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I’m Maddy Bullard. This is Dae Shin Ju And we’re here on June 15th, 2012 in the home of Harry Gee to interview him for the Houston Asian American Archive oral history project.

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Uh, so Mr. Gee, to start off, um, could you please, uh, describe a little bit about your, your childhood and your cultural up—upbringing? Well, as best we remember, uh, let’s see, we grew

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up in Houston, Texas. Um, let’s see, I think that I arrived here at 1941 and during the course of our going through documents here we found a document from the

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American President Lines alien receipt, tax receipt that was issued in February of, apparently the President Coolidge sailed on February the 22nd of 1941, and it was issued in my mother’s name coming here to America.

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And so there after is when we arrived here in the United States in about April of 1941. So I was surprised to find this particular document amongst her materials that, uh,

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that she had left. And uh I was just showing to you the picture of the village in China where apparently I was born. I was under the mistaken impression that I was born in a hospital until I went back there with my mother in

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1989 and she explained to me that the—in this room, in this house is where you were born by a midwife—and uh it was quite a revelation cause you know my sisters were born in a hospital here in Houston and so I just

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naturally assumed that I was born in a hospital only to find out that needless to say in China they did not have all of those resources at that time and the midwife was the one who delivered. And so, uh, which is a rather

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interesting story. It turns out that my mother had told me that—uh, my mother was the eldest of seven sisters and for a Chinese family, seven sisters is not a good, uh, omen, and the—she, when she was getting married,

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ultimately she was introduced to my father by a matchmaker and uh grandmother on my father’s side was not overwhelmed with her because she comes from a family of seven sisters. So their concern is that there would

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not be a male heir to carry on the family name and she said it. Sadly, grandma treated her very poorly until I arrived. And after she was able to deliver a boy, she’s a man— she went up to the esteem of grandma significantly thereafter, and

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so the cultural background and heritage is such that, you know, uh the prize is for the male heirs as opposed to the female but uh it was good because I have two sisters and I tell my mother had they arrived first, her

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life would have been still pretty tough and pretty difficult I think under that set of circumstances. But uh since I arrived first, uh, you know she was very thankful for that circumstance or situation.

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So, um, but she brought me to Houston, Texas in 1941 so I was at age two and a half and don’t have much recollection of the passage over but, uh, she was telling us the story that when

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she was on the boat that some of the people seen that I was a young child very graciously bought me an ice cream cone. But she had never had this—she came from rural China—and so she never had that before and so

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she had to taste it. And when she tasted it she said, ‘Ugh! It’s terrible.’ Because it’s cold, uh, it is sweet, these are things—it was creamy— these are things that her diet had not seen before; everything in China was boiled,

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everything was had to be boiled to be purified and, and in terms of it like hot tea and whatever and that, uh, you know salt was certainly a much more desired taste than sweetness and then not having become accustomed to

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cream the digestive tracts were not as well attuned to handling that particular matter. And so she said, you know, she couldn’t understand why people enjoyed ice cream. But uh needless to say, yeah, we subsequently got her

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to change her taste buds and begin to appreciate that particular part of it. But that was one of the experiences that she shared with me, uh, that I was not aware of until we had arrived here in Houston, Texas and so…

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Interestingly enough, my mother, uh, I, I, and I tell this to people and they get to be a bit mystified. My father is older than my grandfather and when we tell them that particular part of it then how that can be?

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Well the situation is that my father is older than my mother’s father and so my maternal grandparents. So it turns out that I sort of kid my wife but uh when my father was getting old in life he had a young lady to take care of him.

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Uh, when we get old, who’s going to take care of whom? You know so in our old age and dotage, who’s going to be the one taking care of the other but, uh, at that time, he, she was taking care of him and good, you know.

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I didn’t make that realization until we had return back to China with my mother in 1989 and, uh, she had to go pay respects to her parents and this was the first time since we left in 1941—almost 50 years before she goes

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back to China—and she goes to the grave site and then in a very emotional scene there she’s tearing up and crying and apologizing for not having come and paying respects earlier. But she said that at the time she had a

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dilemma that she had her husband who was sick and ill at that particular point and when they were sick and ill and she wanted to go back to China, she couldn’t because she had to stay with her husband. And she had to

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make that decision as to whether staying with her husband or to go back to China under those set of circumstances and so, uh, yeah, it was quite a moving situation in, in terms of it. And uh, you know, I guess that sometimes these episodes are very

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much of a learning episode because here in the United States the, uh, Chinese, Cantonese when they go to a funeral, they say Hang San—I don’t know if you know Cantonese language or not but Hang San means walking

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the mountain; San is the word for mountain and no one sees a mountain in Houston. I never could understand what is it when we go to a funeral and they are talking about walking the mountain in, in terms of it and so

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it took the trip to go back to China for me to understand what that circumstance was. It turns out that in China all of the arable land is utilized for planting

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rice fields, and food and utilized as much as possible. The area they cannot utilize for planting purposes is the hills and the mountains and so that’s where they use for the cemeteries. They take the cemeteries and the bodies

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they going up the side of the mountain and then they, you know, enter the people in and bury them in the side of the mountain and so the Hang San was finally explained to me in the course of that particular episode.

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But it was a learning process. Uh, growing up uh obviously it was with a, uh, Chinese was my native language, I only spoke Chinese until I was age five or six going to school and then of course

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started transferring it to English at that particular point of time. And uh Chinese was language at home, it was a dialect of Cantonese, which is one of the dialects in China and, uh, went to HISD.

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Grew up, uh, but my father had a restaurant business and, because he had changes of the restaurant business—sold one business and bought another and operated different businesses, we moved on

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several occasions and so grew up and went to three different uh elementary schools, each of them for two years and then subsequently went to middle school and then high school here in town. And then went to Rice

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University undergraduate and the University of Texas. So that’s a very short capsule of the life. Um, what were your family dynamics like growing up? Family dynamics.

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Uh, well, needless to say, um, my father uh typical was the decision maker in the family but actually my mother realized how to utilize him and persuade him to do things that she ultimately wanted

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and achieved and she got her goals and objectives taken care of. Uh, it was a pretty close-knit circumstance I think that uh, what the family that works together, stays together. Turns out that my dad had a restaurant, uh,

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and we worked at the restaurant. And so uh while I was in middle school uh I guess 13 years of age, had the first opportunity to start working during summers and then uh would start working

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when I was in high school. Ultimately I went to San Jacinto High School which is in the central part of the city and the reason I had I could have gone to possibly two other high schools that were in the western part of the city but

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since San Jacinto was in the closer proximity to the restaurant I went to high school there and then went to work at the restaurant after, after school. And so, uh, yeah we were just accustomed to being

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involved in working and same thing when I was going at Rice that I worked full time at father’s restaurant during that particular interim. And only when I

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went to law school that we didn’t, didn’t have a full time job working. So why did your parents decide to settle in Houston? Um, my father was living in Houston. Uh he had, uh, actually when he immigrated to the United States,

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originally he was in California then subsequently apparently he went to Detroit and to, uh, New Orleans. And I think that, uh, in the 1930s, uh, I think that there was a period of time when there was a gas fine just like right

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now gas price is very, very heavy around the country there was a discovery in Pampa, Texas and so apparently he went up to Pampa and Amarillo and uh was there for a short period of time but that played on out and

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subsequently, uh, I guess in the course of his travel –I’m assuming here—we never had a chance to talk with him in his travels from New Orleans to Pampa he passed through Lake Charles in Houston and he subsequently ended up opening restaurants and businesses in Houston and in

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Lake Charles. And so he had a restaurant operation in each of those locales. He, um, got a letter from my cousin Wallace Gee who was back in China at

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the time and uh Wallace when he sent him a letter indicated that my grandmother, his mother, was very ill. And so in the 1930s he made arrangements to go back to China and to visit with her and in going back to visit with

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her I mean you would buy boat, you had to plan you know six months in advance and all the other arrangements and then subsequently in China you were gonna stay for another six months so it becomes a year excursion uh

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to make the trip, but he did make the trip uh being a dutiful son and when we went back there he found that one of the reasons that his mother was so ill is that her only son was footloose and fancy-free in America and he was

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single; he had two sisters both of them were married and they had children. And here he had no children, no family and so grandma immediately introduced him to, uh, the matchmaker who then introduced to my mother

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and, uh, he agreed to the marriage and so subsequently uh because she couldn’t get the appropriate—after the marriage—she couldn’t get the appropriate visas to come to America, he ended up returning back to the

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business and then it took her three years to get her visa cleared to come to America and so when she got her visa, I in the meantime was born in China and was two years, just over two years—two and a half years old when we

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came here to the United States so…uh, yeah, it was about a three, three and a half year period that she had to wait in order to come to join her husband. But it was because my dad had a restaurant, had businesses here in

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Houston that we came to Houston. So do you remember which year, what year your dad came to America? We don’t have anything specific, you know, actually I should go back and check his immigration records

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but um I would imagine it was probably in the 1910s. I mean I would think that—he seemed to always recall that when he came over here uh and he worked at the restaurant they had to put, uh, a carton at the, at the, um,

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sink in order for him to wash the dishes and so he had to stand over a carton to, in order to go ahead and do that so I think he was about 12 or 13 years of age. It would have been in the 1910s—it probably would have been the time period.

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So he came over with, uh, his family? Uh, no he didn’t. He—there was a Chinese Exclusion Law that was passed in the 1800s and Chinese could not immigrate to the United States but we had a

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nonimmigrant classification for treaty investors and apparently, uh, he came under the treaty investor classification, so as a child of a treaty investor coming here to the United States. And so that’s—that’s how he came.

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So he came by himself? No, I think that, uh, his, uh, relative came with him. They came together. Okay. What was the name of your father’s restaurant in Houston?

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Well, the one that I’m aware of is um China Star that was on the Main Street, 6009 Main Street, Chinese Village that was on Telephone Road—I don’t know this precise address on Telephone Road. Uh, there was a

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China Clipper and apparently was on, um, Milam or, you know, uh Street and then there was, um, Sun Deluxe which is on Chartres and then um somebody said that old China Café on Main Street but I, that was before my

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time and I’ve never seen any other information on that regard so he’s been involved in a number of different restaurants in town. Um, what area of Houston did you live in growing up?

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Well, uh, originally we lived in southeast Houston along what is now the Gulf Freeway. At the time we were there, it was Telephone Road and, uh, it, uh, the freeway was not yet built.

