Chinese—Don't tell me that you don't know what a "twinkie" means (Connie So, Ep 12)

• Timespan: 47:40 minutes
• Transcription Type: Cleaned Verbatim
• Speakers: (Connie So & Raj Sundar)

00:00

Raj Sundar:  I have a question for you. Do you really know how old your patient is? You may actually be wrong about it.

00:07

Connie So: You have all the January 1st people, right? And so when we always tell people, you go to the Asian agencies, they know what happened with all the wars, you don't have to explain to everybody what happened and make it look like you're a bad person for life is because it's messed up in terms of immigration and history. So my mom, she had to claim 1939 birth, even though she's born in 35. And again, the difference of four years is tremendous. The older you get, and that's something I think healthcare people ought to recognize

00:36

Raj Sundar: Hi! You're listening to Healthcare for Humans Podcast. The podcast dedicated to educating you how to care for culturally diverse communities, so you can be a better healer. This is about everything that you wish you knew, to really care for the person in front of you, not just a body system. Let's learn together. I'm Dr. Raj Sundar, a family physician, and a community organizer. Welcome to Season One, where we talk about the history and culture of immigrant communities. We're going to start off this three-part series on the Chinese American community by talking about history. You may start listening to this episode, and ask yourself, Is this the right podcast? Is this about healthcare? Or is this just history? The thing is, I'm not a big fan of history, because all I remember about history is my AP History class, where I had to memorize all these dates of events and a lot of white pen doing things. But I spend a lot of time being a historian during my day, when patients show up in my clinic. The first thing that I talk about is the history of the present illness. And if you're a clinician, that's probably the first thing you learned when you got into medical school. But for others listening, the idea is to understand what happened that led to the illness or the pain that you're experiencing. Tell me about your ankle pain. How did it happen? What did you try? What has worked? But the other important part to know is, we really, really just want to know the history of the present illness, the ankle pain, not that you were at a birthday party when it happen, not who you were with when it happened, not why this birthday party was so important to you, because it's the first one since COVID. We just asked about the body system. And I think that sometimes it's the downfall of health care, because we miss out on learning about the person. And we almost never think about learning about the history of the community. But I want to propose to you that it's just as important to understand the history of the community, because that's the source of their values and beliefs. And that's where you will understand the events that caused them trauma, and learn about the things that give them hope. And those are the things that we really need to know, to care for the person when they show up to you vulnerable, broken, in pain, because you can't help them heal if you don't think about all of those things. I'm thrilled to have Connie So, a professor at the University of Washington to join me today to talk about history of the Chinese American community. And just like me, after this episode, you're going to become fluent in talking about toy Sony's Gong Xiao, and Cantonese. And you're gonna understand what all those words mean. That's going to make you a better healer, friend, and neighbor. Here's Connie. Hi, Connie, welcome to the show. Tell us about yourself. How did you end up at Washington State? And what are you up to these days?

3:54

Connie So: I'm Connie So and I'm actually an immigrant from Hong Kong. My family has been in America since the 1850s if not 1849. And it was a stowaway from southern China twice on toward Hong Kong into the United States. And we actually end up finding some gold. So we've been here for a very long time. But we've always been separated because of immigration laws in the United States. So we all came over as immigrants. And so I think our story is very typical in many ways for the southern Chinese diaspora, which is the big diaspora out of China. So I was only able to come to America and start having a second generation because of the 1965 Immigration Act. But my mom's side of family from Tucson has been America, as I said back to 1849. In fact, my great great grandfather was one of the first men hired Angel Island Detention Center for Asian people over in California. My grandfather was one of the first been hired for the United States Military Police was just formed.

4:52

Raj Sundar:And then what do you do now?

4:54

Connie So:I've been a teaching professor at the University of Washington. I'm actually at my Alma mater. So I went to The University of Washington undergrad and I went to Princeton for my Master's in Public Affairs, and then my PhD at UC Berkeley. And my goal was always to come back to Seattle to teach and I've been here for 34 years.

5:12

Raj Sundar:I love people who are living their dreams. So let's start with, I know this is going to be kind of a big topic, but we'll try to break it down in a way that people can digest it and one way or another, we can talk about it intelligibly. So in China, I think we should talk about just the diversity of what it means to be Chinese. And I have some statistics here. So I'm just going to say some facts that you could expound on it is that in China, Han Chinese constitutes for 95% of the nation's population, and the remaining 5% are made up of 55 other ethnic groups.

5:48

Connie So: Here's the thing. There is no such thing really as a Han Chinese and a huge Chinese and obviously, because it's a conglomeration of a lot of people who've intermarry together. So, as a Cantonese person, we don't actually call ourselves Han Chinese, although in China itself, we are considered to be Han Chinese. The people we are closer to is actually the yet, as he say, in Cantonese, we actually see ourselves as part of the good people, but the good people intermarry with some of the Han people. And so again, in China, it's a conglomeration of a lot of different tribes. I will say that in terms of a lot of the other groups, there are more than 55. But there are 55, who are recognized by China. So some of the groups like the Hmong, and then beyond who we see as loud group. The Hmong are actually older group than the Han Chinese are. And the Mien are pretty old group too. But they've all been put together in America, as well as China as part of the Yao people. So what I would say is, this has been about ethnicity, if we talk about the cultural group you belong to, it can be very narrow, it can be very broad. We can even call it a larger national group like Chinese. But yeah, Han Chinese are largest. But again, Han Chinese is just the people who accepted a certain language and went along with certain philosophies. And that includes a lot of different people.

