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Hello, good morning. Thank you so much for accepting our request for interview, Lynne, Dr. Lynne Nguyen. We're very honored to be here to have a conversation with you. Today is March 1st, 2022.

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To start off, can you tell us where were you born? Thank you. And first, just please call me Lynne, not a- not a doctor. I was born in Saigon, in Vietnam in- I'm

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a child of the '60s. I see. And did you go to- can you tell us a little bit about your childhood, your schooling? Sure. So my, you know, my father was in the military.

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So we traveled quite often. And we lived often on military bases because this was during the Vietnam War. So I just went to school in Saigon and in some other

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places. And up until I was eight, and that was when the Vietnam War came to a culmination. And obviously, the northern Vietnamese marched into Saigon at that time.

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So we left on the last day, before the- right on the fall of Saigon, on April 29, 1975. And we just grabbed some things, you know, I think a lot of people just never thought

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it would happen, and so my-my parents grabbed the three of us children, and we just hopped on to a little PT boat that my dad had, and-and we set out to sea hoping to find a big ship, an

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American ship that can pick us up. And I hadn't thought about how traumatic that was for a parent until I had my own child. And I just thought: could

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I- would I have dared to take my child into the open seas like that, and with nothing to prepare for. And I think that's really informed my advocacy work, as I think about the difference between working with

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immigrants versus working with refugees, and they might have come from the same background, the same country, but the situation is so different, because , you know, as an immigrant, you

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plan things out, and-and you may have packed, you may have learned a language, you may have prepared a lot more. But as a refugee, you kind of just grab what was available as a last minute thing,

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because you never intended to leave. So there's quite a bit more trauma and-and that really informed my work with the refugee community later on in my life. So we- yeah, so we came to the US, we

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were relocated to the refugee camp in Guam, and we were there for a year. And then we were relocated again, to one of the military bases in Pennsylvania.

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And this is a common experience for all of the Vietnamese refugees, the boat people, that we were relocated to different military camps in the US. And there were some, you know, so when we meet, somebody will say, “well, which

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camp did you go to?” So, you know, I know this camp Pendleton, this camp Indian town, you know, West- there's different camps. So anyway, so that's kind of my beginning. And I was in upstate New York.

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We- it was very different. It's very cold and no Asian foods, no Asians. It was a very hard adjustment for my parents, I think. For us kids, we were younger, and it was much

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easier to adapt and to learn, pick up a new language. What a powerful story. Going back a little, do you remember how many days were you on the sea? And finally, how did you meet the US military or navy to bring you to the refugee

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camp? I don't remember much about it. I do know that when we went out into the seas, and it just got choppier and choppier. And a lot of people got sick.

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And I understand later that we had all heard that, I mean, the kids didn't know, but my parents and adults had heard that the Americans were sending ships out to the- to international

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waters to pick up refugee boats. So we were able to connect to a- you know, that we- the American tanker. It was a big tanker- they had emptied everything.

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And so they had a big cargo hold in the bottom, and they were able to just connect with all of these little boats floating out. And what I do remember is the rope ladder. I mean, you know, you watch American Ninja, and yeah, they always have that rope

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ladder. And I actually have done that when I was eight years old, climbing up the rope ladder. And I remember, you know, we had the suitcase of clothes. And of course, somehow in the bringing ourselves up,

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and somehow we lost our one suitcase of clothes. We lost, we actually lost a suitcase of um- my mom and dad had packed some some money, some things that we could use later, and we lost everything.

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And the only suitcase that they were able to-to keep track of, and they didn't know which one was which by that time, but the only one that they were able to maintain a hold of was the suitcase with our photo albums.

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And it was surprising to me that they even brought, you know, all the photo albums because who would bring that when you're a refugee? But apparently that was what they scooped up. And so climbing the rope ladder was very difficult and very scary.

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Because if you've ever been out into open seas, and the water underneath is just roiling, and it's just- and the tanker is very, very big. And so you have to climb up

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a long way. And a little boat is very small. And my mom who's very near-sighted in the climb up, and she's not, you know, most many Vietnamese women of that generation just were not very physically strong, and she lost her

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glasses, and she wore these coke bottle glasses, and she lost them, which was- made life very difficult for her because she was almost literally blind, and she couldn't see anything and to be in a strange environment to not be

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able to see anything is very, very scary for her. And I didn't realize this until much later. But yeah, so we were all under, in the bottom of the tanker so it's in the cargo hold.

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And it was very, very stuffy. And there were many, many people jammed into there. And we had little sheets given to us.

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And so each family would- you had your little space, which is which was the size of that sheet. And you would just line up, well, they would serve us you know, rice that they cooked.

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And I remember being so hot. And I just remember just craving a glass of iced tea because we often drank iced tea just as a way to cool ourselves in Vietnam, right? So it was...

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and when we came on to the top when some of us were allowed to go up to the top for a little bit at a time. Just looking down into the waters, I remember it was very, very frightening.

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And of course I didn't know how to swim, so it was very scary for me. Wow. So then coming to the United States, did you stay in the North a long time before coming to Houston?

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No . So my parents could only tolerate the upstate weather in New York for one year; it was super cold. And my goodness, we were sponsored by an American family, which was unusual because many of the

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refugees were sponsored by churches. So the church members would gather and you know, contribute money for like an apartment, help them find jobs. But the- our sponsor was a person who stepped up and said "We will

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sponsor a refugee family." And you know, it still touches me a lot. So yeah, so they- we stayed with them actually for six months. And they-they helped my-my parents

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find a job. My mom who was in Vietnam, she was a newspaper reporter, and she was an anchor woman on TV. So she was a columnist she was- so she was very- she was pretty well known.

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And my father was a major in the army. And he was, you know, high up, he had a lot of people reporting to him. And he ended up working in a furniture factory doing manual labor, just

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Vermont furniture because he could- he's very handy. And when you don't have the language, you-you can do physical labor. And my mom worked as a nurse's aide in a nursing home because the lady who sponsored us is a nurse so

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she brought my mom into there. So basically as a nurse's aide, you end up emptying bedpans and you help people bathe, bathe people – and so it was very big for them, a big change in life.

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And you know this happened for quite a lot of refugees where your status is suddenly gone, you know, everything is gone. You have no money, you have

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nothing. But so they were able to save and within six months, they put some money down and we moved into a trailer park. And you know, that was the first time I saw anything like that. It's a trailer, it's a house on wheels, and it's a

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long skinny house. And so my brothers had- my two brothers shared one room, and I slept in the living room. So at night, I would bring out my bed stuff and sleep in the living room- there was only

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two bedrooms, and I'm the girl so there's two boys, obviously, two, you know, it makes more sense for the two boys to share. And my parents had the other room.

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But it was, you know, it was fun for a year, and my parents found some long distance cousins in Houston. And they said, come on down to Houston, where it's warmer, and there's more Asians, more Vietnamese, and there's Asian food, because it was really hard for my

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parents to, you know, eat the- all of this new food. So we moved down, and in an old car and no air conditioning, because up north, the cars didn't have air conditioning. So we drove down to Houston with this old Ford

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four-door sedan, and it was very old and very hot. They didn't tell us about the mosquitoes or the the hurricanes. And later all the flooding, but Houston became home from 1976 until now.

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That's amazing. Tell us a little about the schools you attended in Houston, and then eventually how you chose your career? Well, so I'll start with the schools in Vietnam. In Vietnam, I was in the third grade.

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We had, in third grade, we had learned, you know, our multiplication tables already, up from, you know, up to 12. And we left in April, so

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towards the end of April 29th, and that was the end of the school year. So we already knew all of our multiplication tables by then. When we got to upstate New York, I-they put me back in third grade again so

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to learn English, and in upstate New York, they were just learning the multiplication table. So I did it all again. And then when we moved down to Houston, I started fourth grade.

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They were just learning they were just learning the multiplication table. So you know, looking back, I think I contributed to the Asian stereotype that Asians are good at math but I've had three years of multiplication tables.

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So that-that, you know that-that-that is my experience with the schools, and I have to say in the South, school seems to be a little bit behind, at least in from my one year experience.