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Uh the freeway didn’t get started until the late 1940s, early 1950s but, uh, yeah, we lived in that location or area and went to Henderson Elementary School and then uh my father bought a house

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on Crawford Street and, uh, that’s near St. Joseph Hospital and that was closer to Downtown. And so we moved there and lived there for a couple of years and then, uh, from there moved out to West Dallas,

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2712 West Dallas and those were in my high school year so have middle school and high school years and so have a much better recollection of growing up at that location. I didn’t realize that, uh, Chinese were not permitted to right,

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buy property everywhere in town. I mean there were only certain locations and so we did not live in uh really a residential enclave as such as we do now.

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At that time, most of the houses, pla—locations that live were semi-commercial so and so, uh, small businesses are up other, other activities I remember right across the street from us on West Dallas was a bar and, uh, there was

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a construction I mean uh some minor office supply company had offices right next door to the particular location and so there was a lot of commercial buildings and activities. And on Crawford Street there were

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number of old buildings on the street but the across the street was the hospital and, uh, all of the other periphery businesses that were supportive of the hospital. And so, uh, but they were not residential neighborhood as

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such. There were in a semi-commercial area. So did other families live near to you or not? Not that many I mean, that’s that’s, you know, that’s uh you know that’s the point. Uh, you know, there really weren’t any close kinship with other family

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members in, in, in terms of, uh, now when we were in West Dallas there were some. We went to school there we got to know some of the people that lived in about four- five blocks away. And so they were in close proximity and we got to know some of

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the people along that line but, uh, pretty much we stayed isolated. The Chinese had their own uh clans and groups and activities because they’re always working so hard they really didn’t have that much spare time and

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activities and we didn’t, you know, I—we didn’t grow up going to the baseball games or you know going in sporting activities or doing things that our children have had the opportunity to, to be involved with or

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to, to support the schools. I mean I don’t know I went to a Parent Teachers Association meeting in the course of all of the years of my, uh, growing up or going through school. So….

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So do you remember the ethnic composition of your neighborhood? Uh, it was all Caucasians . I mean, it was uh—Houston was segregated at that

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time—at that time and, uh, so you know essentially a Caucasian neighborhood but, uh, Jewish people lived in, in a relatively close proximity uh middle-income people uh so uh yeah I mean there weren’t many people who

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sent their kids to private schools or anything—all public school people. So what were your experiences in high school like? Well, um, I didn’t make this realization as such but, uh, during school I probably—I

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was able to apparently get into some activities—bowling, I played basketball, uh you know, we worked, we uh—oh, we had a professor, a teacher that was an ice-skating aficionado and so we had a chance to do a

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little bit of that but, uh, yeah. We had a car about time from our work opportunities to go ahead and do that but you know we didn’t have opportunity to spend times on

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activities like debate, or traveling with debate teams or doing things of this nature. We worked at the restaurant over the weekends and, uh, so you know we were working on a full time basis uh in terms of –to my surprise I ended up putting in

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40 hours a week at the restaurant while going through high school so that was not an unusual circumstance, I mean. Yeah, we were working um at the restaurant we got to do anything that needed to be done—we waited on tables, we

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um bus tables, we ended up working as a cook or cook’s helper. And it got to a point where you know we hated almond cookies because you had to roll thousand, hundreds and thousands of them to bake cookies during the

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course of, um, weekend for desserts during the course of the various meals so, uh, yeah it was uh—it was tedium. It was just something that was somewhat boring and, you know, you just had to keep doing the same thing over and over

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again. Did you get paid for that work? Yeah we did. We got paid, uh, a nominal sum of money. So, uh, yeah, I think I remember um when I finally was able to buy my car let me see I guess it was, uh,

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the summer while we were in high school that we saved up enough money to be able to get a car and, uh, had to negotiate with the banker to get the interest rate. He, he was surprised that uh we had the audacity to discuss

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interest rates with him. How much was the car? How much was the car? Gosh, it was probably about $1200, $12-1400. Uh, yeah, it’s a quite an inflation in,

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in the cost of cars and vehicles since, since that time. Was it a new car? Yeah, it was a new car. Yeah, it was a Chevrolet uh in the 1950s though. Did your family’s, um, socioeconomic status change once you,

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your family had moved from China to the United States? Well, uh obviously in consideration of what the people in China were having, the answer is yes. I mean, I was uh, we were—there

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was plenty of food, I mean, there was a uh relative clean living circumstances, albeit Houston before air-conditioning was very humid and, I mean, there were nights which it was so humid that it

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was more comfortable to sleep on the floor than it was in a bed. I mean in the bed you know the mattress would have no air circulating and we were small enough to sleep on the floor—and it was much more comfortable at that particular point but, uh,

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the you know yeah my father had worked pretty diligently and, uh, restaurant business and was successful in that regard and so he was able to provide for us that, uh. Uh now it really took

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my mother’s saving ability to save to go ahead and make sure that uh opportunities would be accorded but, you know, and they went through some pretty tough times. The economic situations in the 50s were very harsh—I

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mean after the war was over uh the economies all begin to tank and, uh, you know people didn’t have as much money and resources as they did during the course of the war and therefore, you know, there’s a lot less eating

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out and you know things of that nature and so the restaurant businesses were very competitive at that particular point so, yeah, they had some—they worked hard. And you know I was—when I stop to think about it, it used

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to be we would get lunch and it was meat, two vegetables, a salad and soup, a dessert, a drink—75 cents . And so uh that was amazing. What sort of clientele did the restaurant attract?

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Well, that’s a good question, though. Uh, I didn’t make this realization but, uh, really one would have thought it’s a Chinese restaurant they would serve Chinese food and they did serve Chinese food.

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It’s just that it was very bland Chinese foods and it was adapted to the American taste and so, uh, really, the restaurant served inexpensive American food—chicken fried steak, fried chicken, fried shrimp uh you know, Houstonians at that

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time the only cuisine that they understood was fried and so, uh, it, it’s changed significantly in the interim. I think that, uh, you know the taste buds and the quality of the cuisines as such that uh you are getting really

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authentic Chinese food. And part of it is because that the cooks in the restaurants were not really trained chefs or cooks. Frequently they were seamen who jump ship and who were here illegally.

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And that was the jobs that they could get and you know they did have some skill sets so the part of it is hard work and they became cooks. You know the people here didn’t understand what the real Chinese food tastes

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like anyways so they couldn’t gauge whether they did good job or bad job in the preparation of it. And so, uh, the key is do they cook chicken fried steak or is the fried shrimp, you know, fried well and, and tasty and what

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not. So it was more an inexpensive, uh, American food that was primarily there. During the lunches they would have you know meatloaf and, uh, chicken pot pie or things of this particular nature that just, uh, you know

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women would just standard American fare. Do you remember how much waiters and waitresses got paid? You know my recollection in back of my mind is $18 a week, and, uh you know, now $18 a week,

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uh, sometimes they had uh tips to go with it as well. But, um, uh yeah . That was in the 1940s? This is uh well in 1950s, so it was 50s before I started working at the restaurant and so, yeah,

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it’s uh it’s hard, well, I know that some of the dishwashers you know all they made was twenty dollars a week and, uh, had to live on it. That’s uh but you know a car only cost $1200, I mean, you know,

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that would be an indication of the inflation that we’ve seen since, since that time. Had any of members of your extended family settled in Houston around that time? Any members of the extended…Well, I think that, the,

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our—because of our father operated a restaurant that a number of our Gee family came to Houston because, well, actually several. There were several other Gee family members who came here and went into grocery business and so between the grocery

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business and the restaurant business they were able to help other cousins and relatives coming from China to get business worked and, and, and, and opportunity so, uh, yeah, I mean, uh the immigration flow pattern frequently has

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been that people go where their relatives are because they have job opportunities and connections they have people who are interested in their welfare and are supportive of them so, uh, I don’t doubt but, I mean, well, our

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cousin Albert came and later on when into the restaurant business, uh, cousin Wallace came did a little bit of restaurant business but when off into real estate and, uh, you know, so, uh, yeah, um, numbers of the family

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members… Cousin Gordon came and later on went into restaurant business and, uh, meat business and various other activities and so, uh, yeah, members of the extended family would come here, you

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know. So did you support each other in terms of like helping to settle and…. Oh, yeah. I mean the adjustment to facilitate and introduce them to other members of the community and

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to solve problems with them when they had problems or issues or difficulties they would frequently come to my father and ask for his advice and he happened to be President of the On Leong Chinese Merchants Association

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and so they would help, uh, you know, people in getting their businesses started and help them solve problems in that regard. Cousin Albert at one time was thought of being quote ‘Mayor of Chinatown’ here in Houston

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because, you know, he had, uh, people who would call up on him to help in solving problems and what not. But he started out as the manager of my father’s restaurant on Telephone Road and he operated and gained the

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experience through that, uh, work, uh, opportunity and later on established his own business as such. He became very well renowned in Houston. It was Albert Gee’s Polynesian restaurant and Ding Hao that had

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more of a reach to the professional and upper uh echelons of the community. And, you know, when we start looking back at some of the papers, he got to know the, um,

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people at the newspaper so they would get, uh, publicity in the newspaper frequently and so, uh, because of that involvement he, he was much better known with, uh, the professional uh community.

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Can you describe, um, your naturalization process since you were born in China? Yeah. Um, when I reached age 18, I made application for naturalization and, uh, interestingly enough, I

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never understood all of the paperwork. Now that I’ve become a professional, uh, there had to be a transition from non-immigrant treaty investor classification to an immigrant category and whether it was done, uh,

00:31:24.980 - 00:31:41.300

through registry or whether it was done through, uh, suspension of deportation—I’ll have to check some records to find out but, uh, I was a permanent resident when I was at—I think my first year at Rice. September, uh, I

00:31:41.320 - 00:31:58.000

reached age 18 and I filed and submitted my application and then during that, that year, uh, the naturalization examination, the officer was a German officer and he gave one of the toughest history, or government exams

00:31:58.040 - 00:32:12.080

we’ve ever taken. But fortunately I’d studied it comprehensively in high school and then at Rice and what not, and so we were able to pass that particular examination and then, uh, qualified and gained my U.S. citizenship

00:32:12.100 - 00:32:27.720

at that time. What sorts of questions were on the test? Oh gosh this is, uh, I just, I just remember that they were much harder and they’re much more difficult than what we had seen in some of our history examination.