7:02

Raj Sundar:Okay, that's helpful. That's why I'm talking to you not just reading about it. Okay. There are seven major groups of Chinese dialects. So there's Mandarin, Cantonese, but also Haka, and a few other languages. And Mandarin is the largest dialect group that many Chinese speak.

7:19

Connie So: So it's an interesting thing. And the tones are really different. We sometimes say that Cantonese and Mandarin are more different than Italian and Spanish. But people just don't know that. When I was young, I could understand haka. Now that I'm older, because I don't talk to as many Haka people as I used to, I don't understand it quite as well. Because of all the different ethnic groups in China. There's a lot of regional differences, even the language differences.

7:43

Raj Sundar: Do you feel like one group has emigrated to Washington State or the US more than other?

7:48

Connie So: Oh, absolutely. No, absolutely. There's no doubt about it, even to now. Majority of Chinese in America are the people from Southern China. So mostly people, if you came between 1849 down to about 1970, you're usually Toisanese, or Tai Shan as his called now. And that's a kind of rural area of Guangdong Province, pretty close to Canton. So a lot of times we don't say Toisanese, we just say Cantonese. The British used to call it and the Americans call it Canton, but it's always been whether in Cantonese or Mandarin is Guangzhou. So Guangzhou and Canton are the same place. So almost everybody, all the way up to 1970, 75% at least of the people went to America or from the Guangdong region or Cantonese. But of the Cantonese who came, majority are Toisanese, particularly those who went to the West Coast. And there are three major cities in California that people went to, we call it die foggy Valsalva. Meaning the big three in San Francisco being the biggest one. And also I think Stockton and Sacramento, Oakland, those are the big ones, but many people including my family, we started off in the Bay Area, and then we end up going up to Washington because of the railroad and then it was in the countries. There are a lot more mandarins now but not compared to Cantonese. Cantonese still outnumber mandarins in the United States. So, mostly people come from Hong Kong, coming from Chinese from Vietnam, Chinese from Cambodia. They're almost all Cantonese. They could be Haka. They could be Jizhou, but all of these are people of the Guangzhou province and Canton itself is known as the City of merchants. Shanghai in China is known as the City of corporations. As different Han emperors came southern China wasn't really part of China, Southern China's always intermarry with lots of folks. There's a lot more mixture, because I know in my family we also have Samoan, and Tongan ancestry because of the diaspora and how people follow trade. So the land route, the Maritime Silk Route, they both went to Guangzhou as well, so this is why when you go to many stores around China, Singapore, all these little places, it's a Cantonese they're almost all Cantonese speakers. I go to Cambodian restaurants and Vietnamese restaurants in Seattle. A lot of it is still Cantonese, Cantonese speakers. I go to Cambodian restaurants and Vietnamese restaurants in Seattle a lot of it is still Cantonese.

10:02

Raj Sundar:I think a lot of people probably know that it's part of it, Chinese coming up.

10:05

Connie So: I think the reason why is because a lot of the new Chinese from mainland China, they tend to talk to a lot more white people because they live in these white areas because of research institution, and so forth. So I think it's well known among the people of the Asian ethnic enclaves. I don't think it's well known among white people. But I don't think white people really know a lot about us in general anyways. I used to work the National Committee, US China relations in New York City back in the 80s. And I would say they didn't know a lot of this either. But for both of us who come out this history, it's pretty well known. I think, in China, most people know that the diasporic Chinese or the Cantonese and the hulking, the people who are from Xiaomen and went to Taiwan, went to the Philippines, went to Malaysia, and so forth.

10:48

Raj Sundar:This is a good time for transition. We're gonna make it a little structured with history. But I think it's important for people to know as you're doubting that, well, we see people the diaspora, whether it's the Chinese or the Indian diaspora, that's usually a small population of the whole country. Like for China, it's a lot of the Cantonese, not some of the other areas in China. Let's start with history. In a lot of immigrants, Chinese immigrants came to Washington State around 1850s or so? Would you say that?

