{"id":9188,"date":"2023-04-19T16:48:19","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T16:48:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/?page_id=9188"},"modified":"2023-06-19T20:51:26","modified_gmt":"2023-06-19T20:51:26","slug":"fay-and-juanita-dong","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/fay-and-juanita-dong\/","title":{"rendered":"Fay and Juanita Dong"},"content":{"rendered":"[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_spacing=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][divider line_type=”No Line”][vc_column_text]\n

Fay and Juanita Dong Oral History<\/span><\/h1>\n[\/vc_column_text][divider line_type=”No Line”][page_submenu alignment=”center” sticky=”true” bg_color=”#008542″ link_color=”#ffffff”][page_link link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/manuscripts-and-guides\/” title=”Manuscripts & Subject Guides<\/strong>” id=”1681944466130-0″ tab_id=”1681944466130-0″] [\/page_link][page_link link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/guides-to-the-collection-page\/” title=”Collections Portal<\/strong>” id=”1681944466150-10″ tab_id=”1681944466150-5″] [\/page_link][page_link title=”Visit<\/strong>” id=”1681944466156-0″ tab_id=”1681944466156-0″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments\/archives-museum\/visit\/”][\/page_link][page_link title=”Make a Request<\/strong>” id=”1681944466167-9″ tab_id=”1681944466167-8″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments\/archives-museum\/requests\/”][\/page_link][page_link title=”About Us<\/strong>” id=”1681944466178-10″ tab_id=”1681944466179-5″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments-archives-museum-about-us\/”][\/page_link][page_link title=”Yearbooks Online<\/strong>” id=”1681944466191-2″ tab_id=”1681944466191-0″ link_url=”https:\/\/www.deltastate.edu\/library\/departments\/archives-museum\/yearbooks-alumni-magazines-delta-state-histories\/”][\/page_link][\/page_submenu][\/vc_column][\/vc_row][vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” column_margin=”default” column_direction=”default” column_direction_tablet=”default” column_direction_phone=”default” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” row_border_radius=”none” row_border_radius_applies=”bg” overlay_strength=”0.3″ gradient_direction=”left_to_right” shape_divider_position=”bottom” bg_image_animation=”none”][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_tablet=”inherit” column_padding_phone=”inherit” column_padding_position=”all” column_element_spacing=”default” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” column_border_radius=”none” column_link_target=”_self” gradient_direction=”left_to_right” overlay_strength=”0.3″ width=”1\/1″ tablet_width_inherit=”default” tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” bg_image_animation=”none” border_type=”simple” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]Dong, Fay and Juanita\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Tape 1 of 2\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 5\/1\/00<\/strong><\/p>\n

By Kimberly Lancaster and Jennifer Mitchell<\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This is an oral history of the Chinese in the Mississippi Delta.\u00a0 The interview is being recorded with Mr. and Ms. Fay and Juanita Dong on May 1, 2000.\u00a0 The interviewers are Jennifer Mitchell and Kimberly Lancaster.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Today is May 1, 2000, we are talking with Fay and Juanita Dong.\u00a0 I am Kimberly Lancaster and also here is<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Jennifer Mitchell<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 We are interviewing for the Mississippi Delta Oral History Project.\u00a0 Will you start by telling us a little about your parents?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well my parents were immigrants.\u00a0 My father came first in the early 1910\u2019s probably about 1916 or \u201918, I think.\u00a0 My mother came in 1932 or \u201929 something like that give or take a couple of years.\u00a0 I was born in \u201934.\u00a0 I lived in Drew until \u201961.\u00a0 That was through my years at Mississippi State and part of them at Ole Miss.\u00a0 That is the early part of it.\u00a0 When I went to school, we did not have any actually public school for us.\u00a0 We had three or four families together at a small makeshift school.\u00a0 You might say.\u00a0 That is the first that I remember.\u00a0 There used to be a librarian.\u00a0 She taught us what ever she knew.\u00a0 I stayed with this system through the first few grades.\u00a0 Then after that I went to the public schools.\u00a0 This was right at the time of World War II.\u00a0 I finished junior high and high school in Drew in \u201953.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Where did you mom and dad come from in China?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Like where I have read and what people have told me that it was from the Plason area.\u00a0 That is where most of all the Asian or Chinese immigrants migrate from during that time.\u00a0 Almost all of them came from that one area.\u00a0 I could understand all of them.\u00a0 When you get out of that area, you can\u2019t understand a lot what is going on.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Different dialects?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Yes, exactly.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 So you do speak Chinese?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Actually I can get by.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Did you learn to write it to?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 No, I never learned to write it.\u00a0 I can speak it pretty well.\u00a0 I could get by pretty good.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Have you ever been back to China?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 On visits, yes we have.\u00a0 We have been to China three times through the years.\u00a0 Guchamisay twice, and then another tour to Shanghai.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Fay\u2019s ancestral home is still standing.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t know how much longer it would be standing.\u00a0 We decided that we would take all the children back and let them go back to the roots.\u00a0 Let them look around, and see for themselves of what it was like. It is an interesting place.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 What was it like?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 A fishing village, wouldn\u2019t you say Fay?<\/p>\n

FD: It is a village right on the South China Sea.\u00a0 I guess the biggest occupation was fishing.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Was your family fisherman?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 No, they were well I have been told that my grandfather was a teacher in some form of fashion.\u00a0 My father was educated as far as their education goes.\u00a0 My mother was not although she had a couple of years of schooling.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 When they came to the United States, did they come through Seattle or did they just come straight to the Delta?\u00a0 How did they make their way?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I know that my mother came through Seattle because I have seen the papers.\u00a0 MY<\/p>\n