00:32:29.210 - 00:32:44.570

You know, I must give credit; he knew his stuff. And you know he was a, a, you know, we sat in on other people’s examinations and what not and the examiners were not near as rigid and harsh but, you know, there was a completely different

00:32:44.570 - 00:32:59.720

attitude; uh, there’s not much immigration to America up until uh during the course of the 40s and the 50s. Uh, because of the World Wars and the turmoil around the world you know people were just were not moving much from

00:32:59.720 - 00:33:08.730

one location to the other in terms of it. So the immigration was just the minimal, but the…it’s expanded significantly since the 1960s.

00:33:09.780 - 00:33:25.120

Would you say that your family in particular was affected at all by the World War II? Affected by World War II? Well, let’s see, yes and no. I mean just like anybody else I mean it turns out

00:33:25.180 - 00:33:41.620

that the…I think my father was too old to go in the military so he wasn’t drafted but our cousins were. They, the one that was the manager of my dad’s restaurant ended up having to go, uh, it turns out that, uh, he worked as

00:33:41.620 - 00:33:55.150

the welder at the shipyards, so he was doing that particular work he wasn't drafted in the military itself. But others of our cousins were drafted and went into the military and served, uh, in Europe or in Asia and in, in

00:33:55.170 - 00:34:11.830

terms of it, uh, for, for a large part, the effect of it was the business opportunities were diminished because people didn’t have the monies, and resources and opportunities to get, you know, they

00:34:12.400 - 00:34:29.640

didn’t—gasoline was rationed, tires were rationed, and everything was rationed in at that point of time and so there was not the free enterprise opportunities that one has at the present time. Um, could you describe a little bit more about the Gee family’s growth and

00:34:29.670 - 00:34:44.490

presence in Houston over time? Um, well I guess what we find out is that if we go into the, the three families that probably really initiated the growth was my father, uh, Harry Gee, Sr.

00:34:45.080 - 00:34:56.110

and then there’s Wan Tu Chu and Wan Tu Chu. Chu is a Mandarin pronunciation of the word Gee and so I didn’t realize that, uh, it’s the same character.

00:34:57.150 - 00:35:11.560

But it’s pronounced differently. If you’ll take the, the character right in the middle of the pillow and how do you pronounce it? Oh my, my uh my name is Dae Shin Ju, and I’m actually Korean.

00:35:11.810 - 00:35:22.480

Oh, okay. And this is how I spell my last name in Chinese character. Oh, okay. Well see that’s the same… This means red, right? Okay that’s the royal red, that’s correct.

00:35:23.010 - 00:35:34.910

So, we may be distant cousins, you know, you know in, in that terms of it. But Paul Chu at the University of Houston. He has the same character, it’s the

00:35:34.910 - 00:35:48.980

same character that we have in terms of it. And I go back to China and found out that the Ming Dynasty the emperor was that was, uh, his character. He was, you know, so I kept telling these friends you better treat me

00:35:49.010 - 00:36:07.230

with greater deference I could be the lineage of the emperor of China and he said, ‘Harry you’re probably the product of the twentieth concubine’ . Yeah, but, but Paul put it in perspective. Paul said that, ‘Hey Harry, twentieth concubine was very important; he

00:36:07.410 - 00:36:22.960

had a thousand.’ No uh, my father came, I think and other people followed him, uh, came in from Arkansas part of the family they worked at my dad’s restaurant they saved some money then they went and opened up their

00:36:23.020 - 00:36:36.550

businesses. They opened up grocery stores or other restaurants and, you know, other businesses that they prospered so they would get introductions and, you know, help, uh, people get started we’d introduce them to bankers or introduce

00:36:36.570 - 00:36:50.110

them because, yeah, they had good experience with our parents in terms of doing business, uh, that enabled them to have a line of credit and capability of doing business and getting access to resources that other people

00:36:50.150 - 00:37:02.050

could not get. Uh, Mr. Chu and uh his brother, uh both of them went into grocery business and they were very actively involved with the grocery business.

00:37:02.700 - 00:37:16.520

They in turn helped our cousins that went into grocery business and get each of those starts as well. And so at that time the major chains have not come to Houston to this extent,

00:37:17.010 - 00:37:30.170

and so local grocery stores were very important, I mean, literally there would be a grocery store every two blocks. Part of it is uh in certain segments of the community, primarily the black communities, they didn’t have

00:37:30.350 - 00:37:46.800

the money and resources to have a car and so when they went to grocery store they had to carry whatever groceries that take it home. And therefore walking more than two blocks with groceries was really a burden. And so what would happen is they would, you know, so the Chinese grocers

00:37:47.190 - 00:38:00.810

prospered in many of the black areas. There would be, I mean, at one time there were about 300 Chinese grocery stores located in the black areas and then when they had the civil rights riots then things changed because, the,

00:38:01.750 - 00:38:17.510

uh they didn’t feel comfortable there for their personal safety and so many of them sold those particular businesses and got out of there. And you know, in other parts of the country they sold it to Korean grocery people, uh, in Houston,

00:38:18.820 - 00:38:34.480

ultimately a lot of them sold them to Vietnamese, Pakistanis and the other immigrant waves that come in would be the ones that would frequently buy those particular businesses. But, um, our—my father formed the Gee

00:38:34.550 - 00:38:50.830

Family Association and with the Gee Family Association they got an opportunity to bring all of the cousins together on a regular basis, on an annual basis at least that we also sponsor a picnic and then by having a picnic there’s another event which the younger

00:38:51.540 - 00:39:07.500

pe—the younger families could get together and through that they would invite the dignitaries in the communities and represent various segments of the community in terms of it, and so at one time, yeah, I think that the people at the city hall

00:39:07.750 - 00:39:23.780

downtown were probably more familiar with the Gee Family as a institution here than other communities, other parts of the uh Chinese families, but, um, yeah, we try to maintain some of those traditions with the New Year’s

00:39:23.780 - 00:39:42.790

celebration and, um, the family get-togethers and those activities but, um, so the Gee Family—there’s a national organization they have headquarters out in San Francisco and then, uh, you know they’re the ones that ultimately helped create school and we raised

00:39:42.910 - 00:39:58.820

the money and resources around the country to build a school and, so, one of the classrooms is named after my father and so with the appropriate financial contributions they would go ahead and give the naming rights to some of the particular facilities, but it

00:39:58.820 - 00:40:10.270

was, uh, nice way and means to help our cousins back in China. Do you know the number of Gee family members in the States? No, I don’t. You know what, uh,

00:40:12.510 - 00:40:32.080

there, what is interesting is that they don’t all spell the names exactly the same—there’s a spelling with C-H-E-E and there’s spelling J-E-E and there’s G-E-E and there’s C-H-U, and so all of those are all variations of the Gee Family

00:40:32.640 - 00:40:49.890

and you know what we’ve probably have not done a real extensive, uh, background in, in, in terms of it. Now uh, the other situation is that, uh, because of the Chinese Exclusion Act, uh some of the people coming to

00:40:49.890 - 00:41:06.590

America ended up buying other people’s papers and they came as somebody else and so not everybody who has the Gee name is a Gee and not all of the Gees are into the Gee name. And so it’s, it’s, it’s, it is complicated in

00:41:06.720 - 00:41:25.340

that regard. So yeah, um, there has been but we have not, you know, compiled a comprehensive, uh, listing of all the Gee family members. Now we also find that there are some members of the black community

00:41:25.930 - 00:41:41.660

that are also, their last name is Gee but they are not Chinese and so we’re finding it. Now we did have one Caucasian. He was a federal judge and he spelled his name Gee and we got to find out he has French derivation.

00:41:42.430 - 00:41:58.550

It was Gui but because the French apparently pronounce Gui as ‘Gi,’ uh, that, you know, they subsequently began to spell it G-E-E because when they Anglicize it, it was too complicated for Americans,

00:41:59.500 - 00:42:15.520

British Americans to pronounce G-U-I. So were you exposed to Chinese culture growing up? Well, to uh to whatever extent my parents had it.

00:42:15.890 - 00:42:32.250

Now, my mother only had two years of formal education and my father had six and so he came to Chi—came to America at a very young and tender age and so because my mother was in the rural area and she had to work she didn’t get much education

00:42:32.780 - 00:42:46.470

at all and so she worked enough to gain enough vocabulary to help start reading in Chinese newspapers and, you know, she always tried to share as much of it but she never we never we never

00:42:47.670 - 00:43:03.390

had we never became, uh, able to read in Chinese and if you can’t read in a language you can’t maintain it or expand it. So, yeah, after a while it atrophies. I mean if you don’t use it, it disappears.

00:43:04.920 - 00:43:19.780

Uh we did not get any, but we got two years of formal training and in the summer, and it turns out we go to Chinese school for three months during the summer. And then uh when we back the next year the teacher said, ‘Ah!

00:43:19.870 - 00:43:39.680

You’ve forgotten everything the last nine months’ and there we’re put, we’re back in the first grade again for the second year and so. So your mom did—needed to learn how to speak English when she came here? Yeah she did not, uh, she could understand English but she didn’t

00:43:39.910 - 00:43:53.950

speak it, articulate it very well. You know her, her line was primarily Chinese, but you know she, she could speak it to get along with people who have worked because you know it was the same comments and statements over and over again,

00:43:53.980 - 00:44:08.300

but she was not erudite. She was not able to read or English and she did not have capability of a great vocabulary in English. But she made sure we studied like heck .

00:44:09.220 - 00:44:23.660

That we all, you know, uh, did the studies and, and, made sure that, uh, yeah, that we would pursue it to the fullest. Did she work at the restaurant? She did. Yeah she worked at the restaurant as well so.

00:44:24.120 - 00:44:39.310

Um do you feel, uh, connected to the Chinese culture today? Not to the extent that I could or should. I think that uh I was telling some of the people that to a large

00:44:39.310 - 00:44:54.340

extent um I, well I began to realize some of that deficiency when I read James Michener’s Hawaii and Michener did when he was talking about Chinese population going to Hawaii he did a great job with research and I didn’t

00:44:54.360 - 00:45:15.060

realize that, you know, my Chinese name is Gee Bak Chil and the cousins that have, in the same generation are Gee Chu Boo, Gee Chu Oong, Gee Chu Qui, and Chu is the family generation name, Gee is the family name

00:45:15.420 - 00:45:32.570

Chu is the—but mine, Gee Bok Chu so why is my Chu in the third place opposed to the second place?1 And so I had to ask my father after reading the book that did they mess it up, and then he explained that when he went

00:45:32.570 - 00:45:44.850

back to 1 Note from Mr. Harry Gee regarding spellings : ‘As you know, the Chinese names and words were generally spelled in English from the sounds understood by the English language official requesting the information for the first time.