11:17

Connie So: So people go to San Francisco, like we all know 1848. The goal was to discover Sutter's Mill and then sets off the gold rush and the whole treaty of Hidalgo took away Mexican land. By 1849, you have the major gold rush, and a lot of Chinese went there as well. But partly it's also because of the Opium War. The real reason why people had to leave China, the Opium War was really fought in southern China. And actually, Guangdong province is the most populous place on Earth, is actually the nine cities of Canton on which include Hong Kong, Macau, Canton or Guangzhou, Kunyi, Taishan, Toisan, Zhongshan are the nine cities are the most populous place. So even though Guangdong is a small province, it is actually a lot of people in China as well, because its very densely populated. And in terms of the diaspora, it really is Guangdong province, and the GNP of China is concentrated as well in Guangdong Province. But with that said, the reason why people forgotten Guangzhou fighting the opium war against the British, mostly in other people, Britain gets Hong Kong takes Hong Kong. And they also tack the Chinese. 21 million silver dollars to push opium and so no one can really pay that. And the other thing he also did, they passed this whole rule about how people in Britain and their allies, which include the United States, they didn't have to pay taxes. The only way the Chinese can pay back that 21 billion silver dollars, which is mostly for the opium was by taxing their own people. So the only people who could pay this, are the Chinese merchants. And if you can't afford it, you gotta go to nearby places. This is why so many Cantonese went to Vietnam, they went to Cambodia, they went to  Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and all these places. It's the poor Cantonese who are also suffering because the British and other allies, the biggest presence is still in Guangdong Province. So the Toisanese happened to have a drought. And part of the reason why you have famine and drought is because all the fighting took place, always in small countries in the farmland, so that was destroyed. So the Toisanese, they went to Guangzhou to look for jobs. But a lot of Cantonese said, the way to look for jobs is really go to Hong Kong, because the British took that already. And then you can go to all these other territories of the British, because they're looking for laborers. And they're also trying to develop infrastructure in Malaysia, which is why many Chinese go to Singapore and develop that infrastructure and also to Cholon in Vietnam, other ports, cities and low cities in Cantonese. So a few people who are little more desperate that they would try for America. And the reason why they did is because my time is 1848. Then they started hearing about gold. And of course, a lot of people in China don't really like the people who are white, the term we have for white people, you know, white devils and Olson everything because they're pushing opium onto the Chinese people. The key thing is, they keep coming over because we have the port of Hong Kong. So if it's for, everybody, whatever part of China you might gone to, we think of everyone as a Hongkonger.

14:10

Raj Sundar:the lesser you go from northern China, mostly southern China,

14:14

Connie So: North in China, aside from Beijing, people were really poor. That's the main thing is when people say, “oh, you’re the poor peasants”. Here's the thing I want to correct. Again in Cantonese we have a saying that “the emperor is far and the country is wide”. Meaning you could do whatever you want where we're at, because we're in the southern part of China. The reason why the Cantonese we're seeing this really poor is because in northern China is much more confusion as Southern China is more dull, although overall everybody in China knows Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism is blended together. But merchants in China at this time were lower class than peasants were. And the reason why is the highest was, of course, the scholars who work for the Emperor, and then it was the farmers and then the artisan and the merchants were lowest because the feeling was merchants work for themselves. They don't work for the Emperor. They don't work for anyone else. They’re greedy and selfish. Whereas, the people who are the scholars and the peasants, farmers who work for the scholars, they still follow the Confucius order. So in Southern China, we never really got into that. And this is why we always say you don't run for office, you don't run for those things. If someone says it better than you, we always say, “of course”, you are thinking, because most people in Guangzhou, you don't want to catch the attention of the Emperor. That's always been taught to me. And I didn't realize how gallous that is, but he should always mediocrity simplicity should play. And so there's even a saying in China, t”hat if you're a Cantonese person with $100, you actually you only have one, if you're a Shanghainese person with $1 act like you have 100”. So we've always said, that's a northern and southern Chinese split. And that's, again, that's a really well known thing in China itself. So I think that when it comes to the people coming over, this is why you have an access over Guangzhou. The other thing is Cantonese for the business people. And the we've always had a silk trade route, maritime one. And a lot of people studied China said, China has a distinction of being the only country that does not support their merchants. And this is what actually helps me get all the diaspora and why you have so many Chinese all around the world because Chinese has sailed in many places. South Africa has a Chinatown from the 15th century and Philippines as the oldest one at the period. So again, a lot of this happened because China was very anti merchants. And being poor is not poor economically, in fact, were the wealthiest and still are. It’s because you're poor in terms of social status. And that does affect the psyche of a lot of southern Chinese who end up purchasing titles and all that kind of stuff.

16:41

Raj Sundar: Okay, so interesting. So the northern China, people were poor and resources and didn't have access to travel out as much.

16:49

Connie So: It's not as much and they also didn't have as much interaction with white people. Because Opium Wars pretty much in Southern China. And for Northern Chinese, they don't call white people doubles and golds and all that stuff the way the Cantonese do, because they're just foreigners. Why whereas, for the Cantonese, it doesn't take on the same pejorative connotation that it did historically, but it's because of the Opium War.

17:09

Raj Sundar: Out here that it was the Opium War, and also the Taiping Rebellion.

17:13

Connie So: I think rebellion comes a bit later. Taiping Rebellion is being fought at the same time, that other battles. For example, the second Opium War, there was also the Haka Punti war. You also end up having some of the other Boxer Rebellion, red turban typing, they're all out of Guangdong  province, all on Canton. So this is why we say we're pretty rebellious people here, you just have so many different battles. In fact, in Guangzhou, while they were every three to five years, there was some battle against foreigners or against each other.

17:43

Raj Sundar: So people came for the gold rush. And then I think gold was discovered in Oregon and Washington

17:48

Connie So: No, Sandersville, California, first and then Black Diamond. And to go to Alaska, they had a lot of gold. So, Seattle became the last of the frontier, the place you go to, the gateway to Alaska. So a lot of people went to the gold rush for Alaska, they went to Seattle, Seattle then became a big city. Tacoma was supposed to be the big city for Washington. But Seattle ended up overtaken Tacoma was the city of destiny. Seattle was not supposed to be as important. But we end up making all these inventions supposedly to help people find gold.

