank tops for that much. I just remember—you know the priorities that you have as a kid... Right Yeah Um maybe, but me if I roll it back even further, the only way we made money as kids

00:48:25.010 - 00:48:42.100

growing up was um besides helping my grandmother to babysit ‘cause she watched everybody’s kids at the house, was um she paid us 25 cents an hour to pull weeds! so she had her own like, you know, I was like—I was the oldest of 5 in the

00:48:42.210 - 00:48:56.180

pecking order so I would get my shift of brothers and sisters to go. If you pull the weeds, I’ll buy us some candy at the store. You know, I’d be saving my 25 cents an hour, but she kept it tight so I was

00:48:56.390 - 00:49:10.230

you know…a quarter could go a long way back then, I guess. You know, the ice cream man. If we all collectively make you know 75 cents, we could chase down the ice cream man later. It was not---I

00:49:10.960 - 00:49:24.230

guess we---I don’t see how we survived on that. But. You made it work. You don’t think about it right? Yeah. And that’s all you have to work with so…. ah…. it’s not much at all…well this is a story

00:49:24.660 - 00:49:38.260

about labor and commerce. There was a lot of labor, there was not a lot of commerce. That is too funny! I know, so. Ok, so how about college?

00:49:38.390 - 00:49:49.030

Did you go right after you graduated? Um, I did ok so that’s an interesting story, too. Yes, I did. I wanted to go to UT.

00:49:49.030 - 00:50:04.020

Ok. Mhmm Okay. And I actually got accepted…. Ok. …probationary. I was very involved in high school and so they were excited to see that and so I was like I don’t know….80th in my class—it was like magna or cum laude

00:50:05.990 - 00:50:16.260

and um you know I—I lost motivation in high school when my father said, you need to stay at home and help me with the kids and I was like no!

00:50:16.260 - 00:50:33.060

I was so ready to just change my hair and wardrobe… …and move and start a new life, but he he basically laid it off for me—we don’t have enough money to send you there and we need help here and so you know what—so what’s a dutiful eldest daughter to do with that information?

00:50:34.030 - 00:50:44.890

And back then, I didn’t have an understanding of student loans and the scholarships I could have applied for. I mean the only advice that a counselor could give me was: well, there’s some books on that shelf over there you could figure—I don’t know maybe it’s the same today.

00:50:45.390 - 00:50:54.840

You know, go figure it out. If you’re in a public school, it’s the same. Yeah. Yeah, I was just kinda like okay you know and I’m like…. so it wasn’t—there wasn’t much

00:50:54.890 - 00:51:07.250

mentoring and guidance… If you were a student at the Catholic school, maybe… I know, probably. I could have had connections, but—but I actually—I remember in my senior year—My um…. cause I was editor of the yearbook for two years…

00:51:07.600 - 00:51:23.960

Uh huh …and that was big deal for me because I was uh in charge of seniors too and so we had won all these awards at A&M for number one in layout or theme for our yearbook so it was a big deal for me. I learned actually a lot about governance running that those teens

00:51:24.540 - 00:51:39.650

and um the principal just—he adored me and he’s like…any school I’ve got connections up north…which one do you want to go to? And I was like, I’m kinda stuck to go university at home because of my situation. He was so disappointed…

00:51:40.390 - 00:51:56.850

Awww wow… ‘cause he said I can open whatever door you need ‘cause –I’m a principal and my son and my family were ingrained in…he just thought he could totally make this happen for me... you know and I think back on those decisions and if I had probably helped my father to

00:51:56.850 - 00:52:11.360

understand it or maybe even relayed to him my dilemma with financials, he probably would have helped me, but I didn’t know at that age the questions to ask. Yeah. …or what to do you know you don’t—I just think about that lack of—that part of education when you’re growing up.

00:52:11.430 - 00:52:25.370

It was just you know… And being the oldest, you had no older sibling. I know! I was just kinda stuck so uh…there’s probably—My life would have been completely different I’m sure if I had kinda gone. Mr. Emerson do what you may.

00:52:26.140 - 00:52:37.160

I am your mud in your clay, make me as I be. So I could’ve done something, but the choice was at the time ‘cause hierarchy of family—

00:52:37.220 - 00:52:54.190

that’s my priority so I chose family. My dad said…I gotta stay home so at that point I stopped trying at school ‘cause I’m already cum laude and you already locked in our GPAs… Uh...and I’m going to university at home so that you know.

00:52:54.190 - 00:53:07.680

I did go to college immediately after and after the first year, it was discovered that my father couldn’t pay for me in college and then my brothers and sisters were all going through adolescent at the same

00:53:09.000 - 00:53:20.410

time—all four of them were in their teens. Oh gosh… So, what goes with growing pains? Wrecked cars… Yeah. Um…other delinquent activities…

00:53:20.410 - 00:53:36.110

Uh huh…getting in trouble and he was just like I can’t afford to send you to college now even at University of Houston and so I decided to get a job, you know, on my own and I was like... well and then I had heard that waiting tables..could

00:53:37.360 - 00:53:48.440

give you the maximum amount of money in the minimum amount of time. Ok. Then I was like, well how much do you?—Well, this girl I went to high school with who I guess I kinda knew from Fame City was like hey…

00:53:50.080 - 00:53:59.830

…you know I’m getting a job as a hostess and it makes more than 3 an hour! And I was like really?! How much are you making? God, she’s like, for a hostess just to say hi to people at a

00:53:59.830 - 00:54:09.520

door—it’s $5 an hour and that’s all I had to do. I was like $5 an hour! I can do $ 5 an hour! I was so excited. You just gotta look good, say hi to people, and seat ‘em.

00:54:09.840 - 00:54:27.540

I said I can do that so. And I –so I worked my way…finally when I got there and I saw how much money the waiters were making and it was a restaurant called the Atchafalaya River Café. Ok. It’s not there anymore, but it was on Fondren and um

00:54:29.390 - 00:54:38.590

Westheimer ok. Landry’s is there now. Right. ‘cause Tilman Fertitta bought it. I remember the day he bought it, too, but it was owned

00:54:38.590 - 00:54:50.910

by Rio Star Corporation, which is Ninfa’s. Ok. Ok. But then before that, there was a guy named Dick Tanenbaum. And he had actually—do you know him? Have you heard of him? He started—he’s known as the restaurant starter and he

00:54:50.910 - 00:55:06.820

had started that restaurant and I can’t remember what he coined it off as. I know Pappa’s coined though…Pappadeux coined their idea and made it a better concept ‘cause they’re still around today, but the Atchafalaya River Café when it first opened up on Fondren, it was

00:55:07.180 - 00:55:21.180

a different recipe on the wall depending on what the chef felt like writing on the chalkboard. Ohh. That was how crazy it was there and it was Mardi Gras everyday. Wow ‘Cause you know that’s what you do. You know, your waiter outfit is—you think about the

00:55:21.960 - 00:55:31.910

horrid movie, Waiting. It was just the be... The culture and everything—probably the best time of my life I have to say.

00:55:32.010 - 00:55:47.650

And and struggling so much, but I learned a lot about relationships and customer service and people and profiling them, you know. And then in a Cajun restaurant, it’s, you know, you’re being managed by the Boudreaux’s and the Thibodeaux’s and then

00:55:49.110 - 00:56:01.630

the Lorenzo family. The Lorenzo’s –the what was it?—the Tomasiminos—anyways, that whole entourage. They were all there–this was the—and you were instantly injected into the restaurant politics of

00:56:02.990 - 00:56:17.690

Houston. And it still goes on today because we’re the foodie kind of town, but back then it was so exciting to me! I was like wow that waiter just made the—he had a $100 night. I was like, if I have 3 $100

00:56:17.690 - 00:56:32.470

nights a week, I could live on my own. Yeah. So I was like I want to wait tables and then I could just go to school the rest of the other time. You know so I was thinking that you’re doing the math in your had on how you would

00:56:32.470 - 00:56:49.020

make it you know and uh uh ‘cause I wasn’t lucky enough to get the money just given to me by my father and I want to do this so that’s why I ended up doing it for a while… Wow To make my way into college and I moved out as soon as I could just so I could live near

00:56:49.020 - 00:57:03.120

where I worked and could go to school at the same time ‘cause the traffic from Sugar Land to U of H—I was like gosh I just spent half my money on gas. Right. Yeah. So I was like... even back then, I was like I want to come into the university with a calm

00:57:03.170 - 00:57:17.050

spirit and traffic is not doing it for me. So I instantly decided to move into the Montrose area where I got a little apartment and just– it was cheap back then and waited tables and that’s how I got into college. Wow

00:57:19.540 - 00:57:31.200

How did you choose your major? Well, um so I said I was editor of the yearbook right? And I had actually even been editor of the yearbook in junior high.

00:57:31.200 - 00:57:48.600

Ok. So I’d always a have a knack for getting a bunch of artists in a room to create something. So that was my gift. Um, so I thought I’d—I’d join the graphic design program. Ok And then I did some research and found out that artists don’t pay that much.

00:57:48.600 - 00:58:01.970

I was like the amount of money I just spent on art supplies and the amount of money that I’m going to make when I get out so that amount of money was not…so hard for me and at the same time I wanted to do journalism.

00:58:03.210 - 00:58:10.900

And ‘cause my dad was like... you’re going to be the next Connie Chung. I don’t know if you know who Connie Chung is. Uh huh. Yeah. But she’s married to Maury Povich. Back then she was the Asian journalist and then I was

00:58:10.960 - 00:58:20.900

like yeah I’m going to be Connie Chung, and then I was like ‘oohh Connie Chung didn’t make much when she started so…’ I was you know—I’m torn between honoring my true self and my gift and then going the

00:58:20.900 - 00:58:35.580

lifestyle I think I want to lead and then the burden of thinking I’m the oldest of 5 kids and this big family where money is always an issue so my father growing up he’s like you can’t have that ‘cause I can’t pay for it and I’m just like—that was my driver I think that burned into me

00:58:35.640 - 00:58:54.580

that I’ll pay for it and I’ll figure it out so um that—my major then was later determined: pharmacy school for a semester, optometry school, architecture school so I was your typical lost

00:58:54.650 - 00:59:07.120

child. I was not a driven and very focused person. It was just the reality of knowing what my gift was. You know, you always think gosh what do I want written on my gravestone? Darn, I don’t think I can afford my gravestone on this salary.

00:59:09.700 - 00:59:22.710

So...god I want to be known for these things. How do I make it happen? So, I went to—I decided to go to the University of Houston downtown where um I didn’t have to pick a major.

00:59:23.110 - 00:59:38.650

I thought, I said—I think I’m just gonna go into business or I think—I was like everybody needs to know computers, I said to myself, ‘cause computers is like math—you just

00:59:38.650 - 00:59:51.250

gotta know it. Right, that’s what I always thought. ‘Cause I always had the knack for that –doing the layouts in the editor jobs. I could whip together photographs into a design and I

00:59:51.440 - 01:00:05.410

was like…that’s just more computer—I can do this. This was before the Internet boom happened. Ohhh. So I—luckily, by not making a choice, made the right choice. Yeah. Right? Right. So um, I graduated with a ….

