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Um, so today is June 23rd, 2017, we’re here today at Hope Clinic to interview Shane. Uh, I’m Xingyi Li.

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And I’m Anna Ta. So can you say your name? Yes, my name is Shane Chen. Shane Chen…can you write it down? Sure. Uh…do you have a Chinese name?

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Um my Chinese name is Chen Xiang Jun. Chen Xiang Jun. Uh…Can you write it down in Chinese? Oh my goodness, my handwriting is horrible.

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[laugh] I came here when I was very little so I have elementary school handwriting for my Chinese…don’t make fun of me. [laugh] It’s okay. Alright. Can you show it to the camera?

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Yes, I can. So…did your mother…um did your parents give you your English name? No. It actually is a…is kind of a not direct translation but um after graduating from college.

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It is when I immigrated here on the passport it actually is spelled H-S-I-A-N-G and um everyone had really hard time pronouncing it growing up so um in elementary school and um even in just grade level school, I

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would sit there anticipate the teacher roll calling and um basically hold my breath and usually when they get to the Cs the teacher would stop for a moment and cause they’re struggling to pronounce it, and then I

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would say “I’m right here! I’m right here!”. [laugh] It is pronounced “Shane” and so um after college I was thinking…You know if I want to get a job on the resume if I actually have my

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name in a very foreign way, chances are that people wasn’t…they can’t pronounce it, they’re not even really gonna look at it. So I basically had been telling my name um it’s pronounced kind of like

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“Shane” but “Hsien” with a “g” so I just decided I’m just going to change it. And so growing up my cousins usually just call me Shane. So well I’ll just keep it something simple.

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So, that’s why I changed it legally after graduating from college. Okay. So uh just going back to now, to present. Uh what’s your job in Hope Clinic? So I’m the Chief Operating Officer.

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I basically take care of the day to day problematic as well as some of the um functioning logistics as well as looking at um the privacy in mitigating some of the risk and um patient care, patient um satisfaction, customer care, um I had been

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with Hope Clinic for a little bit over 9 years, almost 10 years. And um prior to that, I have been working with other non-profit organizations as well, as well as the city of Houston.

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Um, I am very proud of our accomplishment over at the Hope Clinic. It was actually established by the Asian American Health Coalition to serve the community and right now as you can see in our waiting area, we service everyone. We call it a

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cradle…womb to tomb, there you go. I call it cradle to grave, um no, birth to grave at first, but you know, that sounds so morbid, why don’t we just call it womb to tomb? So we have newborns and we also have

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the senior citizens that we take care of, and we also help a lot of the mothers, make sure they get their good pregnancy care; and we work with various community leaders and organizations to look at health issues as well as addressing um the social issues,

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environmental issues, pertaining to people’s health and become the champion. Oh wow. Uh so why did you choose to go to Hope Clinic? So my past roles have always been working with Asian American,

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native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander population. And I had been in roles where I would work with the Houston Police Department, work with different community leaders to build cultural understanding, you know, um celebrating the heritage.

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So uh there is a bridge, a closer bridge between the general public as well as Asian American, native Hawaiian and Pacific islanders um through ours, through you know, through activities, building understanding, and so I’m very familiar with a lot of our community leaders and

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also uh the local organization providing social, cultural and other services to the population here. So um the Hope Clinic was actually established by the Asian American Health

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Coalition, at that time I was participating in a lot of the health coalition initiatives and um there was a um program that we got funded for in order to provide capacity development to the coalition, to

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the organization as well as community at large for systems change as well as community impact. And that was my role initially to really work with people here to look at what are the current issues, which at that time we

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choose cancer as a health issue and we decided, you know, with cancer, um people would have concerns, barriers accessing cancer care. And some of the ladies who have breast cancer, they need so

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much support and so much resources, but it’s a stigma. And they’re so ashamed of having cancer because it seems like “oh, well, there’s something bad in your family then”, you know, you have the bad gene, you have

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cancer. So we have instances where a woman would be diagnosed with uh breast cancer, and she wouldn’t tell anybody in fear that her daughter would not be marriageable because it would actually,

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people would look down on the family and say “oh, well then maybe her daughter would get breast cancer too”, so she would hide it from her family and everyone else. And so you have people who were suffering alone by themselves

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and not getting the proper care and having optimal recovery, and same with a lot of the other ladies who may have some support from their family members, but they don’t want the people in the public to know. So a lot of the times, they are wearing wigs slightly lopsided or

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they’re needing better wigs, they are just using whatever they can get for wigs, postiches and um it’s not…women shouldn’t have to be like that. The fact that they can actually beat cancer, the fact that they can actually overcome that

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challenge, you know, both emotional and also physical, it’s something they should celebrate, so I came here working with Light and Salt association, Chinese community center via teamwork and a lot of the other uh

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organizations to help bring some awareness, uh lower the stigma, as well as set up support groups. So from that particular initiative, we set up the Indian American cancer network of Houston and also the

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Filipino cancer network; and they pretty much learn from each other, it was a really awesome cohort partnering with American Cancer Society and MD Anderson. We received a little funding from the

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Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas, CPRIT, which generously allowed us to do a lot of education, a lot of um the screenings in the community, which we made significant change to help people

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perceive hepatitis, people perceive breast and cervical cancer, as well as smoking and lung cancer. So um through those changes, of course, the Asian American Health Coalition as well as the clinic itself took on

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a lot of that um reduction of the stigma, for example, hepatitis B can be managed, hepatitis C can be cured, uh we wanted to be able to address it with your families, so that people are educated, people know

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that hey, we can actually make sure the whole family is going properly, understand the disease, hepatitis ABCDEFG, there’s a wide range, but have a better understanding of what they’re dealing with, so they can actually treat it, or cure it; and you can actually just

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stop right there, so it wouldn’t be spread to other people. So um, that champion, that kind of you know initiative itself, a lot of people, for goodness sake, every year we are screening roughly a thousand people uh just

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partnering with various organization and there’s still a lot more of broader ranges so now our community partners have a lot more capacity cause at that time we were teaching them how to grant write, how to talk to funders, how to talk to

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elected officials, or people who make the decisions, so they can help make the systems change, so smaller organization that had like a part-time executive director, or manager whatever, or someone it’s not a non-