18:19

Raj Sundar: I love it

18:20

Connie So: Oh, well, you know, I teach history.

18:22

Raj Sundar: Another point to be made is that the first wave of Chinese migrants were almost exclusively men.

18:28

Connie So: So what happened is, a lot of them were told that there were jobs. And they meet people at the port of Canton or the port of Shanghai. But instead of actually having a job, they're kidnapped. So preceding the laborers to America was the kidnapping of Shanghai have a lot of Chinese women to all these different areas where the British had colonies. And so they actually preceded it. So that's fine. A lot of people also in both stages, but it's not uniquely Chinese. A lot of women in America at this time. Also were not so to travel around. And since people knew America. Yes, it's a beautiful country may go off, but it was also the white devils country. You're not going to let a Chinese living travel by herself there, especially because among the women who were there were a lot of people who were forced into prostitution. It started off with white men kidnapping, and then it became Chinese men as well, because you know, how that always happens is they had better labor. And I think a lot of people go through that still.

19:25

Raj Sundar: So they came here partly was for the gold rush and mining, but also they built railroads.

19:31

Connie So: Well, first they came for mining and then they'd had a foreign miners tax against Mexicans that was even more imposed against Chinese so they became 98% of your revenue gets taxed to thee state of California. And the state of California made a lot of money, and you would continue to have to pay this tax unless you carried that little sheet of paper. There's no lamination or anything with you. If you didn't have the paper, you pay the tax again or else you will go to jail. So the foreign miners tax definitely push a lot of people out of mining and then when they came to work on the railroad people had to pay back the people they borrow money from. They didn't steal away, they had to pay for the voyage. You had to pay people back. At the time, the east coast was really paid by the Irish. When you get to the Midwest, we will say it's a Scandinavians, the Swedes and Irish join up the Skandhas. For the Rocky Mountains, it was a Chinese. It was Leland Stanford, who was the first to hire the Chinese. He initially didn't think they could do it. But people were desperate for jobs. And they was said, “We can do it”. Even though we come from really tropical places, everything, people are gonna prove their mind. And they did. They were great railroad builders. And in Seattle, we have Chin Ge He, who was one of the wealthiest men in Washington at this time, back in 1860s. He was part of Quanta that he started while some and what he did is he employed a lot of people. But the main thing is he had a pulling the money and all his know how he built a railroad in Toisan. So this is why in China, he's well known as well. But the key thing is, the Chinese did not only build it, they were engineering. They were doing a lot of things. And also California, they talked about all these contributions, that these guys come in to the tropical area, were able to succeed it. So again, Leland Stanford didn't really think people were very strong, but they were willing to work for a little less money because they're desperate to pay off debt. They end up becoming great workers. And this is why the Burlington railroad ended being dominated. They all became dominated by the Chinese.

21:21

Raj Sundar: It’s such an interesting backstory. So the people came. Things are tough. In China, though, it's an understatement. Came for mining a then transition to helping build railroads. In the 1870s to 1880s, that's when there's growing resentment toward the Chinese. I think people call it the Yellow Peril. Right?

21:40

Connie So: There was already Yellow Peril sentiment as early as 1849. They won that one, but the difference is the Euro golden spikes 1869. It's in May 1869 and this is why we have AANHPI (Asian American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander) Heritage month in May as part of commemoration of that. Part of the reason why California and these other places had the Chinese and there are a lot of books about this is it's because the West Coast states didn't have slavery. And so the Chinese are actually even in the places they went to, like Cuba and Barbados and Tobago, which have a lot of Chinese people Fiji and such. These are actually since England and France outlawed slavery for US did. Chinese are actually what we call coolie slave laborers. And so it was a substitution for African Americans who are no longer enslaved, officially. So the kinds of jobs are early Chinese did migrant work sticks, and so forth are law the jobs of African Americans also have and this is why we always say, it's hard to tell the Chinese story in America without going through Native American, African Americans, Atlantic's people as well. So there was already a lot of dislike, and in fact, they were making up things about the Germs and Chinese being blamed for the Opium War. And so there's a lot of a sentiment that because by 1869, you no longer needed the labor of the Chinese. starting in 1869, when there's a lot of sentiment against the Chinese, especially led by the labor union. So the Seattle City Council that took comments city council, they were all dominated by union and come I had a bigger Chinatown than Seattle, initially. But they created what's called the Tacoma method, where you round up all the Chinese and you kick them out to another city. So this is why Tacoma still doesn't have it at accord is Chinatown disappeared, a lot of Chinatown surelc, the West Coast disappeared. But the two common method only reflected the sentiment he already had. And so the people wanted the Chinese in there were the big corporations. And they started experimenting already in Hawaii, with the Japanese. And in America, they found the Japanese are pretty good workers. And so the Japanese ended up taking over with the Chinese left off. And so then, with the Japanese there, they can go ahead and allow Chinese exclusion. Even though the sentiment of kickout Chinese had been there for a long time, because we have a mini depression the west coast, the only jobs they could take were the jobs that white men did not want, because everyone was more desperate. And this is why a lot of Chinese men, the guys who built the railroad, ended becoming houseboys, and they are becoming cooks. And many people say this is what led to a feminine stereotype of Asian men in the United States. And again, as we say, how can people think that if you watch Hollywood movies, you rarely have Asian men or Asian American men in any romantic role. But China has a billion people. India has a billion people. Okay, how could that possibly be and about not being romantic? I was so pure to know camasutra’s in India, and same thing me, the whole thing about lotus and all that stuff, so that's China. I said, How can that be, you know, I mean, doesn't even make any sense. So that's the reason why in 1882, they finally passed the exclusion law, it was a way to get white people together. So the Irish actually got together with some of the other ethnic Europeans. And this is all part of the labor movement. It's also the time when monopolies are beginning because the East Coast and the West Coast connected together. There's already racism against Chinese. It's just that they became the scapegoat. The Chinese were the people that were thought to be strikebreakers even though the Chinese really weren’t strikebreakers that much.