01:00:05.780 - 01:00:22.220

so while I was in college I was like, oh waiting tables is tough on your body and soul ‘cause you then –you know you work late hours and you go to an 8 am class so I was like well this is tough and I don’t want to skip any classes so…I’ll just

01:00:22.220 - 01:00:38.030

work at the school so that way I have to go to school so I took a job as the editor of the University of Houston downtown newspaper. Ok. And um…I was a business major in

01:00:38.200 - 01:00:53.090

Computer Information Systems and they did not like that. I got the job for that role because they wanted a professional writer in the role. So each of the professors was like, I want my star students to take that internship role because

01:00:53.090 - 01:01:06.270

they would get more out of it. I approached it—I actually have skills in this and so, you know, when I walked in the room, like I was editor in junior high, high school, and won all those awards and

01:01:06.270 - 01:01:18.400

then I took some graphic design courses even. What I didn’t tell you was that I was on the yearbook my freshman year. Ok. Ok, so I was already an editor of not really the best section.

01:01:18.400 - 01:01:31.090

Nobody wanted it of course I was a freshman—the academic section—boring, but I got to interview the um the guy who does electromagnetic energy research over in U of H, but that was the academic side, you know.

01:01:31.110 - 01:01:49.120

They’re like, it’s not sports or sororities or fraternities or glamorous, but it was something. It was a job I had at U of H Central and so I said ‘ok I can do this.’ I can do a job at this university and then—when I came for my interview, they were like, you’re a business major what do

01:01:49.240 - 01:02:06.050

you know? And I was like, boom, put everything on the table—I was like here’s my portfolio…. and um all I know is—and if I –I’m not allowed to probably not allowed to publicly cuss on this I know I’m sorry—the professional writers in the program

01:02:06.100 - 01:02:16.440

were quite angry that I had taken this slot from them and I became known as the ‘b’ who came out of nowhere who didn’t know nothing. Wow. I was like you know what?

01:02:17.050 - 01:02:27.400

Controversy, that’s what I like on a newspaper. Bring it on! And that’s fine, you know ‘cause I’ve seen it. I’ve seen drama. I was a waitress for god sakes .

01:02:27.520 - 01:02:43.000

Right. So that’s what I did. And it actually paid well you know because it’s not taxable ‘cause it’s considered, I guess the way it’s structured and the way it paid, you just get a stipend. It was just bottom line—we’re gonna pay you that much is what you’re getting on your

01:02:43.080 - 01:02:58.860

check. And so um that worked out for me through, through college and so then major non deciding on the major became that so my fate was written in that way so I said, I’m going to integrate

01:02:59.610 - 01:03:11.180

my talent in whatever it is that I do ‘cause it’s who I am, but I’m going to try to make some money here ‘cause I gotta live. Yeah. Right. So it was trying to find the best of those two worlds—and that’s how I

01:03:11.180 - 01:03:27.170

decided on my major—by not deciding on my major. So, um were you able—I guess you were working all the time. Did you have any time to be involved in any student organizations or…?

01:03:27.300 - 01:03:44.800

Social life? Clubs? Well, I –you know what I don’t mention in between is that—so I lived on my own and I had met a waiter…. and so to augment my finances, we lived together.

01:03:45.580 - 01:04:01.030

Yeah. …and he ended up becoming my business manager. Oh ok. ‘cause he was a business major as well and our entourage on the paper was basically our social life and so what I don’t tell you is what that’s like…working

01:04:01.350 - 01:04:15.280

on a paper in college. And at the time, my assistant editor, she was very crafty in marketing and she got us interv—what you do is on a paper—so if you’re going to review a movie for

01:04:15.280 - 01:04:24.980

instance, and you can link up with a movie—a marketing company who say…is sponsoring the movie in Houston—you get free tickets. Mhmm So I get tickets to Miss Saigon.

01:04:25.540 - 01:04:39.840

Because Allen Theater wanted—the captured audience of the university and they wanted you to write an article about it and get a review preview before it even comes out so here’s some free tickets at will call. Preview it, write it, have your entire

01:04:39.840 - 01:04:55.550

audience at the university see—your captured audience of 8,000 people—see exactly what it’s like and then if you send me the newspaper article back and how many people you reached, they then reach their numbers on their research, on their captive audience.

01:04:56.210 - 01:05:03.440

That’s how it works. Ok, so working on the paper I learned a little bit about that. So one of the key famous people I got to interview was Angelina Jolie.

01:05:03.970 - 01:05:15.560

Wow! So I had a social life, you know, we were good! Life was good! And at the time, she wasn’t famous and it was another guy was with her—Jonny Lee Walker?…not Walker…Jonny Lee Miller! Jonny Lee Miller.

01:05:15.560 - 01:05:30.550

And they weren’t married yet. It was her first husband, but they were doing, ironically, a movie called Hackers. And we were about the same age, so I’ll tell you I think it was MGM that was sponsoring the movie and we didn’t know anything

01:05:32.050 - 01:05:46.090

about the movie—we asked them some key questions, but because we were the same age, we ended up talking about everything but the movie. Ohh. So we had sorta had commandeered their time for three hours at the Ritz-Carlton and I—

01:05:46.140 - 01:05:56.830

there were like a line of journalists outside the door going, you know, when is this going to be done? And, they didn’t dare not disturb us… Wow. …Stop it. But we were just a bunch of kids just then talking and I remember the article came

01:05:56.830 - 01:06:08.840

out horrible. I mean it was questions like, did they teach you how to type? You know, ‘cause you know in a Hackers movie, you’re typ—you’re pretending to type. I was like…what else do they do?

01:06:08.840 - 01:06:17.940

You know, it was just horrible—a horrible article, but we didn’t care you know. Whatever, you got to talk to Angelina Jolie… I mean now—and I didn’t know if she would ever be famous you know she told me a lot of

01:06:17.940 - 01:06:30.320

things about…she said she wished she had been a model. Back then, she was wearing glasses and her hair was pulled back in a pony tail and she looked like any other girl just crossing the street so I didn’t think anything of it and we were just having a good

01:06:30.320 - 01:06:38.580

time. I was like I gotta study for a marketing exam so I’m going to put my assistant editor to interview you. I’m going to go to the back room and read my marketing book so I’d come in every now and then I’m going, can I eat the chocolate on your pillow?

01:06:39.540 - 01:06:49.250

I come in and they go…oh yeah yeah yeah—what are you studying? And we’d all just joke... it was really just that kind of conversation—it was just a bunch of kids. That’s how I integrated social life.

01:06:49.250 - 01:07:01.660

Right, I mean it was through my work. Wow. And so yeah…and one of my friends—he wasn’t a friend at the time, but he was one of the writers—He would get albums from companies to

01:07:01.660 - 01:07:11.400

review. Back then, they would send albums not CDs. Mmhmm. And he was an aspiring DJ at the time so he was like: How can I milk this? So he would get

01:07:11.430 - 01:07:20.980

the album, and he’d be like…oh I just interview this guy and this band that’s up and coming called the Wu-Tang Clan or something like that. And they weren’t famous back then, or Ludacris—Do you want this Ludacris sticker?

01:07:21.010 - 01:07:29.500

So it was just very much about these— Oh my gosh! or Gregory Nava.. this guy-this director is doing a session at U of H Downtown.

01:07:29.500 - 01:07:39.490

His name is Gregory Nava and he directed the Selena story. And um, at the time it was a very Mexican college so they were just crazy about this director.

01:07:40.430 - 01:07:56.730

‘We’ve decided that we are going to choose, a um, a young girl who’s not Mexican, to star as Selena.’ Boo hiss right, you know and of course it was Jennifer Lopez and they-they did not want her to portray her and so it was funny, um

01:07:56.930 - 01:08:11.410

getting that guy there—it was just—so it was exciting you make what you do and you just—you surround yourself with very interesting people and…um I was involved also in the Association for Information Technology Professionals I became president of that, so it—you know,

01:08:11.570 - 01:08:21.210

because I lived and worked at the school it became your life and that-your social life too. And so, yeah, I don’t know if you guys do that as well maybe y’all have a life outside of school .

01:08:21.210 - 01:08:33.590

No. Not really. No. But see, you know and—but—you know I still remember those as some of the best years of my life, you know, so, and it still—it stays with you, ‘cause even some of the connections today come back to me going hey, I’m running a nonprofit can you help me

01:08:33.590 - 01:08:49.970

out with this that, so we still stay strong ‘cause you know, a lot of the—who we are gets—I don’t know it’s the same from back then so…that’s what it’s like growing up in Houston for me so, you make it work. So, what did you do after

01:08:50.210 - 01:09:04.890

you graduated? What did I do after I graduated? Um…I actually, so there was a couple things happened that were transitionary , before I graduated I, um, got a scholarship, um, so again, right the

01:09:04.930 - 01:09:20.790

professors are—are just loving me right ‘cause I’m involved, and I-I’m heading up the organizations I made good grades I was on the Dean’s List, and um, they’re like well, uh, I was also part of this other group called Students in Free Enterprise, and a couple of the

01:09:21.290 - 01:09:31.790

students there had actually gotten hired into Shell Oil Company. And then at the same time this one professor was like why don’t you apply for this particular scholarship with the Texas

01:09:31.840 - 01:09:46.560

Business Hall of Fame, and I walk in and ironically the guy interviewing me was a Rice graduate too, um but he was a—he was actually I, I don’t remember, so forgive me, I don’t remember his name right now but he-he was a well-established business person at that point and wanted to see how I

01:09:47.140 - 01:10:01.580

would someday, you know make it, and why should I get this scholarship and I remember saying, ‘I want to own a magazine someday!’ and he—and plus I want to work—I’m going to be working for Shell Oil Company so, he was impressed with the fact that I wanted to work

01:10:01.580 - 01:10:16.550

for Shell, um, and or had—I had started to be interviewing with Shell at the time, and, but at the same time he was like ‘Mm, Shell’s a tough company to move up in, so, don’t know if you’ll make VP anytime soon, young lady’ and I was like ‘Excuse me, is that a challenge?’ and then,

01:10:16.730 - 01:10:33.710

and then at the same time he goes ‘Although, I think you’ll probably get that magazine before you get that job, uh before you get that-that leadership role,’ maybe he’s right, um he goes ‘but that’s an aspi-inspiring and aspiring’ and so because I was able to articulate that, and, and

01:10:33.730 - 01:10:49.170

basically say you know it’s just my gift it’s what I’ve always had, you know you can, you can uh give me whatever job but that’s my talent. And so, something I said bought me that scholarship and so I got to get that scholarship and so what it—the scholarship was for an MBA.