00:45:44.850 - 00:45:53.610

My Chinese name in English phonetics is Gee Bok Chu. My generation name is Chu as was the second Chinese word in the names of my cousins. Albert Gee, the husband of Jane Gee was Gee Chu Boo Wallace Gee, the father of Robert Gee, was

00:45:53.610 - 00:46:00.090

Gee Chu Oong and Gordon Gee is Gee Chu Qui. I cannot vouch for their spellings as I have never seen their official documents.’ official requesting the information for the first time. My Chinese name in English phonetics is Gee Bok Chu.

00:46:00.270 - 00:46:13.250

My generation name is Chu as was the second Chinese word in the names of my cousins. Albert Gee, the husband of Jane Gee was Gee Chu Boo Wallace Gee, the father of Robert Gee, was Gee Chu Oong and Gordon Gee is Gee Chu Qui. I cannot vouch for their spellings as I have never seen their official documents.’

00:46:13.250 - 00:46:27.520

China that they use a poem that each generation with a certain letter a certain, Chiu was my generation, but I— he married so late in life that I was the last of that generation, I was the 100th Chiu. Bak is the word for one

00:46:27.820 - 00:46:42.930

hundred. And so he’s the one, he’s the last of the Mohicans. He’s the one hundredth, you know, I never realized the significance of them until I read James Michener’s Hawaii and so, um, you know being in America and being—and having grown up here much of the values are

00:46:45.180 - 00:46:56.780

what are coming from American society. But, uh, yeah, there certain cultural circumstances, you know, the Asians you know you don’t speak until you’re spoken to, you know, it’s less of a gregarious approach in life and so, because of that, we

00:46:56.780 - 00:47:10.260

find that, yeah, it is still is inculcated in a lot of things we do. So we were taught to you don’t extol your virtues. You do a good job and, you know, keep your nose down and work at it, and recognition will come.

00:47:10.260 - 00:47:17.440

And in real life it may, it may not come. So should we move on to his education? So could you describe your experience at Rice? Well it was, uh, it was a busy period, I—you know.

00:47:17.500 - 00:47:32.040

It was rather interesting in terms of, you know, I had the opportunity to get engaged with at that time they call it freshmen hazing, you know, and, uh, they, we were all divided into sections so we had a chance to get to know a number of other

00:47:32.060 - 00:47:45.170

classmates they would divide the people in the dormitories into various sections and those who—we lived off campus and so they got the people living off-campus together in various groups or sections as well.

00:47:45.250 - 00:48:00.290

And so, uh, to some extent that’s where we started building some of the relationships and I think that most of the relationships were probably be built by people who lived together in the same dorms and, you know, room together and so

00:48:00.950 - 00:48:12.830

I missed that opportunity. I didn't have that chance to, uh, become so engaged with, uh, classmates. So when I graduated from Rice, and

00:48:12.900 - 00:48:28.760

what I’ve seen from our kids, they’ve had much more participatory engagement in sports and other activities at Rice than I did. And because I went to work at the restaurant after, after school, and so, I did not have the

00:48:28.910 - 00:48:43.460

opportunity to interact quite as much in all of those particular areas of activity. But, uh, yeah, it was, um, it was a quick four years. I mean it was amazing how quickly the time flew past.

00:48:43.940 - 00:48:59.310

You said you worked full-time while you were…? I did. How did you balance between work and study? You know I—we learned to multi-task. I mean, you know, we—we never sat and watched television,

00:49:00.120 - 00:49:12.800

uh, by just sitting back on a couch. When we were watching television we were folding clothes, we’re doing some other task or responsibility that we had to get addressed. I mean, doing our homework at that time or doing

00:49:13.070 - 00:49:30.290

something else, but we were always multi-tasking in, in, in various activities and so, uh, I didn’t make that realization either until, yeah, we went up to school in Austin. When I went to school up in Austin, then I did not

00:49:30.320 - 00:49:41.750

have to work, I just went straight to law school. But I went straight through. I, I didn’t take a break so I finished law school in 29 months.

00:49:43.210 - 00:49:57.610

Normally, it’s a three-and-a-half-year curriculum and in order to do but we did it an year less than-, more than a year less than that but that’s because we went to school during the summer and it was, it was a tougher, tougher grind.

00:49:58.690 - 00:50:14.470

When did you decide to go into law? Well you know I was—slated to be—I studied engineering at Rice, I started out studying engineering at Rice it turns out I had a had a great difficulty, time with

00:50:14.560 - 00:50:31.100

calculus and could not comprehend some of those theoretical concepts and, uh, if you’re gonna be an engineer you better understand the math and be able to understand that particular part of it and so, uh, like they were saying the when we went in we’re told that, ‘You

00:50:31.100 - 00:50:43.980

look right, you look left, and next year one of you won’t be there.’ And, uh, that was quite a revelation because when Rice was tuition free—when we went there it was tuition free; that was one of the means they controlled

00:50:43.980 - 00:50:57.420

their budget they had a small class for a small group. And uh they flunked out approximately one-third of their freshmen class. And so, uh, that diminished the number of people who would ultimately graduate, and they were able to sustain themselves.

00:50:57.920 - 00:51:13.600

But after the second year, uh, I made the reali—I wasn’t having great fun. I was studying with this friend of ours and, uh, when we studied it appeared I thought I knew it as well as he did. I, you know, we discussed these matters and, and of course, in discussion, but

00:51:14.320 - 00:51:28.980

after we took the exam albeit the numbers would look the same they’re were in reverse; he’d make a 97 and I’d make a 79 and so I began to realize he was heck a lot of smarter than I was and so he later became the dean of the chemical engineering

00:51:29.460 - 00:51:42.550

department at Rice and he got his Ph. D. and what not but I, um, I’d always sort of followed my father’s career and we got involved with community and with that community involvement

00:51:43.330 - 00:51:55.660

had a concern to making sure that, uh, the people in the community would be well treated and get a fair break in whatever they may be doing and I felt that the legal career would give me the opportunity to go ahead and do that.

00:51:55.790 - 00:52:09.440

And now that we specialize in immigration law, it gives us a great satisfaction of being able to help people solve problems and deal with governmental bureaucracies or intransigents that will enable them to

00:52:09.910 - 00:52:24.210

get problems solved and give them benefits that mind otherwise would not get so, uh, yeah. And it’s been nice because we’ve had the opportunity to travel; we’ve always enjoyed traveling and so, uh, what of the things

00:52:24.210 - 00:52:41.100

is that yeah the nature of our work takes us around the world to Cairo, Egypt, or to Tokyo, Japan, or Edinburgh, England or Bonn, Germany you know uh Shenzhen, China or you know Beijing so it is

00:52:41.900 - 00:52:57.850

interesting and to New Orleans, to, uh, little Victoria, Texas to something of that nature so, yeah, we get to help people from all over. Do you remember the application process to law school?

00:52:58.750 - 00:53:10.780

The application process. Let's see. I think that we had to sit for LSAT, LSAT examination. And, uh, yeah, because... I remember when we went to Rice, it was when they first initiated SATs.

00:53:10.800 - 00:53:22.810

I mean, before that time it was your, your school record, and you know, your school record, but then they said that well, some schools may not be equal of other schools, and so they made us take SAT scores, and,

00:53:23.490 - 00:53:34.570

uh, but um, yeah. Uh, uh we had to pass a—an LSAT examination, and uh, fortunately was accepted, by the University of Texas.

00:53:37.420 - 00:53:53.110

Um, if I could backtrack a little bit, you mentioned earlier, um, the Civil Rights Movement. Right. I was just wondering, um, maybe what effect that had while you were in middle school or high school, on your... You know, it, it, it—it's rather interesting, in

00:53:53.600 - 00:54:06.370

terms of it, uh... We were so busy involved in school that we didn't, were not engaged in much of the Civil Rights. And it really, it began, I think, to the largest extent

00:54:06.500 - 00:54:18.290

probably in the sixties, uh, late fifties and sixties, so I was really in college at the time that, uh, much of the movement, uh, really, uh, raised its uh, profile and-in terms of it.

00:54:18.640 - 00:54:27.320

I didn't realize it, you know... My father could not buy a home in certain locations. Some, we had friends of ours that wanted to buy a home out in Memorial

00:54:27.370 - 00:54:41.240

here, and they couldn't. They wouldn't sell to, to Chinese, in terms of it. And, albeit, um... we... There would be

00:54:41.240 - 00:54:54.210

a... There were some segments of the community that would differentiate. Hey, you're not the same color as we are, you're not the same skin as we are, in terms of it. But I, I think that because we had a strong family

00:54:55.260 - 00:55:11.850

unit, and we had a life and an engagement of its own, we didn't need it. And so, the fact that we're not members of the country club or that we're not, uh, able to do this or that, was not important because we had our own activities that we were happy with, those

00:55:11.930 - 00:55:22.520

particular... So, you know, I think that not having the opportunity to do some of these particular situations obviously would deprive us, I mean, yeah.

00:55:22.520 - 00:55:37.670

I mean, I think it's pretty a—you know, now that I've been able to get involved in the practice of law and we, we know of situations where people are given jobs because of who they know.

00:55:38.810 - 00:55:49.380

Well, it's always better to know the people who are going to make those decisions, than it is to have friends that are down, that can't make those decisions. And so I think that, you know, discrimination or those factors,

00:55:50.780 - 00:56:03.830

they—unfortunately, as long as there are human beings I'm fearful that there's always going to be this differentiating factor: Hey, they're not the same as we, and we will do things differently in terms of it, and that they will seek to give

00:56:03.900 - 00:56:15.660

advantages to people of like mind. I think when they say ‘birds of a feather flock together’ there's some validity to that. I mean, people have that tendency, in terms of, you know, so the question becomes, how can you build

00:56:15.770 - 00:56:28.330

the relationship that's going to be over-compassing the fact that you have different color skin, or that you're a different race, or you, you know you have these differences in terms of it, and sometimes it's activities that you

00:56:28.330 - 00:56:45.210

work together, it's passions that you become engaged with. I didn't realize it, when I went to school at Rice, that Rice had not accepted any blacks, uh, I'm not aware that there were any Hispanics there.

00:56:46.260 - 00:57:01.900

And you know, so, why did they permit Chinese to go there? I mean, they, Rice accepted some Chinese back in the 1930s, so, one of a... So, uh, in, in, we—we find

00:57:01.900 - 00:57:20.580

out in South Africa, Japanese are considered white, but Chinese are considered black. And, you know, uh, when—well, part of it was that Japan was a powerful country, and because it was a powerful

00:57:20.600 - 00:57:34.740

country, the South Africans apparently had to respect them as a military force or otherwise, and at that time, China was very weak, and was not very, you know, respected in that regard, so, I don't know, it...

