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Okay, so today is April 13, 2021. My name is Vivian Zheng, an intern at the Houston Asian American Archive. And today I have the privilege of interviewing Mr. David So. So Mr.

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So, can you briefly introduce yourself, kind of when and where you were born? Yeah. Hi, my name is David So. I was born in Daejeon, South Korea, in

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1987. So what was your life like in Korea when you were growing up? So I was in Korea from '87 to '95, so I was there until I was eight years old.

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My younger brother is a year younger than I am. I was finishing up on first grade when I moved to the States.

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So… we grew up in an apartment complex with many of our cousins on my mom's side. My–my mom has eight brothers and sisters, my dad has four brothers and sisters, mostly on my mom's side, we were

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congregated in the Daejeon area. So we—it was a big family that we grew up in, that's an environment that I remember fondly. It… my life would have been a lot

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different if I had stayed there, I mean, obviously, but the point I want to make is that moving to the States, that was—our family was the first one to actually live abroad, out of the many aunts and uncles, families that we had.

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So we were here in the States, my mom, my dad, my brother and I, the four of us. So it was, it was kind of a, it was kind of a shock to experience that–that kind of loss of community at first.

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I didn't really know anybody, we couldn't speak the language, so that was a bit of a shocking experience for me. What was like the household or like the neighborhood, and, like, city, like in Korea where you grew up?

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Korea has these–these multi-story apartment buildings, and you have hundreds of families in–in one, one building, you know, they're—the place we lived in, it had 15 stories, and I believe, like 100 different families in

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there. And that was just one building. This complex had, like, dozens and dozens of these buildings, and our cousins lived in those other apartments. And we would go out after school just play in parking lots all day, until it

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gets dark and we'd come back in. We were very, you know, we were roaming free in those days. It's not like what we have here, where parents are always aware of where their kids are.

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It's just as long as we were back before dark, we were fine. Yeah. Why did your family decide to move to the US? So my dad was a, he was an assistant pastor for

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one of the larger churches in Daejeon. He had several other pastors with him, and what he wanted to do was further his studies. His decision—how old was he?

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He was, he was almost 40 years old when he decided to move, when he decided to move to the States to attend seminary in New Orleans. Like he wanted to go for master’s, and then his doctor’s, so he made

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the decision to go back to school at 40 and brought his wife and two kids along with him to this place called New Orleans, which was completely beyond anything that we've ever imagined.

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Like it's-it's-it’s—New Orleans itself is different from America to begin with. Yeah, yeah. New Orleans has a crazy weird culture. It's also a melting pot over there.

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So yeah, that's–that's the reason why we moved to the states in '95. So you were a, you were a PK? Like a pastor's kid.

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Right. That's what they call it. So you called yourself like the middle child of immigration. What does that mean? So that's, that's a phrase that I, I revisit often.

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So we have the first generation immigrants who were born in the States. And then we have the second generation, who are—I'm sorry, first generation who are born abroad and immigrated to the States.

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And then the second generation who are born in the States, and are, you know, Americans. There's another middle generation. I'd like to say that I'm a 1.5 generation immigrant, because I came when I was very little.

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I was born in Korea. My Korean identity was just about to form, it hadn't fully matured yet. And then all of a sudden, we're thrown into this entirely new environment.

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So we're the middle children, because we don't, we don't fully identify as Korean. And normally we identify as American. But the funny thing is we, we're–we're

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comfortable in a room full of Americans or a room full of Koreans, but that sense of belongingness is sometimes just not there for us. And that could sometimes lead to an

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identity crisis, which I think I may have suffered with, without really having thinking about it—thought about it. I think that was a—it's one of the reasons why us middle children, 1.5 generation-ers, we hang out with each other

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a lot. If you look at our friend groups, you'll find that 1.5 generation Korean Americans identify with each other, hang out with each other a lot, we commiserate, we—but we also, there's an opportunity there, because our

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Korean understanding of its history, its culture, it's all there, like it's part of who you are. But our identity as Americans, it's also there too, it’s whole.

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You wouldn't be able to distinguish me from any other Asian American if you didn't know about my history. But there's that something that I can't really, it's hard for me to articulate.

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Yeah, that makes sense. The lack of belongingness in–in each community for us. Yeah, cause you're, like, not quite part of either community. Exactly. So—and no one's saying that those factors are external. It's just the way we've grown up.

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It's our own history. It's very personal to us. That–that creates some challenging, challenges for us. And I think if we were able

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to individually come to terms with these issues, I think we'll have a lot to offer our communities, because we're–we're by nature connectors, because we were in between, we had to be able to identify with both our first

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generation Korean parents, we also had to identify our second generation Korean immigrants or non-immigrant peers. So we had to learn how to survive and fit in from an early stage in life.

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So with those challenges came opportunities. And I think that's the prevailing theme of my life that I'd like to discuss with you over the course of this interview, so yeah, let's proceed, we'll talk more about that later.

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Sure. Of course, yeah. What was like growing up in New Orleans, like, when you first immigrated to the United States? I was, I was excited to go to school. I couldn't speak the language, but I don't—the difficulties of

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communicating, it–it faded fast. Like I-I think, just after a few months, I was just fully acclimated to it. Even though I couldn't—you know I didn't know the alphabet when I came to the States.

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But after about the first year, I was just, I was going at it. I think I may have been particularly gifted in language. But it's definitely—kids, kids learn, they pick up languages fast. I remember, I think it was like the first

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week where I was sad and crying, and telling mom that I wanted to go back to Korea, but it only lasted a week. I got used to it right away. And in New Orleans, we went to public school

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in New Orleans. And if you grew up in Houston, Texas, you're very blessed, because your schools here, public schools are incredible. But that wasn't the case in South Louisiana.