father came over a couple of times.\u00a0 Gathered from hearing them talk and reading I think that some of them thought that it was a better way of life if you go further east from the West Coast.\u00a0 Some of them chose to stay there, and some of them chose to pick up and leave.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Is that the way they came to Drew?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Yes, I have been told that my father had a business around the areas of Clarksdale, Drew, and I can\u2019t remember some of the small towns.\u00a0 I have been told that he even tried truck farming once.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Were your parents married in China?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Yes, they were.\u00a0 Actually the part of the family that I am in, was my father\u2019s second family.\u00a0 I have a half-brother.\u00a0 He also lives in the Delta.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Did your half-brother come with you?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well he was born in the states.\u00a0 He went to China when he was a child.\u00a0 He stayed there probably ten, twelve, or fifteen years.\u00a0 Then he came back.\u00a0 He went to school in Webb, MS.\u00a0 It is funny that he found his way back to Webb.\u00a0 Then he came to Drew with my father.\u00a0 He worked in the family grocery store of course.\u00a0 Then now he has his own family, somehow they ended up back in Webb.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 You and your brothers and sisters.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I have two brothers.\u00a0 The older brother and then I have another brother between us too.\u00a0 He lives in Augusta, Georgia.\u00a0 He is a pharmacist like I am.\u00a0 We have three sisters.\u00a0 They all have teaching credentials.\u00a0 The sister next to me got married and then went back to school.\u00a0 She finished at Delta State.\u00a0 She taught one year just to say she taught.\u00a0 Then she worked in her husband\u2019s family grocery store.\u00a0 Then my other two sisters are in San Francisco.\u00a0 They are teachers also.\u00a0 They both been out there since 1962 or \u201963.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 You were all been born here in the states?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 That is correct.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 What sort of traditions or values sort of hand down to you?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well, first of all probably more than anything else is that they taught us the importance of the education, which we were hoping to pass on to our children. That was the big thing.\u00a0 They taught us to love and honor your parents and ancestors.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 How did you and your wife meet?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well, it was on a blind date.\u00a0 She is sister with Ed Joe\u2019s wife, Annette.\u00a0 When I was freshman at Mississippi State one day we were traveling back to state together.\u00a0 It was my turn to take the family car.\u00a0 Of course we would take turns taking our car.\u00a0 He wanted stay late himself to see his girl.\u00a0 He said how about staying or going a little later today.\u00a0 I will get you a date with her sister.\u00a0 So that is how it ended up.\u00a0 Even though I had known her or of her for a few years.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Did you go to the Lucky Eleven dances?<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Lucky Eleven dances?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Of course.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 What were they like?\u00a0 What was all that about?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well it was a dance.\u00a0 It was parties that we all would try to get together.\u00a0 They were sponsored more than shorter spearhead the get together.\u00a0 We would have dances on Thanksgiving, holidays, and during the summer.\u00a0 The big event the big dance was after Christmas.\u00a0 It was between Christmas and New Year\u2019s.\u00a0 You would dress kind of nice.\u00a0 It was semi-formal.\u00a0 That was something we always looked forward to having a good time.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 How big was the, how many people was there?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Sometimes it would be over a hundred.\u00a0 We would have people from Arkansas, Tennessee, and New Orleans.\u00a0\u00a0 There would be a few from Houston, TX.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 These parties were well known.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 People would come in from Savannah, Georgia.\u00a0 It was just a fun thing.\u00a0 It was not for any general purpose except to have fun.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 When you were growing up in Drew, what was growing up like for you and your brothers and sisters?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well, growing up for me, I have fun memories in my childhood days.\u00a0 I played with all of the neighbors’ kids in town in softball and baseball just like anyone else.\u00a0 I had some real good friends.\u00a0 Friendships that I cherished, and feel like they will never bring this well, they were my friends.\u00a0 School was there just like everything else.\u00a0 It was difficult like small town kids.\u00a0 You just hang around your friends.\u00a0 You run around in-groups and do things.\u00a0 We would get in trouble.\u00a0 Get to be mischievous.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Was your family one of the only Chinese families in Drew?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 We had two families in Drew.\u00a0 It ended up being three families after.\u00a0 My cousins that would come up to Drew, but they were younger than me.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Were they affiliated with you all stores or did they do something else?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 No, they did something else.\u00a0 They had a store of their own.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 That is how the Chinese did it.\u00a0 Your parents started.\u00a0 When they got a little bit.\u00a0 Some of the other family came over and they gave them a start.\u00a0 They helped them get a start.\u00a0 It is kind of.\u00a0 Well, I think that is the way that most of the Chinese.<\/p>\n

FD: That is how most of them came to the Delta anyway.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 They would help.\u00a0 They would loan them.\u00a0 They would actually go buy the store.\u00a0 They would furnish it and go in and help them till they could see that they can make it own there own.\u00a0 Then they would pay them back when they could.\u00a0 That is part of the history is that as a group of people they were determined to help each other.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 A lot of times some of these people even back in the old country, as we would say in the village.\u00a0 They knew each other all ready.\u00a0 They tend to help each other.\u00a0 You might say they might end up in-groups from the same subdivisions.\u00a0 They are from the same streets that are helping each other.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Did you grow up in?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 In Boyle, MS.\u00a0 I was born in Merigold.\u00a0 I lived there till I was about seven.\u00a0 There was a Chinese school there in Cleveland.\u00a0 We were not allowed to go the public schools.\u00a0 I went there till I was in the third grade.\u00a0 Then we moved to Boyle because it was one of the two towns or three towns at that time that did have a place for the Chinese to go to a public school.\u00a0 We moved there.\u00a0 There were what eight of us kids.\u00a0 Let\u2019s see what do I need to tell you?<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 I know that your sister, Annette, is the oldest.\u00a0 You are the second?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Yes<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 What was that like being the oldest or next to the oldest of eight children?\u00a0 Did you have a lot of responsibility?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Well we had a store.\u00a0 So it was the living quarters that were attached to the store.\u00a0 What it amounted to it was a block, it was a solid block.\u00a0 It was four storefronts.\u00a0 Two storefronts were the store.\u00a0 Then two storefronts were the bedroom, where our quarters were.\u00a0 We had five bedrooms and two baths back there.\u00a0 It was pretty comfortable.\u00a0 We had a buzzer.\u00a0 We were always a slave to that store.\u00a0 You mean you would have one or two people out in the store, if it got busy.\u00a0 They would hit that buzzer, and we knew we had to take off and go.\u00a0 We were raised actually.\u00a0 I think we all started making change.\u00a0 We used to have a little carpenter aprons.<\/p>\n

ED:\u00a0 Carpenter aprons<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Aprons, because the little cotton choppers would come in.\u00a0 It would be a whole busload at a time.\u00a0 They would assign one of us kids to each island.\u00a0 You had the potato chips.\u00a0 You had to peanuts.\u00a0 You had the cokes.\u00a0 You collected.\u00a0 You made sure you collected what ever went out of your division.\u00a0 So we started doing that at a very early age.\u00a0 We all had our responsibilities just as Fay\u2019s family.\u00a0 I think all of us were raised the same way.\u00a0 Certain people were supposed to sweep.\u00a0 You had to fill up the drink machines.\u00a0 You had to stack groceries.\u00a0 You had to do all the things.\u00a0 There was always a lot to do as far as helping with other kids of course because our youngest sister is sixteen years younger than me or eighteen years younger than Annette. She went to college the year she was born.\u00a0 It is spread out pretty much.\u00a0 I am sure Annette told you that our parents were born.\u00a0 Our mom was born in St. Louis.\u00a0 Dad was born in Merigold.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 This is something that I was really confused about.\u00a0 Your mama went back to China?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I think the story.\u00a0 Mama is still living.\u00a0 She is eighty-four.\u00a0 She has had a couple of strokes.\u00a0 When I try to get her to tell me some things it is hard to get her to tell me some things, it is hard to get her to say very much about it.\u00a0 The way that I understand it is that she was born in St. Louis.\u00a0 Her parents sent her back to China to be educated.\u00a0 She stayed there from the time she was ten or twelve until she was eighteen.\u00a0 Then she came back over.\u00a0 Then she married Daddy at nineteen.<\/p>\n

JM: At St. Louis, or by that time was?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 She married in Greenville.\u00a0 She had two brothers that lived in Greenville, MS.<\/p>\n