01:10:49.170 - 01:11:04.660

So, it—I was going to think I was going take a break, from school but I was like ‘Oh I’ve got this scholarship now,’ so I won the scholarship, I thought I was going to lose it to some other girl, ‘cause she, but, but she—they were like ‘No, hands down you got it’ and I’m like ‘Oh, but that means I got to go to school

01:11:04.660 - 01:11:16.950

again still I thought I graduated, I thought I was going to take a break’ and they were like ‘Yeah, you got to go get the MBA now’ and I’m like ‘Ok.’ And so, what had happened was then I went to um-but I-I was interviewing for Shell,

01:11:18.060 - 01:11:32.530

I want to say that fall, so a friend of mine recomen—no no no no I take it back. Um that summer, um before I graduated, I got a job with the Houston Chronicle, as an IT person. But, you know, and I

01:11:32.990 - 01:11:49.080

don’t know if you know about the Houston Chronicle back then, but they were using a main frame system that was just ten years even older outdated, from back then so it was a lot of this, just hard core programming, and it was to me like—you know I was—had

01:11:49.080 - 01:12:01.130

this other talent, and I got to watch the glamorous writers who were interns do all the fun stuff and I’m just sitting here on COBOL, programming, looking at a black screen with green letters ‘cause they didn’t

01:12:01.580 - 01:12:16.750

have…I mean there was one PC that actually had internet on it, and even then though it was a dialup modem, so, I know so this is how dated it was. And, it was really tough that summer. And I was like, ‘If I ever get a job I’m going to tell them I

01:12:16.890 - 01:12:29.240

will not do this ‘cause it’s’ and I’m like ‘How did I get this job, first of all?’ and it was just, I had an answer for everything and I has just taken a test, and so she quizzed me on programming questions and I knew all the answers. But I was so nervous, but then I got the job.

01:12:30.230 - 01:12:43.770

But then when I had to actually do the job I was like, ‘I think I’m gonna shoot myself ‘cause this is so hard!’ You know I, I mean I like it to the extent of the, you know, but programming was just not who I was. I’m big—more bigger picture than this.

01:12:44.330 - 01:12:57.020

But I did it. I suffered through it and gosh darn it I made it. And I-I—I-I delivered. But I knew what I-what I was like ‘I know what I’m not going to be when I grow up.’ So and so that-that helped me in my

01:12:57.060 - 01:13:08.160

interviews at Shell. And actually, before I started interviewing at Shell uh they came on campus. And they never go to that campus. University of Houston Downtown, I mean who goes there?

01:13:08.790 - 01:13:21.700

And I say it like that because I don’t know another comedian his name was Carlos Mencia, before he was famous, I don’t know have you heard of him? Mmhmm. Mm… You’ve heard of him. Okay, he was on Comedy Central recently but back then when

01:13:21.700 - 01:13:36.830

he was just a starving comedian he came in and he was like, ‘I thought I was going to the university that Hakeem Olajuwon graduated from I didn’t know I was going to go to University of Houston Downtown.’ And he was like ‘I was escorted by the police, you know I thought I was going—‘cause the prisons are right there, I thought y’all were

01:13:36.830 - 01:13:48.290

going to take me to the jail.’ And so um, that was my—you know, I-we-we-we were just laughing ‘cause I was like, couldn’t believe I got this private audience with a come-comedian moment, and he would pick on me he

01:13:48.290 - 01:14:04.100

goes ‘You’re Filipina right?’ and I go ‘Yeah.’ And he goes, ‘Everyone, you look at her because in the future we all going to look like Filipinos, because it’s cross-cultural God knows what, you know you got Chinese, you got Spanish, you got-whatever in you’ and he-he’s

01:14:04.100 - 01:14:15.780

like ‘We’re all going to look like that in the future, you see that girl right there?’ and he’d make fun of me the entire time, ‘Where you from, where you from?’ you know and—but that, if you know Carlos Mencia his stint is cultural, um comedy.

01:14:16.890 - 01:14:29.520

Make fun of yourself and that’s how we all get along kind of thing, so, um I say U of H Downtown. So, um, they came down and they—I was like ‘Gosh, you know, Shell never interviews here’ and so the career counselor,

01:14:30.280 - 01:14:41.020

um, she was calling up names, to, to interview. And I did not want to work—and at the time um, uh oil companies were going though scrutiny, um, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it at the time there was

01:14:41.260 - 01:14:55.660

um, Texaco. Yup. Right. There was a jellybean jar with different colors and there was a conversation recorded upon which the jellybeans were being racial delo—derogatory references. The black jelly bean, the white jelly bean, you know the red jelly bean, you know yellow

01:14:55.660 - 01:15:10.750

jelly bean, right so, I was like ‘I don’t want to work for a big fat oil company, where they’re going to, you know, I’m already going to be discriminated, like that’ so that was you know my idealistic view of the world back then. And so, um, the boyfriend I had at the time,

01:15:11.320 - 01:15:25.080

signed me up for interviews, and didn’t tell me. And so, I di-I was like I-you know and so, um, I think about a hundred or so people signed up for those interviews, and I made the cut out

01:15:25.080 - 01:15:36.980

of ten. And he tells me the next day, ‘Well you made the cut, what’ve you got to lose,’ he goes ‘This is a sought-after position, and um, you can just show up in your heels tomorrow and your suit.’ I

01:15:37.710 - 01:15:52.310

was like ‘I don’t own any suit, buy one, you know, college student, have no business attire.’ So he’s like ‘Show up in your pumps tomorrow.’ And I’m like ‘Ok.’ I go, I go ‘Well fine. Yeah what’ve I got to lose it’s good to practice interviewing.

01:15:52.750 - 01:16:06.970

Who wants to work for a big fat oil company anyways?’ Yeah that was my attitude. I was like ‘I want to go back and be a designer, which is what I was meant to do and find a- maybe if the oil company will hi-hire me on as a designer, you know’ I want to somehow integrate that part of who I was with

01:16:07.490 - 01:16:21.240

the IT aspect, how do I do that?’ So I go interview with Shell, and um, and um gosh they had their ducks in a row too ‘cause they had a CD, right back then you know nobody had CDs, they had a CD, in a case,

01:16:21.470 - 01:16:36.550

with a beautiful cover on it called ‘The Transformation Journey,’ and they catered to diversity, in their recruiting program they had their act together ‘cause they knew, ‘cause I-the first thing I was going to ask I was going ‘You got some jelly beans in the room?’ ‘So tell

01:16:36.550 - 01:16:49.460

me about this jelly bean position you have.’ So I was just not hav-cause you know, I was the president of the technology association at the time and I was no—you know I was-pretty—I was-I was in a position where I thought I could scrutinize I had just won that scholarship, I was like you know ‘Well

01:16:49.460 - 01:17:03.480

what do you got to sell me?’ at that point. And so they had interviewed back in the fall of the year before I graduated which was in ’97, so it was in ’96. And they were—they were like well, um, they ha-they-they rolled it out, they were

01:17:03.480 - 01:17:18.800

going through this transformation journey ‘We’re working on, we’re making a diverse group and these are the things that we’re going to do we’re going to globalize’ and I was like ‘Wow!’ They wowed me, right they had a CD-ROM, ‘Ooo!’ You know ‘You play thi-’ they didn’t even play it for me, they go ‘Here, here’s the CD-ROM about our

01:17:18.800 - 01:17:29.380

transformation journey’ I was like ‘Wow, you have a CD-ROM? Not a floppy disk?’ You know, and it had a sticker on it, and it was just looking all sleek and professional, and she goes ‘Well we’d like to

01:17:29.380 - 01:17:42.980

invite you to another interview, on site.’ So I was like ‘Ok, I guess, I—you know what’ve I got to lose.’ So I was very casual with her, and, just, told it like it was, and that in—was in itself impressed her, surprisingly.

01:17:43.780 - 01:18:00.090

Can you believe that? This position that I didn’t even want to go to the interview, somebody else signs me—it was like fate, right you know laying its cards out. And it was my cavalier response that impressed them, because I didn’t have an interest. And so, I go-I

01:18:00.300 - 01:18:16.990

go to this interview, and, um the next thing I know, you know it’s like, what…January? right now the second interview takes place, they give me a-you know I-I’m interviewing with like seven people, you know it’s like-it’s like I just longest interview I’ve

01:18:16.990 - 01:18:27.970

ever been on and how many more people am I going to meet? And they’re like ‘Well we really like you we think you’re great dadadada’ and, and this lady gives—and I you know she gives me, um she goes ‘Why don’t you pick a day, when you want to say yes.’

01:18:28.310 - 01:18:41.720

I mean she-they made it that open-ended in January, but I-this was back in-this was-I’m telling you the internet boom had just started, and Shell was just trying to figure out what their place in the market for that, and so they were doing mass hiring at the time, and after they had

01:18:41.810 - 01:18:57.180

laid off just massive amounts of people, um, a decade before, because of the oil crash, and there was like, as one person put it, there was just blood in the streets of the real estate going down and people losing jobs, the first time that companies had started to lay people off

01:18:57.290 - 01:19:07.210

ever, right ‘cause usually they were like ‘I’m getting my gold watch, I’m going to be here in fifty years,’ and so but this wasn’t happening. And so, but they, they, I guess they came to their senses like ‘Oh my

01:19:07.210 - 01:19:22.140

gosh we don’t have enough staff, with this Internet boom thing that’s happening how can we capitalize on it?’ And so these new graduates were just, we were being hired in at forty at a time, I mean just huge batches, and so class of ’97 I’m just remembering all the people that got

01:19:22.140 - 01:19:35.370

hired in at the same time, so, you know I was a dime a dozen really at the time but they were—you know they were like going ‘But she, she looks good on paper, she was involved in school, she made the Dean’s List several times, she was-you know, she was head of her technology association, she got a

01:19:35.650 - 01:19:48.380

scholarship, pursue her MBA’ and then they offered to pay for my MBA, at that point they were like ‘Oh it’s part of our program. We’ll just go ahead and fund it so after your scholarship is done…’ So I finally figured out like ‘Oh that’s how you do it.

01:19:48.440 - 01:20:00.050

You get the job and then the company funds your other degree oh’ ok so I was starting to figure out the system. Um but then I said, I go I was like ‘I want to get my…I’ll tell you’ you know I didn’t want to tell them I was

01:20:00.110 - 01:20:11.480

eager to get the job I was like ‘How much are you offering?’ I was like ‘Oh dear! That’s more money I’ve ever seen in my life’ you know that’s more than I was making a stipend per month at that paper at the school. You know you try not to look all nervous like ‘Mmm,

01:20:11.480 - 01:20:25.470

that’s a nice little number’ so you what you do is like ‘Oh, well tell me when you’re ready for me, to say yes or no, you know, even or tell me—give me an answer, any kind of which way it’s going to go’ I go ‘It’s January I really should probably interview around.’ Um, I said ‘I’ll give

01:20:25.470 - 01:20:37.640

you- ‘ I was like ‘I’ll give you an answer on the ides of March’ is what I told them I remember saying that. Oh my god! I know, ‘on the ides of March so we won’t forget.’ And she’s like ‘Ok, whatever you wanted’ so she typed up some email, sent it off.