25:01

Raj Sundar: So just to review that, the railroad was completed, and then the depression set in. So then the animosity really picked up. Although with the passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which prohibited family members of Chinese workers coming to the US.

25:17

Connie So: Well, if you have enough money, you can create a job for five Americans, you could still come over. Then that was like we had $10,000 to you, you didn't come over or your student. Otherwise, every regular Chinese were not allowed to come over. But the elite experiment on this for four years. They weren't sure if they could do without Chinese labor. But at that time the Japanese came in and they’re pretty, pretty good, then extended it. And then finally, by 1892, it became permanent. That already of course, America theory had the 7090 Naturalization Act, which prohibited everyone to becoming a naturalized citizen by 1880, Chinese exclusion, all Asian people could not become US citizens.

25:55

Raj Sundar: So all this animosity built up. I know there, we talked about the Tacoma residents being expelled. But I think this is also where Chinese communities build stronger connections to each other, like creation of association tongs, right?

26:09

Connie So: There's all within Chinatowns and Chinese communities throughout the world. And again, that we could go back to the 15th century with Cheng Ho. So there's always been sub-communities and people follow the relatives. So the reason why you end up having the Chinatown so I always tell students this, people used to ask me first KAPAG-W, how can Asian people always hang out together? And I said, the real reason why is because white people like to hang out with each other, exclusively so much right? Residential covenant, red lines, and everything else, de facto segregation. So that's why the Chinatown's came up, because initially Chinese didn't want to compete against each other. But they had to move to the area that white who did not want to be. Then again, even to this day, a lot of new immigrants only place he could afford or the areas outside the city. So this is why a lot of immigrants of color in particular, we always live in unincorporated areas. This is why Skyway Federal Way SeaTac, even Rainier Beach initially, those are all unincorporated areas of the city. So in terms of the me Association, the Chinese diaspora since a long time ago with the wholesale Cecil network, it's always been there, people move accordingly. And the way Chinese start businesses is because of the family associations. The families that follow one after another. We start business by what we call the rotating credit system, where I don't have a lot of money, but I'm going to find people with my same last name. So my great grandfather started Woo family in Seattle. And again, there's Danny Woo and all those guys. So everybody put in $100. It's not a lot of money, but there's 20 of you, that can be quite a bit of money. And so what happens is, you can either draw straws or you pay by interest to see who takes the whole book, the money. And so all of us in that group, we all want you to pay it back, otherwise we can use it. That's the way Chinese enterprises began. That's Vietnamese. That's Japanese to Kenji hives, and ours is called Wakelin. Right. And I know that for my family, even for my wedding, we had to go to the Woo family’s restaurant because we always got to go with our relatives.

28:09

Raj Sundar: Okay, so the next big, I'll say changes post World War Two immigration after the repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943. Would you say that's right? Because then the war bride act of 1945.

28:22

Connie So: It was called the Magnuson Act. And so Warranty Magazine, the guy who eventually becomes US center has a big role in that. But part of the reason why the Chinese were also treated better was because I don't want go through all this world history. But Japan invaded Manchuria. They're condemned by the League of Nations. Japan says everyone's hypocritical, the light and condition condemned some, they joined the axis power, all that stuff. So Japan invaded Guangzhou. And they also invaded Xiaomeng and all these areas of southern China. So at that point, China becomes the ally of the United States. And the person in charge of that plan is Shankar Sao, who a lot of you in China totally feel is a puppet of the United States. So that was the Republic of China at that time. And so what a lot of people say is, during all that time, Chinese who end up getting favored. And this is why when it comes to Congressional Medals, and everything else, when it comes to overturning immigration laws, part of that was in response to what Japan was seeing Asia. So it was clear booth loosened eyes who said that we got to get rid of Chinese Exclusion Act, we don't really want the Asians their Chinese coming over, but you can't exclude them, it looks bad. So even when they got rid of Chinese Exclusion Act, they still reduce the number of Chinese people to I think 10% of what they were back in 1920. And they allowed the Chinese to actually get naturalization in December of 43. So really is more 44. Then people brought back war brides. My grandfather found that even though he served for the World War Two as a veteran, he had to re marry my grandmother. It was easier to do that than to come over the other way. So you haven't marry within the time China got involved with World War Two as far as US is concerned between 1937 to in the 45. My mom was actually born before that. And she and a lot of other women end up having to say that they're born in 37 (1937), 38 (1938) and 39 (1939) because he couldn't be born in 35, even though the war in China was actually going on earlier than that. And this is why when it comes to healthcare, that is something that you should know when it comes to the Vietnam War. I'm sure the African War Persian Gulf forced a lot of people. Part of it is you have to lie because the immigration stuff is just crazy. It's when US recognizes something, even though it might have been happening before. But the other part is, sometimes people don't have paperwork. And that's why you have all the January 1 people, right? And so when we always tell people, you go to the Asian agencies, they know what happened with all the wars. You don't have to explain to everybody what happened and make it look like you’re a bad person for life is because it's messed up in terms of immigration and history. So my mom, she had to claim 1939 birth, even though she's born and 35. And again, the difference of four years is tremendous. The older you get, and that's something I think for healthcare, people, the people ought to recognize that.