JM: That was during the flood?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Yes, she had a big church wedding, which was really unusual at that time. Elsie Blooms used to be a real exclusive shop there in Greenville.\u00a0 She bought her wedding dress there.\u00a0 We still had her shoes until we left Jackson. Everybody moved out. \u00a0\u00a0We meant to go back and get some of those things and we didn\u2019t.\u00a0 They were married at First Baptist Church in Cleveland.\u00a0 They had a little mission there.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 At the Chinese Baptist Church?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 No this was at the First Baptist Church before that was built.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Before that was built.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 That was in 1935, I guess.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 When did they build that Chinese school there?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 You know I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I know that it had been built for some time before I went there because it was a boarding school. \u00a0\u00a0When I went there the Chinese kids no longer boarded there.\u00a0\u00a0 Just some of us went as day students. Some of them before then actually boarded there.\u00a0 I think some of my aunts and uncles may have gone there.\u00a0 That building I think is just about gone now. \u00a0It actually had a dormitory.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 The first half of the day was spent teaching English and the second half was spent teaching Chinese?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 No.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 No.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 As far as the school was concerned.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know if we were ever taught Chinese in the regular school.\u00a0 That was just during the summer.\u00a0 During the summer there was a Chinese preacher called Jay Con Chan.\u00a0 He was working on his Ph.D.\u00a0 at Southern.\u00a0 He would come back and would have what you would call Chinese school during the summer.\u00a0 It had nothing to do with the regular school. It wasn\u2019t after school.\u00a0 It was during the summer.\u00a0 Are you disagreeing with me?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t know because I didn\u2019t go.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Well, the only Chinese school the only time we were taught anything Chinese was in the summer.\u00a0 When Bro. Chan would come back, and we would go over there like summer school there.\u00a0 He did teach us to read and write some Chinese.\u00a0 It was really, really.\u00a0 If you could, imagine having everybody from six years old to eighteen all in the same room and trying to teach them.\u00a0 We did not learn a whole lot.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 It probably (Tape not understandable).<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

FD: That is probably what.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 As far as Robert and Sang Jr.\u00a0 They may have gone to school there.\u00a0 He is talking about my cousins from Duncan, MS.\u00a0 My uncle Sing\u2019s children, but now all their daughters went to Senatobia.\u00a0 They went to a boarding school.\u00a0 The older boys may have gone to the Cleveland Chinese School.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 There was a Chinese Boarding School in Senatobia?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 No, it was a regular.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 It was just an agricultural school.\u00a0 It was sort of like they have in Moorhead.\u00a0 It was half to go there.<\/p>\n

JD: They sent all the girls went there.\u00a0 The boys were older.\u00a0 A couple of boys, I don\u2019t know that far back.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Going back to the store when you were children.\u00a0 Your sister was talking about how your mother and father and you father particularly was very protective.\u00a0 If there were a lot of rowdiness going on that they would get the girls back inside.\u00a0 Do you remember that?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t recall a lot of rowdiness.\u00a0 I do know that we were in the store during the time that integration started.\u00a0 Probably what she is referring to is that there were times when there were some black\/white issues.\u00a0 We were kind of in between.\u00a0 I think that we were perhaps that is what she is referring to.\u00a0 When he would see that something would not might go well, he would say well get on back in the house.\u00a0 I don\u2019t really recall any true violence.\u00a0 There probably was.\u00a0 She is just two years older than me.\u00a0 Maybe she can remember more of that than I can.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Did you feel like there was criticism or discrimination from others?\u00a0 She described it as being in the middle or in between.\u00a0 Did you feel the discrimination from both blacks and whites?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I think the whites were divided into two groups, really.\u00a0 You had the people that were kind of the cut above the people that we think of as the ones being the Delta folks.\u00a0 They always welcomed us with open arms.\u00a0 They were more than gracious and good to us.\u00a0 Then there were rednecks, true rednecks, and some of those were not so wonderful.\u00a0 Some of them were not very kind.\u00a0 Some of them were wonderful.\u00a0 Then some of the others that was redneck as they could be.\u00a0 They were still awfully good friends and took care of us.\u00a0 There were several groups.\u00a0 Back in that day in time, prejudice was not just Chinese.\u00a0 I can remember when all Italians were Dagos.\u00a0 It was prejudice was with Catholics.\u00a0 I mean they were prejudice against everybody.\u00a0 We weren\u2019t the only people that had the grunt. The society at that time was a very polarized cut and dry roots.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t like it is today.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 It is interesting there was like Mr. Joe was talking about how the Delta was sort of a melting pot.\u00a0 There was a lot of different people would come as immigrants and have stayed.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 That is right like the Jewish people.\u00a0 Matter of fact we have a tape of the Mississippi\u00a0 Jews.\u00a0 We haven\u2019t found time to watch it yet, but someone sent it to us.\u00a0 They brought out some of those things.\u00a0 It was a place for a person could go if they worked hard.\u00a0 They could do a little of business.\u00a0 They could get a little hand up.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 What about African American communities?\u00a0 Did you feel a little discrimination or prejudice between the Chinese community and the black community?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I think that the black community probably accepted us as merchants.\u00a0 They felt like we were better to them and kinder to them than a lot of people were.\u00a0 We treated them with more respect.\u00a0 I guess they saw us as something in between.\u00a0 During that time, this was the time that integration started.\u00a0 There were a lot of black and white issues back then.\u00a0 We were kind of on the cusp on the two worlds.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 I know that your parents probably came with the intent to go back to China or not?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t know. I can\u2019t tell you for sure of that.\u00a0 I often hear about them talking about people wanting to come for sort of not an extended stay and to gather up enough money to go back and to live comfortable.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember hearing my parents that they wanted to go back.\u00a0 We stayed here.<\/p>\n

JD: They may have come with that thought.\u00a0 They certainly didn\u2019t entertain it very long.<\/p>\n

FD: Especially after you have family here.\u00a0 You can see what a better life that they can have here and there future.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 I imagine having such a large Chinese community also probably helped.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I probably would think it would be because it was sort of comfortable here.\u00a0 There were mingling and socializing.\u00a0 It was not so much, just parties that they would have.\u00a0 We had closer friends that gathered at times.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 The extended families on his side and on our side of the family on Sundays, my dad\u2019s Aunt Sue and her family.\u00a0 Then Uncle Wing they would all come to Mom\u2019s house. She would cook a big meal for them.\u00a0 His mother was the same way.\u00a0 Her extended family, her two brother\u2019s family quite often came on weekends.\u00a0 The extended family was really, really important on both of our lives.\u00a0 Of course Fay\u2019s mother you know lived with us, well, till she died.\u00a0 Our children got to know a lot more of the Chinese customs and things perhaps that most people don\u2019t have that opportunity.<\/p>\n

FD: Let me say this, I think they try to speak more than other kids there same age.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 The reason for this is Grandmother refused to learn English.\u00a0 She refused to speak English to them.\u00a0 So they had no choice.\u00a0 She made that point.\u00a0 She said that if I learn to speak English they would never learn any Chinese.\u00a0 That was very deliberate on her part.\u00a0 That is probably the reason why they know what little they know now.\u00a0 In order to communicate with her.\u00a0 She understood them.\u00a0 She just refused to answer them in English.\u00a0 (Tape cut off).\u00a0 She sounds just like grandma.\u00a0 (Tape cut off).\u00a0 The summers when we grew up, we had the Chinese young folks got together a lot and had dances and parties.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Ed probably went over all of that.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Ed probably went over a lot of that with you all.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 He just mentioned the Lucky Eleven.\u00a0 Was that the same group of people that held this summer parties that you all are talking about?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Some of them, some of them were just groups of people that would just rent a place and have an old fashion jam session.\u00a0 It was a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 What kind of music?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I guess what ever was popular at that time.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Flatters, Jimmy Janes.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 The typical fifties.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 It is like what they play on the Oldies now.\u00a0 Of course this was in the fifties.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Did you go to drive in movies too?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 We saw movies.<\/p>\n