00:57:37.350 - 00:57:51.320

it did have some impact because, yes, there were certain activities in which there was a differentiation between ‘them’ and ‘us,’ as such. Uh, but, um, you

00:57:51.320 - 00:58:07.990

know, because we had our own activities, uh, it, uh, it didn't particularly bother us to that extent. I mean, we still had a chance to, to prosper, and to—to go ahead and, and be engaged in terms of it.

00:58:08.160 - 00:58:22.340

But, uh, so the Civil Rights Movement, it was in the sixties, it, uh, it really became much more engaged in the broader community and I remember one of our friends had come over from Taiwan, and while she was

00:58:22.870 - 00:58:38.910

visiting a—a friend graciously took her out and was taking her to Foley’s downtown, which was a major department store. She got thirsty and she goes to the fountain and the fountain says White and Colored. Being Chinese and colored, she went to the

00:58:38.960 - 00:58:57.730

‘colored’ fountain. Then her friend pulls her off to the side and says, you know, uh, ‘Eugenie, you shouldn't go to the colored fountain, you know, that's for another group of people, that's for the black people.’ You know, and she realized that she had pulled a faux pas, and so she says,

00:58:57.950 - 00:59:16.230

‘Oh, I wanted to see what color the water was!’ And so... but uh... yeah it was insidious, it was here, it was not, but it was not quite as blatant as, you

00:59:16.250 - 00:59:32.010

know, people as the KKK would be doing, they did not have those activities on a full-time basis. And part of it I think is because Houston was a port city, uh, the people here had been in the cotton business and the rice

00:59:32.100 - 00:59:46.670

business, and they dealt with people around the world. Uh, the other thing is that it was energy, and energy, the oil business was international in terms of it, and so those industries brought interaction between the Houstonians

00:59:47.500 - 01:00:00.260

and other people, and so they were much more receptive, I think, in terms of it. But, uh... yeah. Uh, to a large extent, we were spared because we were able to go to public schools.

01:00:01.250 - 01:00:14.870

Now, the Chinese in Mississippi could not go to public schools. In Mississippi, they were relegated to the black schools, and so they would—they were impacted, because ultimately, because their kids couldn't get what they

01:00:14.930 - 01:00:27.260

thought was the right education, they started sitting the kids out. And it became Mississippi's loss, because they would lose some of their best and brightest young people. So, you know, it uh, but Mississippi apparently wants

01:00:27.280 - 01:00:40.150

it that way. I mean, they want that certain society, that certain circumstance. So uh, but yeah in Houston we were able to go to public schools. And so, we were able to go to public schools we had the chance to

01:00:41.030 - 01:00:54.760

get full access. So, uh, when you went to law school at University of Texas… Yeah. Right. That was the first time you left Houston. Right. So how did you decide to go to UT?

01:00:55.360 - 01:01:09.920

Well, it—I—it was the best law school that I knew about, that I could afford, in terms of it. Because being a Texas resident, I mean the tuition was—you know, when I stop to think about what I paid for my education

01:01:09.920 - 01:01:23.300

and what I, what we paid for our children’s education I mean, it's... there's no comparison. I mean, at Rice, it was tuition-free, at University of Texas I think we paid fifty dollars a semester. So, every semester there

01:01:23.320 - 01:01:39.970

we went to school… you know, we paid fifty dollars. And so, uh, uh when our children went to Rice... and you got a fifty-thousand-dollar bill, and then you know, they go to law school, one goes to uh,

01:01:40.980 - 01:01:59.100

University of Virginia, and the other goes to Stanford, I mean you know, the tuitions that we paid there were significantly higher than, I mean. One year at any of those institutions covered our entire, uh, educational process many times over.

01:01:59.790 - 01:02:11.830

But uh... It was part of—we did not have the understanding of what the implications of educational institutions might have upon career opportunities.

01:02:11.850 - 01:02:28.960

We were just looking for a, a fairly-well, in my mind, yeah, I didn't know the workforce and the opportunities that were involved and I didn't do a very good research job of finding out about those situations and so, uh, yeah.

01:02:28.990 - 01:02:42.610

I went to work with the Attorney General's office, when I was trying to get back to Houston, none of the firms in Houston had hired any minorities. They had not hired any blacks, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, or women!

01:02:43.210 - 01:02:55.660

So they-it was a white, Anglo-Saxon male population only. So I guess, you know, uh the Civil Rights situation, if anything, had an impact on my ability to

01:02:55.660 - 01:03:07.470

go ahead and, and you know, rejoin the workforce here in Houston. Now, you know, I, when I graduated from law school I worked with the Attorney General's office, and uh, got a position there, but—and, I think I

01:03:07.490 - 01:03:19.330

probably knew certain areas of the law better than uh, the other attorneys, but I did not—the big law firms were not yet hiring of any of the minorities. And so, that opportunity was not accorded.

01:03:19.380 - 01:03:31.220

So we carved our own niche, created an area that we could specialize in. And that's immigration law? That's right. So did you pay for law school with money that you had saved

01:03:31.370 - 01:03:43.480

previously? Yes. I mean, it was our, you know, our own savings and support from our parents. You know, so... Um, were there any other Asian students who graduated in your class at UT?

01:03:46.480 - 01:04:02.700

Not in law school. I can't remember, uh, there were not very many Asian lawyers. I think that there was one that went to San Antonio, uh, the two other Chinese lawyers in Houston had gone to South Texas, so uh,

01:04:03.700 - 01:04:18.320

you know, uh... I may not have been the first Asian but I was amongst the first dozen of Asians that probably graduated from UT law school. So, and it was interesting, when I went to the, work with the Attorney General's

01:04:18.340 - 01:04:29.940

Office I'd go to east Texas and the, you know, into the courthouse and—’What are you doing here? Are you in the right place?’ You know, ‘Oh! You're an attorney? Oh, you're an attorney representing the state of Texas!’

01:04:30.360 - 01:04:45.980

You know, so it was really a revelation, in terms of it, because they never saw Asian professionals before. And then, find out that Asian professionals are representing the state of Texas. You know, that was a revelation to

01:04:46.000 - 01:04:59.680

them as well. And, uh, were your parents supportive of you going into law? Oh... I remember my dad, when my father said, ‘You graduated from Rice, and now you're going to go back to law school?

01:04:59.680 - 01:05:18.090

When are you going to start working?’ So, you know, I think that they realized that, uh, you know, professionally that, uh, it would be, it's going to take some time, in terms of doing it. But, uh yeah, I think that, uh, they were concerned that uh,

01:05:18.730 - 01:05:32.600

there would be a career opportunity. And I had not realized that you know, what, what that part of it was about. But part of it is because our exposure to the law— we didn't know about the big law firms or the big, uh, situations and so, uh,

01:05:33.340 - 01:05:49.530

yeah, had not done our homework as to how to entree some of those particular situations. Do you think they expected you to carry out the family business at all? Uh, you know, I don't think that—no, I don't think that that was a, a—an

01:05:49.530 - 01:05:57.900

expectation, because I think that they reali—the restaurant business... has its ups and downs. Restaurants don't generally stay a long period of

01:05:57.900 - 01:06:10.940

time. They have a life span, and they're over, I mean, you know, uh, the ones that have a long life span have to remodel and redo things periodically to make things different. I mean, it's, it's an interesting

01:06:10.960 - 01:06:24.600

circumstance. People have a tendency to, number one, try new things. Of course they want to try something, what's the latest, in terms of it, and uh... If they get a bad experience, they remember the bad experience more

01:06:24.670 - 01:06:36.970

frequently than the good experiences. And so, you know, the expectations are we're going to have a good experience, and tho—therefore, uh, you know, so I think that, uh, it, it's a complete different circumstance now

01:06:37.260 - 01:06:56.380

from what it was then. I think that people have learned and, and made certain transitions. Um, could you talk a little bit about how you came across the job opportunity at the Gen—Attorney General's office? Uh, we had a cousin, who was engaged, involved in

01:06:56.440 - 01:07:13.360

politics, I didn't realize it at the time, uh, he had, uh... We had a This was an invitation to go to meet President Kennedy, when

01:07:13.360 - 01:07:27.820

President Kennedy was traveling in Texas. It turns out that, uh, this cousin of ours became involved with politics locally, who then in-apparently introduced him to people on the statewide basis, and one of them was

01:07:27.900 - 01:07:39.510

Waggoner Carr, was the Attorney General. He was running for Attorney General, in terms of it. And so, you know, our organization, the Chinese American Citizens Alliance, supported him, and when he won the election

01:07:39.660 - 01:07:56.210

and went into office, he graciously offered a job to me, if I passed the bar exam. So when I got through, in, in Janu-we, we finished up in January, we sat for the ex—the bar exam, so, bar results are coming out in May.

01:07:57.600 - 01:08:11.780

And these friends of mine called up from Houston and said, ‘Harry! The bar results are out! And your name is not amongst the list of people who passed.’ The Houston Chronicle used to run a, an article, and they would list all

01:08:11.780 - 01:08:24.480

of the people who passed the bar exam. And he says, ‘Your name is not listed,’ and I'm thinking, ‘Oh my God, after all this involvement, and, uh, you know, if I, I've got this job, if I... So I went down to the clerk's office

01:08:24.630 - 01:08:39.950

with great trepidation, checked in and said, ‘My name's Harry Gee, I need to see what my score was.’ And they said, ‘Oh, Mr. Gee, you made an 83,’ which is passing the exam well. And then I found out, you know, why

01:08:39.950 - 01:08:52.840

was my name not listed in the group here in Houston? Well at that time, I was in Austin, going to school and living there, and since I was going to work there, I stayed there after school. And so I gave an Austin address.

01:08:52.840 - 01:09:06.610

So when-they didn't-they only sent the people's names that had gave a Houston address, and since I didn't give a Houston address, it didn't get listed in that group. But fortunately, come May, after I graduated from

01:09:06.740 - 01:09:21.330

school, I was able to start working with the Attorney General's office in 1963. So, it was a very interesting, uh, number of years. I mean, of course, one of the things that happened was, while we were there, is that, uh, President Kennedy got assassinated.

