Doughnut shops: A sweet American Dream

from correspondent elaine quijano now  a treat in every sense of the word hi how are you what can i get for you for the  sprinkles okay awesome the mom and pop donut   stores that dot california's strip malls carry  mostly the same mouth-watering doughy delights   thank you have a nice day but beyond the  rows of glazed chocolate and sprinkles   lies a different kind of richness in the  stories of the americans behind the counter roughly 80 percent of donut shops in california  that's well over a thousand are owned by   cambodian refugee families soon the streets were  choked with refugees they arrived in america   in the late 1970s and early 80s seeking safety  as the communist khmer rouge committed genocide   in cambodia's killing fields millions were  executed or disappeared many who escaped settled   in california and found work in doughnut shops  we immigrated right after the genocide teresa ngo   owns blinkie's donuts her family has owned donut  stores since the 1980s i mean at the beginning   once you get here you don't speak the language and  you have family that offers you your job and next   thing you know they've been doing it for their  whole life so and sometimes it's a few generation   at a time there weren't a lot of resources that  were really offered to refugees and so they had to   figure out how they could support each other erin  curtis is an la historian with the lucas museum   of narrative art california has had a long history  of donut culture and it's become even more famous   i would argue in the last 40 years or so and  that's really due to cambodian refugees who kind   of came in and expanded the donut culture here in  southern california very greatly fair to say it's   part of american culture then yeah absolutely  a culture which now includes the pink donut box   decades ago cambodian store owners bypassed  expensive white boxes for cheaper pink boxes   which fit a dozen donuts perfectly the  move not only saved thousands of dollars   it also created an icon of sweetness i probably  learned how to fold a donut box a pink donut box   before i learned my abcs dorothy chow manages a  donut supply company the daughter of cambodian   refugees she grew up working in several of her  parents stores and considers herself a donut kid   i mean there were some days that i worked maybe  12 13 14 hour days but then now as i'm older i   can look back at it with pride like i am a part  of something bigger i am part of this whole   journey that our parents have been on they came  here with nothing they needed all the help that   they could with the donut shop and we were there  to help them and support them whenever we can   a story which is now being unboxed that common  shared experience of the donut is very american   phung huynh is a cambodian-american artist  who came to america as a refugee a lot of   the work are portraits in her exhibit donut hole  at self-help graphics and art in los angeles she   uses a pink donut box instead of a white canvas to  capture a taste of the cambodian american refugee   experience it's not canvas it's a throwaway  cardboard box underneath the suite of the donut is   actually intergenerational trauma and pain phung's  art focuses in large part on the second generation   she juxtaposes childhood images of donut kids  with the portraits of the adults they've become   and it's only this generation born in the  united states to tell their parents look   we want to honor you you've never had the time  to even think about what you've been through   and we want to take this time to honor your story  because you didn't have the time to write about it   one of her portraits dorothy chow when  you saw your portrait what did you think   i i had a sense of pride i think maybe for the  first time i felt like growing up in america and   maybe making the sacrifices they did as a  child was finally being seen now as an adult   dorothy herself sees things differently like  the pink boxes she once folded as a little   girl what do these donut boxes represent  to you these donut boxes are an example of   of resilience and a representation of  the refugee experience here in america

Channel: CBS Sunday Morning

Views: 146,884

Keywords: CBS Sunday Morning, CBS News, news, doughnuts, doughnut shop, sweet american dream, dream, reinvention, success, pink doughnut box

Id: YSR98NfW4zs

Length: 4min 59sec (299 seconds)

Published: Sun May 08 2022