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And, but you know, I learned and I got put into, you know, the more advanced programs and you know, went to school here from all public school, from the fourth through high school,

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and went to the University of Houston. And then I went to graduate school at the University of Texas School of Public Health. And, you know, obviously, staying in town was kind of expected.

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I really had wanted to go- I mean we couldn't really consider options, because we didn't have the money. And I didn't even ask my parents, I just knew we didn't have the money. I did apply to the University of Texas and did get

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accepted. But my mother was very worried about sending her only daughter away. So I ended up applying to U of H at the last minute, and they accepted me and gave me a full scholarship.

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So I was- from then on, I went to U of H and graduated from U of H. Maybe going back a little bit, once you arrived in Houston, what job did your parents find? And do you remember the names of the schools that you attended?

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Oh, for sure. I went to Travis Elementary in the Heights. And when I attended that school, the school didn't even have a library.

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It-I mean, it was so old. It was already 50 years old. It celebrated its 50th year when I was there, and that was 40-something years ago, right.

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And I remember I was in fourth grade there, and the classes were about- it was very similar to the Vietnamese school in the sense that there were about 40 students per class.

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And I remember in-in one class, the teacher asked us, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" and people- almost all the girls said teachers, and almost all the boys said truck driver. And I was the only one who- I was

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thinking, I'm in fourth grade, I'm nine years old. I don't know what I want to be, I don't want to be a teacher, I know that. I don't want to be a truck driver.

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But I don't know what I want to be. And so I remember just sticking out like a sore thumb because I didn't, I don't know what, you know, at that time. And-and then, my mom, when

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she started in Houston, she kind of kept to what she knew when she worked in a hospital that she, you know, applied for jobs in the hospital again, as a nurse's aide, you know, emptying bedpans and all of that, and my dad

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found a job at a tool company, Hughes Tool. And so you know, he, again, was able to do manual labor work, but he was very good and very mechanical. And Hughes Tool, I remember, they always had- they had a program

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where, like, if you came up with new ways to do something that saves money, that increases safety or whatever, some new innovative thing that was helpful, then you would get like a cup or something. And he was always

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getting these cups. Because he was always thinking about ways to do things differently and make it better, and he loved getting the prizes, just not the cup but he just loved getting a prize, you know, that was very important to

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him. And he was always on time. And he actually always showed up early because he likes to come in- he always told us you have to come in early. So he would always show up to work like 30 minutes early.

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But then I remember during the 70s, there was an oil crisis, and he lost his job. And it was really, really tough. You know, in the-it was-we went through some really hard time.

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My mom ultimately left the-the hospital, and she worked in a gas station. So as a cashier in a gas station, and thank goodness they had those bulletproof glass because it was quite dangerous to be in a gas station.

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But we- so she did that for a while, and they worked nights. So then we kids would, you know, kind of take care of ourselves. And then she cooked for us and left the meeting, you know, meals there. We would walk ourselves to school, and then we would come

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back and do our homework. And so we kind of were on our own just cleaning up and-and I, now I think about it. I'm thinking, man, she worked and cooked dinner for us and just left it there.

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And I can't believe we did all of that. And I still remember vacuuming by myself. I mean, it's just something that you did, because you know, you had to, you know, you have to do your part to help everybody.

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Well, thank you for sharing. These are wonderful, wonderful stories. So then going into U of H, how did you then choose the path that you ultimately chose? Yeah, I-I've always been interested in psychology.

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And I wanted to study psychology. And when I told my parents, they were very worried, because there's no concept of mental health in our culture at that time. So you were either normal, or you were crazy.

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So if I were studying psychology, I'm obviously not studying normal people, so you're going to study to work with crazy people. That's very dangerous, you know, so they were really embarrassed to tell their cousins, neighbors, friends about what I was

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studying. And so the words that they used was "tam than," which is more like mental-, something about your mental, you know, cognitive, brain thinking.

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So yeah, so you know, and I really, but- and I wanted to get my PhD in psychology and become, you know, like a counselor, or a therapist. I didn't want to do research because I didn't even know about research really.

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And I think that in my senior year, I found public health, and I thought, actually, I really like the idea of using psychology, learning the concepts of psychology to influence people's behavior to improve

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health and that just sort of came about because as we became better and better and more fluent at English, you know, we ended up just that role, we just slowly transitioned into the role of helping our parents.

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Because in the beginning, they helped us with the-they had a little bit more English than we did, but of course, we had no English, but they had limited English, and they were able to take us to doctor's offices.

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But when we got older, we were able to, you know, do- be the interpreters. And we didn't even realize that-that is not really cool until later. But, you know, we just kind of help our parents do all the whatever paperwork that

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needed to be done and interpretations, we did it. So you know, you had this 10 year old or 12 year old doing all this paperwork. And we did it to the best of our abilities. But there were words we didn't know.

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And I do remember, I was invited to apply for one of the schools, TH Rogers, because it was one of those- I don't remember what it's called, one of those special schools, not magnet... Vanguard. That's right.

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So it was a vanguard school and the teacher- my teachers had nominated me, and they sent me an application form and-and my dad took me to the test. And on the form, I remember I was filling it out, and I was filling out everything.

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And there was a section that said race. And I just thought, “I don't know that I'm racing anybody. I wasn't I'm not wearing tennis shoes.” I don't know what race they were talking about. And maybe some kind of competition,

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that-that's in my mind. I didn't know. So I just left it blank right. And there were lots of questions and-and, but I, you know, I answered as best as I could but like back then, I was, I think, in

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fifth grade and I still- my English was still shaky. I don't know that I answered it well, at all, but never heard from them again. So obviously, I was in the

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wrong race. But it worked out fine because I'm, you know, I went- we moved out into the suburbs, and it would have been quite impossible, actually, even if I had been accepted, I think, because we didn't have the resources like my

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parents could not- they work nights. They couldn't- how could they take me to school? And, you know, it really required that. And so it always makes me aware about, you know, the opportunities

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that we make available for all of the diverse children in different circumstances. I mean, are they able to play baseball? We weren't- we talked about the importance of physical education.

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But how expensive is that? I mean, can't people many- swimming ability or inability is one of the biggest health disparities. You look at who drowns and who doesn't know how to

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swim. You know, 68% of African Americans don't know how to swim. 58% of Asians don't know how to swim. And yet, do they have access to a pool? Do they have access to swimming lessons?

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Oh, man, we don't have these kinds of access, right? So it's-it's very difficult. And how do we even level that playing field when it's so lopsided?

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I remember my school in the Heights, no library. I went and then from there, we went to the middle school. We didn't have, we didn't have labs, we didn't have- and it wasn't until I went to academic competitions.

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And we went to Memorial High School, or we went to Bellaire High School, and we were like, "Oh, my gosh!" I was shocked that the schools had all of this. How did they have that, and my-my school had no library.

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You know, I mean, how did that happen? So I'm very aware of-of when people say to pull you-yourself up by your bootstraps. Did you even have bootstraps?

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Or are you wearing flip flops, which we were wearing, right? I mean, so it's, so in-inadequate suggestion, and we have to really get at that base of how do we even make all of these things

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equitable at the beginning? So people have- I think that's driven my sense of-of equity and social justice. That-that's very powerful.

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So then how did you, and I think HOPE Clinic would be one of the topics we're very interested in, and I know that you- we have interviewed Beverly Gore, we've interviewed Rogene Calvert, and so we- you know, you're one of the godmothers of HOPE Clinic, and I think

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begins at Asian American Health Services. Is that- am I saying that right? And can you tell us how you met them, how this whole thing began, and we really want to know, you know, everything about it.

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Okay, so I was, you know, so from the time I was young, I mean, starting in high school, I started thinking- I mean, I-I just- it came from visiting those other schools, seeing the disparities in what the schools had.