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We had, you know, crumbling buildings with shoddy meals or teachers, had a lack of teachers, all these troublemakers. Parkview Elementary, right next to the New Orleans Baptist Theological

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Seminary is—I don't think it's there anymore, but I had fun. I've always had this nonchalant, chill attitude that helps me be comfortable wherever I was. But that wasn't really the case with my little brother.

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He was, he was bullied and you know, I mean we all were bullied, but I think it was especially harder for him. He was in first grade, I was in third grade.

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when we started. I skipped second grade altogether, because in Korea after my first year, came to the States, and then started my third year. It was the summer of '95.

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So, Korean school years end with—is that right? No, Korean semesters, Korean school year begins in the winter and ends at the end of the year.

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So I came in the middle of my second year. Okay. I didn't skip a whole year, I just skipped one semester. I remember like, math was great. Like I–I loved, like, being able to do

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stuff. Even though I couldn't really speak English, we had all, you know, the level of mathematics education is vastly different between, you know, the US and, and the rest of the world.

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Math was, math was a subject that I really enjoyed. And then English and all the other activities, I think I remember learning Spanish back then. Yeah, so school–school was just a great time.

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I couldn't speak the language. I picked it up right away. And by fourth grade, I was just, I was just going at it. I was much better at English.

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Were there any other like Korean American or Asian American students at your public school? There were, there were a couple at Parkview Elementary because there were other Korean American pastors attending seminary at the nearby school.

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So we had a few, and we-we, we're still close friends that the Korean pastors community is very close knit. So everybody knew each

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other. Now, in middle school. Now, we moved to Baton Rouge after my fourth grade year, that's about an hour away from New Orleans. And there were considerably, considerably

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less Korean students in my classes there, maybe I had like one other guy. Yeah. What types of values would you say your parents emphasized during your upbringing? So... I

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mean, I've been going to church since I was in my mom's belly, you know. So church was everything for my parents. It was that community, it was service, it was faith. And that's all they ever talked about and all

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they ever cared about, and all they ever talk about still to this day. And you know, my-my grandma, who passed away, she-she'd take care of me and my brother,

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while my parents were working, you know, into the evening. My dad was, like I said, an assistant pastor, my mom was the executive assistant to the senior pastor. And we had like, 10,000 people at that church in Daejeon.

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So it was kind of a big deal, and they were very busy. And it didn't stop once we came to the States, my dad was appointed as senior pastor of the Korean Baptist Church in Baton Rouge in '97. And church was everything, and they gave everything that they had to the church.

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Eventually, my mom had to start working to support the family while my dad was serving the church, so that was, it's-it's, there's no way around it. The church has been an incredibly important part of my life.

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Now the flip side of that is they're not like any other Asian parents where it was important for me to excel and study, get straight A's, go out of state to the Ivy League's. It was never emphasized in my life.

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And I think my parents were kind of fortunate, because my brother and I, we, we never really struggled with studying, so it came naturally for us. They did want us to read a lot, so they provided the books.

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I think that reading early on has made a significant impact on our intellect, our ability to consume knowledge. So they did encourage us to

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read. But grade wise, they didn't really place any focus on that, because for them, it wasn't important for us to do that. The only thing that was important was for us to be, for us to grow up as men of faith and–and the

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importance of service to others, to the community. Now the flip side of that is—it may feel like upon reflection that I've been neglected, my brother and I, a little bit that they were a little bit careless.

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I think that's one interpretation of that. For example, like when I was—I had stellar grades in high school. Good, sorry, great SAT scores, ACT scores, I

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had everything that I needed to–to make it to an out of state school. Even Ivy Leagues, it was very good. I'm not trying to brag or anything. The–the point that I'm trying to bring up is that my parents didn't

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care. They didn't ask me about my college applications, you know, are you applying for scholarships? They didn't worry about any of that. So I thought, okay, well I’ll just, okay.

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Maybe I'll apply to—this is a funny story that my friends make fun of all the time, and maybe I'll like, apply to Harvard. And see what happens. And then I didn't apply to any other schools. Right. I just applied to Harvard and just sat back

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and relaxed. And Harvard waitlisted me, I think it was like, in April of my senior year, and I'm like, oh, I got waitlisted. Okay, I think I'm gonna have to come up with something. And I applied to, I mean, all the deadlines

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have passed for all the out of state schools. So I applied to LSU. I got in with a full scholarship. And yeah, I've been in Louisiana, all throughout my–my college years, too.

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And then some work years after that. But now I'm thinking, wow, I struggled so much. You know, in–in college, and in my life after college, trying to make it, you know.

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I wonder if my parents had pushed me a little more, if they cared about my academic success, maybe I would've been able to go out of state, go to a better school, get better training, education, build a stronger

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network. And maybe I would have, you know, actually accomplished something. That–that has been a struggle for me for a while, but it's, it's all moot because I

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love being in Houston. I love that my life's path has led me to Houston. I love the people that I've met here, I love the opportunities that are out there for me in the future.

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I love the strong Asian community we have here. It's incredible. And I don't know if I would have ended up in Houston had I gone to a school out of state. So I'm very grateful for my experience.

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And I think, I think my parents were right, well, maybe they could have cared a little more about my grades, and teaching your kids to–to work hard, to excel, I think that's important.

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But other than that, I mean, they weren't wrong. You know, I was taken care of, my life is—I'm very content with where I am in my life. Yeah, that's good. Everything turned out okay.

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My life might be a little different from your average Asian American student. But my brother, though, he–he had some sort of epiphany in college.

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He used to be a troublemaker in high school, getting suspended, in fights, skipping class, but he was never, you know, he was, he didn't have trouble with his studies. He went to Baton

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Rouge High, which was one of the best schools, public schools that you can go to in Baton Rouge. I went to McKinley, which was a, not a gifted program, but it was—McKinley has, it's a historically black high school.