01:20:38.070 - 01:20:49.010

That was done with my interview. But did I look around? I did, a little bit, and I asked other friends what they were being offered and that’s—that was Shell’s strategy at the time is they over offered so that they could beat

01:20:49.010 - 01:21:03.040

out competition. So I was like ‘Oh, they only offered you that much?’ looking back on my offer paper going ‘Tha- that’s not the same amount, that’s…’ I was like ‘Should I even bother going to that company now and interviewing knowing that person is my same caliber, and it’s a similar

01:21:03.040 - 01:21:15.930

start job,’ and then I go around ‘Oh you got a job with Exxon, how much do you get paid? Oh you got a job with that—oh, that’s not much’ so you know after a while I was like ‘I’m not going to go,’ you know I was like ‘I’m-I think I got it good’ you know so, I started with them and that’s how I

01:21:15.980 - 01:21:31.000

got that job, and then not soon after I started my MBA, and… So you worked concurrently while doing your MBA. Yes. And you know when you—I don’t know about, you know you, you haven’t graduated, me-I don’t know if y’all are in the program or where you are in life, but I thought I

01:21:31.000 - 01:21:44.440

could be CEO like you know in three months or something and I think we all think that when we first start our job because you know you, you understand all the business cases you know all the theory around things. But I had to be schooled on politics for sure.

01:21:44.860 - 01:21:57.950

And I still am, it’s still a…it’s still a different, um arena, of-of learning that especially in Houston, and in the oil business. Definitely. I mean…if I could give the gift back to the folks going through school,

01:21:58.590 - 01:22:10.480

um it would be to learn how to network. And uh—strategically, not just with anybody, right, so it-it’s-it’s just how impor—it’s just as much as an organic problem, as maybe the lack of proper,

01:22:11.360 - 01:22:24.270

um, courses like how to balance your checkbook. I think they should also teach other kids how to do your laundry. I mean, those are all equally important things ‘cause if I had a dime

01:22:24.290 - 01:22:37.390

for every time I met somebody who didn’t know how to cook rice, I mean, that was a—when I was growing up, right, and your Asian, there was always the test, on dating I was like ‘Can he cook a pot of rice by himself?’ you know and it was a quick filter out ‘Mm, no, sorry’ you

01:22:37.390 - 01:22:50.010

know, ‘Can he—can you cook rice’ it’s so fundamental right? So, cook rice. It’s a good test, on—on a judge of character for me. But um, but you know just living on your own

01:22:50.120 - 01:23:03.580

and so I was living on my own, right and so I was working, and uh and also going to school then, as well. So… So was that a tough lifestyle, at that time? Not with the money that Shell was paying me.

01:23:04.010 - 01:23:19.480

No? Oh. So you’re single, you’re like-you always want the jobs that let you travel when you first start at a company, but you got to earn that, and, I don’t know what it was, but not until I got married and started having kids they were like ‘Ok now you can travel’

01:23:19.590 - 01:23:33.570

I’m like ‘What!’ ‘I don’t want to travel anymore.’ ‘I can’t travel now!’ So, you know thank goodness I got a understanding husband and the whole work/life balance thing, and, and a—a huge family in Houston is what helps, so they can all sort of-you know it’s like it takes a village, it definitely does.

01:23:34.330 - 01:23:46.020

So, um, you know being a working mom, you know I went to my class reunion recently, twenty years, right, God, I feel so old when I say that, but I went back in there-everybody, there’s very few people who

01:23:46.060 - 01:24:01.310

became engineers. And, or, um, or went beyond being just a teacher outside of the neighborhood. And so I couldn’t relate with many of them on, ‘Well how’s that working mom problem that you’ve got and uh, you know who’s your nanny?’ you know I don’t-I can’t have those

01:24:01.310 - 01:24:12.310

conversations. But they do get summers off so, got to hand it to them on that those being teachers but it’s-it’s definitely and-and I- and I do that now I’m very active on-on those type of topics so.

01:24:12.310 - 01:24:27.100

Um, the bamboo ceiling much less the glass ceiling is definitely uh…something I hit, so, and that’s a humbling moment, for anybody, I think, is, is learning how to play that and you constantly are still battling that today, but…um

01:24:29.470 - 01:24:43.500

enough talking, I’ll let you ask more questions so . So when did you complete your MBA? I completed my MBA in…2000…want to say it was

01:24:43.980 - 01:24:58.520

’03. So that’s a gap of time right, five years. So what happened was… I’m ok, now you-you-you’re getting deep with me now because you’re pulling up another question, that uh, that’s been a struggle for

01:24:58.690 - 01:25:11.580

me. Ok. So I graduate in ’97 right, so I get hired, so I get this job. Then after that, um I get into the MBA and I’m like ‘Oh my God I got to take economics again? It’s the same classes I

01:25:11.580 - 01:25:20.520

took as an undergrad! Pretty much!’ I mean no it was University of St. Thomas—very esteemed school but you still had to go through the motions of the same courses. And I’m like ‘This is the

01:25:20.520 - 01:25:34.540

same class.’ So I was like ‘You know what, um my calling is in, the—this other industry. So how can I make it work?’ So like I said the Internet boom was happening I was like ‘I’ll do…multimedia and web design.’

01:25:35.800 - 01:25:47.670

So, so University of St. Thomas doesn’t have that as a degree. So I was like ‘Shell said they’d pay for relevant courses, and I think uh Art Institute qualifies so’ they paid for that.

01:25:47.670 - 01:26:00.030

Oh okay. So I, I said—so I si—I took a deviation, into a two-year certificate program associate’s just to get it out of my system. Because, you know, I-I always—people always say ‘Christy did you

01:26:00.030 - 01:26:12.920

sell out?’ you know and I never want to say that I did that. Because I really wanted to stay—stay honorable to my talents. And um, I took tho—I took that, and, and I was thinking maybe I could go start my own business or do something on the side, but what I ended up

01:26:12.920 - 01:26:25.370

doing in the company is I help with the newsletter on the side as a volunteer basis, but it also refined my ability in presentation. So, um, and then in—and then programmers couldn’t get one on over

01:26:25.370 - 01:26:38.170

in on me. When they try to do things that I was like ‘Uh-uh, that’s spaghetti code. I know this trick. You haven’t, you know, got your—’ you know so-so that’s what I do now right, um is-is kind of keeping controls in check for IT people.

01:26:39.240 - 01:26:47.480

But so I took the de-the-the sidestep into the associate’s. Where was that? Uh, the Art Institute. There’s-it’s called the Art Institute?

01:26:47.690 - 01:26:56.760

Yeah, the Art Institute. Art Institute of Houston. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It actually was located in the Galleria area I think it’s-they moved to a bigger building off of Highway 59 now. And so I got a—a uh certificate in multimedia web

01:26:56.760 - 01:27:10.840

design, Dean’s List, loved it, learned how to make movies, and animations, and-and all those types of things. Awesome! Yeah. So I kind of have that—so I got it out of my system. It’s-you know I was like ‘Ah!’ And um, and but then I was like, ‘Ah but I can never

01:27:10.840 - 01:27:24.000

leave business unfinished.’ So I was like ‘I got to go back.’ And so at that time, I went back to, um, University of St. Thomas and-and-and finished it up, and luckily at the time there was some colleagues who were going there kind

01:27:24.000 - 01:27:38.630

of made it easier but then there was some professors that were really inspiring, and the way I viewed education at the time was a little different then, so I started to go ‘Oh! I’m actually enjoying myself at school, ‘cause I can now bring in work experience as business cases into the

01:27:38.710 - 01:27:54.390

classrooms. And at the time, Enron had crashed, so, all of the ex-Enronians were in my classes looking for a job so they were like ‘Well I don’t even have no job anymore, I can just go to school and hopefully by—’f I get my MBA I can re—

01:27:54.390 - 01:28:05.520

Get a job. I can just— Be marketable. —forget that whole Enron thing happened on my resume, and just do my MBA, so, yeah so then, the business cases they brought into the classroom were very interesting conversations. Yeah, I bet!

01:28:05.520 - 01:28:14.520

So it was an exciting time. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Have we exceeded time I’m sure we have. No, how…

01:28:20.940 - 01:28:30.540

We’re at 1:28. It’s ok. Ok. I mean there’s no time limit. I know. It’s just like… It’s a—it’s a lot of fun. Oh ok.

01:28:30.540 - 01:28:50.130

Um, I guess so, when you first started at Shell, what exactly were you doing? I was a support analyst I believe that was my title, and um, the, the thing that I was doing was supporting an application called the

01:28:50.130 - 01:29:02.050

reformulated gas tracker. And what it did was at the refineries—you’re only allowed to produce a certain amount of chemicals that are pollutants to

01:29:02.100 - 01:29:10.970

the atmosphere. Uh-huh. And within government regula-EPA regulation. So, they have to measure each quarter where they are at their levels.

01:29:11.410 - 01:29:30.810

And so they take an averaging like with any statistics, on where they are have they reached their threshold for the year, that’s at the maximum profitable area. Ohhh…okay. So we would always run the numbers to find out how much, um of the pollutants were being, um, produced at like Deer Par—you know Deer Park refinery, we always

01:29:30.810 - 01:29:42.850

say that smell out there is the smell of money . And that cloud out there, ‘cause I remember I would hang out with the engineers I thought it was so cool that the engineers—‘cause they’d try to teach me about what it was that they were trying to track in the air.

01:29:43.800 - 01:29:57.600

‘There’s too many aromatics, there’s too many of this.’ And then we’d sit there and we’d look outside in the sky from this place called the Information Center off of uh, Old Spanish Trail and they’d go ‘You see that color in the sky, they’ve produced way too much such and such chemical’ and

01:29:57.600 - 01:30:10.290

I’d—I thought it would be fascinating it’s like the Discovery Channel . Yeah! And I’m like ‘Really?’ you know and then I go ‘So my report comes up with these numbers that helps you to calibrate how much of those pollutants you have to report to the EPA,’ and we

01:30:10.290 - 01:30:25.050

were audited like often, and lawyers were in there all the time going ‘Show me how you came up with your numbers, show me your calculation, show me the formula that derived that’ so I was like, um I was supporting a lady that did it and eventually I took it over. And then um, that’s

01:30:25.050 - 01:30:39.950

what I did when I first started. Yeah so it was kind of, you know I was like ‘You trust me with this information?’ So, that’s, that’s kind of, kind of where… And you’ve been working at Shell ever since. You know and the funny thing about working for Shell is that it’s such a big company you

01:30:39.950 - 01:30:52.090

could change careers like three of four times. Yeah! Yeah so I started off in um, kind of just doing you know, bottom feeder work in, in the analyst area so you start off in support. And then I walked in on the interview and first thing I

01:30:52.090 - 01:31:04.040

said was ‘You, you will not find me of any value doing coding all day long.’ ‘Cause I remember that from the Chronicle. I go ‘I am not a good developer I’m only good at this’ and they go ‘Well then you’ll be good at support.’ Which means you only need to know a little bit of

01:31:04.040 - 01:31:15.200

code. But you got to trouble shoot the exact point in that code where it’s going wrong. So it’s problem solving. Problem solving, people solving. I mean, I always compare it to like um, um,

01:31:17.430 - 01:31:30.750

what is it this, this stages of denial, ‘cause whenever a customer calls and they’re upset, I don’t know you—those—this is the first help desks right, back then you’d always hear about help desks, and it’s all true, they all call and they’re angry at first, and you—and you know that’s the

01:31:30.800 - 01:31:42.120

first step, right, right you know where then, and then they go through depression and denial and all those steps of acceptance. On the phone. ‘How can I help you, where—’ you know you got to talk them down to finally articulate the problem.