31:00

Raj Sundar: Wow, that's so interesting. Yeah, I think that's definitely true. But post World War Two, immigration, the 1950s and 60s, I think the Chinese entered fields that were traditionally close to them to medicine, engineering, business and politics.

31:14

Connie So: No, no, no. America in 1943, in December 43, gave sanctuary status to 1000 Hong Kong refugees, as they're called. But these are actually international students from China. Out of that group, three of them end up winning the Nobel Prize. But these three guys are not normal people. These are people who get into China, from China as international students during a more hostile period. So we have Song Da Lee,  Sami Ting, and Chen Yan, and he got several people. These are the guys and after World War Two was when African Americans are talking about starting the civil rights movement. So you needed to have somebody that has been historically discriminated against. They seem to be doing well, because African Americans are saying white America is institutionally racist. They latched on to these guys, the stories of these guys are international students to be could look like, you know, Chinese people are hardworking, smart, they don't agitate. And that's a do black people talk too much. Blah, blah, blah, majority Chinese, we're still in Chinatown. These are your exceptional Chinese people win Nobel Prize are exceptional. Okay. And I think music lovers exaggerate the right to everybody else. And they still continue doing this to this day.

32:26

Raj Sundar: Now, I mean, I think that's where the model minority comes up, right?

32:29

Connie So: Yeah. Then again, it's everything that's put against African Americans. And again, we could do a whole thing on that I always do this every year to show people why the statistics they use are accurate. It median family income is not per capital income, we come from expensive city. So of course, our income was a little higher, our minimum wage is higher. And of course, the extensive cities, what you should really do is compare Chinese and Seattle, with white people in Seattle. That's in San Francisco and all that stuff. And they're going to find this severe underemployment, et cetera, et cetera

32:57

Raj Sundar: Okay, so now we have migration patterns. I wonder if we can just put on a different lens. And you can just give me your thoughts on breaking it out this way that we're taking care of Chinese Americans that there's probably different mounts of acculturation. Which is that idea of how you live according to the cultural values, either of your home country or of the US. And this is arbitrary how we break this down, but I just saw it in a curriculum about just the community here. That one there's the elderly, Chinese American immigrants, who still have traditional values, may hold on to the values of China and how they grew up. And then there's the immigrants of working class, and then the by acculturated professionals, and then American Born Chinese Americans. What do you think about that breakdown?

33:49

Connie So: Obviously, they talk by classes. And this is my experience growing up as a Chinese American in Seattle. We think it depends more on whether you come from ethnic enclaves, or you come from white community. We feel that a lot of people see old immigrants that they come out very old country. Well, we say is it depends. There are the old immigrants, especially the ones around Chinatown.  But we think that all immigrants, especially people come over after 65, they all have assimilation tendencies. If they didn't have assimilation and assimilation, we mean white Anglo conformist if they didn't have the Anglo conformist mentality, they probably wouldn't come to America in the first place. But when you live in the ethnic enclaves, like the Chinatown, like the Beacon Hill, which is actually the largest Asian American enclave in Seattle area. In fact, throughout the 1990s 2000, more Asians live in Beacon Hills than the entire city of Bellevue. Though, that's how you know greatness. But when you live in the Asian enclaves, there's actually much more of a movement to become acculturated and proud of being Asian American, no hyphen. So this is the thing we always say for the ethnic enclaves. We don't hyphenate because we know hyphen means that you’re equally knowledgeable about being a Asian American. Asia is a big continent, even by Chinese American, it's hard to know about China when you've grown in America. More of what you know is what your teachers have told you. So part of the dilemma, a lot of students feel is that when they go to school, well intention, not so well intention, teachers tell them pretty much negative things about being Asian. Back where things are being Asian, and they don't talk about United States the same way. So a lot of Asian parents mistakenly tell them to obey their teachers, that's the best way to do well, they don't realize a lot of times it's up that the teachers tell them is totally contrary to what it means to be Asian, for a lot of people. So for example, for many Asian and other people of color, we live with our families inter-generationally. However, in America, they call you “santi”, if you don't move out, by time, you're 18. They also tell you that in terms of food, then it's unhealthy to eat rice. I'll eat white rice, look, we've been eating like raw white rice for a long time, we live longer. That isn't for the right there, right. But it's a lot of little differences about medical treatment so far. So what we say is this, that when you come to the ethnic enclave, we may even go through the whole assimilation agenda. But when you come to the enclaves, and there's people gone through things before you, they help you out with identity issues. And so you end up usually not being as ashamed about being Asian American. And you may identify to have a lot more African American movements. So we're all a coach, right? Because there's a lot of different acculturation. But what happens is, for the newer Asians who come over, especially international students, they talk to a lot of white people who tell them negative things about ethnic enclaves. So they always end up putting down the Chinatown, the Beacon Hills and everything else. What it is, I think a lot of the parents who live on the east side, who live in the north side in these other areas, they taught their kids to be proud of being Asian, but the kids say they don't really need it. That what they always use as measurement of their success is a lot of white people. And thus, because they listen to a lot of white people, peers, most universities are predominately white, who tell them to ignore all these places, and that they're closer to whiteness, and blackness than brownness and everything else. In fact, they're close to whiteness, and they are to other Asians. I will say that among the kids, I always tell the kids, you're not caught between being Asian and being American, you're really caught between what your teachers tell you, and what your parents tell you. And that a lot of people go through that dilemma. But I say if you're a loud person, what are you Chinese are you white, if you listen to them, all of Asia act the same way, even though we're most of the earth. And I tell them, when you buy that kind of garbage, even though they may not mean it that way, when you buy the kind of garbage. This is why love is we think that you're pretty much a coconut, a banana, a Twinkie it's beautiful if litter pejorative term one put about that, about people who are acting to white. So what I see a lot of times in my regular classes is Asian Americans couldn't even think of being Asian, but they bought into what has been taught to them about Asia. And they're not encouraged to critically critique what it is to teach us a puppet. Whereas I think that when you're an ethnic enclaves, that may still happen, but you have more venues, more avenues to be able to critique these things. You can talk to other people who encourage you to question this. And I think again, this is why we say that a lot of the traditional Asian American leaders of Seattle, they end up coming from the China town, the Korean towns, the Manila towns.