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And some decades ago, it had been integrated and they introduced a gifted program as part of that integration effort. And to me, I'm also grateful for the experiences that I had at McKinley. We were exposed to people of different

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races, you know, I played, I played a season of football with–with my high schoolmates there before I got injured on the first play of the season. So I was done with that. I played soccer for three years after that, but yeah,

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my exposures to different cultures, different peoples, different races. I–I value that highly. And I'm very grateful for McKinley for providing me that opportunity.

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It was—come to think of it, it was one of the best times of my life. So yeah, McKinley, then high school. Oh, yeah. My brother. Yeah, he had some sort of an epiphany in college.

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He decided to get straight A's in college even though he was a troublemaker in high school. And then he went to med school at LSU, and now he's about to

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start his career as an ophthalmology retina surgeon in South Bend, Indiana. Wow, I'm from Indiana. did a good job of raising–raising kids.

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Wow, that's crazy. Yeah, free range children, free range kids. But it turned out okay. Speaking of, like, your time at LSU, like, what did you decide to study there when you went?

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You know, I came to LSU and I wanted to study everything. I really didn't have any idea of what I wanted to do. So I just initially took the basic courses that everyone has to take.

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I was also in the Honors College when I started so I took these honors seminars where we studied history. We took lectures on them and just did them in seminar. That was—that experience

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is probably one of the best experiences I had in college. It was very intellectually stimulating.

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My peers were these brilliant people, if you look at what they're doing right now. Yeah, they–they were excellent students, very hard workers, very smart. And LSU Honors College was able to expose me to that network of peers.

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I wish I had, I wish I had focused on being closer to them and developed a better relationship with them. I do still talk to one of my classmates. He's my roommate, Zachary Keller.

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He, he's the smartest guy I've ever met. And he's, you know, very intelligent. We were roommates for three years.

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He went off to Yale Law School, after LSU. And then he's now a US Attorney. I believe, I can't remember. But yeah, he's in Dallas right now.

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And we communicate frequently. But I'm still thankful that LSU was able to expose me to those brilliant people. The professor who led my seminars, Dr.

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Drew Lamonica Arms, she was also a brilliant character, Oxford scholar. She-she-she's an administrator at the Honors College who handles

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scholarships. So she–she mentors and nurtures all these Rhodes Scholars, Schumann's Scholars, Goldwater Scholars. It was a great opportunity, but you know, college I, I got distracted.

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I— I started, you know, partying, skipping class. When–when everything was easy, like when classrooms weren't challenging growing up, you–you miss the opportunity to develop critical skills,

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like the importance of putting in the effort. And sticking it out whenever it gets tough. So things that you find boring, things that don't immediately produce results. If you leave a kid to his own devices, I think, I think they'll naturally stray away

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from–from pursuing these things. And what they end up doing is seeking immediate gratification, which I think happened a lot over the course of my childhood and teenage years.

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So college, when I—things started, when the courses started to get a little more difficult, I think I struggled a lot. It was—when it came time for me to put in the effort, you know, I just didn't have the tools necessary.

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So I struggled academically, I think, in my junior and senior classes, some of them. I mean, it's not like the course material was really difficult, but I just, I didn't have the discipline to put in the time to do what was necessary to do.

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That's a—that's something that I, I value highly, being disciplined. And yeah, I understand that. I think a lot of, like, gifted children who, like, had it easy growing up

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struggle when they actually have to apply themselves, or like things don't—they, like, don't come as easily as you get older. Exactly. And all they hear is like, oh, you're so smart.

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You know, you're they raise you up, lift you up like that, then you start to fear. You start to develop this fear of failure. You don't want to be challenged.

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You want to always be the smartest in the room, because you're just so used to that and you're not, you're not okay with being—you're not okay with not being the smartest in the room. And that can be detrimental.

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You always want to surround yourself with people that are better and smarter and stronger than you. That's the only way you can improve. And–and you have to accept failure. You have to be willing to get back up when you get knocked

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back down again. These are the critical skills that I wish that my parents had known to instill in me. But that's—it's fine. I'm 33 now.

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I'm learning now. With my company that I started last year I'm learning. Every hour that I put into this job, into this company is an hour that I get paid for. And if I don't work, I don't get paid.

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I'm learning what I should have learned 15 years ago, but hey, if that's how my life's scripts' written, I have no problem with that. So what was the major that you ended up picking at LSU? So I vacillated between, you know, oh, should I do

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psychology? You know, oh, I love history. I love reading about Korean history, American history, world history. I took-I took a few AP courses. So I didn't have to take

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history in college. I didn't have to take math in college. I couldn't decide. So basically, I just, I–I started, okay, why don't I just get a general degree, business,

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finance and, and see where it goes. So that was my sophomore year, I started taking business classes. I graduated with a Bachelor of Science in finance. Besides, like, school, what other clubs or extracurriculars were you involved in in

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college? My freshman year I was very active. I was part of the club soccer team at LSU. Honors College had their

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own extracurricular programs. And once I entered Business School, there's a organization called Students in Free Enterprise. There's also a student manage investment fund project that I was

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involved in. What else did I do? Yeah, like I said, I was distracted, instead of focusing on my studies and my extracurriculars and broadening,funding my horizons.

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Instead of doing that, I just spent all my time just dating and partying. It's, it's part of the biggest reasons why I would say that maybe I wasn't ready for college. Maybe I needed some more world experiences, life

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experiences before I could truly understand the value of college because now I do, I really want to go back to school now. I want to pursue a Master's in Business Administration. And I think

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I'm definitely going to give that a shot. I've been tutoring some college students on my spare time. And the courses are very intellectually stimulating. It's actually a break from my regular work.