01:31:43.680 - 01:31:57.420

Finally they’re in acceptance and problem solving and move on but you got to-for every call you get-you never know what you’re going to get on the line and these were folks that from the refineries and they were, they didn’t care who you were they just wanted you to fix the problem, and they just told it

01:31:57.420 - 01:32:10.920

like it is they would cuss they didn’t care so, yeah. So that was the first job right and so then it—um…then it evolved, to um, uh a different role, it

01:32:10.920 - 01:32:23.990

was a change—the companies like to re-org every few years I don’t know if y’all know that but, um, every time you get a crew change in leadership they always want to redo, um what’s going on and who and their personal agendas like ‘We’re going to redo it all because it’s all

01:32:23.990 - 01:32:33.430

wrong.’ And at the time the company was called Shell Services Company. And that’s when they were trying to see if they could sell their own internet. Even I think they were even going into telecom

01:32:34.000 - 01:32:49.220

you know oh-they were like ‘we’re going to create our own little apps and bring that out to the industry’ and-cause it was a market out there, it was unregulated, and, every man or woman for himself, if you could come up with an idea at that time ‘cause, ‘cause you know it was gangbusters, right?

01:32:50.530 - 01:33:05.880

And so I figured out databases and code and we would just develop things. And-and-and just bring ‘Oh, well mine is the best practice in the industry. Can— first let’s get the buy-in and all this Shell, and then we’ll get buy-in on all the other oil companies.’ I mean that was the idea of the business model.

01:33:06.440 - 01:33:19.420

But then something happened at the turn, um, we reorganized and there was a crisis in um, first one was in-in the reserves, I don’t know if you heard about that in our company.

01:33:20.100 - 01:33:32.610

They used to be this governing board of like several people, and then the reserve crisis happens and what the reserve crisis was, was accounting for your oil. Right, if you could not account—and you know and you had to show it

01:33:32.610 - 01:33:46.960

in your paperwork. Like if I said that there’s so many reserves in such and such country it better say that on your paperwork. But if you over-report and it doesn’t exist, then you’re putting one over on the market. And you’re basically lying and we’re going to bring you down and

01:33:47.120 - 01:33:59.890

the ma— and the—and you can bring your stock down and your shareholders with you. So that kind of happened. When was that? It was about the turn of the century right, you know ’99 2000. And um, and then also what

01:33:59.890 - 01:34:10.280

else happened at that time the…we called it the um, the year 2000 problem. Yeah. The Y2K. Y2K issue. So they were like ‘Ok Christy.

01:34:10.470 - 01:34:22.580

We need you to do this thing called the VM Exodus’ right, Virtual Machine Exodus we take us from the main frame, to the client server. So anything that was left—so they put me on some project, I was the only actual Shell employee

01:34:22.580 - 01:34:39.840

the rest were contractors, and I had to figure out how to help them integrate their payroll which was on all the mainframe systems, onto a client server application that we had bought from some company, and um, they were like ‘You need to configure it, based on all the rules, of that

01:34:39.880 - 01:34:58.490

location.’ So there were different union rules, in each plant that you had to configure, which eventually puts in time, which eventually pays your pay. ‘Cause that file then—your time entry code needs to get placed uh off into a place where payroll can then pay based

01:34:58.490 - 01:35:08.710

on that time you entered. And you imagine different plants, they were all doing it punch card. They were like, ‘No no no no. Gone are those days because we can’t check you on punch card you’re going to

01:35:08.710 - 01:35:24.110

have to enter it in yourselves and gone are you—’ so they were downsizing big time ‘cause they were—they didn’t—they were losing—the whole internet thing started then to- to-to not work out right, you know everyone can’t be internet entrepreneurs especially an oil company, you’re oil company you need to be an oil company.

01:35:24.460 - 01:35:37.530

Right you can’t be…you know they got in on some of that market but then they quickly um, the Royal Dutch Shell, started to buy out the U. S. shares and so instead of the 50-50 I guess that the shares that they had it started to

01:35:37.530 - 01:35:49.940

become more in the favor of the, the Europeans. ‘Cause they were like ‘We need to take you guys back over ‘cause I don’t know what you guys have done, trying to run your own internet business ‘cause this is going—crashing miserably’ so those, I would say all those

01:35:49.940 - 01:36:02.100

three things were happening around the same time. And so from Shell Services Company it became Shell Services International where they tried to go global and then—then, the Dutch put their smack down on it and said ‘This is not working out.’ And so then from there—then

01:36:02.960 - 01:36:11.810

also the concept of downsizing to offshore started to happen. Right, so they’re like ‘Oh, no no no no we’re paying way too much money here in the U.

01:36:11.810 - 01:36:27.850

S. for staff, if we buy, um, employees from Malaysia, and India, they could basically mess up something fifty times and we’d still get our profit margin tenfold. If we got rid of one employee.’ Yeah.

01:36:28.250 - 01:36:43.310

So, the demand for the quality of service went down because they would rather get the price, at the end so all those things were happening and then, you know, um so that was another career change. So I was like, the career change from—it was called manufacturing and oil, in IT

01:36:43.420 - 01:37:01.080

support then I got switched to HR, because it was an HR application, right so I was helping uh an oil, all these oil—and then I remember all the contractors got let go, and I was the only sole Shell employee, and I was like ‘Ohh I got to memorize all these laws’ and so I had to keep that running, and then, and then the HR group said ‘We want to hire

01:37:01.080 - 01:37:14.410

you ‘cause you know all this stuff about our HR, HR codes now, we want to buy this little company called, um, uh it’s a-it’s part of Texaco—Texaco at the time. What am I-Tex-Texaco. But we don’t want to co-we can’t

01:37:14.410 - 01:37:26.560

completely buy Texaco ‘cause we don’t think it’s completely good business decision so we’ll just go form an alliance, so they called it an alliance. And that did—was a bad decision to begin with ‘cause it went down the tubes they tried, so then what did-what-what happens

01:37:26.560 - 01:37:38.330

every time you buy a company? You got to combine your payrolls. So-so each time when you're in payroll you know exactly which company they're buying, you know exactly which employees are joining forces, and they were like ‘We want you to do kind of what you did with that time

01:37:38.330 - 01:37:50.430

code system with these other groups now. ‘Cause you’ve memorized all the time codes you know all the rules, we need your help ‘Cause we’ve fired everyone else. And you’re the only person left.’ So, then I took that role and then eventually it turned

01:37:50.430 - 01:38:03.840

into, um instead of support, then it became, um, learning about the OSHA compliance ‘cause everything’s about compliance in these companies. So if you know OSHA compliance, it’s about looking at the training at a

01:38:03.840 - 01:38:18.750

plant, that—say a guy fell off a tractor and died. Ok, and he needed to go, and his wife three years later wakes up to the fact that ‘Oh I should’ve gotten probably some, some uh…some money, compensation, ‘cause she’s done grieving she’s woken up to the fact

01:38:18.750 - 01:38:30.640

she’s got bills, but we-you know I-my job was to keep track of that training. And go, ‘Well, that guy took tractor training he should have known better’ or ‘The guy didn’t take tractor training, so,

01:38:30.900 - 01:38:42.150

it’s our fault. And he shouldn’t have been on the tractor to begin with’ so then she could probably have a business case. So being in HR I learned was all about litigation ‘Cause you know you ha-you- you have access to everybody’s personal information.

01:38:44.170 - 01:38:58.340

And so, um it was everything from the OSHA compliance to, EEOC, so then there was job posting systems so we would have visibility in all the job posting systems well I knew the shortlist so I would know-so they’d always query ‘Where are we on our shortlist are we have diverse

01:38:58.840 - 01:39:08.460

groupings?’ ‘cause they have to report that to EEOC. ‘And if we don’t what do we do about it’ you know so you have to try- discuss all that so it was always what law, linked in, with what I was tracking, and

01:39:08.880 - 01:39:21.630

so I—you know I wanted to grow beyond this ‘cause after about five years you’re like ok well it’s still supporting IT systems, and granted I did learn a lot and granted I-I did some creative aspects to it, and-and there was even another application that did uh charitable

01:39:21.670 - 01:39:35.700

contributions where you collect all the money for United Way, the-they, they just- you know and I would come up with ideas on, ‘Why are we collecting the money for United Way?’ I’m like, or ‘Why are we doing the payouts to all the United Way um, uh, distribution sites?

01:39:35.880 - 01:39:47.480

Shouldn’t United Way be doing that? How much money is that costing?’ So I would then start-you know as a result of the MBA program you start to become smarter. To figure out how to-how to streamline and get rid of redundancy and that’s what you do,

01:39:47.480 - 01:40:02.070

in the company, to um-to move up right, you kind of have to come up with the bright ideas, that saves the company money, and then if they like it and you could cascade that down to five to ten other business which multiplies the savings, and then so I started trying to

01:40:02.130 - 01:40:16.200

think in that way ‘Well how can we, make this better, so that it could, save us money or make my life easier so I don’t have to work as hard?’ So, it was just mostly, I mean, those kind-then that’s-that’s the challenge I always have even today is like how do we get rid of the redundancies in

01:40:16.220 - 01:40:28.290

the system, besides me being redundant, so I always have this mindset: my creativity’s been an advantage in the meetings because they're all engineers, and so they can’t think out of the box, and so

01:40:28.290 - 01:40:42.710

they're like ‘No, it says in the checklist I got to do A, B and C’ and I go ‘Well but what about, 1, 2 and 3’ ‘Well I don’t know’ um you know and you go ‘Well how about I challenge the system and try it and if it works out, then I’ll-I’ll let you know’ and they go ‘Oh oh ok, that’s

01:40:42.710 - 01:40:57.930

safe.’ You have to kind of-you know you have to learn negotiation, it’s politics and then it’s like ‘Well no I want my guy to do it’ ‘No well why do you want your guy to do it because I think I can do it better’ and you-and you negotiate even, it-it’s-it’s I was like gosh, everything I think I learned I learned waiting tables ‘cause this is kind

01:40:58.250 - 01:41:07.300

of the same thing. ‘No I want the Pontchartrain’ ‘No I want this’ ‘Well why do you want the Pontchartrain’ ‘Well because this is much better and the fresher ingredients’ you know it’s just sort of the same, kind of,

01:41:08.700 - 01:41:22.730

selling right, it-it’s-it’s-it’s in the, and the... But then I’m-I’m-I’m-but now that I’ve been in that company almost 15 years, and I’ve been in project management and now I’m in risk management, um, I’m starting to see it’s still all about the

01:41:23.830 - 01:41:38.430

people. It’s all about the people profiling I learned way back when, and trying to figure out how you can get them to talk better together, and now that we’re in a global world, it’s a lot more difficult to do that

01:41:38.430 - 01:41:53.860

um…Because I work virtually now a lot of the times and so, you know you don’t-you can’t just go to the coffee cooler, and, and, you know be enlightened with some kind of, you know, amazing piece of information that could get you the one up in a meeting, I’m like-you

01:41:54.000 - 01:42:07.250

know I have to kind of do virtual coffee coolers, and Ping them on, you know the little messenger, ‘What you doing?’ you know and-and-or, put your webcam on, ‘Want to see my house? This my house.’ You know-you know you’re just-how do you build relationships now, in

01:42:07.300 - 01:42:20.510

that world and we are lacking that right now, and how to manage virtual communities. ‘Cause we’re not talking enough to each other, and you know and Europeans they go to the bar, you know Houstonians, too tired to go to the bar.