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profit, it was just a thought, they are now a sustainable non-profit organization. They’re doing their own grant writing, they are also doing their own um program management as well as adding more staff to the capacities, so that they’re doing more to really address

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chronic diseases, the policies um the health policies, or any other social issues at hand. So speaking of change, how do you see the change like in the Hope Clinic like, based on patients and

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just workers? So it had been a uh wonderful and dynamic um progress over the last years. We were originally um

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just a regular charity clinic. We were open maybe three days a week? Very partial with maybe altogether seven FTE staff and um we went from

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there. In 2008, we received a designation of the uh Federal Qualified Health Center lookalike(?) which allowed us to have a little more resources to be able to um… bill insurance companies or medicate and be able to get

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more funding and better uh reimbursement from medicate patients. So that resources and in fact that we were kind of moving forward and progressing forward allowed us to bring in additional um services, more providers, more medical assistants, and

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actually grow the services that we offer by really working with people who live around here, work around here, and even like go to school around here to say what are some of your needs, what are some of your concerns, what can we address.

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Um I remember one of the focus groups(?) that we had, we had a lot of seniors who were signed on to Medicare who were really upset and said that, “well you know, my husband and I would have to pay 600 dollars a month that’s a lot of money, and then on top of that, we still have a lot of donut holes and gaps

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and stuff when we seek our services”. Insurance in for our age, you know, for their age especially when they really need it is not affordable. And uh they’re concerned, you know, because their inability to pay

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that they really would have to skip certain medications or certain services. And then we’re like no, no, no, no, no, so don’t worry about that, we will take care of you, we actually have ways of being able to kind of slide(?) based on your current situation, your household, but do not let the inability

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to pay be a barrier; and then also working with um families, basically you know I have a teenager I don’t know how to talk to my teenager, I know he’s into something bad, maybe like drugs or drinking, but I don’t know how to talk

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to him and I don’t know how to help him, and that’s when we really brought in behavior health services and counselling, family counselling to try to help address those for parents to be able to come in and talk to somebody and invite their kids to come in and also talk to a counsellor

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and work together as a family dynamic. Um that’s how we determine and strategize what services we need to tackle next and be able to really help the community improve not only their physical health but also their mental

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health and also maybe helping with their current environment and condition which we called social determinant and also being more their focus, patient focused, community focused.

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Um so I feel like over the progress we helped community leaders and our partners improve their capacity, now it’s our chance to really help patients, improve their capacity and their knowledge and empower them to be to take care of themselves, go help them vote,

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you don’t like your insurance, say something; understand what’s going on so that it doesn’t get taken away from you; be your own master. So we are

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hoping to kind of progress with that, even with the clinic itself, we started off with seven staff, mainly um Asian Americans, but we grew and as we are servicing the different population that are living around

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here, we partnered a lot with the refugee resettlement agency and we also hire from within the community, so it’s very multi-ethnic and a lot of them are immigrants. Maybe like uh I want to say 60%, 65% of our staffs are foreign born, some of our staff were

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born here but they have parents that are immigrants. They are also very proud of the heritage. Um they embrace them, for them including you know um those who were born here, understanding what their parents had

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really gone through by seeing what our patients are going through gives them a better kind of a mental setback of hey, what my parents went through that they were refugees also or they were immigrants and they struggled they

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raise me and um, they take pride in what they do, providing health education, helping the patients with social services and care coordination, screening for eligibility, signing them up for the ACA,

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providing them with uh care management, talking to patients who basically have concern about getting lab done because you know how am I going to pay and our staff say you know don’t worry we have the resources we will take

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care of you. I think for them that’s very rewarding and that’s also very best feeling to leave the day feeling like you really helped somebody, and coming to work the next day you’re thinking who else I can help today. So

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over at our [inaudible] site, we basically just delivered triplets and so for one of the hospital that we are uh credentialed at, they never had triplets before and this is a natural birth, so for us, it’s a milestone, that

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we are able to help a lot of the immigrant women who come to this country and these triplets and actually have great start to a new life and they got timely care and the babies are healthy and that’s the best feeling in the world.

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Wow, so uh do you always want to work with non-profit and Asian American? So I had graduated originally like any Asian uh parents, my mom and dad wanted me to go into the health field. [laugh] Go be a doctor, go be a optometrist,

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go be a dentist, so I took all those major tests, and I was like oh my gosh, why, I’m so miserable. I don’t want to study for these tests I don’t want to look at people’s eyes the whole day.

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So my last year of college, I changed my major to major in psychology, minor in um advertising, so I wanted to go in to the business field and I wanted to go and be creative and design, you know, advertisement.

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Needless to say, I worked in there for a year and a half, two years and I realize I really don’t like lying to people. You know, with marketing and advertising, you have to create a product even though it’s not a great product and you don’t

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believe in it. But you have to spin it to where: it’s wonderful, you have to buy it, you have to try it out. Right? And so at the end of the day, you feel like oh, you know, I’m lying to people.

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They’re gonna buy it so you know, they’re just gonna be, you know, losing their money. And so um from there I actually just kind of put one foot, cause I was young and I was involved with the

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community, I started working for non-profit organizations called Asian Pacific American Heritage Association and that’s when I started working with culture and art and heritage and also bridging that understanding and then also making sure that we reduce misunderstandings and stereotypes

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of the Asian American and native Hawaiian and Pacific Americans. For example, if people are behaving in a certain way, for… either it’s the Muslin faith, or for the Buddhist faith, how would the Houston Police

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Department or how would any of the other local public better perceive and why they would behave a certain way, so as uh you know, many of the Muslin faith celebrate Ramadan and they have their certain

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practices, and to make sure on the equal employment and fair treatment uh aspect that people understand that they actually have to have certain practices, understand what their faith is, understand what their culture is, so that as they, in a workplace or in the

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public uh arena, there is better services and um less discrimination. Um that had been really rewarding as well because we were able to…it was an eye opener for me too because I for one, had to really learn about oh wow

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there’s Micronesia, Polynesia and also Hawaiians. They’re so different for someone from either Cook or New Guinean, just being able to differentiate um even the south Asian population that they have different culture, different languages

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and different um practices and um despite what other people basically think Asians, it’s not just one group of people, it’s very different cultures, different ways of practicing faith, different

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ways of… different food, cuisines; and as you guess, I don’t know if you were um been in Houston. So I immigrated to Houston back in the 80s and so I grew up here.