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I just wonder what kind of metrics and the process of, you know, learning, going over it, and then teaching the material to my students? It’s, I like

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it a lot. I wish I had given college a fair chance. But I'm ready, I'm prepared to do that. The master's program, we'll see. Where did you end up going to work after you graduated from college?

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So I graduated college in 2009 in finance. And if you’ll remember the Great Recession of 2008, and 2009, nobody was hiring in finance, they were firing in finance. So I graduated school without a job offer for my field.

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Plus, the internship that I had to take, I neglected to seriously pursue these. I mean, I was talking to one of my very good friends who works at Chevron, and I discussed his path, it

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was only a couple days ago. But he stressed the importance of just getting your name out there, no matter what it takes, opportunities are there. It's just you need to put in the work to find it.

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If it takes 100 applications, if it takes knocking on you know, every single booth at the career fair, you just have to do it. College interns are valuable commodities. Companies are more than

00:29:47.340 - 00:30:01.280

willing to do what's necessary to–to find a place for a college intern but the process is—you have to find the right person. Companies don't want just anybody. They want somebody that fits in with their goal, their culture.

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So the process of finding the right match takes time. So even if you have less than stellar grades for backgrounds, spend time at these career fairs.

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Knock on these doors, visit every booth, you don't have any idea what the actual industry is like. I mean you might have an idea of what working in finance is like, working in banks,

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real estate, or any other job that's out there, construction. But you don't really know until you get there. You learn on the job. So

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what I needed to do was, yeah, just scout these companies, and knock until one of them opens the door for you. I didn't do that. I only interviewed at a couple places and I didn't want to

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do that in the summer, I just wanted to go back to Korea, and have fun. So that's what I did. In 2010, after my graduation, I went back there. I was a private

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tutor for a while. Came back, I helped mom with her business for a couple of years before moving to New Orleans to work there. I got a job

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in 20—end of 2014, early 2015 at Bank of America, Merrill Lynch, as a financial advisor. It's not a, you know, it's not really a,

00:31:52.480 - 00:32:07.170

it's not like an analyst position where your knowledge of finance is–is highly, it's critical. It's more like a, it's more of a consulting, financial consulting. It's more of a advisory

00:32:07.220 - 00:32:19.250

position, there are elements of sales, producing business, bringing in assets to the company. But I did have some exposure to corporate culture there.

00:32:20.540 - 00:32:32.080

And that's in New Orleans, my experiences there. That's when I first had exposure to volunteering. I mean, I–I was interviewing for Bank of America.

00:32:33.500 - 00:32:45.610

But I wasn't really doing anything other than just some part time jobs at the time. But volunteering for the Korean American community in New Orleans was extremely rewarding. My professional

00:32:45.610 - 00:33:03.030

growth began with my involvement in community service. And that's when I first knew of the importance of networking with your community, because there are so many organic opportunities for someone in that

00:33:03.030 - 00:33:22.400

situation, someone who's young, who's willing to work and serve. If I could find such an opportunity in New Orleans, then such opportunities are just boundless in Houston. And I worked as a public relations director for the Korean

00:33:22.400 - 00:33:35.860

Association there. And what I did was, I think it hasn't been done in like years and years and years over decades. We actually started a monthly newsletter for the Korean community there. I think there's about two thousand, we,

00:33:38.330 - 00:33:55.490

we collected the addresses and phone numbers of all the Korean Americans in New Orleans and we published them in this book. You know, I'll take seniors out on picnics to the plantations.

00:33:56.820 - 00:34:11.360

So that was very nice. I was the only guy just herding a bunch of 70-80 year old Koreans. And every time we hosted fairs, just a lot of community

00:34:12.010 - 00:34:25.060

building. And that, one thing or another, that led me to an interview with Bank of America. And I was given the position. I–I, that's when my career trajectory

00:34:25.880 - 00:34:41.210

that led me here actually started. So how did you end up here in Houston, was it also because of another job change? Yes, there was a job change. The president of the Korean Association in New Orleans was attending a

00:34:41.270 - 00:34:57.450

conference in Houston. And he met the president of the association here. I was introduced to him and this gentleman had been in the industry, insurance industry

00:34:57.980 - 00:35:19.320

for forty years, he was one of the first Korean American insurance agencies in town, and he was looking for an exit. And he needed a Korean speaking manager to take

00:35:19.550 - 00:35:33.850

care of his claim once he retires, because he was selling his book of business to an American businessman. So 95 of the cli- 95% of the clientele of this agency is–is

00:35:36.670 - 00:35:49.720

Korean, and the owner's an English speaker, he's an Italian-American guy. So there needs to be somebody in between to manage the whole thing. And like I said, this,

00:35:49.720 - 00:36:07.080

this role of a middle child, this theme of being able to connect with different people of different backgrounds, people with different languages and perspectives. It was a very important part in the work that I did back then,

00:36:07.080 - 00:36:23.880

and the work that I do now. My Korean is actually—I have a business level proficiency in Korean. Even though I came in this, even-even though I arrived in the States when I was 8, I didn't, I didn't forget Korean.

00:36:27.390 - 00:36:45.250

We spoke Korean at home, spoke Korean at church but—an immense amount in Korean, you know, Korean history books, Korean novels, Korean cartoons, Korean drama, Korean TV shows.

00:36:45.610 - 00:36:58.050

I mean you guys know, it's popular all over the world, but I was exposed to that throughout, and, so. And I was translating, interpreting my dad's sermon over radio in the church

00:36:58.180 - 00:37:08.830

since I was a sophomore in high school. So I've been, I had done that for quite some time. And it sucked to do it. It was a lot of work, I didn't want to do it.

00:37:10.880 - 00:37:25.010

But now I-I'm very grateful that I did it. It's, it enabled me to do the work that I do. So I was offered a position as the manager to help with the transition to manage relationships.

