Presentation #3

Shoua Her

May 15, 2012

ASA150E

Reflection Paper

            Jason’s article that he provided about Ted Ngoy and the Cambodian doughnut shops was a really eye-opening piece. When I was reading the article, I was really anxious to read the next part because the story was so interesting. I never really encountered anyone who went from being a multimillionaire to a poor, homeless person who sleeps in the front of a trailer home. The story of Ted Ngoy was very sad yet it opened my eyes to see that there are actually people out there who encounter such events as Ted. When I read the part about him capturing the heart of his wife, now ex-wife, by playing an instrument, I wanted to believe it yet at the same time I did not. It seemed to be too good to be true so maybe it was just an exaggeration of what really happened. From my knowledge and experience, I knew that doughnut shops were owned by Asians but I was really surprised to find out that the majority of them are owned by Cambodians.

            Also, the story of Ted Ngoy becoming estranged from his wife and family and losing all his fortune due to his bad gambling habits is not something new for me. I know people who have lost everything because of gambling and even if they have tried to improve since then, they have not made much progress. Not only is it difficult for them to get over the habit of gambling, they have also lost their family and have no one else to turn to for help. I have seen this in the Asian community, primarily the Southeast Asian community. There have been times when I have driven down the streets in South Sacramento and have seen groups of older Hmong men and women who wait to get picked up to go to the casinos. There was an incident a few years ago where a bus that was taking a group of Hmong people to the casino and it got into a major accident killing many of them and injuring them also. When I heard of this story, it made me sad yet embarrassed at the same time to see these elders on the news about going to the casino when the tragedy happened. Some people have destroyed their families because of the bad habit of gambling and have yet to stop because of no social support from their family members.

            The presentation about the Boston busing riots was good because it allowed for the class to interact with each other to discuss the questions that the group had provided. It seemed repetitive when the presenters talked about the limitations section on the article because one mentioned it while the other reemphasized it with more explanations. I felt that they could have split up that section and have the two presenters go into more depth in explaining it rather than have one person state it then the other restating it. The second presenter, Tri, did not seem to really show comprehension of the article but the third presenter did a good job at explaining it.

            In regards to the reading by Klang and Kaplan, the study was to interview Vietnamese students about their reactions to the black and white riots that took place in their school. They felt isolated or not given attention to because everyone else was focusing more on the black and white students in the school because they were trying to reduce the amount of violence present. The Vietnamese students seemed to be invisible to a certain extent because the school officials did not pay much attention to them but at the same time, the Latino students were also in the same position as them. I think that if there had been more school officials who were not just black and white, the “colored” students would not have felt like they were not part of the school. It was interesting to find out that even though the Vietnamese students were not paid much attention to, they still felt like their school was better than other schools. A question that I have is, if the school did not pay much attention to the Vietnamese students, why do they still feel like the school is good?