01:42:20.590 - 01:42:37.160

Every day? You know they-they walk home, they take trains home so pub’s always on the way home but for us it’s like ‘God I live two hours away, in the Woodlands, and 45 minutes of traffic and I don’t-and I still got to pick up milk, so I-’ you know you can’t you can’t just say

01:42:37.250 - 01:42:52.790

I’m going to go to a bar every day to network you know and plus you know, that whole alcoholism thing probably isn’t good either. So, um, it’s very different, on managing that-that culture, so, if I have that advice for you on commerce-wise, it’s trying

01:42:52.790 - 01:43:04.470

to-so how do I creatively crack that nut? I’m like ‘Maybe if I just come in twice a week and just say I’m going to have a coffee, and you just come’ or um, we’ll do, I-I’ve got-what I did

01:43:04.580 - 01:43:20.560

recently was I said ok, there’s a guy, he’s pretty high up, he just moved into town, he knows nobody, and but he’s pretty key on decisions so uh how about I start a little mentoring circle for him, and I’ll invite everybody, and do a

01:43:20.560 - 01:43:35.120

registration and see if they all come just so we can formally have a place to meet and have conversations and he’s a senior leader so he must know, some kind of treasures of wisdom that he’s willing to share, and it’ll look good! Right he gets visibility and it-then he can get

01:43:35.320 - 01:43:51.120

information on the buzz in the system bring it back you know how do we get this so the-to me my creative side plays out in those areas. So, I mean everybody says ‘Oh, what do you do at Shell?’ ‘Oh I’m in risk management’ ‘I’m sorry.’ I’m like ‘No no no, you’d be surprised.’ So,

01:43:51.250 - 01:43:57.680

remember how I told you I interviewed in- Angelina Jolie on that movie Hackers? That’s pretty much what I do right now is I prevent hackers from coming in the company.

01:43:58.380 - 01:44:13.040

So, because of Enron, my job boomed. So, it’s like, controls it’s all about controls, and Sarbanes-Oxley laws and making sure that I could, you

01:44:13.040 - 01:44:28.840

know, I-um my job right now is basically, a combination of things number one it’s um knowing about how to bring all those regulations into one area so we can manage the risk. What’s the right amount of money that I got to advise projects to invest to, to implement

01:44:29.550 - 01:44:45.180

that, on a-any-so any project that comes into the company that I work for which is called the global functions, so m-the global functions consists of HR, tax, legal, all those other-other businesses that don’t either take the oil out of the ground, or put it-or um, uh,

01:44:45.640 - 01:44:59.420

refine it, down the line, right so we call those the upstreams and the downstreams. And I’m in the business of, managing, uh the HR aspect, and-um so I’m not in HR but I’m in the global functions which manages all those

01:44:59.470 - 01:45:16.600

other extra…bits of it, and I have to sit there and tell them, you know, a project is coming along, and I have to write the executive summary, to the higher ups and say whether or not I think they're up or down, you know kosher, for their level of controls.

01:45:17.190 - 01:45:30.390

So IT-wise I’ll go, you haven’t got-you know, maybe a-a-an easy way to show you a control is um, my uh password, aren’t-they're-they're not strong enough ok that’s an easy version but

01:45:30.390 - 01:45:44.060

there’s other complicated levels that go into it, but then I’ll go ‘This project manager A. doesn’t know what he’s talking about, B. hasn’t been able to articulate to me how he’s protecting the system and C. doesn’t have an understanding of the level of controls and risk.’ So it’s a

01:45:44.060 - 01:46:00.330

combination of knowing what risk is and how much money they want to throw at it. So I gue- you can protect a company with millions of dollars but they're not willing to pay that much. Sometimes they're willing to take the risk and go ‘I’m only pr-willing to protect the mo-the company at 50,000 dollars worth of controls.’ And you’ll be

01:46:00.330 - 01:46:12.740

like ‘Ok, well what’s the risk? Are you breaking a law? If you are, then what do you think that means when people read about it in the newspaper?’ ‘Oh, I don’t want them to read about it in the newspaper.’ And I go

01:46:12.810 - 01:46:25.970

‘Then go fix it ‘Cause the amount of money that will cost you, versus the amount of mo-10,000 dollars you just spent to fix it, is nothing compared to how much you're going to lose in shareholder.’ So tha-I have to always have that conversation.

01:46:26.600 - 01:46:42.970

And so um, and I always think back I was like ‘If Angelina only knew.’ That I would be in this hacker conversation but it really-when I-you know and I do talks at the- the-the little, junior highs, or you know

01:46:43.200 - 01:46:59.390

‘cause, I always sit there an-and I go ‘How am I going to tell these kids what I do?’ It’s like ‘Well if you guys play a video game, well, let me tell you what, every-life’s a video game and we just got to prevent the hackers, you know what hackers are, from getting at our stuff, in the company.’ And so,

01:46:59.810 - 01:47:16.400

it’s-it’s-it’s quite fascinating there’s like different layers to it, um, but what I like most about that company are the people, so, and um the, now I’ll be honest with you, getting a certification in information security services professional no, and it’s-it’s-it can get a little,

01:47:17.100 - 01:47:33.610

boring but because I also have a certification in project management, I’m able to help the techies talk to the business, so that’s-I- I found out later I go I always thought my talent was, a graphic designer, you know and putting in the layout and being the next Connie Chung, but my talent actually

01:47:33.770 - 01:47:44.510

has become, uh, being able to get a very difficult group to work together and deliver something. ‘Cause uh I actually got just called over to Europe two weeks ago to do that there was these two ma-managers

01:47:44.540 - 01:47:58.010

fighting, and I played momma bear. And I’m like, ‘Ok, forget all that stuff, what do we need to do for the greater good, guys?’ And-and it was just getting them to do that and I realize that’s- and I think being the oldest of five, and then speaking for my parents has

01:47:58.010 - 01:48:10.380

kind of, brought that in it’s just kind of going back to your roots again about what that, what that’s about and so…that’s my story, at least as far as where my career is in the company, but uh that’s why I-

01:48:10.530 - 01:48:25.700

you know, I mean I-I don’t have a pectin flag waving going ‘Shell is so awesome’ you know it’s got its moments in-and being under scrutiny, and the environment and all that but, um, you know the-it’s definitely a lot of lessons learned that are, that are valuable, so, um

01:48:25.740 - 01:48:41.090

you can take it into life and you know they employ like a-a huge number of people in this town, you know and I always try to think about it that way like God, you know economically, you always make the Europeans not forget that, ok ‘cause they don’t think about us being, a big

01:48:41.160 - 01:48:51.930

player sometimes in meetings. Yeah I mean ‘cause you know, it’s very, it’s virtual, it’s difficult to relay that, so. Anyways, I’ll move on to the next question for you.

01:48:52.390 - 01:49:00.780

No that was, great. Just what we want. Yay. It’s just a lesson in my own version of labor and commerce in the company so… Yeah. No that’s perfect. Great.

01:49:02.530 - 01:49:13.670

Um, we should talk a little bit about your family. Um, so, when and how did you meet your husband? My family? Oh you’re going to go there now. Um… We already talked about your previous family.

01:49:13.960 - 01:49:30.180

Yeah so we talked about my actual Filipino family, so I knew him in college he was one of the writers, and uh but we were not dating. I was-the business manager was my boyfriend, I lived with him for seven years, so um, it wasn’t

01:49:30.660 - 01:49:47.180

until literally, I started working for Shell, and decided that, you know, my life with my ex-boyfriend at the time, becoming my ex-boyfriend was not, rest of my life. You know you start thinking like ‘Gosh, you know, what do I want out

01:49:47.180 - 01:50:00.180

of life what is rest of my life?’ And um, you also try to understand that, you know, who you choose to be with, rest of your life has to be a very good friend of yours. And you know-and now you know when you're growing up I guess you don’t really think-to me my priority was get

01:50:00.180 - 01:50:09.950

out of school, get out of job. So I had done that, now I’m like ‘Now what?’ ‘What’s my next priority?’ And I looked at him and I was like ‘Ok, well, we should get married, right?’ And-and um,

01:50:10.630 - 01:50:24.050

he started, what did he do, instead of going, ‘Absolutely!’ or ‘I’ve been waiting for you to say that,’ it turned into a different conversation. ‘Well, well what religion, should the ceremony be?

01:50:24.050 - 01:50:37.190

And um, I don’t know, maybe we need to wait,’ and you know just sort of this-and you know maybe I’m a romantic but I sort of had this, you know Danielle Steel idea in my head that I was going to be swept off my feet. And it wasn’t happening.