38:18

Raj Sundar: That makes sense. So last segment, I think we're going to transition to caring for the Chinese community. We'll go into there's different beliefs around health and what health care providers are politicians to know cared for in this community.

38:31

Connie So: I'll give you the anecdotal story first, one of my good friends. She was head of the Women's Health Care Center at UW and she's from Hong Kong. And we've been friends since undergrad. But her grandmother from Hong Kong was ill she had cancer. So she came up to UW to get treated. They told her she has half a year to live maybe a year at the most. But I told her why don't you try other people or people I know had tried Chinese acupuncture and herbalists and everybody else, I think can hurt. You shouldn't die, my friend. We went back to Hong Kong, with her grandmother. And that was back in 2006. She went back, her grandmother is still alive. She's still doing well. My friend decided to leave UW go to university, Hong Kong, and to learn East Asian medicine. She's still in Hong Kong, a lot of times she still has joined appointment. But she did it because as she said, a lot will tell you the West doesn't seem to work. Her grandmother is still doing very well to alive. She's an old lady, but they would have killed her had been done what they want to do for her. Whereas she just went verbal. She did well. And again, you see this in the movie, the farewell, the same thing. True story. They did much better. Okay, I do last study abroad to Hong Kong before the pandemic. My system is Filipino with a little bit of Chinese like a lot of people have that he heard his sciatica and they want to operate on him. They gave him morphine. They can do all this stuff and UW to treat him and they're about to operate. I tell him no, don't do it. I just have this real aversion to that. I said, Why don't you go to the acupuncturist. They can't hurt you. And my mom was acupuncturist, back in Hong Kong two, he went to acupuncturist. She looked at this tongue, because that's the first thing to do. But when she ate it, she clipped his ear and bled it. And then he was using crutches. Now, I was telling you that to be his most amazing story, when I can I witnessed and then after that, he continued going to acupuncturist. A month later, he went with me to the China's study abroad, and he played basketball against the kids, at Xiamen University. So I think a lot of people just have a different feeling about it, that Western medicine is far too intrusive, that what is wrong with using herbal and out if he went, I think a lot of professional Asians I know have gone through, including me, my siblings, and a lot of my friends, UW Medical and such, they all have one that we're calling type C diabetes. This is when you have type two diabetes, but you're skinny, but you don't have the things that usually go with being a type two diabetic. And what I noticed that all of them and I started talking to my friends ICHS international medical services, what we noticed is how come it's always the professional Asian Americans have been here longer. It's the Japanese. It's the Chinese for Asian Indians and the Filipinos. So my daughter and my son, they play a lot of sports. So I thought, okay, if I was to be healthier, so I started eating a lot of salad a lot more than normally, because he had her Sunday fast. Suddenly, I was told, so I'm borderline for type two diabetes, like all my friends, because my yoga friends, my health, my friends who bike around the all habit, and I thought, oh, no, I'm becoming what I teach. So I decided, I'm going to eat the total Chinese diet. I had roast pork the day before the leech home, like I have all my stuff. She told me, what did you do you really improve? I decided, experimenting only on myself, I totally went with the Chinese diet. Because if I'm gonna go down, I'm gonna die with the food I like.  I talk to my friends to ICSH that people run. And I tell them what I did. And they sit there fighting and their studies about diabetes among Japanese and Asian Indians and Chinese and Filipinos are more established Asian groups is that you don't get the type C diabetes, as we're calling it. If you totally eat Asian food, or you totally white food, it's something about the combination between the they don't know what it is that makes people get diabetes. And we're saying that only the wealthier Asians are the ones who eat both white food and Asian food. And I was told by this, my friend, Ron Chu, that they don't know what the combination is exactly, 30% 40%. But they know that the people that are having these type C diabetes, including almost all my siblings, now who are professional, Asian Americans, and that's why I'm saying I think among the Asian American community, we have this feeling about a lot of medicine that other people do not, we also see that diet definitely plays role. A lot of kids I know a lot of Asian Americans, I know, have kids college students are younger, they're getting ulcerative colitis, all these gastrointestinal issues that people didn't really have back in China, Hong Kong, India, but they didn't have it 20 years ago. But last five years, they're getting a lot more because these countries have become more developed wealthier. And I partly I think, particularly more than Western diet. So I would say that a lot of Asian Americans, regardless of how long they've been in America, they're starting to look into other methods. However, the ones who are very assimilated, who don't talk to other Asians, they don't know that this is something you might consider doing. I think the bigger one is still how we treat the mental health issues, how we treat a lot of these other things. So a lot of people in Asia less so now than what it used to be. They're not really about treating mental illness. So you have to get out of that stigma. But I think a lot more people became aware of that, because of COVID. Just how bad it can get. And I think because Asians do live longer, in general, overall, as a group back in Asia, and also in America, I think that Alzheimer's and how to deal with Alzheimer's and you know, Asian Americans, a lot of us we don't believe in nursing homes, because we think that's elderly abuse, but there is becoming a generational gap going back to what you said about the more acculturated and the immigrant Asians were a lot of the grandkids seem to be bullying the grandparents. And we really see that a lot, especially in the wider communities, Asians for white communities, because they're ashamed of any reminders about being Asian. There's some of that enclaves. But more so the newer ones are emerging, not in the more established ones, because I think, you know, the Asian Council referral services and International Community Health Service. They're right there. It's taking us like 50 or 70 years to figure this out. But we still are servicing a lot of people.