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Back then there was a very, very small Chinatown, and you can kind of see the progression of Asia town here in the southwest. It was just maybe one supermarket back then and uh maybe a couple of small businesses and restaurants and very, very Americanized

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Chinese restaurants erratically placed, so you can see now there’s a lot more immigrants here with um Hindi, Malaysian food, the fusion.

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I know we even have some Hawaiian…native Hawaiians opening restaurants with little coffee shop and we are very proud of the fact that um nowadays, you can actually have different cuisines and other people from all over Houston and or from around the world will come here and try

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the cuisine and say oh that’s from Sichuan or that’s from other places of Shanghai dumpling or whatever and be able to appreciate tapioca tea! [laugh]Who doesn’t drink tapioca tea nowadays?

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Who doesn’t google “where does tapioca tea come from?”, you know and then learn a little bit of history about boba tea, so um we’ve seen changes both at the clinic as well as within the community.

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We settled here originally because back in 2002 when they decided to set up the clinic, they opened up a, makeshift, I want to say, four hours, once a month, maybe on a Thursday or Tuesday and it would just be

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volunteers from med school, doctors, nurses that donate their time just to kind of provide some screenings and some people would chip in some resources. We would ask for maybe five dollars’ donation, 3 dollar

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donation, whatever that they can chip in a little bit, but that was not sustainable. We partnered with Chinese Community Center and Chinese Bible Church down the street to establish that. Now where the people supposed to go on the days that for example you are doing this once

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a month, somewhere along the way they lost their medication. Who are they supposed to turn to and they need that hypertension or diabetes medication. If the medication…they got the new medication and the dosages are a little high, they don’t feel well after taking it, who are they supposed to consult?

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After they go home and their feeling really sick, the only thing they can do is to go to the emergency room, right? So we um decided you know we need to gradually move this forward and we were very fortunate to get a little bit of

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funding here and there. One of the biggest uh change was when hurricane Katrina hit Louisiana, a lot of the Vietnamese who actually fled Louisiana settled in over on the other side of [inaudible].

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They predominantly were sleeping and um being assisted by some of the churches and people of Hong Kong Supermarket, and from there we decided hey there’s…we got to go out there and provide some medical assistance also

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because a lot of them fled without the medication or because of all the stress and the anxiety, their blood pressure went up; or they are feeling sick because of um cold or whatnot, fever and whatnot, so the change in

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environment. So we decided to work with medical schools, work with a lot of the volunteer charity doctors and the medical corps and provide makeshift clinic right in the Hong Kong Supermarket, so basically we were trying to see what we can do to help them, hey what is your concern, oh

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you stepped on a nail; you cut yourself on your way over here and you haven’t had it addressed? Let’s make sure that we clean it and then give you the proper vaccination. So um our first grant, big grant was actually from Aetna Foundation,

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thank you so much and we were able to use that money to kind of build a little more resources for us to open maybe two, three days a week. In 2006 we received some funding to open

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up a small, very, very small, I want to say two, three examine rooms and also maybe some administrative rooms right here and that’s roughly when I joined. We were able to get additional resources and gradually we piece meal together and

00:23:20.980 - 00:23:36.590

we rent from this particular space, but the thing is we had both very fortunate that when we really need it, that someone always stepped up to the plate from the community or one of our funders and we were

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able to bring that resources and add OB/GYN care, um so pediatric. Back then it was just a part-time family practitioner and we decided oh well, perhaps family practitioner, they still have a little concern when it comes to little,

00:23:52.390 - 00:24:06.480

little kids, you know, “oh my goodness, I did something and his ear has a little bit blood in there” and so our family practitioner are like “ooh a pediatrician should look at this, maybe I should sent them to Texas Children’s”, but you’re talking about kids who may be uninsured, so we built our own

00:24:06.700 - 00:24:20.480

capacity to help to have a eligibility team, screen them for hey, what is your household income, can we get you on Wick, can we get you on Snap, can we get you on Medicaid or chip, so we started from there, brought in all the

00:24:20.550 - 00:24:35.980

family and make sure that they were screened properly and the kids can get vaccines and if they have other issues we can address that. We had um a refugee family that started with us as soon as they settled in, the child actually is disabled,

00:24:36.300 - 00:24:53.620

had Down Syndrome, and also have other health issues including cardio and probably uh nasal. So her whole health was affected, learning disability and she is probably the mental capacity of one and half year

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old and at that time I think she was maybe four or five years old so what can we, what services and resources can we offer this family to make sure they are helped, so we hired from within the community

00:25:09.210 - 00:25:25.870

as the patients are coming in and we helped them um really build their capacity by learning about compliance, learning about the professionalism, customer service, about different chronic diseases.

00:25:26.070 - 00:25:42.220

We were able to bring in specialists working with MD Anderson to present Harris County, and the city of Houston. We were talking about different topics from all staff meetings, so we would talk about Zika, what is Zika, what is Zika impact, we talk about cervical cancer, breast

00:25:42.270 - 00:25:54.240

cancer, smoking, why is smoking…we talked about smoking too. We would make sure the staff really understand these are the things that pertains to this population that we serve and for them to have the knowledge

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to give better care for the patients, so gradually we were able to um expand out and um I want to say that um our biggest accomplishment was opening our second site, second location which we partnered with a

00:26:12.910 - 00:26:30.020

retiring OB/GYN and also being able to tag on that service and actually improve that process of providing OB/GYN care as well as streamlining access to care, getting the resources, getting assistance, getting

00:26:30.700 - 00:26:45.690

Medicaid, getting the wig for pregnant mom, having a better understanding of SDS, sudden death syndrome, understanding about car seats, understanding about breast feeding. With our partnership with

00:26:46.230 - 00:27:07.680

wig as well as transitioning to where your baby was born healthy and the baby is bridged immediately to a pediatrician, so regardless um despite of a lot of the popular belief, I have insurance, and I was really lucky through work and everything, when

00:27:08.880 - 00:27:24.410

I was pregnant, I thought, you know…I went to Baylor at that time and they are going to provide me with the best care coordination and I don’t have to worry about anything. Despite that, I was not told about the birthing classes. I was not told about a lot of the

00:27:24.450 - 00:27:36.120

[inaudible] pediatrician. It’s all pretty much getting the word, you know, my friends posting because my friends of the same age were also giving birth. They are learning from their friends too.