00:37:25.150 - 00:37:35.230

And in 2016, 2, almost 2 years at Bank of America, I decided to move to Houston, and move to a small agency, going from corporate-corporate to

00:37:38.590 - 00:37:50.220

tiny, ethnic insurance agency was–was a bit of a change, but I was very excited to be a part of what was going on in Houston. And I-I'll talk more about that in a little bit.

00:37:54.640 - 00:38:10.920

It's-the industry is similar. I mean, we're all dealing with risk. We're financial advisors are necessary to-to advise and counsel wealthy clients, it's when you, when you have

00:38:11.350 - 00:38:26.770

that much wealth, growth, or making money isn't as important as protecting it. So we use vehicles like life insurance and annuities to–to–to add much needed protections to these

00:38:26.830 - 00:38:40.420

assets. That was back when I was at Merrill Lynch, Bank of America. But now here in Houston, I focus more on the property and casualty side of insurance, which deals with, like let's say you're a restaurant owner, and

00:38:40.580 - 00:38:58.070

somebody slips and falls or somebody eats something, it's a serious stomach virus. The restaurant is at fault. There's liability. Insurance is necessary to protect people's liabilities, to protect businesses from claims of

00:38:58.070 - 00:39:14.810

negligence. It protects the business's assets, its revenues. And–and also like if the business burns down or something, there's always insurance and it's a little more complicated than that, but I–I switched from one side of

00:39:14.810 - 00:39:26.590

insurance to the other, moving to Houston. And it's—I–I managed that transition. The owner that purchased it sold

00:39:26.590 - 00:39:40.600

it to another, and I've been with that book of business because I was integral to service. It was that ability to connect with the clients that was necessary.

00:39:41.880 - 00:39:56.930

Otherwise they–they would have gone somewhere else. Right. If-if they have limited, if they speak limited English, why would they not work with somebody that can speak their

00:39:56.930 - 00:40:14.690

own language? So being able to speak Korean and English was an incredible opportunity to connect with the insurance companies and the various brokers on the back side, and then facing forward with my clients, I would

00:40:14.690 - 00:40:27.060

have to speak Korean. So I was, I have a very important role, I think in serving as the kind of— Yeah. How did you end up starting, like, your own business? Is it like Axios?

00:40:27.060 - 00:40:44.830

Is that how you say it? Axios, yeah. Axios is— Yeah, how did you, how did you end up starting that? So when the agency ownerships switched hands twice, what I would have to do is with the new owners, I had

00:40:45.110 - 00:40:58.900

to approach all of these insurance companies and say, hey, you know, we're making this acquisition, and they have these policy contracts with you. But these new owners, they don't have a contract with the insurance companies.

00:40:59.430 - 00:41:15.020

So without that contract, what we call an appointment, we're not able to service the clients that have these policies. So let's say, what's the, what’s the, what's a company name you've probably heard of? Have you heard of Progressive Insurance?

00:41:16.040 - 00:41:31.800

Yeah, yeah. Progressive auto insurance, right? So you have people in Progressive auto insurance, when they have an accident, they call the company Progressive to file a claim, and get paid to fix their car.

00:41:32.740 - 00:41:49.380

Now, there's an agent in between an agent and Progressive, manages the transaction, helps the customer select the appropriate coverage and services, and that agent needs to be appointed

00:41:49.830 - 00:42:03.020

by Progressive. So I went through this process of seeking appointments with multiple insurance companies, because in an independent insurance brokerage, it's not like

00:42:03.020 - 00:42:19.230

State Farm, where a State Farm agent can only deal with State Farm. An independent brokerage deals with multiple insurance companies that appoint them as agents. So during the first acquisition, back in 2016, I saw

00:42:19.230 - 00:42:33.830

closely what it would take to run an agency. What it would take to seek an appointment. And then in 2019, I had to do that again, when the owners changed hands again. So after that, after about a year,

00:42:36.560 - 00:42:54.020

I realized, hey, you know what, I have so many more opportunities. If I can control the entire agency myself. I'm young, I don't want to be working for somebody else. I want to do—I want

00:42:54.020 - 00:43:05.120

to plant the seeds for my future now. I don't want to wait any longer. And I have experience from two prior transitions, I have a replacement that I was a part of hiring and training

00:43:05.960 - 00:43:20.770

very closely. And I'm very comfortable leaving behind the service, my clients, the, so—and when my friends who are, who are my partners, encouraged me to do that for myself.

00:43:22.380 - 00:43:41.480

One of them was a CPA, the other's a real estate professional. So we decided to start an insurance agency in November of 2019, when we officially began operations, after I left my

00:43:42.110 - 00:43:54.280

pre-previous agency in February, when we officially started the launch of last year. Right before the, right before the pandemic hit? Yeah. So insurance is a business where you-you,

00:43:56.410 - 00:44:09.680

you talk face to face, you know, you touch base, you interact personally, knock on doors, you visit businesses, and boom, everything's down. So it's been quite a ride, but I'm

00:44:09.680 - 00:44:30.690

still–still around, and the future couldn't be more brighter. Do you guys have a lot of like Asian American clients? I do. They comprise the vast majority of my clientele because I feel like non-Asian Americans, they have a

00:44:30.690 - 00:44:44.170

lot of options to choose from. There are very, very, very talented insurance agents out there. My colleagues, some–some of the most hardworking people that do this

00:44:48.580 - 00:45:01.930

work really hard for their clients. We made—the whole point of having insurance is to not let these unforeseen events, these disasters impact our life so much.