JD: \u00a0Didn\u2019t everybody in the fifties?<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 I guess so.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 There was nothing else to do.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 That is what your sister was telling us.\u00a0 That you all would pile up in the cars and would go.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Yeah there was nothing else to do.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Did your family also live in the store, or?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Yes, they had living quarters in the back.\u00a0 At one time we had a garage apartment.\u00a0 We had our living quarters and bedrooms over the garage.\u00a0 We spent so much time in the store.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 You had to be close by.<\/p>\n

FD: You had to be close by.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 It was about the only way really that our folks could have made it and raised the family too.\u00a0 I think the living quarters varied a lot.\u00a0 Some of the people made it pretty comfortable.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 That was a way you could watch the family grow up and work at the same time.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 You can have both.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 You can watch the ones do their homework.\u00a0 You can go back and watch the front of the store.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Did you maintain, some people that we talked to say that they opened up the stores at six o\u2019clock and would stay open anywhere from ten o\u2019clock at night to two o\u2019clock at morning.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Now we did to midnight.\u00a0 On the weekends we were open to midnight.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 There were people that would open up say five thirty in morning.\u00a0 Then they would close back up about eight or eight-thirty.\u00a0 They would sleep an hour and then they would open back up.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 That was to catch the people going out to the fields to work.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 It was usually would be lots of people.\u00a0 It was a line of stores that would open their stores to nine at night.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 The days were long.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Did you all have, we are talking about the field workers.\u00a0 Did the Italians come to your grocery stores and Jewish people or was it dominantly white and black that came?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Everybody came.\u00a0 We had the largest store in town.\u00a0 So we had just about everything in town.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 So you sold everything.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 We had everything from nails to oilcloth.\u00a0 We had twenty-five pounds sacks of flour.\u00a0 We had garden dust.\u00a0 We had anything you could name.\u00a0 We had wash tubs.\u00a0 We had scrub doors.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 It was more or less they were a general store.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 It was very much a general store.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 We sold of course you probably don\u2019t know it.\u00a0 We called them kneepads.\u00a0 When they pick cotton with them because they pick cotton on their knees.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Did you all ever see kneepads?<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Yes sir.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 When they picked cotton they would walk on their knees all day long.\u00a0 We sold those things.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Yeah, we had a lot of the stuff that they show in these Cracker Barrels.\u00a0 Really it was really pretty much like that.\u00a0 It was very little that we didn\u2019t have.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Did you serve meals?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 No, but we would do, no but we would do things like lunchmeat and things like that.\u00a0 Sometimes they would come in, and say they want.\u00a0 We used to have a, some of the people who owned the plantations would come in and say hey, I need twenty-five bologna sandwiches.\u00a0 So they would want us to go on and fix the sandwiches so that they can hand them out.\u00a0 We would do things like that.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 How did the store change, or the merchandise change after mechanization took over?\u00a0 Did you have to change?\u00a0 Did the store adjust?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 You mean how did the store adjust.\u00a0 We modernized in that we started to have the carts and made it self service.\u00a0 As far as scanning and things we were out of that business by the time that it got to all of that.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Most of them were out of the business before they did that.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 I mean the mechanization of farming.<\/p>\n