00:27:36.590 - 00:27:50.170

What you need to do and you know um what you need to sign up for, but because certain things were not shared, I was really behind. I didn’t take any birthing class. I would have just cut a cold turkey and the nurses have to

00:27:50.630 - 00:28:05.690

tell me exactly what to do. I didn’t know about hospital visits and signing all your paperwork, so finally right before I gave birth when I went and visited the hospital and had to fill out the paperwork three times because they keep losing it, and also picking a pediatrician

00:28:06.320 - 00:28:22.290

and it wasn’t until my child had stayed in the hospital for a little bit and while he was at the incubator I’m asking what are some of your doctors out here that I can choose[laugh]. But the thing is I have insurance, I am a very educated, um

00:28:23.060 - 00:28:36.110

Americanized Chinese American, what about the other people that don’t have that kind of guidance and the same type of network and the same knowledge to resources? What would they do? How would they know to come here because a lot of the

00:28:36.140 - 00:28:51.880

culture, they only go see the doctor, they go to the hospital when they need to give birth. “Oh, I’m in pain, I’m delivering, I’m going to the hospital”. It might be false labor, it might be, you know, a cramp, but they would be wasting their money in an ER for a labor

00:28:51.970 - 00:29:06.930

that is not an actual one, so what can we do to actually bridge that immediate care so we are guiding them along the way and then if they feel like “you know what, I think it’s time”, they can call our nurses and the nurse can coach them again and time them

00:29:06.960 - 00:29:24.150

a little bit and say “yes it’s time you’re due” or “no, no, no monitor is too short, why don’t you come to the clinic and let’s check you out”, right? And that actually reduces the costs and burdens to the family and also reduces the bottleneck over the ER for something like “not

00:29:24.150 - 00:29:42.630

exactly, you can go home now”. [laugh] Um, so I feel like our work does impact and ourselves as well as our staffs’ experience in life helps us make better determination of how we can better provide care and that

00:29:42.660 - 00:29:52.770

bridging and the guidance to a lot of the indigent patients, and so for us, we created it so it’s seamless “Oh you deliver babies here” “here are all our information”, “here’s all our pediatrician”, or whatever at these three different locations,

00:29:53.280 - 00:30:07.150

please choose one and make sure this date let’s go ahead and schedule your appointment, by this date bring your babies back, and let’s get your babies tested and vaccinated and everything, and then we progress to say this is the schedule for checkup and for follow up.

00:30:07.850 - 00:30:20.480

So it’s seamless. And it is womb to tomb. Um, I also feel like as we grow, uh the dynamic changes as well.

00:30:20.660 - 00:30:36.850

People migrate, and we had to be very aware of uh especially the current political climate, um I know people are um very concerned about what’s going on right now with our administration.

00:30:38.900 - 00:30:51.940

Some of the patients, even from our staffs, they are noticing also, once upon a time, those who are undocumented would come here and seek help and bring their kids here if they are not feeling well.

00:30:51.940 - 00:31:07.860

We are also noticing as well that people are a lot more sensitive now in fear that there’s going to be a ICE sting and they would be deported, they would be arrested, so um different other organizations are noticing

00:31:08.720 - 00:31:24.270

the same thing like right behind on Beach net near 59, there was a sting recently, and so in the past, you do see a lot of day workers, day laborers right at Home Depot and also right at the gas station looking for

00:31:24.420 - 00:31:39.330

jobs, you don’t see that anymore, because everybody is afraid that the ICE is going to be there to pick them all up, so um we are trying our best to reassure all the patients that we’re going to be standing by

00:31:39.350 - 00:31:58.270

and making sure that their health is the priority, and uh especially their privacy itself is also the most priority but um it’s an unfortunate period that we have to kind of experience.

00:31:58.270 - 00:32:13.350

Okay, so kind of bring back to your childhood, uh when and where were you born? I was born in Taipei, Taiwan. I immigrated the to US when I was about six years old. And uh first place of stay was actually kind of like centralized

00:32:13.350 - 00:32:31.390

southwest part of town in Houston and uh my family which include my mom and dad and my two siblings, we came here with very little, we were very fortunate to have good family support. My parents pretty much had to start from scratch as you know

00:32:31.860 - 00:32:46.700

when you immigrate over here to find a job, to learn English and same with my siblings as well. Um I think we were very fortunate family as well that we were able to do a little bit well and also be able to

00:32:48.070 - 00:33:06.650

have some of the access to a lot of the um the education as well as the resources that we had. Cause I know we have friends that are a lot more less fortunate, um so growing up I know uh my mom would try

00:33:06.700 - 00:33:21.330

to scrimp and save so we can actually have the best, what everybody else, all the other kids would be able to kind of tap into including like summer camps or attending different educational, you know like when

00:33:21.530 - 00:33:33.890

you are in high school, you go to academic challenges and whatnot. You still have to buy shirts, clubs and whatever, you still have to participate school field trips, so we were able to participate in most of those.

00:33:33.930 - 00:33:48.510

I remember that um back in…I think middle school, some of our family friends, they had kids that went to Rice University for summer camp. They had curriculums, the math, writing speech

00:33:49.870 - 00:34:01.850

and tennis, and so my parents learned about it was not cheap and so she managed to kinda scrape some money to send my sister and myself to the camp.

00:34:01.850 - 00:34:16.810

It was a great experience being able to walk on a college campus, being able to see what college life is about, so it kind of inspired you a little bit more to achieve, to you know, to be able to accomplish a lot of the academic

00:34:19.040 - 00:34:36.910

um knowledge and requirements to make sure that um you are competitive with your peers because a lot of time you thought that “oh I thought I was the smart one in my class”, apparently gosh there’s a lot smart people here, a lot of them are Asians, so [laugh] that was an

00:34:37.020 - 00:34:53.060

eye opener because we were attending the Houston Independent School District and our small little school itself we were always like “oh, we made As in our multiplication math” but when you go and you see other kids that they are accelerated, they know their geometries and they know

00:34:53.130 - 00:35:08.520

their algebra already, then you want to challenge yourselves a little bit more. So what did your parents do for a living whenever they came over? So my dad was a contractor and he did a lot of labor work and so my mom was a stay home mom. I

00:35:08.540 - 00:35:24.140

remember when we first moved over here, we were staying in the apartments and that actually was memory of ourselves as well as my grandmother and my aunts staying in the similar nearby apartments.