01:50:38.330 - 01:50:51.920

So I was like ‘Hmm, is this going to be rest of my life?’ And that’s when I decided ‘Mm...’ So, anyways so I’m not working at the paper anymore right? And um, but um, my husband Andre,

01:50:52.580 - 01:51:06.670

he had been working at the paper and we were somewhat good friends, uh, I thought, he was a little lazy on the commas when I edited his work, but um, uh, close to, some solid friends I had in high school he’s probably, another person

01:51:06.720 - 01:51:17.700

who I connected well with, back then but I only-I didn’t see him in that way. But it wasn’t until I broke up with my boyfriend, when I had that realization, that um, he literally appeared the next

01:51:17.730 - 01:51:31.670

day. It just-out of nowhere standing on a curb on a street, and my friend, Sophia, was like ‘Hey!’ she was my assistant editor, way back in college, and I only had just then decided to meet up with her, just out of the blue ‘cause I hadn’t seen her in three years,

01:51:32.510 - 01:51:44.090

‘cause I had been working for Shell and we’d sort of gone our separate ways, and she-and I was like ‘Hey, we’ll go out for a drink I haven’t seen you in a while’ I wanted to reconnect back with friends ‘cause I had been in this relationship for so long, and he was just standing on the side of the

01:51:44.220 - 01:51:58.960

street, in Montrose, apparently, uh in a fight with a girlfriend, and um she’s like ‘Hey. You remember Andre, he’s-he’s right here, you know and I’m just driving by I was going to meet you for a happy hour let’s go, uh get connected’ and I was like ‘Ok,’ you know I was like ‘He’s—he

01:51:59.040 - 01:52:16.290

was a nice guy, that’s another nice person I could, remember to be friends with you know I could build up an entourage of people and it won’t just be about, uh a boyfriend’ ‘cause I had forgotten, apparently how to date. You know so, anyways but the-to make a long story short, um, I had also at the-right

01:52:16.600 - 01:52:30.210

about the same time booked a trip to Europe to ‘find myself,’ by myself. And a friend of mine had told me about these Kon-Tiki vacations that you could take, um, and it’s-it’s Australian driven, and-and

01:52:30.210 - 01:52:47.140

based, the company, and they basically have a bus and they just take you around, uh to wherever for a small amount of money, and um they look after you on everything, the language, the location, the, they plan it, all the trips, the shopping, so I was like ‘That sounds like fun, and I

01:52:47.140 - 01:53:00.280

think I-‘cause I’m going with a group of people I feel safe,’ and um, I was-I was going to go book that vacation and so this crossroad kind of happened, and I had just been starting to get ready to move out of my ex’s I hadn’t even moved out of his house yet and I ran into him

01:53:00.370 - 01:53:17.390

, and he was still dating another girl, and it turned out, basically, as soon as he found out I was single, you know he was already on the rocks apparently that’s why he was on the curb ‘cause he was fighting with his girlfriend at the time, and-and um, it wasn’t going anywhere fast and so, he-he’s like ‘Oh, you're not going

01:53:19.300 - 01:53:31.540

to…you didn’t marry that guy I thought you were going to.’ And uh, and then once he found out that I didn’t, you know that quickly got remedied and I go ‘I am going to Europe, to find myself, before I figure this out’ you know, and

01:53:31.540 - 01:53:46.560

uh, ‘This is going way—a little too fast, um but you know but we were-I guess we had some time together ‘cause we were friends before, I was your editor. So it doesn’t count, right?’ You know, so, you know, gosh I-I-I wish I could tell you that these days stories

01:53:46.560 - 01:53:58.610

happen, the way you want it to, uh but they-they-it certainly did not, go by the book on-on-on the proper-I always tell him I go ‘You know, we—we-we probably should have dated properly, you—you need to go ask

01:53:58.610 - 01:54:13.620

me out on a date, we need to go somewhere, and eat and talk and get to know each other’ you know we kind of did it all backwards and out of order and all that stuff so, but it-it-it was just as well, I think that once you find somebody who just connects with you and you're friends, first

01:54:13.620 - 01:54:31.060

and foremost, it just becomes easy, you know as-as far as, being able to talk to them and I was just, and I always have a test now and I tell my single girlfriends, I go ‘If you won’t hang out with them, at a bar just as a friend, then chances are, he’s not the one.’ You know just-that’s just

01:54:31.060 - 01:54:45.810

a quick test can you have a really good energetic and-conversation where you just haven’t—you can’t have enough of that person, in a conversation, you just can’t wait to talk to them again about your day or you know even the most mundane things ‘cause of who they are. And um,

01:54:46.190 - 01:54:58.330

that’s how it is today and that’s how we met and we’re still, you know, good friends and together in that way. So when did y’all get married? We got married in, 1-1-2-2. So, November 1, 2002.

01:54:59.230 - 01:55:10.480

And um, it was in Hawaii, it was beautiful, yeah. Aww, wow, that’s so nice! Yeah! So um, yeah. I mean, there’s a little timing issue, with where my- when my

01:55:10.480 - 01:55:25.140

daughter was born. I had to do a little change management. ‘Cause uh he proposed to me on September 14th, so we’re getting very personal here, but uh he proposed to me on September 14th, and I think I found out I was, expecting, by

01:55:25.200 - 01:55:34.310

October 1st. And I was like, ‘Hmm.’ So… ‘That’s interesting.’ I know and I’m like ‘How am I going to manage this? ‘cause my-my father is a Filipino

01:55:34.340 - 01:55:48.090

man, and change management he does not do well with and this is going to break his heart. You know ‘cause my sister also had a child, um when she wasn’t married and she was very young I remember how that went down that was not beautiful, and she had a tough time, kind of just um,

01:55:48.360 - 01:56:03.240

but she made it, you know she did well, she ended up, you know she work-you know she works for um, British Gas now, but, you know it-it was not an easy road and I saw that and I was like ‘Ooo,’ um and Dad, you know had a hard time, ‘cause it’s his baby right?

01:56:04.020 - 01:56:16.550

And so, I was like-I even had to tell my husband I go ‘Ok, you got to, ask my hand in marriage at this day, and then we’re going to add that time then tell everyone we’re going to go to Hawaii, and if

01:56:16.550 - 01:56:29.700

they want to come they can come, but then they may not be able to ‘cause it’s too soon, and when we come back, and we have a reception party, then we can, you know, um, also, at the reception party

01:56:29.880 - 01:56:38.060

announce.’ Done done done. So the timing worked out? The timing was- Custodian: Excuse me when y’all finish can y’all just, shut the door behind you?

01:56:38.060 - 01:56:50.610

Yeah, sure. Thank you. Custodian: Thank you very much. So um, you know, it was um-and then I wonder in our youth today if uh, do-does everyone do it perfectly anymore? You know I mean, ‘cause I meet the Europeans and they’re like ‘What,

01:56:50.720 - 01:57:03.290

marriage? You know they're like ‘I got three kids, I didn’t have to get married to have three kids’ and I’m just you know it just it’s different in each culture. And so in the Filipino culture it’s, you know they-you live with your mom and dad, till you're married.

01:57:03.950 - 01:57:19.620

And so it might-I don’t know if it’s like that with your culture as well, but uh, um, it-you know the-they uh, they-they wouldn’t mind if we all lived in the same house still. Yeah. So, um and my husband I think that’s what he loves

01:57:19.620 - 01:57:33.880

about my family. Cause he came from an-you know he’s half French and American, so he comes from a family that’s um, you know wa-was broken up, and um, uh, he-he always-he always like ‘I admire your dad, you know how

01:57:33.880 - 01:57:49.800

did he do it, he had five kids, and he brought your uncles over,’ and, and my family you know we’re just sort of, scattered to the winds and it’s just completely different values, you know, so, it-it’s-it’s the-you know and I think in a way he sort of longed for that,

01:57:51.340 - 01:58:04.760

yeah. Well that’s cool. Yeah. Yeah. And then, that’s, so I guess that’s what’s bro-brought us together, in-in that way. Yeah. Complementing each other. Well we both kind of had parents that were from different, worlds, in a way, or his dad

01:58:04.830 - 01:58:18.250

was. Well his mom was um, the daughter of a, an adm-a famous admiral. So she was a military, I guess for lack of a better word, brat right you know they were-they-they traveled wherever dad went and she was in a family of five kids too.

01:58:18.370 - 01:58:31.360

And um, uh, he’s-he’s um, he uh, he’s still alive today in his nineties, right and his grandmo-his grandmother is also, and she’s pretty, amazing

01:58:31.470 - 01:58:47.170

woman too and so her stories are…she like has these albums you know shoved underneath her table and she pulls them out, and there’s like picture of her, with Clint Eastwood and Imer- Imelda Marcos and, the Queen of England, you know ‘cause you know he was an admiral, so

01:58:47.710 - 01:59:01.760

she-back then you don’t have, personal assistants you have your wives to help entertain, the diplomats, and so that’s what she did, and uh I was like ‘Gosh this needs to be in a museum,’ uh, so, the-he brings the-that sort of part of his family

01:59:01.870 - 01:59:15.120

it’s you know to-to I think our kids you know these just sort of amazing little pieces of history too. And I envy that though, because you know in the Filipino culture, historically we don’t have things in

01:59:15.120 - 01:59:26.640

archives. It might have been in the church records, but we were con-you know Filipinos were conquered so many times you know each time a church burnt or, you know maybe, the concept of documenting things hadn’t been

01:59:26.750 - 01:59:41.490

around as long being in an island, so I can’t go back to the middle ages like he can, on his French side to figure out, where they're from. I was like ‘I don’t, I-my family tree I know kind of does this, so much,’ you know ‘cause they were all in that village and, eventually you

01:59:41.490 - 01:59:58.570

intermarry, somebody you're kind of related to right, so, I don’t know. When were your kids born? Um my daughter Jacqueline was born in um, May 30, 03, so 5/30/03, and Remy was born

01:59:58.670 - 02:00:15.750

8/28/08. I remember Jacqueline was born, yeah it was-it was about to be summer it was getting ready to be hot, and then um, and I was, uh I was on bed rest for almost four months with her, um, yeah, so it was a-it was-it was supposedly a difficult

02:00:15.770 - 02:00:26.240

pregnancy but in my mind you know I got to be catered to so I enjoyed that, I can easily go into a life of leisure no problem if I had to like not work for a while. And then-and then my son was born I remember,

02:00:26.970 - 02:00:40.990

and then Hurricane Ike had hit Houston. So the lights were flickering on and off, and I was worried that you know the baby would get too hot, but we were so lucky that the cable was only out for three hours and the electricity was only out for like…two hours or something.

02:00:41.040 - 02:00:51.780

Wow, really! That’s awesome. I know we were just lu-I don’t know. It’s like, the forces were like, ‘Not that house. They got a baby.’ ‘Not the baby.’ ‘They got a baby.’ You know, so and we-I remember driving around and taking pictures of

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everything and, um, but yeah. So that’s when they were born. So they're still little. They're very cute and adorable, and um, you know I always wonder how am I going to, how

02:01:04.110 - 02:01:17.320

am I going to raise them? You know in this…‘cause now I’ve-I’ve gone and intermarried outside the culture. And uh, you know you always-so-you know my husband’s always very supportive it’s like ‘Whatever you want to do’ and, and

02:01:17.320 - 02:01:31.820

so it was why I started that blog, that um, Brian’s talking about, and it was really around, um, documenting, oral history and recipes, but more than anything I didn’t know how to cook some of the traditional dishes, and I-I

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wanted it to find a way to bring, together the families, ‘cause you know they also have another generation of kids that have no clue A. cook rice, much less how to cook a dish, from the homeland! And so, um, uh it started to create a bit of a

02:01:46.230 - 02:02:02.920

buzz, uh in uh in uh in our family, and then but part of it was part of a leadership program that I took with the, um, um, it’s called CAPAW, or the Asian Pacific American Women Leadership Institute, APAWLI. Um, Center for Asian Pacific American Women, CAPAW.

02:02:03.790 - 02:02:18.740

So it’s like Center for Asian Pacific American Women underneath them have this leadership program called APAWLI. And um, uh, I uh, was like ‘Ok I’ll take, you know, Asian girl camp training, ‘cause I

02:02:18.740 - 02:02:30.690

need to get connected back with who I am,’ um, like I said I jokingly said I’m the whitest girl I know, and so I need to figure out- out that bit of it and so they challenge you on this concept called whole person

02:02:30.800 - 02:02:41.590

leadership. And so they’re like what part of yourself, you know and you kind of do this little wheel, family, friends, and all that stuff do you think you're lacking in who you are ‘cause if you don’t know who you are how can you lead others.