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Even in our high school, we had grass growing on the tennis court. We, you know, and then we go to the other high schools, and they had beautifully maintained tennis courts. And then we might even go to a black high school

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where the tennis courts were, you know, the chain link fence were falling down, even worse than ours. So it really drove me to kind of think about equity and I realized,

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even for my own community, the Asian American community, first, there- I knew that there were a lot of health issues. I see, you know, friends and family with health issues. I see people at that time, my parents age, and, you know, they

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were in their 50s and they didn't have the resources, the language skills. We, my friends and I, were all doing the translations, and we saw that when people went to clinics, you know, you kind of have to take off

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the entire day. And these are people who work, you know, my parents work for hourly wages. So you take off an entire day, you sit there and you wait. And-and it's not just their wages because my dad would have to drive my mom.

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And you know, and my dad drives my mom to work and so, you know, you have one car. So everybody is- the whole family is out, because I'm taking off to help translate, and you're there and you don't hear your name called.

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And then you learn that "Oh, wait, it was called an hour ago, but you didn't answer." Well, I didn't know you called because I didn't recognize the way you said my name, it was so completely different.

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And so- so I realized that we-we needed to have a voice, we needed to be- make people aware, to help people. I mean, because I've always been thinking about, you know, people- a lot of people think about, we need to educate

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the community. But my perspective has always been, we need to educate the providers to understand the population that they're serving better. So I, back then I was 18, and I went to college. And when I graduated, I got

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a job at the UT School of Public Health. And I was very interested when I started grad school, in health issues, and I started grad school.

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And in my classes, what I- you know, we learned a lot. We read a lot of manuscripts about, you know, all of the leading thinkers about behavioral theories, about health theories, about, you know,

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social determinants of health and all of these health theories. And I was so surprised, I remember thinking, "Theory? So there are theories for what-why people do things?" And-and these theories, and I've kind of started

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thinking about well, what-how did they come up with these theories? So they came up with these theories basing that on other theories and older theories, and then they kept building on these theories. Then I started looking at, but who were they doing their studies

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on? And it's never people like me. And I'm thinking, so how do they know these interventions work for people like me? How do they know that this is how people like me think?

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People from a different part of the world. I don't think this is accurate for my community. And it kind of really bothered me that there was not a- I really didn't think things were culturally appropriate, that

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it wasn't- and-and not that it was appropriate, but it wasn't relevant. It was not meaningful, and it wasn't relevant. And I realized that I'm very pragmatic. I want things that work.

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I want to improve people's health. I want things that work. I don't want to do research. So that's what I was thinking. So I hadn't even thought about changing the

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research. And when I left academia, I worked in academia for two years, then I went to work- I got a job at the United Way of the Gulf Coast. And that was an awesome experience, because I worked in the community

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planning department. And I was able to- my boss was just this phenomenal man. And he kind of just, you know, I was gung ho, and he led me kind of take the ball and go and do stuff that I wanted to do.

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So I did a lot of community- assessments, because the United Way at that time raised like $80 million a year, and how do they allocate it fairly and equitably?

00:29:50.310 - 00:30:07.680

And so I managed a lot of community groups and one year I worked on, I think it was like a couple of years where I did community assessment, we decided to do an assessment of communities. So I did, like, conducted 78 focus groups in the community by myself.

00:30:08.250 - 00:30:20.330

And I read up on how to do focus groups, and what to consider and how to even record it and how to do it equitably. And so I just pulled up my public health books, and I pulled up how to do- keep a focus group.

00:30:21.140 - 00:30:33.760

And at the focus groups, you know, we worked with many different groups. And so we did groups of older African Americans, we do with young Asians, so we did many different groups, by race, by sex, by ethnicity, and

00:30:33.760 - 00:30:45.960

every group was different, because how people responded and how people shared. Some didn't share, some waited until after the group to tell me about the gang problems, because they didn't want to lose face to share that, you

00:30:45.960 - 00:30:56.520

know, my son is in a gang. So it was very, very different. We worked with, you know, African American groups where African American elderly would tell me that, you know,

00:30:58.200 - 00:31:09.140

they-they live with the grandkids, and know, the grandkids' parents were not with them. And their grandkids were selling their medications. So I was, you know,

00:31:09.210 - 00:31:22.320

just learning so much about that, and, and from all of this work, and I was young, and I still had a lot of energy. And my boss let me do it. So I said, I think I would like to start a group to talk about Asian Health.

00:31:23.200 - 00:31:39.890

And so because of the United Way auspices, it was because United Way allowed me to work- during work time, to allocate some work time. But honestly, a lot of these meetings were held at night, to accommodate people.

00:31:40.200 - 00:31:51.810

But I would write up the results, you know, and write up the notes and send out stuff during my work hours. And that was a lot of work. And it truly was a labor of love for me, and I found the time to do it.

00:31:51.850 - 00:32:05.270

But I convened different community members that I had met, and invited them to participate. And you know, we would meet regularly. And you know, some of the members just really stood out.

00:32:05.270 - 00:32:21.330

And I was so lucky to, you know, to meet people like Rogene and Beverly and-and I also was learning to navigate the different Asian groups too. Because I was coming from the perspective that Asians didn't have a

00:32:21.450 - 00:32:34.320

voice and not just Vietnamese Asians, but Chinese and others. But if, at that time, I think a lot of people were only looking at within their groups, so they were trying to promote the Vietnamese interests, or the Chinese

00:32:34.390 - 00:32:50.630

interests. And not the interests, but the needs. But you know, it's much harder because the groups were small, and this is back in the '80s. The-the city of Houston released the Health of Houston documents in the '80s, with only

00:32:50.630 - 00:33:01.130

black and white data. Not even Hispanic data. And here, I'm trying to get Asian data, right, you know, so how crazy was that? So they didn't, you know, include

00:33:01.130 - 00:33:14.470

Hispanics until later. And it took a long time to get them to include Asians. And you know, and partly is because they had less contact, but less awareness, and fewer people

00:33:14.560 - 00:33:23.750

in the roles where they can have a voice. So it was really just building that Asian voice and I, you know, I kind of led the Asian American Health Coalition for quite

00:33:23.750 - 00:33:37.540

a while because of the auspices of the United Way allowing me to dedicate time to it. And I think that, to-in order for these things to happen, it's- even though I was a volunteer, I attended these night

00:33:37.540 - 00:33:49.630

meetings, I did a lot of time things on my own, that it cannot, I mean, it makes it so much better when there's one organization that supports that, and I cannot thank the United Way .

00:33:50.000 - 00:34:05.910

And, you know, we're forever indebted to them. And they have been phenomenal community leaders and supporters. So you know, I've always been such a big fan of them. That's amazing. So basically, from the-your work for the United Way, you met

00:34:05.960 - 00:34:17.710

Rogene and Beverly. And then was the Asian American Health Coalition created after you- the three of you met and talked and thought you needed a vehicle from which to do all this work?

00:34:18.680 - 00:34:32.110

Well, we actually, I had just started convening many different people together for these regular meetings. And it was through the regular meetings that these voices came out, and these personalities came out.

00:34:32.110 - 00:34:45.520

And then we became more of a group after the regular meetings were starting. And there were some other people that you know, are no longer involved with the group. And it was interesting, because I, you know, I was still navigating

00:34:45.690 - 00:34:59.940

that where Vietnamese Americans wanted me to, why don't you lead a group for Vietnamese. You know, why are you doing, you know, just for everybody? And so, it's

00:34:59.940 - 00:35:13.400

hard because I think at that time, people still- can still say, Well, why aren't you doing this? It makes me think of sometimes even in a family when you volunteer a lot, you know, sometimes they might say, why aren't you helping your family?

00:35:13.400 - 00:35:23.750

Why are you helping all these people you don't know, because it really has to start at home. But you know, you-you can do both. So I actually did lead the

00:35:23.750 - 00:35:38.000

Vietnamese American community health network for a while. And doing that, and connecting them to the bigger group and knowing that every community; they do need their own voice. That we can't all be one, but we can

00:35:38.000 - 00:35:48.700

have individual voices, and then we can join, and we can speak together. So we-so we don't, you know, we're not diluted, we're stronger together. But we are also unique and individual.