FD: Farmer, labor.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 When the machines and the cotton gins.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well by that time.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 They had food stamps.\u00a0 They had more money to spend than they would pick with working.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 They had food stamps.\u00a0 Like I said by that time some of the older merchants that were here earlier started to modernize the store a little bit.\u00a0 It is not so much as a service thing, but a self-service thing.\u00a0 You just pick you own groceries and things like that.\u00a0 At that time most of the people were called day labor.\u00a0 They worked in the field for so many dollars a per day instead of going.\u00a0 They would operate a tractor for so many dollars a day.\u00a0 Right after probably in the early fifties and late forties Chinese started to doing the process of changing their stores over to self service.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Was there, this is kind of, seasonal workers like Mexican workers?\u00a0 Did they come through?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0\u00a0 There were.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Would you say the same families came through in different seasons?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t actually remember having the same like seeing them this summer and having them next summer.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t think so because those children went to school.\u00a0 I can\u2019t ever remember ever seeing those same kids come back the next year.\u00a0 They did make them come to school.\u00a0 Some of them did go to school.\u00a0 They were not the same kids.\u00a0 I never thought about it much.\u00a0 I don\u2019t remember ever seeing the same kid come back another year.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Another diversion, who in your family most influenced you and your extended family?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t know, I guess my mother probably.\u00a0 Can you think of anything?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I think Fay\u2019s father died when he was very, very young.\u00a0 I would probably have to say your uncle, Uncle Sing was probably was kind of a father figure to you because his dad died when his youngest sister was a baby.\u00a0 I think he was closer to you all than some of the others in you all family and the rest of them.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I know that he was probably one of the real (Tape was not able to understand).<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 There were so much of our immediate family, that there were so many of us.\u00a0 I can\u2019t think of any of the extended family that was really closer than the others.\u00a0 I was going to call my Aunt Sue because she is the last one in my dad\u2019s family that is living to try to find out when my grandpa and grandma came over.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t get around to doing it.\u00a0 I meant to do it today.\u00a0 I just didn\u2019t get around to doing it.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 What is her name, Sue?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Sue, She now spells her name.\u00a0 She changed the spelling of her name, Yen in Tuttwiler, MS.\u00a0 I meant to do that to call and see when they came.\u00a0 I think they were some of the first Chinese in the delta.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Do you ever hear your parents talk about the late eighteen hundreds in the Delta?\u00a0 Did they know any Chinese people who had come in the late 1800s?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I think that my grandparents would have probably come in the early 1900s.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that these would be that far back.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 The reason that I ask is because, Edward Joe, they were talking about the earliest Chinese that he had heard of in the Delta had come in to work on the farms but it did not work out.\u00a0 I was just wandering if you remembered any?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 No, there I think my brother-in-law who is now deceased my have had some of his family come over a lot earlier because I think they are the third generation there in that one town.\u00a0 That is Moorhead, MS.\u00a0 Matter of fact you might check with John Paul.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 That is your brother?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 No, John Paul lives in Moorhead.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 John Paul Quon, you would probably have some knowledge of that.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 As I remember hearing my brother-in-law talking about it.\u00a0\u00a0 His grandfather was in Moorhead, MS, and that was a long time ago.\u00a0 They probably still came real early.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Did Annette remember anything about Grandpa Gong?<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 She didn\u2019t say a whole lot.\u00a0 I think she said that they came in the early nineteen hundreds.\u00a0 (Tape cut off).<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 And in college, of course there was no college assistance. Everybody either got a scholarship or they paid for it.\u00a0 College was good to us.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Did you also go to Ole Miss?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Yes, I had a scholarship for one year to Delta State.\u00a0 That is one reason that I went there.\u00a0 Then I went to Ole Miss and finished there.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 What was it like at Delta State?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Delta State had about five hundred students back then.\u00a0 They had curfews.\u00a0 They had vandijur dorm rooms.\u00a0 We did all those things back then that were real simpleratay, but everybody did it back then.\u00a0 It was real strict curfews especially for freshman.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Did they have curfews for men or just for the women or both?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about the guys.\u00a0 Did you have curfews?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well, you know at Mississippi State we didn\u2019t have a curfew. We should have had one.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 You probably would be better off if you did.\u00a0 We did have some teachers that really took special interest.\u00a0 There were some very kind and good people.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Do you want to speak on Delta State?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 No, I am thinking of teachers in genera like Ms. Han King. She was something special.\u00a0 She kind of adopted the family.\u00a0 The kitchen was behind the store.\u00a0 It was between the living quarters and the store.\u00a0 She would pop her head in there and come in.\u00a0 She would pop down there and have dinner with us or what ever was there.\u00a0 We had several teachers like that.\u00a0 They just had a missionary type attachment to the family.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Do you think a lot of it was to motivation was to be a missionary?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 No, not missionary in the religious part, a missionary in the way of being helpful\u00a0 (Tape cut off).<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 There are always some people in the small towns that take a special interest in some of the children.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 With the churches and the school, were there families in the Delta or white families in the Delta that Chinese families would grow up close to through collaboration with the churches and schools?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well there were a lot of different cases.\u00a0 They would it was something you could say a drive or project.\u00a0 People would donate to the cause, not as far as being helpful, they didn\u2019t know how too ordinary to speak petition in the language.\u00a0 So, it didn\u2019t help in any sort.\u00a0\u00a0 They would be a sponsor in something like that.\u00a0 People would donate to the school paper.\u00a0 Get on the page and get circulation and things like that and buying an ad.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Tell us a little bit about your children?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I\u2019ll let you take that. She enjoys telling about that.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Like you don\u2019t.\u00a0 We have three kids.\u00a0\u00a0 The oldest is Randall.\u00a0 He is thirty-five.\u00a0 He was a very good student.\u00a0 He is a Tramline Scholar.\u00a0 He finished in State.\u00a0 Then he got his law degree at the University of Virginia.\u00a0 He is in private practice. \u00a0My second son is Christopher.\u00a0 He is a National Merit.\u00a0 He finished at State and went to the University of Virginia Law School too.\u00a0 He is an Air Force Jag working in Baltimore with N. S. A. now.\u00a0 The youngest one is a daughter.\u00a0 She is twenty-eight.\u00a0 She has a degree in philosophy and English.\u00a0 Then she went back and got a master\u2019s in accounting.\u00a0 She works for Hoff Anderson.\u00a0 She is a consultant.\u00a0 She travels a lot.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 It sounds like your youngest daughter takes after your youngest of your siblings a little bit because doesn\u2019t she teach rhetoric in Hong Kong?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Oh the youngest daughter was a National Merit too.\u00a0 Yes, she teaches in Hong Kong.\u00a0 So Annette brought you up to date on the siblings on what they all do.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Yes<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I think that was part of the heritage that you were expected and we were always told.\u00a0 We didn\u2019t worry a lot about getting or people discriminating against us.\u00a0 We were always just told you just need to be twenty or twenty-five percent better than anybody else to get to the same place.\u00a0 That was a given.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t something that we dwelled on.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t something that we groaned about.\u00a0 We just knew that we needed to be twenty percent better.\u00a0 So that was just a go. We just did it.\u00a0 I think it was something.\u00a0 I know my parents, our parents, emphasized it a lot.\u00a0 You just got to remember you have a handicap.\u00a0 You are just going to have to over come it.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I know that just about all of the Chinese adults back then just put a lot on school and education.\u00a0 It was just everything, and probably I would venture to say that the whole bunch and the gatherings.\u00a0 How we would have a parties and things.\u00a0 All the people that probably was ninety-nine percent was college graduates and doing there own thing.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I think it was really the whole thing.\u00a0 I guess you can say it was part of the culture that you would have to leave each generation had to get better.\u00a0 That was your charge.\u00a0 That is what Dad used to say you owe me.\u00a0 You owe me to be better than I was.\u00a0 My grandchildren will be better than you are.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Do you think the younger generation feels that pressure as much?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Pressure to achieve, you mean?<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 To continue to better off than before?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I think we pretty much have the attitude and told them that they had enough that were given enough intelligence to be anything that they wanted to be.\u00a0 We were limited only by what they would do.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think they are.\u00a0 What would you say Fay?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well. . .<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I think as far as the education they were as driven.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I think sometimes they feel like they are sort of a little pressure.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I think so.\u00a0 I think they do.\u00a0 I think they feel the pressure.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Of course, first thing that crossed my mind when I talked to them when they were going to school was how are your grades come out.\u00a0 That was the first thing that I asked.\u00a0 I think the grades were just about the key to everything.\u00a0 Along with religion developed that.\u00a0 Of course you will be outgoing and you get along with people.\u00a0 There was a lot of smart people in the world.\u00a0 (Tape was not able to understand).\u00a0 We put a lot of store in it education.\u00a0 We are proud of them all.\u00a0 They know it.\u00a0 (Tape cut off).\u00a0 They have left Mississippi.\u00a0 They are gone.\u00a0 In fact probably Ed was one of the first one to stay.\u00a0 The rest of them were engineers and the state of Mississippi really how many people can hire engineers.\u00a0 So naturally these people are going out and work for Block E and big oil companies and big industry.\u00a0 We don\u2019t have enough jobs for higher educated engineer or anything.\u00a0 Of course it is a more of a business atmosphere than scientific and technology.\u00a0 We are not a technical state.\u00a0 So like I said most people have left and gone to other places.\u00a0 I have nieces and nephews that were educated at Ole Miss, and they are gone to Texas and Dallas and other places.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Houston has a large community of Chinese.<\/p>\n

JD: A lot of them from Cleveland too.\u00a0 A lot of Mississippi Delta Chinese are there.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 In fact, I just came back from Houston a couple of weeks ago.\u00a0 Oh, Willie is out there.\u00a0 He has a big.\u00a0 They have a big family.\u00a0 They are highly educated.\u00a0 They came from the Mississippi Delta.\u00a0 The oldest daughter, but mostly all from Mississippi anyway.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Well, yeah because there weren\u2019t any opportunities for fields that they went into.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Most of the are educated, but all of them are in manage, chemistry, physics.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Do you think that was sort of a mapped out thing?\u00a0 When people went into these different fields do they do that thinking that they might be able to get jobs outside of Mississippi, or was it just something that just sort of happened?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it was conscious effort to leave Mississippi.\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that was the point.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 The interest lies in there.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I think that when you say you are in the fifties.\u00a0 I can only speak for the time that we grew up and you were a minority, and jobs might be hard to get.\u00a0 Then certainly the liberal arts and the more technical fields would preclude a lot of other people.\u00a0 So there opportunities would be greater there.\u00a0 Now all three of our kids did double arts.\u00a0 We cringed at that.\u00a0 What if you can\u2019t make a living you know?\u00a0 That kind of bothered us.\u00a0 She said that is fine.\u00a0 She knows that I might have to support you for the rest of your life.\u00a0 I think with the fluid set in the times goes on, I think the liberal arts come in to play.\u00a0 During our generation certainly it was a technical.\u00a0 Everyone went to the technical fields.\u00a0 Our kids cringed and they say those are technical jobs.\u00a0 Yuck.<\/p>\n