00:45:02.300 - 00:45:21.770

I mean, prior to the insurance industry, the way it is now in modern times, some people were at the mercy of, of natural disasters. Everything that they'd worked for, their enterprises, their–their wealth, it was subject to just it could

00:45:21.820 - 00:45:33.200

all be gone in a flash. Their legacy would be completely destroyed. But over the last 400 years or so the modern economy boomed and the insurance industry along with it,

00:45:35.740 - 00:45:54.240

people are able to accurately assess the probability of something terrible like that happening, the industry was able to price it, actuarial sciences that actually that–that measure risk and prices, it accordingly emerged as a very

00:45:56.580 - 00:46:15.050

prominent field. And when people were able to ensure their wealth and create a safety net, I think humanity as a whole we're emboldened to reach higher.

00:46:15.930 - 00:46:29.920

And one example that I can mention is that—like banks, banks, whenever you get a loan from a bank, they ask, hey, do you have collateral, so that if you're unable to meet your debt service obligations, you know, we're going

00:46:30.220 - 00:46:42.570

to take over your collateral. Oftentimes, when you take out a mortgage, for a house, that house becomes the collateral, if you're unable to pay your mortgage every month, then that banks' gonna close the loan down and take

00:46:42.570 - 00:46:56.800

over the house. Well the banks are only willing to do that because that collateralized asset is insured. So the bank doesn't want the house to burn down for them to lose out on the loan contract.

00:46:57.910 - 00:47:10.410

And by having this mechanism called insurance, banks are more willing to give out loans. Credit blew up. By credit, I mean, the loans that you

00:47:10.410 - 00:47:22.370

give banks willing to lend people money so that they could do something valuable with it, that they could create more value with the loan that they got, it was only made possible because the insurance industry

00:47:26.960 - 00:47:39.390

provided them a guarantee for their collateral. The credit was, the credits' a very important part, it goes beyond where I wanted to talk about it in this interview.

00:47:39.550 - 00:47:53.400

Credit was a very important part of the growth of the modern economy as we know it today. And insurance played an integral role in bringing economic reality to life. So I–I feel very

00:47:56.800 - 00:48:07.210

fortunate and privileged to be a part of this industry. A lot of people may not know how important it is what we do here. But the wealth

00:48:07.720 - 00:48:20.080

and the comforts that we enjoy today, in the 21st century, it was partly made po-, made possible by the growth of the insurance industry. I'd like to say this to all of my college friends, too.

00:48:20.680 - 00:48:31.630

It's the biggest kept secret. No one wants to go to college and you grow up to be an insurance broker or an agent. But the opportunities there are incredible.

00:48:32.330 - 00:48:48.500

Some of the Fortune 500 companies are insurance companies and brokerages, you can get a global perspective and a wealth of experience as an intern in insurance, and there are so many fascinating companies out

00:48:48.570 - 00:49:03.140

there to work for, and I hope to be one of them, you know, 20, 30 years down the road. Yes. Outside of, like, what do you do with insurance, what kind of community involvements are you a part of in Houston? So this is a very important

00:49:05.760 - 00:49:21.520

part of my life. I, like I said, community involvement, my volunteering and my professional life. When one route, you either follow, so I didn't, I didn't just solely focus on community.

00:49:22.000 - 00:49:36.050

I didn't solely focus on business. It–it goes hand in hand. I think that there's a feedback loop where communities support businesses and businesses support communities, and everybody benefits.

00:49:37.320 - 00:49:48.090

And I will tell you this one story about why I was encouraged to move to Houston. In 2005, I was still in New Orleans. But I had heard about this group

00:49:48.090 - 00:50:07.030

of young Korean Americans who, young professionals, they host a, that they host a Korean festival in downtown Houston every year. So in 2015, I drove all the

00:50:07.100 - 00:50:21.760

way from New Orleans to Houston to check out the Korean festival. And being held at Discovery Green on a beautiful Saturday, it was just the most amazing thing I'd ever

00:50:21.760 - 00:50:36.930

seen. I mean, there are tens of thousands of people there, you know, Korean culture, Korean food. And for me as a 1.5 generation, like I said, the middle child who struggled with his own identity, for me to see something like that

00:50:37.040 - 00:50:58.050

was... it was a, it was a big—it lasted. It was a lasting impression. It, I'm never gonna forget what I felt there

00:50:58.150 - 00:51:11.040

standing in the middle of Jones Lawn, looking up into the building, Korean traditional music in the background, and everybody having a great time. It was, it-it

00:51:11.680 - 00:51:28.090

was an epiphany to me. And I said to myself, I have to be a part of this, I want to do this. And, you know, make it strong, grow it. I just, I don't care, I don't care if I'm just, you know,

00:51:29.800 - 00:51:43.700

moving ice from the ice truck all day, I have to be a part of this. So that played a significant role in me wanting to come to Houston. Plus all of the people that I met through the organization.

00:51:46.750 - 00:51:58.150

They're-they're my, some of my closest friends to this day. I didn't have any family or friends here. But the Korean American Society of Houston and the Korean festival, the people that work there, they've become

00:51:59.410 - 00:52:10.140

my–my family here in Houston. And once I got the job offer, I was like, yeah, this is the easiest decision ever. I'm moving to Houston, right. So in 2016, I moved to Houston.

00:52:11.540 - 00:52:21.460

And I immediately became involved in KASH, the Korean American Society in Houston and the Korean festival. Yeah, the photos that you sent, right?

00:52:22.430 - 00:52:35.470

Yes, yes. So by 2017, I was the President and I served as the President of the organization and the Korean festival in 2018, and 2019.