01:09:22.760 - 01:09:38.760

We were supposed to go to this reception that evening, uh, my cousin had paid a hundred dollars for this ticket , and he couldn't get to Austin so he sent it to me, and I was supposed to go, and I didn't realize that, uh... ‘President Kennedy and Vice

01:09:38.800 - 01:09:55.830

President Lyndon Johnson, Texas Welcome Dinner.’ I never got my Texas Welcome Dinner. Could you describe, um, your duties at the job? Um, it started out with the, uh, taxation division,

01:09:56.670 - 01:10:08.710

uh, we represented the State Comptroller of Public Accounts and we collected franchise taxes for them. And uh, I think we did a great job for them. It turns out that they were collecting maybe a couple hundred

01:10:08.710 - 01:10:25.240

thousand dollars in delinquent taxes and when I undertook the representation we got the collections over a million dollars, and one of the things that the people were really elated about was the Attorney General got a portion of that money back to run his office, and so the more we—we collected, you know,

01:10:25.370 - 01:10:41.960

the, the better it was for the, for the Attorney General's office, they got a, a bigger budget. It turns out that, uh, when they had the, uh, National Association of Attorney Generals they graciously invited me to go participate in that particular function, and so, you know, it was a bunch of wining and dining of

01:10:41.960 - 01:10:54.620

the various Attorney Generals from across the country. But um, uh, we, I also ended up working, representing the bonds insurance banking division, we represented the Savings and Loan Commissioner, and the Insurance

01:10:54.640 - 01:11:06.760

Commissioners, and then we also went and worked with the highway and the condemnation areas. And so, uh, it was a broad exposure of various activities in, in terms of it.

01:11:06.800 - 01:11:21.380

And we did litigation, and were in court there, representing the commissioners on various matters and got some pretty good results, uh, surprising to our clients, I mean to our boss, I mean we, we came

01:11:21.580 - 01:11:35.810

back with, uh, success in a lawsuit that, that they had been, the Savings and Loan Commissioner had lost literally six cases before on the same issue, and, but we came up with a new idea, and the judge ruled in our

01:11:35.880 - 01:11:50.520

favor. So, uh, it was rather interesting. But, uh, it was a good time for a young attorney to gain some knowledge and experience, and that really helped me in my future career. How many other attorneys worked in that office?

01:11:51.680 - 01:12:07.080

Oh, I would imagine at that time that we were there…I think they got pictures. I have to find the pictures, but, uh, I, I’d say probably about a hundred, a hundred attorneys, uh, in all the divisions, uh, you know

01:12:07.140 - 01:12:22.700

there were probably about six divisions, and all of them have about sixteen, twenty attorneys in each division. Do you recall how much you made? Did I recall how much I made…Uh, I think it was probably about all of six

01:12:22.700 - 01:12:37.210

thousand dollars. I think, six or eight thousand dollars I think was the amount that we earned when we, uh, when we first started. Were most of the other attorneys, uh, young, fresh out of law school like you?

01:12:37.270 - 01:12:55.530

Well, uh, they have your senior attorneys, that have lots of experience, uh, those who essentially were uh, 20, 30, 40 years’ experience in terms of it, uh, then they would have some middle, uh, people moving from

01:12:55.530 - 01:13:10.260

other careers into that, and then beginning attorneys, and I was at that, the bottom of the ladder: the beginning attorneys. So… So, you talked about, um, how in Houston, uh, mostly all of the

01:13:10.280 - 01:13:25.790

lawyers were white, Anglo-Saxon- Right. Did you ever feel discriminated against during your time in Austin? No you know, it’s always interesting, uh, when you’re representing the state, you know, uh,

01:13:26.840 - 01:13:44.330

the…uh, I … I don’t know that there was any opportunity for the people to essentially discriminate. I mean, I think it would have been…. I mean, race did not come into play in arguing whether the

01:13:44.330 - 01:13:59.340

Savings and Loan Commissioner exceeded his authority or not. It all became legal. It became legal issues and legal problems, in terms of it. Uh, where it did come into play is

01:14:00.500 - 01:14:14.600

when I went to east Texas and I had to represent, you know, the state of Texas, and you’d go into locations in which they had never interacted with minority or Chinese or Asians or, uh, you know.

01:14:15.030 - 01:14:30.500

And, you, you know—’What are you doing here?’ I mean, you know…it was, it wasn’t the collegiality that might be accorded to somebody that was more like them in terms of it.

01:14:30.730 - 01:14:45.470

And so you know I think that uh, because they had never encountered that, they didn’t know how to address or, or to, to you know, to solve that. Um, why did you leave the Attorney General’s office?

01:14:46.680 - 01:15:02.370

Well, uh, I was living and working in Austin. I really wanted to get back to Houston, because family was here, and, uh, so, uh, it was essentially when I wanted to come back to Houston, I then contacted the various

01:15:02.370 - 01:15:17.210

law firms here in town, and found that you know, that was not the way that they recruited for lawyers, in terms of it. And, to my surprise, you know, although I had written to about 30 law firms, I didn’t hear back from any of

01:15:17.330 - 01:15:34.770

them. And so, uh we…I hung up my shingle. I, you know, started, rented an office space, turns out that I rented space with an existing law firm, and one of the lawyers that was in the next office to me, now is the federal

01:15:34.770 - 01:15:49.270

judge David Hittner. So, we had the experience to get to know him during the course of that particular time period. But, uh, yeah, it’s a matter of getting the private practice started. And later, uh, another attorney from

01:15:49.270 - 01:16:04.240

the Attorney General’s office came back to Houston and we joined forces and office together, uh, and so, we officed together with other people, with our own practices, and built the practice from there. Did you have any mentors who helped you as you were starting your own

01:16:04.270 - 01:16:20.920

practice? You know, uh, I didn’t know what lawyers did other than watching TV and, uh, my father had a lawyer that had represented him in some actions and activities, and albeit they were gracious family friends, you know,

01:16:20.940 - 01:16:35.700

I never got the understanding of what lawyers really did. Uh, I guess that, yeah, the mentors were the people that were my bosses at the Attorney General’s office, and uh, some of them, uh, some of the senior lawyers

01:16:35.720 - 01:16:52.000

there, we would have a chance to visit with them and talk with them about various questions and problems that we had in terms of how to handle it, and so I would guess that yeah… But, I’ve always thought that

01:16:52.930 - 01:17:06.770

we’re smart enough to figure out these particular matters, and have not always found it necessary to get mentors. Now, getting mentors makes things—you shortcut things, you can get to things much faster, because you’ve got the

01:17:06.790 - 01:17:21.040

opportunity to gain the other—utilize the other person’s experience and competencies and knowledges in that regard. And so, but uh… Yeah. Uh I had never sought to do that extensively.

01:17:23.670 - 01:17:36.230

Uh, we’ve opened the law books and worked our way through each of those particular matters, and so, to a large extent yeah, we’ve had to fight our own way through. So, could you describe the growth of your firm?

01:17:37.140 - 01:17:56.170

Well, uh…Part of it is, is you’ve got to generate a certain amount of income, and I think that, uh, uh the, uh, we’ve been very fortunate, and we’ve used the concept of representing our clients well, to let them in turn

01:17:56.260 - 01:18:10.630

extol our virtues, and so by doing that, whenever we get a referral from a previous client that it’s been very, very solid, that we’re likely to get that person as a new client. Uh, I mean, we got a call from Florida recently,

01:18:11.950 - 01:18:27.090

where we had helped somebody, uh, become a U.S. citizen very expeditiously so that he could compete in the Mr. America contest, we got him his citizenship, he competed, and he won the Mr. America contest.

01:18:27.630 - 01:18:43.660

And these people, 20 years later, remember our name because he was telling them how great we were, and then they called us and hired us to do some other work for them. And so, uh, the, we

01:18:43.660 - 01:18:57.370

did, we were fortunate of being at some, somewhat of the right place at the right time, the law changed in 1965 we became more engaged in immigration law in about ‘66, ‘67 and so with the change of law there was

01:18:57.390 - 01:19:14.980

opportunities that were not there previously. And so…We also had an approach of, I felt that we needed to know more than the opposition, and we had, we had to be smarter than they. And so, uh, we, many of the people

01:19:15.170 - 01:19:32.320

in the legal areas would be reliant upon the immigration officials in, you know, dispensing what they thought to be justice and fairness, and, uh, we, we couldn’t get them to be very cooperative or considerate of our viewpoint until we

01:19:32.370 - 01:19:42.320

beat them in court. And when we beat them in court, then we began to get a little bit more respect. And it turns out, that the officials began to say, ‘Well, Mr.

01:19:42.350 - 01:19:55.100

Gee, what do you think about this?’ and, you know, so they would at least begin to communicate with us and discuss matters, and I think that they had a higher degree of respect. Now, part of it is that, uh, some of the people that were working at the immigration service, I think

01:19:55.130 - 01:20:09.360

that, uh, we treated them with some degree of respect ourselves, and it later turned out that when they retired from the immigration service they came to work for us. So, they joined the other side as it were, in terms of it, and I

01:20:09.440 - 01:20:23.850

think they appreciated it when we became friends with, with them and sadly, that friend passed away, but his wife is still alive and we’ve, you know, continued a relationship with them. And so, we’ve always tried to respect the people on the other

01:20:23.850 - 01:20:36.770

side. Now, the court case that we won in court, the attorney that represented the government, when he left the government, he came and worked with us. I mean, we joined forces together, he officed with us, and so we, you

01:20:36.770 - 01:20:52.510

know, we embarked, uh, on some opportunities together. So, uh, I think it served us well to not only well, uh, to understand that legal matters that even though your opposite sides and you’re fighting, you can do it with a

01:20:52.510 - 01:21:05.480

degree of mutual respect and, in terms of it, and so we’ve always used that particular philosophical bent and it’s stood us well. We’ve developed good relations with the people who’ve been on the other side as well.

01:21:06.290 - 01:21:15.790

But, uh, the key is that to represent your client you need to out…. Sometimes you have to outwork the opposition. You have to prepare,

01:21:15.790 - 01:21:27.040

you have to understand, you’ve got to…you’ve got to figure out options and opportunities and you know, making sure that, yes, you will have the fullest number of opportunities to succeed. But, the more options that

01:21:27.040 - 01:21:39.260

you can put on the table, the more likely you’re going to find a resolution that everybody can live with. And, you know, if you don’t, if you only hemmed in and you only have one way to go, then you sometimes have to

01:21:39.260 - 01:21:53.540

duke it out because that’s the only one way to get it. But if you can find multiple options, uh, and we’ve done that on some litigation that we’ve had with the government, and we’ve gotten results that worked out to the point that the government was happy, our client was happy, the AN was

01:21:53.560 - 01:22:04.090

happy, I mean, everybody walked away very happy in terms of, of going ahead and doing it. And so being able to strategize and figure out, you know, each of those situations is very key and crucial.