00:35:24.140 - 00:35:38.940

I remember um at that time you don’t think much so childhood wise when kids actually see the apartment you make friends with because I remember growing up we had other Chinese kids and other kids in that apartment that we would play with and who we go to school with.

00:35:38.990 - 00:35:56.590

And um looking back, I think a lot of our kids that we serve that lives around here, especially the refugee kids are very resilient as well. We want to make sure that they also have similar opportunity to achieve and be able to kind of

00:35:56.900 - 00:36:15.000

you know, attain the best of… strive and attain the best possible future for themselves just like myself. My dad and…parents were able to kind of save a little bit of money then we moved to a different neighborhood and we were renting houses for a while; and of course, growing

00:36:15.000 - 00:36:31.670

up, you don’t really think about um the type of life style, you just remember the good things about hey the family being together, you know, at least um kind of helping your parents as they are cleaning people’s yards or helping your

00:36:31.810 - 00:36:47.690

parents pick up stuffs as they are painting people’s houses, taking the trash to the um big dumping ground to dump, but you really don’t think about “oh…gosh I was really poor”. So and then back then I

00:36:47.720 - 00:37:03.180

remember there was nobody educating us about some of the social services, especially like the meal programs at school, that’s one thing that I’m really really biggest champion about. So here, most of my eligibility staff, they all know about this that hey sign up the meal program, you don’t

00:37:03.280 - 00:37:15.520

want the kids to be home hungry. You sign up, you call 311 and you get them all on some kind of meal program, 211 for Texas, 311 for [inaudible], “hey, do you have any meal program around the greater Houston

00:37:15.570 - 00:37:27.850

city area?” and make sure that even the school year, every family, they are aware of the school, please, if you don’t have the means just screen yourself for eligibility, sign up

00:37:28.150 - 00:37:41.690

for the meal program for your kids. So nobody ever educated us about the meal system program, and a lot of the times my mom would try to pack us lunch and it would just be the bare minimum, it would be like a sandwich, you know,

00:37:42.350 - 00:37:55.130

maybe water. I remember once I forgot my lunch and I was really sad and they give me a peanut butter sandwich and they asked, “okay dear, are you signed up for the meal program?”, and I said “I don’t have money.”

00:37:55.160 - 00:38:07.530

[laugh] And that’s when the school administrator decided to say “hey let’s screen you for the meal program.” My parents were like, “really? I can only pay 20 cents for a meal, really?

00:38:08.680 - 00:38:19.290

versus the one dollar fifty or two dollars whatever back in the eighties?” and so that’s why I feel like it’s so critical, so important that these little information.

00:38:19.770 - 00:38:36.490

They do send the information home, my parents don’t read English and our English are not… I didn’t know this is actually for the meal program. We just threw it away. So information nowadays is always in English and Spanish but when your family don’t read neither English or Spanish, then

00:38:37.550 - 00:38:50.780

you just throw the information away and the kids don’t have access to the food, so that is the other thing that aside from the health aspect, that we ourselves here at the clinic that we take pride in that we make sure the kids, the

00:38:50.780 - 00:39:05.320

family are taken cared of as well. Okay, so uh why did your family decide to move here? Because we have actually, uh my mom side of the family, they immigrated over here for higher

00:39:05.510 - 00:39:21.920

education and they had settled here I believe in the seventies. And um…by then my parents wanted to change the life style and wanted to take that leap and then move us from Taiwan over here for us to have

00:39:22.000 - 00:39:35.370

better education; and I’m very proud of them and very uh thankful that they actually took that leap because both my sister, my brother and myself, our lives would be very different should we have stayed in Taiwan.

00:39:35.410 - 00:39:53.660

My dad was a high school teacher and my mom was working in a shipping, um import/export company, so I feel like we had more opportunity here in the US, we had um more, um we were able

00:39:54.490 - 00:40:09.790

to kind of see a lot more, more global perspective of the world, versus should we had remained in Taiwan, in a small island in Asia. Have you ever like think about going to America like when you are a kid?

00:40:10.320 - 00:40:20.950

No, not really. Um I just remember my grandmother cause my grandmother and my aunts, and um they were the first immigrants over here. I just remember my grandmother, my grandmother who kind of raise me and I was really attached to leaving.

00:40:21.740 - 00:40:36.440

I was really sad, um but America, the word itself is in Chinese it means beautiful country, so of course back then, you’re thinking it must be wonderful.

00:40:37.750 - 00:40:51.880

They must play cartoon 24/7! This is like five-year-old thinking mentality um that “I turned on TV and there’s always going to be cartoons”. [laugh] So of course, you’re thinking this wonderful, magical

00:40:52.070 - 00:41:04.910

rainbow place, but when you come over here, because of the struggle that we first we have to go through, not knowing how to speak English. One of my deepest memories that my siblings always tease me about, “what?

00:41:04.950 - 00:41:20.130

You’re still griping about that?” was the fact that going into elementary school when I first moved over here. Um they used to have, they sell ice cream as part of your snacks. You can buy cookies or ice

00:41:20.430 - 00:41:34.800

cream. And um I had a quarter and I really want to buy some ice cream, so I walked up and I didn’t really know how to say anything in English. And one of my classmate who is also Chinese, she

00:41:35.050 - 00:41:47.030

came here earlier than I did and had stronger English grasp, and um I stood there for the longest time and she was right in front of me and she bought a strawberry ice cream.

00:41:47.720 - 00:42:02.680

And I really want a strawberry ice cream but I didn’t know how to say “strawberry” and I was asking her can you help me and she was like no, you know I’m going to go eat. And so she told me a couple times, but the word “strawberry” for a little kid who has no

00:42:02.890 - 00:42:14.680

English skills is hard to annunciate so I stood there for the longest time and I heard the word “chocolate” which sounds like 巧克力 ( it means “chocolate” in Mandarin) in Mandarin, so I said 巧克力.