FD: \u00a0Those are bunch of nerds.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 These are the richest nerds you know.\u00a0 Why don\u2019t you go into the computer science.\u00a0 There was a safety.\u00a0 They can do some things that not everybody could do.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well I believe that is.\u00a0 I believe that is more Chinese pond, which they go into a technical things.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Mississippi has very good programs like that through the colleges.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 They do.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Mississippi State does a real good job.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 We have kind of talked about it very generally.\u00a0 How is your experience in the Delta right now different from that of your parents?\u00a0 It is kind of a way question.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well you talk about my childhood.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Well how old were you when you left?\u00a0 Was it right out of college you left the Delta?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Okay that might be a terrible question.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 We have been gone a long time.<\/p>\n

FD: You might can talk to Raymond about that because Raymond is a lot longer.\u00a0 He everyday life is probably not much different from anybody else’s.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 He used to wake up awfully earlier to get to the morning show.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Yeah, he is a character.<\/p>\n

JM: I don\u2019t catch the morning show.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well I haven\u2019t see it myself.\u00a0 Though we poke at him a little bit about it.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 So you do stay in touch with your friends in the Delta that are still there?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 We just got a little bit of family.\u00a0 Not too many friends are still there.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Talking about Chinese friends?<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Well anybody, friends and family.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I only got a cousin in Greenville.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 And my brother.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 And my brother in Webb.\u00a0 We are pretty much see them.\u00a0 We sure do.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Now Raymond\u2019s father and<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 My mother are brother and sisters.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 There are a lot of connections.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Yes, just like Juanita was saying at Christmas time when we were younger.\u00a0 We all gathered together.\u00a0 It was nothing like home. It was twenty-three or twenty-five people, and we would be eating the whole time.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Did you go to your uncle\u2019s restaurant?\u00a0 When did he start that restaurant?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 He started that restaurant in \u201969 in Greenville.\u00a0 He took over an old Burger King, or something like that.\u00a0 From there, this is his third building now.\u00a0 The families third building now.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Is there anything else that we haven\u2019t covered?\u00a0 It seems like they have covered the bases.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Did we cover weddings?<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Yeah that really was, do tell?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Weddings were the happenings in the Delta.\u00a0 It would be nothing like.\u00a0 Our wedding was probably a small wedding.\u00a0 We only had an estimated guess about five hundred.\u00a0 It was a small one.\u00a0 Her brother had a wedding.\u00a0 I think they had eight hundred and something.\u00a0 Some of them have everybody would get invited.\u00a0 They would be at the V. F. W. hut or the American Legion.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 That was before the days of Chinese restaurants.\u00a0 They volunteered in each family to come in a spend a weekend preparing the feast.\u00a0 It was a lot of fun.\u00a0 It was a lot of work.\u00a0 It was a dreadful amount of work.\u00a0 They fix you know I think nine course for about five hundred people.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 What were the courses?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well traditional Chinese wedding banquet.\u00a0 It depends on the family. They have a tradition.\u00a0 My family is in the (Tape cut off).<\/p>\n

Tape 2 of 2<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 This is tape 2 of 2.\u00a0 I am Kimberly Lancaster and Jennifer Mitchell is also here.\u00a0 We are interviewing Fay and Juanita Dong for the Mississippi Delta Oral History Project.\u00a0 We were talking about the different courses for a wedding banquet.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Wedding, like I said my family slant toward the seafood of the pole.\u00a0 Then we tried to have some delicacies that we thought were delicacies.\u00a0 According to our customs and traditions you might say village in a little country.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 What were some of those delicacies?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well we would have like seafood.\u00a0 We would have lobster and shrimp.\u00a0 We would have.\u00a0 I know you have heard of people having bird\u2019s nest soup.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Bird\u2019s nest soup?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 You haven\u2019t heard of that.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Well I have heard of that, but what is in that?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well I will not dwell upon that.<\/p>\n

JM: Uh oh.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 It is supposed to be a delicacy.\u00a0 It is very expensive.\u00a0 I guess some of us older people would know what it is all about.\u00a0 Some of the younger people don\u2019t eat it anymore.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Now I have heard of this, I don\u2019t know if this.\u00a0 Partially developed eggs like chicken embryos are that what it is made of?<\/p>\n

FD: \u00a0No, I don\u2019t know anything about that though.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 I don\u2019t know where I have heard that.\u00a0 So you want tell us what is in the bird\u2019s nest soup?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 It is more or less gathering from a bird\u2019s nest.\u00a0 It is really I guess.\u00a0 I am not sure about it myself really.\u00a0 I have been told when I gather.\u00a0 It is part of what the bird you might say.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Regurgitates.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Yeah that is what I am trying to say.\u00a0 That is what I have been told.\u00a0 Then they have a thing of vegetables like stuff mushrooms.\u00a0 Then they would have oysters and stuff like that.\u00a0 The wedding is a real big thing.\u00a0 Like I said there is nothing having over five hundred people. Ours was one of the small ones probably.\u00a0 It attracted people from three or four states.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Would people from the white and black communities come, or was it primarily Chinese people?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 It was primarily Chinese, but quite a few whites would come.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 If they were real close we consider real close friends we probably would have schoolteachers and stuff.\u00a0 The mayor of Boyle would come.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Predominantly Chinese<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Yeah<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 He talked about the specific food the fishing village?\u00a0 Was your family from a different area?\u00a0 Did you have a?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I think they were in the same kind of area but not as close to the seacoast.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Did the food reflect it?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Well the food that they prepared for our wedding was not typical what the other families would prepared for their weddings.\u00a0 Would you say that is fair?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 For example, they had a gold fish, which is considered a delicacy.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t think that was a delicacy.\u00a0 I couldn\u2019t understand why anybody wanted to serve a gold fish at my wedding.\u00a0 So there were difference in.\u00a0 They had a dish called kelgore, which is uncured bacon that is cooked three different ways.\u00a0 It is deep fat fried.\u00a0 Then it is braized.<\/p>\n

FD: Then steamed.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Then steamed, and it has all different kinds of herbs and annies on it.\u00a0 I really wasn\u2019t too keen on that either.\u00a0 It is just differences in what their perception of what was wonderful was necessary to what I thought was wonderful at the time we got married to tell you the truth.\u00a0 I thought.\u00a0 I would have rather just had duck.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Were these part of the nine courses?<\/p>\n

JD: I think different families think different things are special.\u00a0 His Uncle Sing that was the one that was more of a father image took a great deal of pride in making that menu because it was not like everybody else has duck.\u00a0 Everybody else has this and that.\u00a0 We are going to have something that no one else has done.\u00a0 We are going to do something special. It was really a labor of love.\u00a0 They did a lot of work on it.\u00a0 It was special.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 The men were very involved in putting.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 The men did it.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 They all did.<\/p>\n

JD: They did it.\u00a0 They did all the work.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 They did.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 What would happen is the women would take over the business, and the men would.\u00a0 This was a happening for them.\u00a0 It was a big social thing.\u00a0 They sort of a house raising in the old times.\u00a0 They all got together and they all pitched in. \u00a0Everybody had their own special things.\u00a0 They did it.\u00a0 It was just a lot of fun.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Have you been able to participate in a lot of weddings that way?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 You mean cook?\u00a0 No not me.\u00a0 Me help cook?\u00a0 No we don\u2019t have those anymore.\u00a0 We all know that there is a Chinese restaurant close by, and they go there.\u00a0 Sometimes they are so loud that the gathering is not as much.\u00a0 Of course there are fewer people now too.\u00a0 There are not as many Chinese families anymore.\u00a0 So if the restaurant can accommodate them, they will have one at the restaurant.\u00a0 As far as the old weddings that we used to go to, I just don\u2019t know if they have any of those anymore.\u00a0 If they do, we don\u2019t get invited to any of them.\u00a0 We are social outcast.<\/p>\n