01:22:05.990 - 01:22:24.800

Could you describe your area of expertise? Well…I think that, you know, it’s the immigration law as such. And I think that uh, the analysis of the issues and the determination of options and courses of

01:22:24.800 - 01:22:38.870

action that can ultimately resolve the particular problem. And sometimes it’s a matter of fighting with the agency, it’s taking appeal to the higher level, or it’s a matter of going to court and winning in a court proceeding.

01:22:40.280 - 01:22:55.310

Um, all of those are resolutions that we have been able to effectuate. You know, just as an example, we have a case where a young man, he’s lived with a woman, he’s from Mexico, woman’s a U.S.

01:22:55.310 - 01:23:08.270

citizen, and then, after about five or six years, they’re breaking up, and he wants to get his green card, his permanent residency and status. But the wife, in the course of the proceedings, gives to

01:23:08.290 - 01:23:22.190

the immigration service a handwritten statement, and the handwritten statement says ‘The only reason I married you was to get my green card.’ And, because the government doesn’t, they don’t look good…they’re not happy

01:23:22.600 - 01:23:31.510

with people who are trying to, quote, ‘cheat the government’ in terms of it. And so I asked him, did he write it? Yes, he wrote it. Well, did you mean it? No, didn’t mean it.

01:23:31.510 - 01:23:44.780

Well then, why the heck did you write it, if you didn’t mean it? But the government has it, and in their mind, they’re not going to give him his green card. And, you know, I undertake the representation, and I was telling this friend

01:23:44.800 - 01:23:55.500

you know, I think I’m going to represent this person. He says, ‘Forget it, Harry. You’re not going to win this case, there’s no way you’re going to win that thing.’ But, you know, when I asked him why he wrote it, he told

01:23:56.500 - 01:24:11.110

me, and…I believed him. And so…basically his story was that during the course of the marriage, there was a child born. Well, that’s a very happy occasion. His mother comes up from Mexico and they’re cradling the baby and they

01:24:11.110 - 01:24:25.470

say, ‘Son. Uh…that’s not your baby.’ His friends from Mexico come up and say, ‘Hey, José, that’s not your child.’ Now he’s embarrassed, because he’s been cuckolded.

01:24:26.760 - 01:24:47.580

And if, you know, for a Mexican male Hispanic machismo is a cultural value that’s most important to them, is self-being. And so, uh when I heard the story, I said, ‘Well, you’re going to have to do a DNA testing, and if you

01:24:47.580 - 01:25:05.030

do a DNA testing and we prove that it is your child I hope that the family will love it, but if we prove that it’s not your child, then I have a reason to give to the government why you wrote this particular statement.’ And when we did the DNA testing it came back 99.999% that it was not his child.

01:25:05.950 - 01:25:14.430

And so, I went to the immigration official and said, ‘Hey, here’s why he did it. Take a look at the totality of the evidence, don’t just focus upon that one written statement.

01:25:15.270 - 01:25:33.120

They’ve had a life together for six years, uh, you know, all of the other things that we’ve evidenced here.’ And I told him he needed to get somebody who understood machismo. And I said, ‘you need a Hispanic male officer.’ And that’s how you…we go into the

01:25:33.120 - 01:25:45.140

interview room; he got fifty percent—he got a Hispanic female officer. So I presented the particular position for her, and when I got through she said, ‘Mr. Gee, I agree with you.

01:25:45.840 - 01:26:01.910

I’m going to approve this case.’ And so he was just elated, flying out of the room. Well, it turns out that typical immigration service three weeks later, a month later, nothing. Didn’t hear anything. Went knocking on the door, ‘Where’s Officer Rodriguez?’ She’s been

01:26:01.910 - 01:26:13.370

transferred. They’ve got a new officer, and the new officer says, ‘Mr. Gee, I cannot approve this case. This is just, you know, I’ve got the statement that he’s trying to cheat the government and not—that’s what I’m going to

01:26:13.410 - 01:26:27.870

believe.’ And so…I said, well, if you know, if you look at the totality…but if you do that, we’re ready to appeal it because we’ve got the evidence in the file that we can persuade a judge to rule—overrule you in terms of going

01:26:27.870 - 01:26:39.710

ahead and doing it. Well it turns out that the Immigration Service has a requirement that when somebody denies a case they’ve got to get their supervisor to okay it. And the supervisor had dealt with us and we had beaten them a number of

01:26:39.730 - 01:26:51.680

different times on other proceedings, and so they told her to rethink her decision. And when she re-thought her decision, she approved it. So you know, he ended up getting his status in spite of it.

01:26:52.230 - 01:27:03.740

We got the problem solved on an administrative level. We got it solved on the lowest level, and that saved our client just a heck of a lot of legal cost and expense of going through court proceedings and other things, but—

01:27:04.510 - 01:27:16.490

figuring out the strategy as to how to be able to solve the particular problem, you know…every case is different, as to what the issue and the problems may be, and at which point the resolution may be needed.

01:27:19.510 - 01:27:35.610

Um, what ethnicities do you most commonly represent in your work? Interestingly enough, our largest clientele is British. Uh, yeah, it’s people who are involved in the oil patch, in the oil industry. Now, um, you know, uh we’ve got a certain amount of clientele from

01:27:35.610 - 01:27:49.270

Mexico, because they’ve got deportation and other problems and issues, but, uh, professional people most of them are British. Now, the Chinese are coming up, we’re getting more Chinese clients, but not uh near as many as the Brits.

01:27:50.380 - 01:28:12.260

Have you noticed any changes in the, uh, composition of your clientele over time? Um, well…yeah. Uh…Previously we used to represent Gulf Oil, and a number of the engineering companies. And when we represented them, many of our clientele were

01:28:12.600 - 01:28:22.780

highly educated. They were engineers with Master’s and Ph. D. degrees and whatever. Uh, now we’ve begun to get more clientele in the offshore,

01:28:23.970 - 01:28:39.020

uh, drilling industry. The offshore drilling industry, the work is done out at sea, it’s done, a different approach, uh, the people that do that particular work may not be as highly educated.

01:28:39.230 - 01:28:50.800

So, you know, in that context, we would be seeing that, uh, you know, there is a difference in the educational background of some of the people that, uh, that we’ve been undertaking the representation.

01:28:52.530 - 01:29:07.520

So, yeah, uh, professionals, but, you know, we have a number of companies that we still handle their upper-echelon personnel and people, they’re highly experienced, they’ve been working in the industry twenty, thirty years, forty years, in terms of it.

01:29:07.540 - 01:29:24.930

And so, uh, but because of the nature of our clientele, we’ve seen an evolution in that regard. Um, how many people, how many employees do you have? We’ve got nine attorneys, and I think our staff is probably just under 30.

01:29:27.880 - 01:29:42.990

Has that grown over time? Oh, yeah. I mean, I was it at the very beginning, you know, uh, eventually I hired a secretary to come in and work after she had done her work, she’d come in the evening and work a couple

01:29:42.990 - 01:29:56.290

hours from, uh, she’d get off at 4:30 or something, come work ‘til 6:30 with us. You know, uh…we’d bring her in twice a week and, you know, then, uh, as we generated more work, we began to

01:29:56.680 - 01:30:07.510

expand the personnel and resources that were supportive of us. But uh, yeah. It’s, uh, it’s changed. As a—as an employer, what sort of qualities do you look for?

01:30:08.390 - 01:30:22.410

Well, hopefully the people have a, an interest and a passion. You know, uh, if, when they’re coming to work, uh, they don’t find it interesting, uh, they don’t find it passionate, uh, sometimes it becomes a drudgery.

01:30:22.870 - 01:30:37.480

And so, if it’s a drudgery, they’re not likely to do a good job, in terms of it. And so, uh, fortunately, we’ve been able to find some, some good people, and uh, we’ve had some—at one time, we found that on the legal assistants’ side of it we’re getting a lot of people with

01:30:37.530 - 01:30:54.380

Master’s degrees in library sciences. They were very meticulous. And so, this was—you needed people that were handling details well, and so uh those were…uh, on the attorney side, people who have enough smarts to be able to

01:30:54.640 - 01:31:10.430

figure out different alternative answers and problems, and, uh, are concerned, they’re concerned about their clients. You know, uh, without that concern, uh, what we find out is that sometimes the situations…they just don’t have the energy

01:31:10.430 - 01:31:23.290

and the engagement to be involved comprehensively. Do you think that, um, growing up, uh, as a member of an established family in Houston affected your

01:31:23.310 - 01:31:36.400

decision to strike out on your own? Well…I think, you know, part of having struck out on my own is because I couldn’t get a position with a, a major firm.

01:31:36.640 - 01:31:50.930

If I’d been with a major firm, you know, the likelihood is that I probably would have continued on in that particular circumstance, but, uh, that’s what life dealt us. I mean, you know, uh, there was not that opportunity. And so since there was not that opportunity,

01:31:56.000 - 01:32:08.650

um…You know, part of it is that I think that many of the Asians do have an entrepreneurial spirit. And the idea is that, hey, you know, we can earn more working for ourselves than working for somebody else.

01:32:10.830 - 01:32:21.080

And that might very well have prevailed, and of course my father having been an entrepreneur and businessperson all during his life, I mean, yeah, we’re relatively accustomed to some of those particular aspects of it.

01:32:21.820 - 01:32:37.450

So, yeah, I would think that, you know, there is a likelihood that we might have done it even if we had started out—you know, we started out with government. If I had wanted to stay with government indefinitely—but I could see that there were certain levels that you’re going to get to, and

01:32:38.090 - 01:32:56.060

that’s it. How did you balance uh between work and family? You know, I don’t know that I did a very good job of it. My wife is the one who really helped, she was always insistent that we take our vacation, and we take our vacation as a

01:32:56.170 - 01:33:12.230

family. And so, you know, that time with the family was absolutely precious to her and to us, and so uh, you know, I think that typically I had always sought to do the activities around certain legal

01:33:12.820 - 01:33:22.570

conventions or conferences, or seminars, and she adapted to that particular situation. You know, we did have interesting locations. We had conferences in Bermuda;

01:33:22.900 - 01:33:38.240

Toronto, Canada; I mean, Vancouver. So you know, but, uh yeah…I mean, she would dovetail that into our family activities and whatnot—I think she deserves the credit for really taking great care of our kids, and

01:33:38.350 - 01:33:50.790

making sure that the family—she made sure that we had dinner together. I mean, that was something that, we all get busy, but we came down to dinner, she’d have dinner prepared, and we’d all sit down to dinner together. So

01:33:50.790 - 01:34:05.100

I think that built, built some of the camaraderie and…amongst us so that, uh, yeah. I think our kids interact with each other well, are very supportive of each other, and you know, we see other

01:34:05.160 - 01:34:14.800

families that are somewhat dysfunctional, and that…siblings don’t get along, and you know, we’re pleased to see that our siblings get along real well. Did, did Mrs.