00:42:15.440 - 00:42:28.690

And for end of the day, the only word I know how to say is chocolate and I was only able to buy chocolate ice cream. I don’t have an ice cream dilemma right now, I don’t, I promise you I still like chocolate.[laugh]

00:42:30.000 - 00:42:47.470

But I remember for kids struggling what they feel had to, what it feels like to not know English and for little ,little, little kids to have to face that. So um we definitely try to partner with our other

00:42:47.830 - 00:43:00.450

community partners. First and foremost, we have organizations, some faith based, that have youth programs. For a while, we had a little bit of resources and we worked with some of the

00:43:00.470 - 00:43:12.260

elementary schools around here to provide them with maybe some behavior health assessments as well as maybe in the wintertime, are there coats or shoes or some um hygiene?

00:43:12.960 - 00:43:27.800

Or basically knowing that they won’t have meals during the wintertime, give them like a bag of beans and rice and you know, non-perishables that they can take home and be able to sustain the family a little bit or themselves for a couple of weeks

00:43:28.870 - 00:43:41.800

while the schools were out. Um…so we kind of are a little bit more sensitive and observe for that, and most of our staff here, they were all immigrants and so they are very attuned to the needs of the people who

00:43:42.120 - 00:43:57.520

reside around here and be able to kind of help us shape and um reach out to make a request. So I know you mentioned your uh language barrier and as well as the effect of having a foreign

00:43:57.600 - 00:44:11.760

sounding name have on your employment, education prospects. Were there other factors of your experience as an immigrant that affected um-? Yes, so many of my colleague and friends, they all pretty

00:44:11.810 - 00:44:21.440

much those who are immigrants that has a Chinese name, or a foreign name. Not so much anymore. I mean we feel like it probably has not been as

00:44:21.950 - 00:44:36.950

severe because there is a lot more diversity in Houston, especially the greater Houston, I’m sure there’s still a lot going on, but um the school system itself, they are trained through the years to be culturally

00:44:36.970 - 00:44:53.040

sensitive. There is a lot of initiatives partnering with APAHA, Asian Pacific American Heritage Association, partnering with different community leaders to create that bridge and in leadership, even with HISD, you have a diverse mix of people from all around the world serving on

00:44:53.140 - 00:45:08.210

like people who are different races, serving on the board to kind of balance that out a little bit and create a little bit more of a cultural awareness including nowadays teachers and teaching administrators.

00:45:08.870 - 00:45:26.710

Um back then, my recollection is if your name sounds foreign most likely you are going to be picked on, enough said, you know. And so how do you bypass that, so for me, I would laugh it off, or basically

00:45:27.030 - 00:45:41.300

defend myself, “my name doesn’t sound funny, your name sounds funny”, right? So it kind of trains kids to be, some kids themselves they are a little bit more resilient, some kids of course that’s where when our program itself intervention in the elementary school level.

00:45:41.870 - 00:45:58.380

We go out there, we work with family, with the kids that are, you know, recent immigrants especially with ESL problems to make sure that we address issues such as bullying, we address issues such as anxiety at school and

00:45:58.800 - 00:46:15.160

other issues in the home. And we’re currently building another partnership with a United Methodist Church down the street to be able to kind of help the family dynamic,

00:46:16.680 - 00:46:33.590

counseling for those who actually are here under high stress where culturally and maybe a little bit male dominant or because of certain scenario, there may be some anger or violence, domestic violence where the kids are also

00:46:34.200 - 00:46:48.490

victims or they are really anxious, and they would go to um the after school programs or some of the activities feeling very anxious, and feeling very sad and other scenarios.

00:46:49.660 - 00:47:07.040

So first and foremost, I’m sure majority of the parents, they all have good intentions, even the refugees bringing their kids over here. The fact that with the current political climate, being able to find a job if you are a recent immigrant, being able to kind of have that resources because

00:47:07.100 - 00:47:22.160

they are scaling down on a lot of the refugee assistant resources, um that actually take an impact and toll on a lot of the families, a lot of the parents, and between that stress, of course it will have more um arguments and then there may be

00:47:22.220 - 00:47:36.310

lead to other violence; and so the kids are usually kind of like the people who bear that burden as well and um we are hoping to provide that kind of counseling and also bring in other partners to kind of bridge that

00:47:36.480 - 00:47:50.770

as well. They are offering the kids ESL classes, they are talking to kids about bullying, but the thing is then what is actually done at the home once they leave the programs.

00:47:51.010 - 00:48:06.720

So were you living at highly Asian neighborhood when you first moved here? I think so.I think because my parents moved to places that are recommended by family friends, “hey,

00:48:07.000 - 00:48:21.000

so and so lived around there, the neighborhood looks good, the neighborhood is excellent, whatever.” So most the places I lived in have very multi-ethnic, um especially if you are talking about southwest area.

00:48:21.390 - 00:48:39.060

My relative at that time, um had already moved… one was actually living in Sugar Land. And that was still very new, newly developed, not very acculturated, very just basically singular set

00:48:41.690 - 00:48:55.220

of race. My recollection at that point of Sugar Land is like it was so different. It’s so empty.

00:48:56.560 - 00:49:12.900

It’s so bare. You know, which it was so different from what I was used to with the different people, the different culture. At that time, there was only like, maybe this was in the late-eighties,

00:49:13.440 - 00:49:25.390

one supermarket here, maybe by this couple of restaurants and they even had a Chinese movie theater. I know believe it or not, there was a Chinese movie theater here. And then people from the community would go there and watch Chinese movies.

00:49:26.400 - 00:49:38.880

So um you know for that, for us, living close to the Southwest area, that is our community. We go to shop here. We go to you know eat at some of restaurants here.

00:49:39.350 - 00:49:58.760

And some of the resources are a lot more accepting, like for example libraries and schools are a lot more accommodating because of the diversity. So um we couldn’t image how to move out to further west to Sugar Land where it

00:49:58.760 - 00:50:15.350

was a lot more stringent. Therefore, choosing neighborhoods and choosing places to live, it would just be word of mouth “ who lives there?” “oh ,how are the houses there?” “how’s the neighborhoods there?” “how’s the school

00:50:16.230 - 00:50:34.190

there?” So where and when did you go to college? So I went to UT and I went to, uh this was actually. I have to disclosg my age?[laugh] This was in the nineties, late nineties, and um so college

00:50:35.480 - 00:50:50.740

had been very interesting but I feel like for many of the young adults at that time, a lot of the families had their mentality of what they want their kids to grow up to be. And a lot of times, the parents will hear from each other

00:50:51.310 - 00:51:02.480

that my child got into this and this Ivy League school and they are going to be doctors and lawyers and engineers, those are probably the only three careers you have to choose from.