00:52:36.470 - 00:52:49.720

Now I'm currently serving as a board member. And, you know, this involvement with KASH and the Korean festival was actually what gave me the opportunity to interview you today. So I have a lot

00:52:49.720 - 00:53:09.940

to thank for for everybody that was a part of the organization. And there are struggles of running a nonprofit organization made up entirely of volunteers. And if we want

00:53:10.150 - 00:53:31.410

KASH and the Korean festival to continue existing, then it would have to be eventually run like a business. It's so difficult to lead this festival without getting paid or anything in return, just as a volunteer activity,

00:53:34.000 - 00:53:49.750

it's-it's difficult to do it for more than two years. Life and work gets in the way. You can do this professionally, but not as a volunteer effort. It's, it's an issue and a

00:53:49.750 - 00:54:02.130

lesson that I took away and I hope to help resolve for future generations as a board member of this organization. Yeah. Yeah, that's really cool. Have you been to the Korean festival?

00:54:02.300 - 00:54:19.790

I have not. This is actually my first year in Houston. So I–I know like obviously this year, it probably couldn't happen. But is it still happening like in the upcoming future? We will continue to host the Korean festival, we haven't any—I don't think we've made any

00:54:19.820 - 00:54:37.070

official announcements, so I'll refrain from doing that at this interview. But if not this year, then for sure next year. Yes. I will definitely visit sometime, like, during my time at Rice. I–I highly encourage you to check it out.

00:54:37.070 - 00:54:51.220

There are YouTube videos out there that show what's going on. I mean, you stand at that stage on Discovery Green and you look at the sea of faces, just feel really proud of it, you know—I love, whenever I meet a non-Korean, I love to share

00:54:53.070 - 00:55:05.310

Korean barbecue, show them how to make hermit crabs and you know, drink soju and I love that. I love them, just their minds are so blown away. This is so simple, but how is it so good?

00:55:05.550 - 00:55:21.500

You know, I love getting those reactions from them, and the Korean festival was an opportunity for me to do that on a large scale. I think we actually had about 40,000 people in 2019. Right?

00:55:23.100 - 00:55:36.610

So to be able to host, kind of like hosting a big Korean barbecue party with 40,000 of your friends. That's what it felt like to me. That sounds really fun. How would you describe it, the overall Asian American community in Houston?

00:55:38.780 - 00:55:55.950

The overall Asian American community in Houston is nothing like I've ever seen before. It's–it's right now, if you pay attention to current events, we're talking about Stop Asian Hate, anti-violence against Asian Americans.

00:55:56.430 - 00:56:06.320

And I'm very grateful to be in Houston during these turbulent times. I feel like Asian Americans have a lot of power and influence here. It's not the, it's not like other cities.

00:56:06.920 - 00:56:20.970

I'm sure there are instances of that around town. But overall, I mean, Houston being such a diverse, culturally aware city, and Asian Americans having so much business and influence here.

00:56:21.520 - 00:56:40.580

It'–it's quite a comfortable place to be as an Asian. I remember going to Miami last year in November, and I was standing at a street corner, in, near South Beach.

00:56:41.390 - 00:56:56.510

And there was like a drive by racial slur. Right, thrown at me in Miami. And it's like, I was like, at that point, I had lived in Houston for about four years, four, four and a

00:56:56.510 - 00:57:09.060

half years. I didn't know what to make of it. I didn't even know to be offended. In fact, what I was thinking was, whoa, like, did that just really happen? Because I had forgotten what it was like, living in Houston.

00:57:10.580 - 00:57:26.840

So Houston's Asian American community is something that I value highly. People here work hard, we have a strong community, we're in important places throughout the community, the leaders, the mayor, City Councilmen, Congresspeople, they all listen to

00:57:27.650 - 00:57:40.810

us, listen to what we have to say. Whenever KASH hosts the Korean festival, I mean, Congressional representatives are lining up to be a part of the program. The mayor's office asked if they can participate.

00:57:42.060 - 00:57:54.510

The mayor have previously declared that day is a Korean American day in Houston. It's—I love the fact that we have so much influence, I love the fact that we

00:57:54.510 - 00:58:10.830

have a Chinatown with signs in Chinese. We're building an entirely new Asian town out in Katy. The food here is incredible. The Chinese food here is the best that I've ever tasted.

00:58:12.400 - 00:58:25.350

Koreans—our Korean community is a little small, so we're getting here. There's some good restaurants out there, but a lot smaller than the Chinese community. What do you think like Asian American

00:58:25.850 - 00:58:45.270

communities can do about the, like, AAPI hate that you were mentioning, especially right now during this pandemic? How can, like, we, like, unite as a community? So I haven't really been politically active on the outside, but I,

00:58:46.510 - 00:59:06.190

I keep up with what's going on in government. Pay attention. It's–it's–it's very important for the Asian American community to come together and vote as a bloc. Asian Americans,

00:59:07.620 - 00:59:27.650

we need to find common ground issues that matter to us and caucus together. We have to vote based on issues not by party, but on issues. And whenever there's an Asian American leader up for office, we should come together and support that person, as long as that person represents our views.

00:59:28.510 - 00:59:43.450

So not just because they're Asian American, but because they know where we're coming from and reflect our values. So when someone like that runs for elected office, the community has to put in the effort to–to make sure that person is

00:59:43.450 - 00:59:57.050

elected and we've had some successes in municipal and state elections in Texas, but we can do a whole lot more. I think, as a community, there are so many civic organizations out there that's promoting

01:00:00.940 - 01:00:16.220

equitable treatment of Asians, Asian American civic engagement. I think if you're a young person with not a lot of resources and volunteer your time, you will have so many experiences, you will learn a lot about what's going on in the world.

01:00:16.710 - 01:00:33.840

It'll pose you opportunities that you never dreamed were available to you. So if you're young, during college, recently graduated in college, these organizations can use people like you. So I would highly encourage you to do

01:00:33.840 - 01:00:47.090

that. And Asians have to first speak with the vote. And I don't remember how many Asian Americans are here, but hundreds of thousands?