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And so, they chal-they pushed me. And I appreciate that they did. ‘Cause I learned so much, um, uh-about the challenge. And then I-I-I started the um I said ‘I’m just going to-’ they said ‘You need to impact

02:02:53.830 - 02:03:08.170

25 people’ and I go ‘I know 25 people in my family.’ And I was like—so I did that and I held what they call merienda, which is like a light snack, um, but then I also learned that um, Filipinos are incapable of light snacks ‘cause when you have family of twenty-five, and they're

02:03:08.220 - 02:03:21.890

making twenty-five dishes, um it’s, it’s a party, right, you know, the-they-they got to-there’s no- there’s no light snack, so but um, uh-uh-the-if you ever read my blog uh I talk about

02:03:22.020 - 02:03:35.500

how that party went down but it, between all the rosaries and the food, it was just hilarious ‘cause I did not expect it, I just thought we were going to go, bring your dish, you’re going to talk about it, you’re going to write your little story, you're going to give

02:03:35.500 - 02:03:47.710

me a copy of your recipe we’re done right? Mm-mm, no, it was like everybody brought their dish, nobody wrote anything down, um the next thing you know, um people were like ‘Well why are we here?’ I go

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‘Well, there’s this project I’m working on’ and then after that they already turned off, you know, uh and-uh ‘What? It’s not somebody’s birthday?’ and, and so I ended up having to convince them right, that this was um, you know, ‘Ok, uh I think grandma died about this

02:04:01.860 - 02:04:11.140

time a few years ago, right, so, tha-that’s why we’re together. We’re honoring her dishes, ok? You know? Stop asking me why we’re here. Oh and Judy’s birthday was last week, my sister.

02:04:11.860 - 02:04:22.920

That’s why we’re here.’ Eventually my sister’s like ‘Christy’s just having a Filipino party.’ ‘Oh ok. Ok. Who’s- Who’s birthday is it again?’ You know so you just-they just couldn’t wrap their mind around the mission.

02:04:24.010 - 02:04:39.900

So that came to bite me in the end because then they were like ‘Oh, well if we’re honoring grandmother we have to have a novena.’ I know ‘Christy, where’s your altar?’ You know and I had to pu-I go ‘Um,’ you know I’m nervously putting together an altar I go I

02:04:40.320 - 02:04:55.260

‘Where’s that Virgin Mary I gave you?’ you know I’m sh-being shamed every five seconds now ‘cause I don’t have my altar, I don’t have, you know my Virgin Mary and, a visual, and it’s-I look at it now it’s funny, but at the time I’m in this panic and I mean-I’m looking for a red satin cloth to

02:04:55.340 - 02:05:10.120

put over the children’s, kid table and, I-instant altar. And all of sudden I turn behind me, you know all of the dishes on the table nobody’s touching them yet, I turn behind me and the entire room kneels down, 25 people in front of the altar, and my

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aunt happened to have rosaries in her purse. Not just one, like twelve. So she’s passing that around the room and I’m just like, ‘This is not what I envisioned for my party , but ok.’ So you know I’m sitting there and you

02:05:24.650 - 02:05:37.080

know, God forbid you forgot the Hail Mary because you were just going to be instantly shamed after that. And you know ‘Christy it’s your turn. Lead the prayer, lead the prayer’ and I’m like ‘Oh my gosh I hope I remember all the words’ you know and-and then-and then they were like

02:05:37.080 - 02:05:49.560

‘Well, don’t you need to-you need to make a plate for grandma.’ And I’m like, my sister’s like ‘Do- don’t the Chinese do that we do-Filipinos don’t do that we’ve never done that at a party’ and I was like ‘Ok well we got to make up a plate for the grandma you know just-let’s just make

02:05:49.560 - 02:06:04.210

a plate so, they don’t,’ you know and I’m making a plate, and then, and then my uncle’s like ‘You need to hide it in a room because the ghosts like to eat by themselves’ I’m like ‘Who makes this stuff up?’ you know I’m just like, and that’s the Filipino-ness right, happening just everywhere

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and I—probably in a normal situation I wouldn’t pick up on that, but because I was in an obs- observation mode, of writi-of like how am I going to-how am I going to articula- Ok. Yes.

02:06:16.370 - 02:06:29.790

Ok, so where were we? Well, I think I was finishing up the story on going into observation mode, at the party, so, that was um, usually it’s second nature to just go through the

02:06:29.960 - 02:06:40.660

motions of what you do in your culture, but unless you’re, consciously making an effort on trying to observe the nuances, then you’re not going to be able to pick up on it, so.

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Um that was I think the lesson that I learned in that project, so um, so that’s- that’s uh, I think that’s where we left off on the um, uh, on that whole, event.

02:06:54.500 - 02:07:07.950

But uh-but like I said tha-it’s a blog that I- you know it feeds into the blog that I’m doing, and it was inspired through the Asian women’s group that I’m involved through in the leadership program and then I got to present that at Washington, D. C., so um, uh,

02:07:09.840 - 02:07:23.370

it-I don’t know if I had had the opportunity to do that project if I was able to, uh, do something like that you know what I mean I don’t know if I would’ve done something like that on my own without the help of that, framework of the leadership program that

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challenged me on my whole person leadership, so, yeah. And I think we talked-we mo-we moved into a little bit more about the community involvement , and am I active in-in um,

02:07:39.850 - 02:07:57.490

the Filipino community in Houston, and I’m involved, through-so of course through that program, the, the Asian Pacific American Women’s Group, um the—the Center, and the Asian women empowered, it’s allowed me to be able to connect with other

02:07:57.490 - 02:08:09.340

Filipinos, so, I me-I met a couple people who are interested in connecting me in to the various activities that are happening, so there’s a huge community in Houston.

02:08:10.420 - 02:08:26.670

Um, probably more newer generations I don’t-there’s probably a lot of even the older school ‘cause I-as I keep asking questions they tell me about, people who immigrated here, about the ‘60s and the ‘70s and some people will argue with you that the boom really didn’t happen until the ‘80s, so ‘cause they’re like

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the engineer boom happened in the ‘80s and I’m like ‘Well, actually, the nursing boom happened first.’ So um, but I’m involved- uh, I’m trying to get more involved, and- but it’s also finding ways to, uh

02:08:38.930 - 02:08:54.670

looking at the networks I’m already strong in, like the women’s groups, to figure out how do I integrate that into Asian community, so uh I know one example is, um, the-the Lion’s Club, uh, is very-there’s a Lion’s Club full of uh Filipino members, and then they're trying to

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in-um, integrate me into it ‘cause I asked a friend, um, you know ‘Introduce me to more Filipinos.’ And then she was like ‘Ok, I’ll introduce you to more-more Filipinos, uh and-but this guy he’s part of a Lion’s Club and he’s part of the-another group um and-and so you might

02:09:10.820 - 02:09:23.030

want to seek some inspiration through his project, so maybe if you support his project, then you could eventually be brought in’ so, it’s not a, right uh, a black and white answer going, ‘This is how I get involved

02:09:23.380 - 02:09:38.890

with the Filipino community’ you al-you have to just like with any network they have to learn to trust you, just like with my dad right you just can’t walk in his house, and try to sell him water filters or mini-blinds, um he has to learn to trust you and over time he ‘Ok well I think

02:09:39.040 - 02:09:54.410

you’re-you’re good at that then maybe’ so there’s a back to school drive that’s being run by Nelvin Adriatico and he heads up a couple pretty, um, high profile groups in Houston that are Filipino, and he gets the mayor involved and so, I got to meet him and then in the same time I

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got to intro-bring him into the Asian Chamber of Commerce, um, and let him have a seat at our Shell table which is like 250 a head, so, um, we kind of have been working in a very organic way of building that relationship so I’m trying to find ways to reconnect back into

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that community. But at the same time how does it also service other communities ‘cause, I didn’t grow up just sticking to one group of people, you know, so…I’m married to a white male for

02:10:23.720 - 02:10:39.730

God sakes so you know how do I find different ways to-to um, to honor, that part of me but at the same time help the greater good, yeah, so . And then, um, I asked you about your goals, for the future.

02:10:40.170 - 02:10:54.110

Yes. Yes so, we talked a little bit about, um, uh one day I will start that magazine, right, and then but it all is going to begin-and it-but-but I started with my family being

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really, my goals in the future is to work to make sure that they're comfortable and happy, you know the-that’s the driver, the value driver that I have in my beliefs, and uh because I also mentioned that you know you can’t help others unless you help yourself and so a lot of that

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is having the right job, or being able to-you know ‘How do I work for Shell without compromising my identity?’ You know that’s always a-something I challenge myself to do so I always have to try to create a community within that, and so I do the women’s career

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development program there, but then I take the lessons that I learn from there, and try to bring them into my stories so, like I said the blog, has allowed me to um, just in a way build research, that’s eventually

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hopefully gonna feed into children’s books that I want to write one day. So, um, and-and-and I want the children’s book to be about, the nuances of growing up, uh as a Filipino ‘Cause when I was younger I was embarrassed about a lot of the things that my

02:11:53.210 - 02:12:03.540

family did, and they were you know everybody’s got their mannerisms that you're like ‘Oh my God, I can’t believe they did that in public,’ but there are cultural things that every Filipino kid could

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probably identify with, but as an American child growing in the U. S., you tend to, identify with the fact that that’s not a very American thing to do, and that’s ‘Oh my gosh so embarrassing.’ So, in the leadership program one of the teachers, wrote-um,

02:12:20.160 - 02:12:31.540

read a poem out loud in an angry voice and then she read it again, in a more peaceful voice. And you find that the more peaceful voice was more impactful and enlightening, and I want to take that same concept into the

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children’s book, where, they um, are very embarrassed and ashamed at first and angry, and then- but then they kind of take those same nuances with a different perception in the other half of the book and actually become very proud, of the things that really they thought, um,

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made them stand out, and-and-and-and embarrassed so, that’s what I want to do, um, and uh, you know one day, like I said um, I’ll-I’ll find a way to integrate it all because, in the end of the day anything

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you do feeds into each other and, you know you-you don’t want to have any wasted energy in-in something in your life that’s not meaningful. Uh I think I always try to find the connections and if that was any advice I’d have is-is to, you know to find a way to be

02:13:17.390 - 02:13:31.360

artistic at an oil company or, find a way to in your own life at home uh, look for the story that needs to be told or in the food that you eat the blog that needs to be written uh, um, so you know

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I-I-I think that-that-that’s starting to fu-uh, fulfill me in a lot of ways and there’s always the journey that you have to go on to, to um, continue to challenge to find yourself because, I think that in itself will inspire others,

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um, to-to come along on the trip with you, so, . Thank you so much for, taking time, um, and allowing us to interview you. No problem. Thank you for giving me the opportunity, and uh hopefully we captured everything, and .

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Yeah. Yeah, hope so. Yeah, and then like you said twenty years from now maybe we’ll pick up-pick up and see what happens. Yeah. That would be, so interesting yeah. To be continued. Yeah. So, I look forward to it.

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Ok. Yeah. Let me turn this off.