00:51:03.100 - 00:51:18.430

[laugh] So I feel like nowadays, with technology, and with the globalization, there is a lot more options for college students and there’s a lot more programs in high schools allowing the kids to really, especially STEM programs, a

00:51:18.460 - 00:51:33.140

lot of the exploration of technology as well as globalization for people to kind of venture out and see. I’m interested in this and like you guys, you are doing something you are passionate at and something also very needed,

00:51:33.530 - 00:51:46.730

documenting and being able to showcase and tell story of population that normally others don’t go and or hear about. And it

00:51:46.760 - 00:52:02.360

would be kind of like a smaller isolated community, like for example a lot of the refugee families that we serve, be able to tell their story and be able to for other people who sees this to understand it and be able to say “oh, that’s why they do things in certain way.” So there is tolerance and

00:52:02.440 - 00:52:19.990

acceptance. Um so I feel like it was really funny because I didn’t want to be in the health field and lo and behold after a long route of advertising marketing and also other not-for-profit, here I am.

00:52:20.900 - 00:52:38.970

Here I am in the health field.[laugh] Usually I feel like there is a calling. There is a probably a reason why your route is taking you to the way

00:52:39.400 - 00:52:51.400

you are supposed to be. And I feel like for a lot of times for even a lot of staffs here, I want them to achieve more, I want them to do more, so even the people at the front desk, go back to school. You know, go to a nursing school, you guys are still young.

00:52:52.290 - 00:53:06.470

Achieve more, become more, so you can do more for the community. So at UT, were you involved in the Asian American community there? Was there much of them?

00:53:06.720 - 00:53:22.600

Well, th thing is that the friends you hang out with are generally pretty much Asian American. I don’t think there was a lot of just people that hang around that are not similar to

00:53:24.890 - 00:53:39.940

you. But I feel like it’s not until now, now there are a lot of national initiatives and there’s more kind of a call to action. Right? So for example, you know when I was involved with other organizations such as

00:53:39.990 - 00:53:56.220

UCA, um there’s a civic engagement, political, social advocacy group that we partnered with different institutions and organizations including Rice University and also University of Houston.

00:53:56.910 - 00:54:14.760

You engage to students. You engage um the Vietnamese student association group and you bring them out to take part in either civic, voters’ right, getting people out to the vote or um engage

00:54:16.280 - 00:54:31.480

them in systems change. Block walking for political candidates or um health advocacy or better yet, educating them about the equality of the Asian Pacific, Native Hawaiian, Pacific Islander.

00:54:33.000 - 00:54:48.190

But there’s more initiatives now. There is more social media and platforms that you can actually utilize to get words out to engage college students to take part. Twitter, Snapchat, be part of Facebook

00:54:50.220 - 00:55:11.050

movement. So back then I feel like most of college students, unless you are officially pulled into the role with the group, normally you don’t have that much opportunity when we had cellphones that were like this

00:55:11.110 - 00:55:26.540

big. It’s like a whole lot [laugh] of cell phone practically. And nowadays everything is smart. You have your smartwatch. You have your smartphone. There is WIFI at different places in coffee

00:55:26.560 - 00:55:41.380

shops. Opportunities for students and networks engage with each other to be a part of a systems change are a lot more available and being able to connect to other national, other student groups, other Asian organizations,

00:55:42.540 - 00:55:54.870

justice center or um social change or the other people of color, you know, ACLU. You have that opportunity. You have that resource. You have that communication bridge.

00:55:55.650 - 00:56:15.300

Back then we barely used email. So did your parents give you a lot of pressure during…like you have to be a doctor or…? Um I think they want yo to kinda be something great but

00:56:15.380 - 00:56:28.000

they themselves don’t know what greatness means. And they themselves, probably kinda communicate with the other parents and said “oh, so and so got to medical school” “oh, so and so are attorney and they’re going to graduate from

00:56:28.020 - 00:56:43.210

Harvard”[laugh] So I am sure for many Asian parents, they want their kids to achieve that bragging rights, “oh they got into so and so school” “oh they have so and so GPA” “they got so and so in the MCAT”.

00:56:43.850 - 00:56:55.400

They want to have that bragging [laugh] right, too. But they don’t know that you know what there are also ways you can be an entrepreneur, you can open up a restaurant, maybe the best, the most

00:56:55.420 - 00:57:11.780

popular restaurant with chains all around the greater New York or California, all up and down California. There’s other ways of achieving greatness and there is also other ways of um being a good,

00:57:12.610 - 00:57:29.310

meaningful person in the community. So I never really imagined that the route I took, working at the city, um you know volunteering my time, block walking, volunteering my time, making calls, and helping the

00:57:30.520 - 00:57:45.240

community out would lead me to where I am today, but I think the first step is people willing to make an impact and then willing to actually say “you know what, my time would mean a difference if I could change one life.

00:57:45.610 - 00:58:01.790

That is still something.” Right? And gradually, you will be able to...One person’s way of volunteering the time for systems change can lead to a lot and you learn a lot about yourself as well. You also learn a lot about your community.

00:58:01.790 - 00:58:17.070

Um I feel like um it is me going through, you know, getting up Saturday morning or you know being a…cause I was a pretty old counselor for the muscular dystrophy association since I was mid-20s. Most

00:58:17.100 - 00:58:32.140

the other counselors were all like high school or college kids and I was one of the oldest counselor that actually volunteered her time to take on a little sit (?) in a muscular dystrophy camp. And so to volunteer your time you actually have a better idea of the

00:58:32.700 - 00:58:43.360

people that you’re serving and about yourself. You learn about patience. You learn about your strength, your weaknesses and how to actually gradually grow to be a better human

00:58:46.980 - 00:58:58.710

being. Um I really want to emphasize and I try to engage my son, I have a 9 year old. His name is Nicolas. I tried to offset that kind of mentality with him about kindness,

00:58:59.190 - 00:59:10.730

about civic engagement, about social responsibility. Starting by being a Boy Scout. You actually have certain belief and ethics follow as Boy Scout.