JD: We are passed that point.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Did you learn to cook?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 No not really, but I.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 He is determined that he want learn to cook.\u00a0 He doesn\u2019t know how to turn on washing machine either.\u00a0 He is determined that he doesn\u2019t want to learn.\u00a0 It is a social thing that he was raised by his mother.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I can always tell them how to cook, and what looks good on them.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 You know how to give orders.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Right and advice<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Anybody that can live with his mother for sixty years you can\u2019t expect them to do any better.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Something that people haven\u2019t really talked about at all are funerals and also births.\u00a0 How are those?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Well we just had my dad\u2019s funeral in January.\u00a0 That is kind of fresh on my mind.\u00a0 I think funerals there are several things at a Chinese funeral that are a little bit different.\u00a0 One of those is that after the funeral as they leave after the burial.\u00a0 A coin when they leave and a piece of candy and a coin, and the idea is that to take away the bitter and that you will be richer for having known this person.\u00a0 The symbolism there is great.\u00a0 We have a meal afterwards.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t think that is unusual hun.\u00a0 It is our heritage.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Well it is unusual not as customary.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t say it is unusual.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Do people cook like they would at the weddings?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Well we actually we go to a restaurant.\u00a0 It would be a simpler meal.\u00a0 It would not be as elaborate. It would be a good meal.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Where is he buried?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Here in Jackson.\u00a0 So you want to do the babies?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well babies, they just give a party.\u00a0 The grandparents usually give a party for a new born.\u00a0 That is about the extent of it.<\/p>\n

JD: After the baby is a month old.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Okay, it is sort of an entrance into the community, or is it just so they are celebrating the birth?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t know.\u00a0 They call it and refer to it as the Red Egg and Ginger Party.\u00a0 I can remember when our children were born.\u00a0 Grandmother took an egg and rolled it on their heads.\u00a0 She actually rolled it on their heads.\u00a0 I have never seen that before.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what that is supposed to do.\u00a0 She literally did.\u00a0 She actually took the boiled egg and just rolled it on their heads.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 That is one of the old traditions.\u00a0 Other than that most of the time we just have a party.\u00a0 They will have the red eggs on the table.\u00a0 Then they will have some ginger and sugar cookies.\u00a0 That is what we would be eating on.<\/p>\n

JM: Tell me about this red egg.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know about it.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 It is just like an Easter egg.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Easter egg that are dyed.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Red, all in the same color.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 They dye them all red.\u00a0 Red is a celebration color.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 It is always supposed to be a happy color.\u00a0 White and red are.\u00a0 One other thing that people had is the sweet potato cooked in soy sauce.\u00a0 It taste would be sweet and vinegary at the same time.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Then of course the whiskey soup.\u00a0 They served whiskey soup. It was chicken that was cooked with whiskey with black mushrooms and peanuts and livie stamens.<\/p>\n

FD: Some it is supposed to be symbolic, but we don\u2019t know the meaning.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Some of it is supposed to be therapeutic they thought. The mother would help them to purify the blood and make her.\u00a0 It said something about the blood vessels.\u00a0 I of course if you get enough alcohol in you it will open up the blood vessels.\u00a0 It is literally whiskey soup. It is chicken broth and the live stamens.\u00a0 Some black well it is really not an mushroom, it is really an hard mushroom kind of a fungus.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Is that they called wood ears?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Wood ears, right that is what we use and peanuts.\u00a0 It is really tasty.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 What you call. . .(Tape was not able to understand).<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 That is a traditional thing.\u00a0 The mother would when she would come home from the hospital or whatever they had these whiskey soup.\u00a0 Of course she stays on that for a while she will feel pretty good.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 How did you get the Live stamens and things like that for the soup?\u00a0 You couldn\u2019t buy them at the grocery store.\u00a0 Did they come to your store?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 We would order them from Chinatown, San Francisco is where we used to order ours from.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Now you probably can go to some Asian stores and buy them in Memphis.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 You can buy them anywhere now.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 They probably have them here probably.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Are there any Asian store in Jackson?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Yes.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 There are a couple of them.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 There is one in Ridgeland.\u00a0 You can get all of that stuff now.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 All kind of weird stuff in there.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Food seems to be used as medicine?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Yeah<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Did your grandparents, what did they think of western medicine?\u00a0 I know eastern medicine is more herbal.\u00a0 Did you have any experiences with that or hear about that?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Yeah I have heard about it.\u00a0 I can\u2019t think of it right now.\u00a0 It is some things that you know that as far ginseng I have always heard of that.\u00a0 Other than that, but other than that that is about it.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Grandmother used to when she thought the kids looked kind of scrawny.\u00a0 She would cut up beef, and she would put it in this podule and put it in a big pot of water.\u00a0 Then extract all those meat juices, and make them drink it. \u00a0Of course you know.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 With all those juices.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Yeah she would make this concentrated meat broth.\u00a0 They did things like that, which came from the old country.\u00a0 They did have some herbs and things that they would put in there.\u00a0 I think one of your cousins, Jot Ming, at one time sold herbs in the old country.<\/p>\n

FD: He did.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 He had an herb story and knew about all that sort of thing.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 But that is another thing.\u00a0 What have we not covered?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 How did we meet Fay?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I have already told them my story.\u00a0 I have already told them my story.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Did you tell them too that we are going to go see our family?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 We are going to, our blind date, I think we saw this movie, Three Colors of the Fountain.\u00a0 We are going to Italy this month.\u00a0 It is going to happen to fall on our anniversary, our thirty-ninth anniversary.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 You all are going to start making me cry.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 How about that?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Our 39th anniversary that makes a good story.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 We are going to see Rome.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 We are going to see that Tribe Fountain.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 That is wonderful.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I kind of nice though.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Years ago, well they couldn\u2019t go anywhere really as far as my parents going anywhere and a lot of other folks too go on vacations.\u00a0 They didn\u2019t have time for vacations and things like that.\u00a0 Their minds were set on trying to accumulate some money.\u00a0 Now all of us younger generation we got some capital and we use some of it.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 You know I don\u2019t think that is just true of us just the Chinese.\u00a0 I think that is true of the generation.\u00a0 I think that the generation of our parents.\u00a0 They were all hard working.\u00a0 They were from the generation that had seen the depression.\u00a0 They had seen war.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 That is true.<\/p>\n