44:23

Raj Sundar: Last question. Any other final thoughts about just taking care of the Chinese very community or maybe a doctor that did especially well for you, maybe integrated Western medicine and traditional medicine?

44:37

Connie So: I think a lot of doctors are becoming much more aware of this. I think ever since the publication of the book, the sphere catches you fall down about the Hmong family. I think it's become harder reading for ethics classes. But I remember I used that book when it first came out because I thought it really captured well. A lot of us think. I remember one of my sisters is really ill and they had no way of curing her and she actually had anorexia nervosa. This was back in the 70s when you didn't know what the disease was. My grandmother, she started chanting things and doing the a lot of shamanistic stuff. I kept thinking, I wonder if it worked because she was losing so much weight. But then again, we know it's a little bit of mental illness. But new people didn't know that. so back then. But for whatever reason, she actually did get cured. But whatever it is, my grandmother guys did and I think of all the herbal medicine I had since I was young, I don't know it worked. And nowadays, when I find pediatricians for my  kids, I only wanted pediatricians who are open minded about Asian type of medicine. And even it comes  of dermatology, my dermatologist is Asian American, she from Singapore, we always talk about the Asian American kind of thing as we go through. And even though my daughter is not Asian American, one of them retired and later another person, I still found, you can find open-minded people. My mom, I definitely wanted her to help my friend, the one who went back to Hong Kong. She was her doctor because she would know what to do, and how to cure her. The Tiger Balm and cupping law that we do as Asian Americans anyways. The doctors who we want to, don't mind and this is before Michael popularizes it. We've been doing this for a very long time, the whole acupuncture and I've heard that from people who are from China.  My daughter had some of these problems and no one could fix them. They're gonna have to have surgery and I said no. I don't believe in surgery unless you have to. We went to the acupuncturist, a few needles here and there, and it was much much better. Had an ankle problem for a year and a half. I went to all these U DUB places globally U DUB faculty member, right? No one I said, Okay, I'm gonna go to the acupuncturist. After a month and a half of treatment twice a week and then I don't have an ankle problem anymore.

46:33

Raj Sundar: Connie, I feel like we should advocate for universal acupuncture coverage

46:38

ConnieSo: That doesn't work for everybody. But, it worked for me and I don't care at a country that's not expensive. I feel like I have coverage. But the main thing is, it's very relaxing. You have the music, you lie in there, and you feel a lot better afterwards. So I think half of it is working, not working is your ability to trust as well. And that goes with I think, even Western doctors, we have to trust your western doctor. 

47:01

Raj Sundar: Well, thank you, Connie for spending this time with me. It’s such a pleasure.

47:06

Raj Sundar: Thank you for joining us on another episode of the healthcare for humans podcast. If you liked this episode, share it one other person and go to healthcare for humans.org and sign up to join our community. See you soon.

47:22

Speaker 3: This podcast is intended for educational and entertainment purposes only. Views and opinions expressed in this podcast do not represent any of the participants past, current or future employers unless explicitly expressed so, always seek advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with regards to your own personal questions about what medical conditions you may be experiencing. This Healthcare for Humans project is based on Duwamish land that makes a regular commitment to Real Rental Duwamish.

The transcript ends here.