00:59:11.960 - 00:59:26.820

And then really introducing him to seeing people around here to be compassionate, to be worldly, taking him to different places, seeing... in fact, we wrote a letter

00:59:27.170 - 00:59:44.030

to a Congressman about climate concerns. And he wrote one letter himself which got response back and I wanted him to say “well, this is one of your ways you can actually share your voices, you know, project your voice right to elected official, right to the president.

00:59:44.410 - 00:59:55.830

They will respond to you. Good or bad response. Ok, some response will be like ‘why do you even bother?’ But that is one way to get your voice heard and

00:59:56.340 - 01:00:13.090

for them to understand you’re here.” So that is what I want to instill to my child as well. And I am hoping that there is more young adults that we, as Asian American health correlation, and as a community clinic, want to engage too. That’s why even here we have programs partner with

01:00:13.450 - 01:00:25.460

University of Houston, College of Optometry and some medical and also health professional school to bring in students, so they can actually see the people that need to be served so they can have a better

01:00:25.480 - 01:00:39.010

understanding when they become the healthcare professional, how to be a better caregiver, how to actually provide better integrated care that you as optometrist, you communicate with primary provider and

01:00:39.330 - 01:00:47.340

find ways to get around the language barrier. We have a lot of providers that basically still does that today. Which is discrimination! You can actually

01:00:47.340 - 01:00:55.110

get in trouble for discrimination. “Oh you don’t speak English? Sorry, we can’t see you.” “Oh you didn’t bring an interpreter? Oh no, no, no.

01:00:55.270 - 01:01:11.710

We can’t see you.” The patient who really needs to be seen or needed to be X-rayed were not being seen and I would call them “you guys are taking Medicaid or Medicare, you guys cannot…that’s discrimination, you guys have to provide some kind of assistance.

01:01:11.910 - 01:01:22.930

We called you, we told you they may need some interpretation.” “well, no, no, no. We’re not gonna do that. That’s too costly. We are not gonna do that.” You know, so there still needs to be a lot of education, even among

01:01:23.230 - 01:01:39.430

Asian providers, Asian American providers, but healthcare providers, that they themselves cannot discriminate. And so um we’re working on really addressing some of those issues and making sure our

01:01:39.540 - 01:01:58.700

patients are accessing the care, the time the care is needed. So uh how did you family preserve the Chinese culture in your home? So I think there are different costumes that my parents are raised and that they practiced growing up

01:01:59.150 - 01:02:13.320

that they still instilled to us they practice as of today, um such as the Lunar New Year. Um certain foods and then the day before you would get together and also maybe fifteen days after you would get together

01:02:13.480 - 01:02:30.860

again. Um and I’m a big believer of that as well. Um I also try to celebrate it myself with my parents so that I can pass it on to my child. Once I mean I send him to language school because I want him to learn

01:02:31.220 - 01:02:42.180

Mandarin Chinese and he asked me “mommy, I am American. Why do I need to learn Chinese? I speak English.” I said “no baby, you are Chinese American. No matter what. I don’t care what you do [laugh].

01:02:42.340 - 01:02:51.620

What you do with your hair color, whatever going up. You are always going to be Chinese American ‘cause momma is a Chinese American, daddy is a Chinese American, you are a Chinese American.” So I

01:02:51.650 - 01:03:04.470

want him to understand that’s his roots and granted, you were born here and everything but don’t forget that. You know, that’s the language that your ancestors and your grandparents, your great-grandparents. It is the language that they speak.

01:03:04.500 - 01:03:16.590

You need to also kinda embrace that yourself. I don’t need you to speak perfect. I don’t need you to be like the professional historian of the Chinese culture and history of

01:03:16.690 - 01:03:29.680

whatever happened in Qing Dynasty, Ming Dynasty. But I want you to be interested. This is where you come from.

01:03:29.720 - 01:03:45.180

So uh just to wrap up. How do you see the change in Houston over these twenty years you have been here? So I have to say um I know there has been a lot of progression in the leadership of Houston Harris

01:03:45.500 - 01:04:01.600

County have made opportunity to really celebrate and identify the different um culture that are here in Houston Harris County today and the different people who are immigrating over here and opportunities of

01:04:01.620 - 01:04:15.710

investment into the city. So one of the things that I think over the year the city had made efforts for cross- city exchanges where the mayor or basically leadership from Beijing, China

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or other parts of the world would come and b ume able to kinda see greater Houston and some of our leadership will go over and actually see the city themselves and so there is

01:04:29.570 - 01:04:46.660

a cross-continent even relationship and also being able to discuss ways of opening up trade, opening up business, exchange opportunities and immigration. I think we had the greatest medical center, maybe in

01:04:47.240 - 01:04:57.660

US, maybe in the world. You have wonderful, wonderful advanced technology and whatnot, but the thing is thanks to the opportunity that they invite medical

01:04:57.950 - 01:05:11.940

professionals, researchers from all over the world to come and do the fellowship here to learn about practicing medicine. So I know there are actually medical physicians from China and Europe whatever

01:05:11.960 - 01:05:25.430

coming here to learn about cancer or also be able to contribute their knowledge to research and be able to take something back or share with our local institutions some other knowledge as well.

01:05:26.230 - 01:05:42.380

That actually contribute to greatness. Um I feel like there is still a long way to go because when you are talking about immigrants and refugees, if the fact that just the state of Texas, I mean Houston has

01:05:42.420 - 01:05:57.410

made significant progress and significant tolerance even to the LGBT populations. So if you’re talking about a state that basically is against immigrants and is reverting back to “Oh,

01:05:59.740 - 01:06:16.410

well, we uh don’t tolerate the undocumented. We don’t uh want to have sanctuary cities or facilities that we’re gonna be penalizing and punishing.” That’s not what America is about.

01:06:16.410 - 01:06:32.140

That’s not what the forefather and also the many years of instilling these different rights and bills or whatnot, just so we are going backwards. I feel hopeful, um because first and foremost, it is a democratic country.

01:06:32.180 - 01:06:44.680

We ourselves, you as young leaders have the right to vote. If you basically feel like “You know, I’m just one vote, it doesn’t matter”, no it does. And so I feel like if we

01:06:44.770 - 01:07:02.200

were able to engage enough people, engage enough angry people even, that the system can be changed. It has a way to

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be changed. So um Houston itself, um I am very proud of Houstonians, but I am hoping we can actually gradually do more for the state of Texas.