JD: So that generation was a rebuilding that feel good foundations we have today.\u00a0 Our group has been more fluent.\u00a0 We really didn\u2019t have a real want, not true want maybe some desire but not want.\u00a0 I think this whole generation is that way.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 How do you think that, how did World War II affect your experience?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Well my dad was there.\u00a0 He was actually at Tokyo Bay when they surrendered.\u00a0 He was out there after he had five kids, which was kind of.\u00a0 His sixth kid was born, and he was a year old before dad got to see him.\u00a0 Mom had the store, was pregnant and with five kids.\u00a0 It did affect us.\u00a0 It was a hard time.\u00a0 Our Aunt Sue was living with us then, and then mama had hired a housekeeper to help with the kids.\u00a0 We called her Ms. Bertha.\u00a0 She kind of took good care of us.\u00a0 All of my uncles were in the service.\u00a0 My cousins and everybody in the world was in World War II.\u00a0 Everybody we knew that was at that age and really the war was to the point where they took people older than what you would think going today.\u00a0 I said like my dad had five kids and one on the way.\u00a0 They were taking everybody.\u00a0 The war did have an impact.\u00a0 After the war dad at that time, still had two single brothers and a sister.\u00a0 Since his daddy told him take care of them, he felt that it was his job to take care of him.\u00a0 So when he came out of the service, he took his allotment money and opened a store in Boyle.\u00a0 That is pretty much it.\u00a0 He left the family business in Merigold for the three sisters and brothers.\u00a0 He felt that they needed to get a start.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 How about you were you affected by the War?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 No, we had no one in the service.\u00a0 I had an uncle to serve.\u00a0 He did not get to go overseas though.\u00a0 No we didn\u2019t have anybody to serve.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Mr. Joe had said that War World II that happened after War World II, he kind of felt like since people had been to other places.\u00a0 They have seen other things that when they came their attitudes had changed toward Chinese, Italians, and Jewish community.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I think that is true.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Especially in a little town, you just can not even get the prejudice even against Catholic.\u00a0 It was hard for anyone in your generation how it was.\u00a0 Yeah, I think that is very true.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 How about the Civil Rights Movement?\u00a0 Do you remember?\u00a0 Were you affected by that?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Which way are you talking about?<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 In any way.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0\u00a0 We were at Ole Miss when James Meredith.\u00a0 We were in Vet Village.\u00a0 The helicopters kept sweeping over.\u00a0 I was working in the drug store there.\u00a0 They were throwing tear gas around and all sorts of things.\u00a0 We went through the Jennifer-James Meredith incidence.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 How do you mean when were we affected from it?<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Well did you feel any affects?\u00a0 I don\u2019t know like, she remembers being in the middle.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Relating to the Chinese heritage perhaps?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t think it affected us.<\/p>\n

JD: Us than what we observed.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Observed, that was all.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 We were physically there, I don\u2019t know if it had anything do with the Chinese heritage at all.\u00a0 We happened to be in the middle of it.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 What were the village that your were talking about?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Vet Village.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 It is where all, it is just a section where the married people live.<\/p>\n

JD: Apartments, they called it Vet Village back then because that is where you know.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Originally when it was started the veterans that came back from the war they had their wives and they lived out there. They were the married bunch.\u00a0 That is where the married people live.<\/p>\n

JM: Were you involved in the Greek system?<\/p>\n

FD: We were not.\u00a0 My two sons were.\u00a0 In fact, Randall got to be a vice-president of the super council.\u00a0 Did he get president of the?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t know he was chosen one of the most outstanding Sigma Nus in the nation though.\u00a0 We did get.\u00a0 I think there is an order on one hundred or something like that.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 (Tape was not able to understand).\u00a0 I forgot that.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Yeah.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I think they participated more.\u00a0 They had more of that Greek stuff when they went.\u00a0 We would make fun.\u00a0 Of course a lot of other people back then were mentioned that.\u00a0 Caucasians were also.\u00a0 That frat boy behind there or something like that you know.\u00a0 Frat boy is in love.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Just like today.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 That is right.\u00a0 When it comes to election time on campus to make man on campus, usually it would be an attractive boy.\u00a0 Anything else we need to touch on?<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 Is there anything else that comes to you all\u2019s mind that you would like to share with us?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I think the Delta was a good place to grow up.\u00a0 I have fond memories of it.\u00a0 It is a mighty good place.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Yeah we grew up in the hay days in the Delta.\u00a0 When we all the big planters. We had those big farms there.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Before the days of drugs on every corner.\u00a0 That is so much of that there now.\u00a0 It is just not.\u00a0 I know Boyle is completely dried up.\u00a0 There is not just no way to make a living there.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 This may be an unanswerable question.\u00a0 What do you think contributed that to the Delta the change in the Delta?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well they refused to first of all refused to try something else other than farming.\u00a0 When farming went mechanized and everything they were too far behind to the bring industry in.\u00a0 It was too late, the people that are own all the big farms did not want industry in that area.\u00a0 Money was ran for them.\u00a0 They wanted this kind of work and that is it.<\/p>\n

JD: They wanted cheap labor.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 It was too late after that.\u00a0 Other places that would have been glad to have them you know.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Then too I think the welfare stayed.\u00a0 You know manual labor pays very little.\u00a0 So when you got to the point where the welfare system over the people even though some states say it is not generous.\u00a0 When you look at what they had with out it, they were still living better.\u00a0 So many of the poor people lived better with the welfare than working.\u00a0 So there were welfare state that.\u00a0 You got second and third generation welfare now.\u00a0 It is a vicious cycle, and how do you break\u00a0 that cycle.\u00a0 It would be very difficult because of it becomes culture.\u00a0 It is a mentality.\u00a0 It is sort of entitlement.\u00a0 It is very difficult to undo.\u00a0 The funny thing about is that is what the old folks said when they started all of that.\u00a0 It was sort of a no brainier.\u00a0 They said if you are going to give them food stamps and subsidize them substances, that is better than they are doing now.\u00a0 When do you think they are ever going to go to work?\u00a0 The old folks it was really a no brainier.\u00a0 It has taken America a whole fifty years to figure it out.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 You can\u2019t undo it.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Well they have undone some more than I would ever thought they would get undone.\u00a0 We did create a welfare state in the Delta.\u00a0 I think that is very true.\u00a0 When Mississippi food stamps are just.\u00a0 It is not going to go to work around here.\u00a0 Hungry is a powerful incentive.<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 What do you think the future generations?<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 Of Chinese Americans?<\/p>\n

KL:\u00a0 Yes, or specifically the Delta.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t see any Chinese returning to the Delta.\u00a0 There is just no way.<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 There is no future there for anybody really.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 That is just not for Asians.\u00a0 Right now unless they turn around and do something.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 You know a lot of black people whose families that migrated north are coming back to the Delta.\u00a0 You just don\u2019t see that at all for the Chinese at some point?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t think so.\u00a0 Well unless they.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 I don\u2019t think this state is progressive enough to do the things that they have got to do to attract high skilled industries.\u00a0 That is what it would take to get some high tech or some certainly skilled industry rather than manufacturing.\u00a0 That is all we see and low skill at that coming back.\u00a0 So I don\u2019t see that.<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 If that was the case, and we were getting more advanced technologies in the Delta, do you think people would want to come back?<\/p>\n

FD:\u00a0 Well, I think they want come back for just for the money.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 When you say come back, you got to remember our generation is the one that left.\u00a0 We are in our sixties.\u00a0 So it that is moved to<\/p>\n

JM:\u00a0 There is nothing to come back to.<\/p>\n

JD:\u00a0 That is right.\u00a0 Then our children never knew it.\u00a0 So I don\u2019t see it as being a drop.\u00a0 It is sort of a move thing unless it just happens.\u00a0 They happen to have a special job that works out.\u00a0 (Tape cut off).<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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