01:00:47.270 - 01:01:00.350

If not, yeah, if not approaching a million in the Greater Houston area. I'm not sure. But a lot. So if-if a significant part of that could vote together on

01:01:00.350 - 01:01:17.170

these issues, then that would, that would mean a lot. There was a house bill that passed a few months ago that denounced

01:01:18.760 - 01:01:31.210

violence against Asian Americans and hatred against Asian Americans, it was before this Stop Asian Hate thing, really, thing really hit national news. And if you go look at that bill, you can see the list of all the

01:01:31.240 - 01:01:45.150

representatives that passed that bill. And all the representatives that, you know, thumbed it down. And if you're a Texas constituent, you could do your part by seeking out and voting against the representatives that thumbs

01:01:45.420 - 01:01:59.030

down such resolutions for political reasons. It's, it's enough to make you angry when you see things like that. And it's impossible to not react, especially in

01:01:59.180 - 01:02:13.710

light of what's going on. I mean, our grandparents are getting beaten down in public in broad daylight. I mean, how can you say no to a measure that speaks out against such unimaginable acts of hate and violence.

01:02:13.710 - 01:02:29.160

I mean the way politics is in our community, it's—I hate that it's so divided. And it's getting in the way of making meaningful action over change that's required for people in our communities.

01:02:29.290 - 01:02:43.720

So you have to, you have to, you have to speak with your vote first. And the second part is, Asian Americans in this community have a lot of economic resources available to them.

01:02:44.240 - 01:03:03.520

It's, it's important that people who have the resources, the wherewithal to vote with their wallets too. Support candidates that reflect our values as a community, support organizations that

01:03:08.700 - 01:03:20.300

encourage Asian Americans to vote, to be more engaged, and to get the word out. Without active participation, these things will continue to happen.

01:03:21.210 - 01:03:37.760

So yeah, the power of the vote and funding, providing funding and resources to make that happen. There's a lot of labor and manpower that's needed at these organizations and–and labor, nonprofit labor isn't cheap.

01:03:39.600 - 01:03:55.030

People with the resources need to support these endeavors. I too, I will, when–when–when my company is established and has the resources to provide in nonprofit and charity

01:03:55.490 - 01:04:12.580

efforts, I will make sure to contribute to these efforts as soon as I can. I've already donated before, just haven't been a formal thing that I've done through the company, but I'm definitely thinking about doing that now.

01:04:13.440 - 01:04:26.710

Yeah, that's really powerful. So it's been about an hour and I don't want to take up too much of your time. Is there anything else you'd like to add to our interview today? Let's see, hold

01:04:32.790 - 01:04:59.610

on... Hm. Oh, yeah, I had a, I had a cookbook recipe that I made up earlier this morning. I was wondering about. Do we talk about the cookbook in the

01:04:59.610 - 01:05:16.100

interview or do we— You can go ahead and send it over and if you want to talk about a little bit now, please go ahead. So I–I spent a little money this crawfish season, we all had a very difficult winter.

01:05:17.210 - 01:05:31.120

I bought here so that I could—I live in an apartment, so it's not really the best place for a crawfish boil. But I've been getting invited every weekend to friends, people that I work with,

01:05:32.690 - 01:05:46.460

volunteers that I work with. I, I've been doing crawfish boils, and it's been, it's been incredible. So Houston we like this style called Viet-Cajun where we mix in some garlic

01:05:46.460 - 01:05:59.230

butter on top of the crawfish. And where I come from in Louisiana, we don't do that. We make the boil really spicy and salty and we cook the crawfish and let,

01:05:59.840 - 01:06:12.330

we cool down the mixture and let it soak for a long time so that all the flavors and juices gets sucked back into the crawfish. Making me hungry, I haven't had lunch yet. But a lot

01:06:12.330 - 01:06:28.120

of the places in Houston that I've been to ignore the–the–the Cajun part of it. Fully ignore it, they lightly season the water, but it's okay because they put this delicious Viet-Cajun sauce on top and you mix it up and in the

01:06:28.170 - 01:06:47.370

blandness of the crawfish goes away eventually, but what I like to do is I like to stay true to my Cajun roots and properly boil the crawfish, and then I like to put the Viet Cajun sauce on top. So you just get this incredible

01:06:48.020 - 01:07:02.200

amount of flavor. That sounds so good, my, like, mouth is watering. Right? When you cut the crawfish, it's, like, you get all the Cajun seasoning like I'm used to back in Louisiana. And then you have the Viet-Cajun sauce coating it on the outside so it's just the complete experience.

01:07:03.240 - 01:07:20.770

And I like, I like how we—how Viet-Cajuns were able to just add a little bit of their influence to something that's wholly traditional and American and make it better. I like that theme of how Asian Americans contribute to

01:07:21.200 - 01:07:39.010

American culture. And we're—we have an Asian ethnic background, but we're all Asian Americans. I think we need to speak out more about our own American-ess. We–we have to recognize that and we have to be

01:07:39.170 - 01:07:50.020

proud of it. And–and this, this Viet-Cajun—I like to call it the Viet-Cajun Cajun crawfish. So two Cajuns. The Viet-Cajun Cajun crawfish recipe with the

01:07:52.240 - 01:08:04.430

Houston Asian American Archive. I think, I think this speaks to my history that we've been discussing so far. Yes, please go ahead and send the recipe over.

01:08:04.880 - 01:08:22.420

It's an amazing thing to bring everybody together, like this–this Sunday I'm having a boil with my former ADP colleagues and owners and everyone else in my life. This food, sharing of food and culture is

01:08:22.990 - 01:08:38.930

hands down the best way to build relationships and build community. So I'm excited to do that on a weekly basis come crawfish season every year. Okay, well, that's all I had for you.

01:08:39.340 - 01:08:43.850

Yeah, thank you so much for your time. I'm going to go ahead and stop the recording. Okay, appreciate it.