00:35:49.280 - 00:36:03.100

So you know, just learning that balance. And Rogene and Beverly were very unique because they were born here. So you know, while they are Chinese American in ethnic origin, they do

00:36:03.610 - 00:36:17.480

have that more of a bigger mentality. And Rogene, particularly, is so broad-minded and how she thinks and so she- her vision is so much broader than mine, you know, just-just

00:36:17.480 - 00:36:30.860

thinking about the capacity and who we need to involve, and who we need to pull in. Because I'm kind of sometimes, I think, more small, because I'm thinking, “How do I operationalize this? How do I get this done?”

00:36:30.860 - 00:36:46.760

And she's thinking of all the bigger pieces so she's truly a strategist. And Beverly was more of, you know, the research kind of thinking that, you know, we need to-to kind of do it this way we need to do or we need to really

00:36:47.320 - 00:37:00.140

focus on-on these methodologies to make sure that we're consistent, and Rogene has that big picture, and I'm trying to make it- how do we operationalize it? If we were doing this research project, how do we implement?

00:37:00.760 - 00:37:15.740

So I spent a lot of my time actually advocating to other groups in California that I had met, just learning about, because they were doing a lot of work in California, like actual, you know, supporting the Asian Health Forum.

00:37:16.520 - 00:37:29.200

They had so many projects and so much research. And we were very jealous, we wanted some of that resources for Houston, and talked with Jeff Caballero, and all many people in California.

00:37:29.250 - 00:37:42.740

And I remember they had funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to do the opening door study. And they were not- Houston was not included in that study.

00:37:42.780 - 00:37:54.450

It was multi-site. And I said that “You've got to include Houston, we have nothing for Asians here.” So they said, well, so they were kind of going to include Houston, but we would be the control

00:37:54.500 - 00:38:08.690

group. Well, you know, the control group is no interventions- no interventions done, because they want to keep us naive and simple so that they can compare to a group that has some interventions. I remember Beverly and

00:38:08.690 - 00:38:20.970

Rogene and I and-and I think some other people Jane Shay, Dr. Jane Shay, we were just saying "We don't want to be a control group anymore. We want to be the intervention group.

00:38:20.970 - 00:38:31.170

We want to bring good things to Houstonians. We want to bring good things to our community." So we knew we- but we knew we had to get data. And that was our big thing is how do we collect data?

00:38:31.800 - 00:38:47.090

How do we go about collecting data, so at least we can describe our communities? And even when I did- I was able to do an internship at the United- at the March of Dimes when I graduated from college, and I remember, I was able to

00:38:47.090 - 00:39:00.800

do maternal health behavior and their beliefs about you know, the health and kind of services that they used. And I did it with Vietnamese and Chinese.

00:39:00.800 - 00:39:13.270

And so I mean, I've always been able to kind of persuade people, get people excited about what I was excited about. So I have the March of Dimes support on that.

00:39:13.550 - 00:39:23.960

And I was actually just in, you know, I didn't have any skills in this, and I just did it and they allowed me to do it and funded me to do it during. So, you know, having that funding and having that support.

00:39:24.090 - 00:39:39.020

I, you know, Houston's nonprofits are just phenomenal. We have nonprofits even that had a lot of open-open mindsets, you know, that were very willing to learn and wanting to learn in knowing that there are gaps, and we don't know what these

00:39:39.100 - 00:39:50.460

issues are and we want to learn. So that's been wonderful. That's great. Do you remember what were the years so you met Rogene, Beverly, and began the whole process?

00:39:51.560 - 00:40:06.760

Gosh, you know, so I am terrible at years. I do know that I worked up until I gave birth, and they gave me a surprise baby shower.

00:40:07.700 - 00:40:21.530

So that was 1995. And so I know I met them- so I think I probably met them in the late 80s. Because by 1992, we had the first Asian Health —Southeast Asian Health symposium.

00:40:22.420 - 00:40:34.040

And we had, you know, I just tried to connect with anybody I could find. And one of the ladies I met with-with in Dallas with the, the

00:40:34.190 - 00:40:47.780

Public Health Service in Dallas, and I think her name was Mary Bowers, and just connecting with her, and you know, she’s very interested in minority health and minor- and women's health and she was a phenomenal

00:40:47.780 - 00:40:59.350

supporter of our group. And when she moved to Washington, we were able to maintain that contact. So-so I think it was in the 80s, that we did all of this.

00:41:01.750 - 00:41:17.260

And then in 1992, we had the first Southeast Asian Health symposium. And out of that symposium, we had different meeting rooms, with focusing on different things. So I was in the data collection meeting room, how do we increase data, unknown

00:41:17.260 - 00:41:31.490

whatever. But it turns out that all of the other rooms, addressing, tackling all the other topics of Asian Health, all of those rooms came up with the one-one theme that ran through all the rooms, we said, “Well, we need data.

00:41:31.830 - 00:41:47.390

We need data to demonstrate that we- that this is an issue.” So you know, we- that was one of the things that came out, because we want we- in order to show that in order to demonstrate need, we need data, and we had to demonstrate

00:41:47.390 - 00:42:00.450

need in order to get services. So once and so you began your group began with collecting data and ways of implementing the collection, what happens? Did you get the data?

00:42:00.450 - 00:42:16.230

And then what happened after that? Well, we, you know, obviously, we were able to help the groups to publish the data. But, you know, I, my memory might be wrong on this but I thought, I mean, we knew what the data said, but I

00:42:16.260 - 00:42:27.220

don't remember that we disseminated the data. Because at that time, I was still, I think, probably just right out of grad school, or just in

00:42:27.220 - 00:42:43.130

grad school, where I still hadn't really learned much about the importance of dissemination of research data. I was very much interested in getting services to the community.

00:42:43.520 - 00:42:54.320

And that was our goal. You know, we've always had this shining vision example of, “Gosh, wouldn't it be awesome, and we actually had visited the-the Health Center

00:42:54.530 - 00:43:11.430

in California, in Oakland,” I think and-and new in New York, they had this incredible Chinese health center. We just thought if we had a health center in Houston, that where the providers really understood you.

00:43:11.430 - 00:43:20.880

Where you wouldn't have to come in and tell your whole history and explain your whole culture in order for them to give you relevant care for yourself. Wouldn't that be awesome?

00:43:21.460 - 00:43:36.350

You know, we just had that vision of-of having people that can speak the languages of our parents, so that, you know, they could get good care that, you know, the providers would understand that “Okay, so they're not eating,

00:43:36.350 - 00:43:51.370

they're not sleeping. They-this really sounds like it might, it could possibly look for mental illness, even though they decide they, you know, answer negatively to other questions, but it might be a mental illness issue.” I

00:43:51.370 - 00:44:07.550

remember at that time, a lot of our Hmongs and our Cambodians had moved down south to the Rosenberg area, the Rosharon, the Rosharon. Because they are an agricultural community and they-they were very

00:44:07.550 - 00:44:17.510

traumatized by the war. And I remember there was articles in the paper where it was starting to become noticed that people were dying in their sleep.

00:44:18.200 - 00:44:33.880

They just- they seem to be healthy, and they would go to sleep, and they would die. And you know that-that's not psychosomatic, I don't know what it is because they were very traumatized, and they couldn't talk about it. But there is no mental illness that right, you're

00:44:34.590 - 00:44:50.680

crazy or you're healthy, you're normal. And so when they have all of these things happening, who knows what it affects you in many ways, and I remember thinking, reading about it, and making connections with the Hmong community, connecting with you

00:44:50.680 - 00:45:07.080

know, one of the leaders who was just phenomenal. And she-she and I became good friends and just learning about that, the Cambodian community, as well. And so, yeah, just, you know, and working with

00:45:07.230 - 00:45:21.330

the refugee communities, because we would see the refugee communities change throughout the years, depending on where the war was going. And just knowing that I have this connection to

00:45:21.360 - 00:45:33.960

them, because I've been through it myself. And I just can't imagine, even now, bringing strangers into my house. For that I would have a totally different culture, different

00:45:33.960 - 00:45:44.180

language, and they don't speak my language. So I, you know, I choke up when I think about those sponsors. Because how-how did they have the courage to do what they did? What kind of hearts did they have?