01:34:14.870 - 01:34:29.520

Gee work as well? Yeah, she worked at our office, uh, part time. Prior to that, when we first were married, she had her own job, in terms of it. But eventually, she left those jobs and came and worked in the office as the

01:34:30.200 - 01:34:43.490

opportunity arose. But, uh, yeah. We…nepotism is not a problem in our office! What year did you get married? 1970…1970.

01:34:49.250 - 01:35:04.580

It’s flown past. How did you influence—did you influence your kids to go into law? You know, I don’t know that I did it consciously. We may have done it unconsciously; I think that our kids

01:35:04.780 - 01:35:20.110

apparently have enough fortitude that they make the decisions on their own. Our daughter…was, our eldest daughter was convinced that she was going to go someplace else to go to school,

01:35:20.910 - 01:35:34.720

and then, uh, her brother persuaded her to go to Rice, and then when it came time to go to law school she had a scholarship, partial scholarship at Duke Law School, which, I thought was a good school, and she said no,

01:35:34.740 - 01:35:50.490

she’s going to go to Virginia. And pay the full tab. And so, it’s a…I, I don’t know that I influenced them as such. Uh, you know, I think that maybe it’s because,

01:35:53.840 - 01:36:09.630

uh, I enjoy what we’re doing in terms of it, uh, but, uh, they didn’t come ask a bunch of questions, which law school should I go to or what, you know, which of these circumstances, they,

01:36:09.930 - 01:36:26.410

they did what they did. And so, uh, I think that they wanted to show their own independence. And so… But two of them became attorneys, and the other later on, took a Master’s degree in education from Stanford. So…

01:36:26.440 - 01:36:42.530

And is—is it your son working at your law firm? That’s correct. How is it like to work with your son at the same firm? Well, obviously, there’s a degree of pride in the fact that, yeah, he has selected to go into the immigration law field in terms of it.

01:36:42.690 - 01:37:00.500

There are sometimes moments of frustration, , uh, you know, all of these relationships or all these circumstances have their ups and downs, you know just uh, but uh, yeah. I think that, uh, we want them to have

01:37:01.140 - 01:37:18.850

full, ample opportunities to pursue their passions to the extent that they want. Um, what neighborhoods of Houston have you lived in with your family? Well, uh, let’s see. In Telephone Road, it was the, sort of the southeast side, and I don’t—it

01:37:19.570 - 01:37:32.800

was mostly commercial. So I don’t know that it was, quote, a ‘neighborhood’ as such. On Crawford Street, it was not a residential neighborhood, it was a semi-commercial in, with the proximity of the

01:37:32.980 - 01:37:46.980

hospital. Uh, West Dallas, uh, had some residences on the other side of the street, uh, in terms of it, but once again, it was somewhat commercial, they had a bar across the street from us they had

01:37:48.020 - 01:38:05.350

a supply company…and so uh, you know, when—After graduating from, after coming back and starting my career, when we married we stayed in an apartment project off of uh, on the uh, west side,

01:38:06.100 - 01:38:23.090

and then subsequently we bought our house out in Briar Grove Park. And so we lived in Briar Grove Park and from there moved here. So those were the jumps that we had. Could you describe your daily routine at work?

01:38:24.090 - 01:38:40.820

Daily routine, well, normally, we try to get in about, uh, 9:00, and uh we will be uh, reviewing the emails, of the, uh, various, uh, clients and communications to see what is emergent, see which cases or things have

01:38:41.570 - 01:38:56.720

come to the forefront that need immediate attention. Uh, after we, uh, review that particular part of it, we’ll review the uh correspondence and the telephone messages and calls, make sure, uh, on certain days we’ll have

01:38:56.900 - 01:39:12.960

meetings with the attorneys to review their cases and their, uh find out what problems or try to put out fires if we have, uh, one of our clients calling saying, hey, my employee can’t get into the county, or the Consul official

01:39:12.960 - 01:39:28.120

has rejected the visa or whatever the problem may be. We will interview prospective new clients, uh, I do that evaluation of determining what options and opportunities may be available for them, and then, uh, subsequently,

01:39:29.040 - 01:39:42.940

enable them to, uh, go ahead and make a determination as to, A: Do they want to retain our services, make other arrangements, or addressing what the problems may be. Uh, in the past, we used to go to interviews, at the

01:39:42.940 - 01:39:54.510

Immigration Service. Now that’s relegated to some of our younger associates, for them to do the traveling and to be involved along that line. Uh, we used to also go to the U.S. Consulates overseas and visit with the clients

01:39:55.290 - 01:40:12.820

in helping them, you know, process the various applications there to work out details. Uh, I’m a member of a number of organizations that, uh, through that participation probably helps us open doors of opportunities, people get to know us and are familiar, one of them being the

01:40:12.870 - 01:40:28.260

Greater Houston Partnership, the Houston Technology Center, Center for Houston’s Future, uh, just a number of various organizations, and uh, so this, uh, Thursday, we went to lunch at the Houston Engineers

01:40:28.830 - 01:40:42.700

Society with the Asian Chamber of Commerce to make a scholarship, we made a donation of a thousand dollars to them and they awarded it to one of the Asian students that were going, getting ready to go to college. And so, uh, in the

01:40:42.700 - 01:40:58.120

evening sometimes we’ll go to various activities, uh, that may be involved in uh, opening doors of opportunity for us to get to know clients and, uh, to get to know, uh, various people. So it’s, uh, it’s a diverse area

01:40:58.120 - 01:41:15.230

of activity. Can you talk a little bit about your involvement in the community organizations? Well, uh, yeah, I think it’s always important to be willing to give back and I think that that’s one of the things that our parents have shared with us, in terms of it, so

01:41:15.300 - 01:41:31.690

they’re, my father was much, often engaged with uh, the Chinese uh, Merchant’s Association, the Gee Family Association, and activities, but most of them were within our community.

01:41:33.530 - 01:41:46.940

I began to get involved in the broader community. Now, part of it is that we never did the volunteer work. What happens is that the Asians, frequently you need to go entice them, or encourage them

01:41:46.940 - 01:41:58.230

to come join you and to get involved. We had a friend of ours that we’d gotten to know at First City National Bank, and they in turn had asked me to be involved in the Friends of the Houston Public Library.

01:41:58.930 - 01:42:11.740

Now, you know, I’d been involved with uh, the Chinese Professional Club, the Gee Family Association, and a number— the Chinese American Citizens Alliance and served as President of all these—Houston Taipei Society, and most

01:42:11.790 - 01:42:27.830

all of these were Asian-oriented. But when we got involved with the, uh Houston Public Library it was not minority involvement but a broader community and a broader engagement. And then subsequently, uh, served

01:42:27.830 - 01:42:41.000

as President of that organization and implemented certain programs that have raised for them a lot of monies and resources in terms of it. And so um yeah…been invited to also be involved with the University of Texas

01:42:41.030 - 01:42:55.470

Health Science, uh, with, uh, University of Houston, uh Greater Houston Partnership, gotten to know a number of the people that very actively engaged in that, in those various communities, and as we did, they in turn

01:42:55.520 - 01:43:07.940

invited us to participate in other organizations and groups there. The mayor asked us to serve on a number of committees to help do some evaluations as to Imagine Houston, things of this particular nature, and so there

01:43:08.510 - 01:43:25.480

have been programs that, uh, benefit the broad segment of our community, and, uh yeah, we’ve volunteered and been engaged and, and involved with a number of those particular organizations and activities. But I guess,

01:43:25.660 - 01:43:42.200

more recent…uh, we’ve been involved in the establishment of scholarships at the University of Texas, uh, Law School, the University of Texas Health Science Center, University of Houston, University of Houston Downtown, uh, at uh, Rice University, and

01:43:42.830 - 01:43:58.490

uh, the uh, Chinese Professional Club, and so, Gee Family Association, all of these we’ve established and endowed scholarships for young people. We think that it’s important that the young people be given a full opportunity to blossom, and

01:43:59.120 - 01:44:11.660

we don’t want them to be held back purely on financial circumstances. Anything that we can help, give them another opportunity or an occasion, I think that that’s beneficial to the broader community as such.

01:44:11.820 - 01:44:28.510

So yeah, we’ve been very blessed, and so we’ve been trying to, you know, use some of those blessings for other people. And yet, also support uh students back in China? And well, building the school certainly has been one of the things.

01:44:28.560 - 01:44:46.320

We have not sent resources or much for scholarship purposes, but that, that would be something probably in the future. So the, the school, the school is, is it like a private school or a public school? Well, uh, it’s serving all of the people in our

01:44:46.320 - 01:44:59.200

village, and in, I understand that they have children coming from other villages in that proximity. So uh, I, I never have…when I went back with my mother, we stayed in a

01:44:59.200 - 01:45:16.220

motel, and I didn’t realize that—because we were back there visiting with her relatives, we were up ‘til 3 o’clock in the morning, I mean we just—the evening did not come to an end, it just kept going on and on. We finally get to bed at 3 o’clock and then at 6 o’clock and

01:45:16.670 - 01:45:29.160

behold, we hear this—I thought the television set had come on. When I finally got up enough, what is that noise that’s going out there? It turns out that we were right next door to a public school.

01:45:29.620 - 01:45:44.850

The public school—at daybreak was…as the students were arriving, was playing Chairman Mao’s sayings, blasting them out, so that everybody was getting, you know, inculcated with

01:45:45.170 - 01:45:57.150

all of these propaganda, and so, man, I …it was just amazing. We didn’t get any sleep that night at all. Okay…do you have any more questions?

01:45:57.180 - 01:46:06.360

Um, I just wanted to ask one last thing. Um, how do you self-identify? Like as Chinese-American, Asian American or just American, or anything else?

01:46:06.720 - 01:46:22.180

Well, you know, I think I’m proud of the Chinese heritage, and I think that, uh, being Chinese-American— I think that ‘Asian American’ is something relatively new, in terms of it, I think that most of the activities that we’ve uh, you know, so…Now, I don’t know that my children would identify themselves

01:46:22.220 - 01:46:42.100

that way, because I think since their mother is German, and you know, uh, that they may have a self-identification a bit different in that regard. Well thank you so much for your time. Okay…I didn’t