00:45:44.550 - 00:45:59.210

You know, it was very, it was an incredible blessing. Yeah, that's amazing. So then, when did the idea of HOPE clinic come about, or was it just waiting for this- From the very beginning!

00:45:59.370 - 00:46:10.890

For this Health Coalition, we knew we needed to- wait, you know, our goal was to- my goal for that, and I know, there were other goals, but my big goal for the coalition, and I was leading it at the

00:46:10.890 - 00:46:26.740

time for years, was really, I wanted the providers to be aware of the Asian communities, the diaspora, you know, the-the diversities within the Asian communities were not the same. And at that, time that wasn't accurate for, you

00:46:27.030 - 00:46:44.360

know, many provides-providers were not aware. And to know how to- so my goal was to educate the providers, to reach out to them, and-and then to make sure that they provided services that was appropriate for the

00:46:44.360 - 00:47:01.290

community that the community needed. And then to make sure we had the data, and then to make sure that-that our parents who get this care, because for the most part, the kids were getting, you know, they had

00:47:01.400 - 00:47:14.720

they could speak. The parents and the older people were not able to speak. So I think from the beginning, we had-we had this dream. From the very beginning of the coalition, we wanted this coalition to culminate in

00:47:14.720 - 00:47:33.660

this dream. That we're going to have a community health center that can serve the community that, you know, in a way that's helpful for us. I understand it began with four hours a week in a-in

00:47:33.880 - 00:47:44.230

a-in a building, right? And then were you- did you stay involved in the whole time? And were you-were you actually in the-in the clinic?

00:47:44.840 - 00:47:54.050

Or were you helping in the background and make sure that everything was set up? I was more in the background. Beverly had the church connection.

00:47:54.910 - 00:48:12.680

I think that Beverly was able to get the- one of the cardiologists at her church to volunteer, and oh my goodness, I remember, he would- I remember, like, he would run over to the Chinese Community Center once a

00:48:13.160 - 00:48:27.520

month, it was once a month after clinic. And he would see patients and the Chinese Community Center and even then, it was so supportive, and they gave us a small room. And we would take the tables out of the closet, and we would

00:48:27.590 - 00:48:39.190

open it up in this small room. And there were volunteers to translate. But because the doctor was Chinese-American, I think we had more Chinese Americans come.

00:48:39.920 - 00:48:52.820

And because it was in the Chinese Community Center, many Vietnamese Americans felt, "It's not for me, it's for the Chinese." So because we had that, and we didn't have a Vietnamese doctor volunteer, and I didn't have those connections.

00:48:53.210 - 00:49:08.390

So you know, and I really learned about that-that's, you know, that people don't think something is for them because of the place where it's in. Right? Because of the language is available. So it was open, like one day a month.

00:49:09.460 - 00:49:19.800

And then it can be one day a week. But it was one day a month for a bit. And we you know, it would think it was $5 a visit because we figured everything- they must be able to afford $5.

00:49:20.890 - 00:49:42.650

And so we did the translation, and... I mean it- Katrina really just kind of put us on the map, because then-then we had a lot of Vietnamese American doctors volunteer, and they came from California, they came from many places, and I

00:49:42.650 - 00:49:55.490

don't- I mean, Beverly and Rogene would have better numbers, but I do remember that we were, at one point, at our clinic that was not even a clinic, it was within a little room within a community center.

00:49:55.490 - 00:50:10.450

We were seeing the most Asian patients of any of the clinics in Texas. I mean, because they all came to our clinic. And you know, they-they had a station at the Hong Kong market.

00:50:10.970 - 00:50:26.760

And people were coming in from, from Louisiana. And you know, a lot of them were Vietnamese, and they needed care. So it was amazing how that- everybody came together, the community came together to help.

00:50:29.260 - 00:50:42.740

This is crazy. That is fascinating. So the- You know, one more thing I think about, if I may interrupt. Thinking about, you know, when people think, is

00:50:43.340 - 00:50:56.650

this place for me? Is this service for me? I remember talking with Qi Mei Lin, at the Chinese Community Center. And she- I remember her telling me a story about when they did the Driver's Ed

00:50:56.730 - 00:51:10.080

program, and they implemented that. And, you know, they, it was our Chinese Americans that came for the driver's ed, they had a government grant to do it. But then, you know, then they get a girl to-to answer the

00:51:10.190 - 00:51:21.480

phones. And that girl was actually bilingual in Chinese and Vietnamese. And then all of a sudden, like, more than 80% of the class became Vietnamese.

00:51:22.690 - 00:51:39.430

So you know, that's the importance of language for people feel, “Okay, if it is- they speak Vietnamese, I can attend.” Or “it is welcoming for me," so just, you know, it's not enough to look Asian, you kind of have to feel like it's okay for me to go.

00:51:42.400 - 00:51:56.550

So, when that one five- one four-hour visit, once a month happened in the Chinese Community Center, did that begin after you collected the data? Was this something that you needed to do only?

00:51:57.430 - 00:52:08.390

What is the connection? I am not too clear on. Why do we need the data to be able to have this service? Well no, we needed the data, just to lobby for the city of

00:52:08.390 - 00:52:20.910

Houston to collect and report on Asian Health. We needed the data for other government institutions to start collecting Asian Health Data, and to report it out. And they always said it was too small.

00:52:21.230 - 00:52:40.440

So even when I started at MD Anderson, I had to kind of really lobby to the-the Texas Cancer Registry, and the Texas Association of Demographers because they reported data for Texas, for Asia- for African Americans, for whites, for Hispanics, but no

00:52:40.480 - 00:52:52.020

Asians. And they always said it's too small to be statistically valid. But I said you just have to. You have to. And we were always, you know, calling and asking for

00:52:52.070 - 00:53:05.890

data. And so now, you know, you can get Asian data from the Texas Cancer Registry. The Texas Demographics people collect, the report out for Asians, because you

00:53:05.890 - 00:53:19.210

know, you can't report on cancer data if you don't have the population data, because then you can't produce a rate. So you need to have the population data reported out, right? So that's what's you know, kind of that connection.

00:53:19.620 - 00:53:33.730

So we needed to have other people to be aware of the issue, to be aware of the challenges, and to address it in their own capacity, because that's what they're responsible for. And that's what we pay with our tax monies.

00:53:37.480 - 00:53:50.890

So then, once this clinic was established, and you're saying Katrina really put the clinic on the map, that people got to know about it, and then other non-Asian, but non-Chinese but other Asian groups came to seek medical help.

00:53:52.420 - 00:54:09.040

When did it become what it is- what we know even- what-how did it get its office on Corporate Drive in that building? And then from then to- well, from the story from when it grew from the Corporate campus to other campuses, I think we have captured in the other interviews, but

00:54:09.040 - 00:54:21.040

just the beginning, if you could just touch a little bit upon it. So this is where we use the data. So because we did have data on Asian behavior, Asian beliefs, Asian, some

00:54:21.040 - 00:54:33.290

of that data we use when we write grants. So we were writing because you know, when you write grants, you have to describe the population. And if we can get that description anywhere, we can even get it for the Health of

00:54:33.290 - 00:54:47.900

Houston. So we used what we had through the Opening Doors Project. So we used that to write the grants, too. So we got our first grant was like a $25,000 grant from Aetna, I remember. And so from that grant, we built, um, you

00:54:47.900 - 00:55:04.440

know, some projects and... so, getting those grants, using the data that we had to-to keep building and then we started thinking well, we need to apply for at least FQHC

00:55:04.500 - 00:55:15.210

look-alike status. But the state health department didn't have Asian data. So and it was interesting because

00:55:15.610 - 00:55:31.930

to apply for this, you had to even demonstrate that you're in a medically underserved area, or a medically underserved population. How can you show that you're medically underserved population if you don't have any data on your population?

00:55:33.550 - 00:55:43.380

Right? They weren't collecting that. And-and the state health department, were not collecting it in in the southwest area. So they weren't even

00:55:43.380 - 00:55:56.170

looking at it. Texas is a big state. And we know that and they've got their eyes in different places, right, but they can't be everywhere at once. But it took a group, a concerted effort, by just

00:55:57.110 - 00:56:10.820

very, you know, the more you find out and the more you realize needs to be done. And the more you realize, you can do it very effectively, as a bigger group. You can have a bigger voice, you can have a heavier weight to your

00:56:10.820 - 00:56:23.760

words. So we really lobbied within the Texas State Department of Health. They had a-an office to determine area. So in order for them to even go out and, and

00:56:23.760 - 00:56:38.940

pull the data that they needed to pull to demonstrate that an area was medically underserved. Or it's short of health providers, they had to do a lot of things, and they didn't have the data to pull it.

00:56:38.940 - 00:56:52.590

So we kind of really pushed and prodded until they did that. And we were able to show “Okay, so we were able to go for the MUP, the medically underserved population.”

00:56:53.610 - 00:57:08.620

And you know, and just applying. We applied so often, and we would meet after work, Beverly, Rogene, and I, and we would write different sections of the grant. And at that time, you know, you had to

00:57:08.620 - 00:57:20.630

do 10 copies of everything. And there was, you know, we would just kind of chip in our money, and we made the copies. And, you know, it had to be mailed before midnight and whatever day and we would be driving downtown

00:57:20.630 - 00:57:36.370

to the downtown post office, which was, you know, it's no longer there, but the downtown post office and we'd be dropping off our 10 packages of documents. But we actually were not successful in getting- so we

00:57:36.450 - 00:57:51.110

realized we needed a professional grant writer, and we, because this, you know, and that's another thing. These federal- big federal grants, you know, they're asking community people to do things that where we didn't have the background and information to

00:57:51.110 - 00:58:00.800

do. We knew the needs. But if you have reviewers that don't- I mean, where we could be evaluating different things, right. So that's

00:58:00.800 - 00:58:14.840

one thing I'm really encouraged about no-now that I see with cancer grants, where they bring in reviewers who are advocates, who are patients, who are community members to help review the grants. Because if, unless you

00:58:15.270 - 00:58:28.010

review it from that perspective, you don't realize that these grants are not going to be helpful. So you know, you've got to have, from different perspectives. And you've got to have researchers coming from these communities with

00:58:28.050 - 00:58:43.460

these different perspectives and understandings, in order to do research that is appropriate for the community. And that's meaningful and relevant for the community. And you can only do that if you have diverse participants in

00:58:43.620 - 00:58:55.360

every category. That is so true. So we have another half an hour, a little bit less to discuss all your amazing career. So if

00:58:55.400 - 00:59:07.920

there's something else you'd like to talk to us about HOPE Clinic, please do. But I'd like to move on, especially to the work that you're doing now. Directing the minority women clinical trials recruitment program at MD

00:59:07.990 - 00:59:21.510

Anderson, and then also addressing the systemic bias and racism in health care system. All of these are absolutely so timely, it's so important. But if there's something else you'd like to talk about HOPE Clinic, and then we can

00:59:21.510 - 00:59:38.050

move on to or is there something else you would prefer to talk about in your career? We'd love to hear it. Sure, just kind of a little more of a brief background, I feel very fortunate to- so when I went to you know-

00:59:38.150 - 00:59:54.180

right after graduating from the School of Public Health with my Master's, I was able to work in research for two years. So I really had an understanding of the research. And that really informed my thinking as well as informed

00:59:54.180 - 01:00:09.590

my rebellion. But having that research background and then I was able to go to United Way where I really got the perspective from the community in terms of funding and kind of resources. And how do you assess community

01:00:09.590 - 01:00:23.960

programming, which I had learned in my studies at the School of Public Health, but not in actual real life practice, and seeing how that worked, and seeing how to allocate the money equitably and fairly.

01:00:24.540 - 01:00:37.820

And who is involved in the board is so important, learning all of that and learning about that diversity. You know, because if you have chairman of the boards on your board, sure, you able to bring in a lot of money.

01:00:38.290 - 01:00:52.180

But does that mean that all your money goes to the big organizations that everyone knows about? The Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts the-the big organizations. What about- is it your job also to incubate these smaller

01:00:52.230 - 01:01:09.530

community organizations that really know the needs of these smaller groups that you know, so really, I felt like I was able to bring that voice to the United Way process, to listen to the smaller groups, maybe sometimes it is our job to incubate

01:01:09.970 - 01:01:24.240

and be able to address these needs that we're not aware of. And then from the United Way, I was able to move, and it's- I feel very fortunate because of these moves. I've always- I wasn't looking for the opportunity, but they- people would

01:01:24.240 - 01:01:35.530

approach me and ask me to apply for the position. So I was able to go to a managed care company that was created by the Memorial Hermann

01:01:35.530 - 01:01:47.860

system, and the Sisters of Charity healthcare system. It was two healthcare system that came together and created a managed care company. And they felt like they- it was very hard for them to work with

01:01:48.170 - 01:02:01.120

insurers, like the big insurers who-who cut the prices. And you know, it was- so they created, they wanted to create their own insurance company. And so I worked so I learned things from the

01:02:02.210 - 01:02:13.470

managed care perspective. I learned about HEDIS, about quality tools, about all of these things in the managed care. So I had a good grounding in that, and also a good

01:02:13.520 - 01:02:27.690

understanding of what, really how difficult it is, at that time to use the managed care data sets for Health Research. Because the data was not collected in that way. It was collected for billing.

01:02:28.200 - 01:02:39.960

And so in order to do research, you've got to collect data differently for research. So at that time, that was you know, Kaiser was the the lead in that. And I was very impressed with what Kaiser was doing and reporting and all

01:02:39.960 - 01:02:50.440

of this, but the research piece was beyond my little health care company that was newly formed. And it's actually now defunct, they were not able to maintain it.

01:02:50.750 - 01:03:04.300

But from there, I went to Memorial Hermann itself and worked in strategic planning. So I got a background in hospital planning. And I did the strategic planning piece for the

01:03:05.330 - 01:03:17.110

Hermann Children's Hospital and Memorial Southwest, those were my two groups. And really, always bringing in the community perspective, to the planning perspective, because we can get caught up in-in

01:03:19.180 - 01:03:35.800

our little picture inside the building, and we forget to include this big picture. And these drivers that, you know, we're not seeing. And so having the hospital perspective, and then from there, I was invited to apply for a job at MD Anderson.

01:03:36.730 - 01:03:54.360

And going back into- and it's the hospital system, but getting to do community stuff within a hospital system. So it's like a merging of that and having that experience, all of this has really, you know, affected how I view the world.

01:03:54.780 - 01:04:06.740

And I'm so fortunate, and so I've actually been at MD Anderson for the longest. All of my other jobs have lasted maybe three years. And then something would happen and I would get invited to apply and-and

01:04:08.250 - 01:04:20.160

now I've been here 20 years, and I have no interest in leaving. I love what I'm doing and I um I'm always doing new things and learning new things. So it's just always fun.

01:04:21.800 - 01:04:40.750

So that's kind of my- that is all the things that drives me. But at MD Anderson, we have a- I work in a center for community engaged translational research, and that is working with communities to do research with the community

01:04:41.130 - 01:04:56.050

to you know, obviously we make fun of this, but we don't do drive by research. Right? We-we do research with the community, where the community- our partners have a voice in-in what we're doing and we always, we look

01:04:56.120 - 01:05:07.360

to them for wisdom. It really bothers me in health education promotion, very. I think sometimes, I think sometimes we think of communities as

01:05:07.860 - 01:05:18.830

this open vessel, you know, waiting for people to- smart people to pour in information and knowledge. And then they're going to

01:05:18.830 - 01:05:29.100

change their behavior. Because once they know tobacco is bad for you, right? And-and it's not the case, you have to figure out, what is it?

01:05:29.470 - 01:05:44.920

I mean, sometimes you have to accept a cigarette, because your friend is offering it to you, and it's a token of friendship, you don't turn down something, like just like you go to someone's house, and they offer you something, some food, you know, you-you do, you know, you,

01:05:45.260 - 01:05:58.160

sometimes you do want to accept because you don't want to turn people down. So you know, just-just I love being able to connect our researchers to the communities

01:05:58.850 - 01:06:10.160

in an equitable way, because researchers can be selfish. And I say that because they don't intentionally mean to be selfish, but they are focused on their question.

01:06:10.580 - 01:06:24.620

They're focused on what they need to get their questions answered, to get the research done. So they're not really thinking about, you know, they're thinking about what they need, first and foremost. They're not thinking about what the partner needs, and what's in it for them.

01:06:25.250 - 01:06:39.210

Because researchers always think, often. Of course, this is important, of course, the community partner is going to agree that this is important for their population. So I'm sorry, the sun was getting

01:06:39.540 - 01:06:53.060

on my head, and I was getting hot. But I have to tell them, it's beyond that. If you want the community partner, the organization, to collect data for you, in a certain way, it's

01:06:53.060 - 01:07:06.020

going to require reprogramming. You've got to pay for the time, for the analyst, the programmer, to reprogram the system. You've got to pay for the time for a community coordinator to do all

01:07:06.020 - 01:07:18.080

of this. You cannot expect people to do things for you out of the goodness of their heart. And I'm always trying to get our researchers out into the community because I tell them it's good karma.

01:07:18.600 - 01:07:30.490

You know, you got to pay back. You want people to participate in your studies, when's the last time you volunteered? And then there's like some- and if they tell me they're too busy, I'm telling them, do you think community

01:07:30.490 - 01:07:43.130

members are not busy? They have lives, they have jobs, and they're probably busier than you are. So, you know, and that's another thing is, you know, when we think- a lot of times, people talk about

01:07:44.520 - 01:08:00.070

marginalized community. I am so glad that now that really- that these words are no longer acceptable. That we look to the community for wisdom. Because the communities themselves know what

01:08:00.300 - 01:08:13.520

works for them, they can tell us what helps them. They're not marginalized. They are proud people with a lot of strengths. They've been put in supremely adverse

01:08:13.520 - 01:08:30.550

circumstances. But they've managed to do well, despite all of that so to recognize that, and to work from that perspective, that it is us that have to learn. We have to learn, it is incumbent upon us to know how to work, to

01:08:30.550 - 01:08:42.980

figure out where the people are. I mean, sometimes I've heard a community member say, you know, people say that we're hard-hard to reach communities. I always know where to reach my family and friends and my

01:08:42.980 - 01:08:52.830

neighbors. You don't know how to reach us- we're not hard to reach. So that really made an impact on me. And I, you know, I try not to think of it that way. And I, you know, I've had-

01:08:52.990 - 01:09:05.750

we've had some failures actually reaching out to some communities. And part of it is because sometimes it's that those communities are too new. They've got too many other things going on right now.

01:09:05.750 - 01:09:19.150

They can't do health promotion, health prevention, or projects that require them to do surveys and advocate to get people because they're still- those leaders are still trying to get their communities to do primary basic stuff for survival.

01:09:19.690 - 01:09:31.840

So we, having to acknowledge that and figuring that out. And that's hard too. But you know, figuring that out and keeping them on my back burner so that, as you know, continuing to grow

01:09:31.840 - 01:09:44.560

and foster and support and that's what communities need. They need to be aware that you're not just out here to use them, to write your grants and get your money. And then get your promotions.

01:09:44.840 - 01:09:59.410

You're here because you want to see the community thrive. And so my team and I do that where we are the researchers or not, of course they have to do their research. But my teams and I, we're out there and we're meeting with the communities we're helping

01:09:59.460 - 01:10:12.060

participate. We help them with program planning. We help- we serve on the committees, we serve on the boards. It's a lot of time and a lot of those times were in the evenings, you know, weird hours.

01:10:12.240 - 01:10:25.930

Sometimes we're compensated, sometimes we're not. Because if it's in the evenings, you know, something, we just do what we need to do. And so that's one of the things that I've learned is to hire community, pass- people passionate

01:10:25.930 - 01:10:42.720

about community, because they're going to do what it takes, and they're going to be creative and clever. And I've also learned that we've got to hire people who, just whose enthusiasm and who kind of was a little bit of

01:10:42.870 - 01:11:01.090

a salesman, because you've kind of sell health. I mean, if we're not selling health, like Coca Cola is selling Coke, how are we going to get people to change behavior. And this came to me because I was in a meeting in Dallas, at

01:11:01.090 - 01:11:12.250

a public health meeting with the, you know, the health department, I was-I was on a subcommittee group. And it was a big meeting room. And it was extremely boring, and was quiet.

01:11:12.910 - 01:11:22.030

And everybody's kind of like, just discuss-discussing things. And in the next room next to us, it was another ball room, you know how they separate the ballrooms into two?

01:11:22.440 - 01:11:37.270

There was so much cheering going on, there was laughter, there was so much energy, and enthusiasm, and our room was dead, that we're talking about health. So I snuck out, I went over to the other room, you know what it was? It was a Mary Kay meeting.

01:11:39.680 - 01:11:52.360

Those women know how to sell health. Right? They're selling cosmetics, but you've got to be, you've got to sell health with the same enthusiasm, you're selling all these other men, all these other people who are successful.

01:11:54.340 - 01:12:05.790

We can't be talking about theories, we can't- we've got to talk, we've got to, you know. So that's been my-my thinking and-and my approach to how I do my projects.

01:12:06.990 - 01:12:22.340

If you can't sell health, like Coca Cola, or Mary Kay or any of these people that are successfully selling their products, or Philip Morris, we're not-we're not going to be able to do what we do. But you know what, we can connect with the

01:12:22.340 - 01:12:38.120

community, we can show our communities we care, and we can be intentional in how we research with them. That's brilliant. So we only have like 13 minutes left. I want to know a little bit more about your family.

01:12:39.150 - 01:12:50.300

And then also anything that you're so proud, you know, looking back on your amazing career that you want to let our audience and future researchers know. You have 13 minutes to choose.

01:12:52.290 - 01:13:05.520

It's been a fascinating interview. So yeah, so I, you know, my parents have three kids. So I have two brothers and me and I have one- well they're both engineers.

01:13:05.520 - 01:13:17.370

And I think it's because at that time with us growing up, you know, you had to become like a profession. So to help the family. So they became engineers, because that's what boys do.

01:13:17.520 - 01:13:30.310

So it's very stereotypical. And I met my husband at University of Houston. He was in his last year of architecture, and I was in my first year, and I was working in work study at the

01:13:31.120 - 01:13:42.630

architecture school. So we met, and then we started dating. So we became engaged. And I got married at 22, which is quite early among my peer

01:13:42.630 - 01:13:56.020

group. And think, I had my child when I was 28. And he is now 26 years old. You know, if- so I have-we have one child, and my

01:13:56.020 - 01:14:09.960

husband started his own architecture design build firm, and he worked in architecture for quite a bit. And then he wanted to do something different, and he sold his business.

01:14:10.650 - 01:14:21.770

And he bought a coffee farm in Hawaii. So now we're coffee farmers part-time. And you know, I didn't know anything about coffee farming, but he said, "Don't worry,

01:14:21.770 - 01:14:30.900

we can YouTube it." And we did, so we love-we love growing things. We love gardening, and in Hawaii, everything grows.

01:14:31.310 - 01:14:42.350

So we do go quite often. And now it's much easier because I work from home, except that in Hawaii, I work like from 2am to 12pm because I'm working Houston time still.

01:14:44.450 - 01:14:54.790

But it's been an awesome ride. And you know, my husband has taken so many risks where he started new businesses all the time like he is- right now he has a restaurant.

01:14:55.520 - 01:15:06.530

He built his own restaurant, right? In the museum district at South Moore, called it Java Lava Blue. So that, you know, is a

01:15:06.530 - 01:15:17.400

Hawaiian restaurant. It features coffee from our farm, Kona Coffee, you know, this is awesome coffee. And then with the pandemic, he sold the restaurant.

01:15:17.660 - 01:15:31.570

But then we recently got invited back into, to the Asia Society, right and again at the same street because they loved our food. And my husband really didn't want to go back because he's

01:15:31.570 - 01:15:45.810

like, “I think I'm retired, I'm enjoying this.” And he, that they just made us an awesome offer. And they are such a good group, they're phenomenal people. So it's- and it's limited hours is a lot less work than before.

01:15:46.250 - 01:16:03.790

So we are now back, Java Lava Cafe, in the Asia Society, and, you know, got lots of excellent food, and I come out and help on the weekends. And actually, it's fun, because I sometimes talk to our customers about clinical trials and talk to

01:16:03.790 - 01:16:18.200

them about why is it so important that minorities have to participate in clinical trials And they're eating their poke, and drinking their golden oat milk, and they have to listen to me.

01:16:20.420 - 01:16:32.650

And I did that at the old restaurant too. And, you know, at the old restaurant, we actually had quite a lot of African American patrons. And, you know, then, of course, that was my audience. And I'm like, you know, we really have to have

01:16:32.900 - 01:16:43.590

African Americans at clinical trials. And that's what I do. And this is why and you know, and I explained, and people listen to me, and so we do educational sessions at our old restaurant, and

01:16:43.590 - 01:16:57.570

now we haven't done it, because we've just moved into this new restaurant, but I'd love to do more of that. So that's, you know, so our son is now you know, on his own, he's fully grown, he's working full time, he's got a

01:16:57.570 - 01:17:08.020

new job. Because he's just transitioned, he's going to- he's a programmer. And one of the passions that I talk about- I do a lot of training at MD Anderson is on plain language.

01:17:08.520 - 01:17:24.720

Because language access is so critical. And people don't realize that, you know, linguists say that at 10,000 words, you have learned a new language; you can speak fluently in that language.

01:17:25.120 - 01:17:40.680

And people don't realize you go through Mexico, you pick up 15,000 new words. And that means the average doctor has learned a new vocabulary, a new language, and they forget that they're speaking a different language than us, and

01:17:40.680 - 01:17:54.320

particularly for people who are not in the healthcare field. And particularly for people who are stressed out, our literacy goes down, even if you have a PhD in Nuclear Medicine, you're not a cancer doctor. But you're not- this is

01:17:54.320 - 01:18:04.830

not your space. It's like when you talk to a programmer, like I talk to my son, or when I talk to a gamer. That's not my space, or even an auto mechanic right?

01:18:04.830 - 01:18:14.950

That's not my space. There are many words I don't understand. There are many concepts I don't understand. So I do a lot of training for our doctors, our nurses, our

01:18:15.070 - 01:18:28.730

pharmacists, and I do it for the other community groups as well. And to Rice groups- the students to inoculate them, who are interested in health careers, to speak in plain language. And so there are strategies to do that.

01:18:29.050 - 01:18:42.320

And I go over those strategies. So that-that is one of my, my passions is to, you know, get people to speak in plain language, so that people have access to healthcare and understand- they can make informed

01:18:42.320 - 01:18:56.020

decisions for themselves. That is so great. So well, I have so many questions, but you call yourself a rebel? And how do you see

01:18:56.020 - 01:19:10.080

yourself as a rebel? Gosh, I guess I'm more of an activist. I've always, I'm always supporting the underdog. And the underdog is usually the small communities who don't have a voice.

01:19:10.770 - 01:19:26.120

And knowing that I cannot be the voice, recognizing that there are many voices to any community. So and I'm always you know, I often do the- I play the devil's advocate, even for myself, because I know nothing is black and white.

01:19:26.150 - 01:19:41.130

There's many shades of gray, and to be able to recognize that and to be able to kind of figure out what is it that I don't know. I want to keep that field kind of small. Like if I don't know something, then at least I should know that I don't know it.

01:19:41.900 - 01:19:58.460

And so, but I guess these days I'm not so much a rebel anymore, because I'm older and I'm tired. Now, you know, my- I'm very just right now I think I'm more focused on, on the plain language and bringing that

01:19:58.540 - 01:20:16.340

equity to the care, to make sure that our patients understand what we mean when we say a stage, a cancer stage. When we just say all the words that we toss about, and we don't even think of it as jargon, but it truly is, and

01:20:16.700 - 01:20:32.780

making sure that their voices are heard. So, and that sense, and I know my other passion is swimming. So I came over when I didn't know how to swim, and the ocean was very, a very scary place.

01:20:33.250 - 01:20:44.050

My mother is very scared of the ocean. And this is actually an experience that we share with many people in the African American community, who suffer the highest rates of childhood drowning.

01:20:45.100 - 01:21:04.150

So for-for many minority women, we don't know how to swim. So I actually have attended like five swimming programs, dropped out of five swimming programs, unsuccessfully. And then one year, my

01:21:04.150 - 01:21:21.310

brother in law entered my family into a race, a triathlon. And there were three parts in a triathlon, there's the swimming part, and then there's a biking and a running part. And my family said, “Well, you've the one with the

01:21:21.310 - 01:21:36.620

most swimming experience, you be the swimmer”. I mean, I could tell him that I dropped out, I didn't know how to swim, but I had the most experience. So I had to learn how to swim really quick to learn to do 1000 meters,

01:21:37.250 - 01:21:48.270

when I didn't know how to swim across the pool. But fortunately, I was able to hook up with a coach who is a triathlon coach, which is different because the other teachers I had to test were swimming teachers.

01:21:48.840 - 01:22:02.520

And this coach was teaching people how to swim effectively, efficiently, because after you swim, you still have to bike and then you still have to run. So I think in one lesson, he taught me and I was able to get across the pool.

01:22:02.940 - 01:22:16.580

And in that summer, in, like, in three months, I was able to do 1000 meters. And it was a lot of work on my part. And then I became, I just love it so much, because it's freedom. It's- I- it's meditation.

01:22:16.630 - 01:22:26.160

I'm with my breath, and with my body, when I'm swimming, there's nothing else. And I became a coach. I took the coaching class, and I really just want

01:22:26.390 - 01:22:42.190

to-to help people, especially minorities and women, how to swim. So that's one of my next goals for my retirement life is to volunteer somewhere, and help- and I actually am on the USMS coaching list.

01:22:42.550 - 01:22:52.080

So I've been approached by different people asking for help with swimming, and I've helped them with swimming, and they have been minority women. So it's been very rewarding for me.

01:22:53.220 - 01:23:03.590

So that's amazing. Thank you. So are there any other parting wisdom or thoughts you'd like to share with us? We have about two minutes. I'm very conscious of your schedule.

01:23:06.660 - 01:23:17.100

So I think- I think for people who are younger, who are like me, before... you're new, you have a lot of passion, you have a lot of energy.

01:23:17.770 - 01:23:28.200

I think the most wonderful thing that you can have is friends to do it with. You know, you can't do it alone. And that's where the path of burnout happens.

01:23:29.510 - 01:23:42.840

You've got to, you know, I was so lucky to find Rogene and Beverly and there were- there were other people too, but those other people have kind of eventually dropped out of the pictures but to have Rogene and Beverly by our side.

01:23:42.840 - 01:23:52.630

And when I get tired, like when I had my baby, and I needed to drop out for about six months, they kind of took the lead, and it's kind of like you know, birds flying, right?

01:23:52.630 - 01:24:08.060

They take turns taking the lead and and having that support group is just so powerful. And-and it really helps you keep your strength up. So having, you know, just your-your peeps, your

01:24:08.100 - 01:24:17.980

homebodies to do things with makes it fun, you know, I can't say enough about that. And it's been an incredible journey with Rogene and Beverly.

01:24:18.740 - 01:24:29.090

So... Well thank you. It's been such a wonderful interview. And I hope that you will allow us to come back to you sometime, when you have more time, we have more questions to perhaps continue the

01:24:29.090 - 01:24:42.620

conversation and to see what you do in the next chapter of your life. For sure, and come out to the coffee shop. Okay, well thank you very, very much.

01:24:42.620 - 01:24:50.490

It's been a pleasure and honor to, to learn your story. And it was a pleasure to meet you. Thank you Anne. Thank you. Have a great day.

01:24:50.490 - 01:24:51.500

Bye bye.