Donut People

"This short food film tells the story of Cambodian immigrants in Texas, where Cambodians own an estimated 95% of the donut shops. Some of the film's subjects escaped torture and persecution in Cambodia at the hands of the Khmer Rouge. Interviews with immigrants and their children offer insights into the culture. The film wraps up with a look at the exciting new style of Cambodian donut shop/coffee house with gourmet Asian donuts and hip baristas."

DISCLAIMER: I don't own this video and I'm not monetizing it. This is a copy only used with the purpose of adding subtitles and making it accessible to more people around the world.

"Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use."

♪ Cambodian music ♪

(Uncle Sam) Well, when I came here in 1994

to eat one donut you didn't realize
how much work goes into one donut

until you actually go into
doing the donuts.

You know, it takes quite a bit
just to make one donut.

I start off by finding a location.

If I find a location,

I get a family that needs a donut shop
to go to look at the location,

and if they like it,
we negotiate the price,

and if the price is right,
I build it for them and turn them the key.

You know, most of them
already know how to make donuts.

They work for a family member,

you know, they've already worked
for like two, three or five years...

to save up the money
to start up the business.

(Chandara Meas) When I came to the States,

I don't have no relatives in here,

so I don't speak that much English,

so I gotta start to learn English

and start to work to support myself...

and I don't have chance
to go back to college,

so I ended up
at a donut shop right now.

Most Cambodians who take us,

they own a donut shop,
they run a donut business...

Yeah, you know, it's hard to do it,

not many people want to do that job
as I'm doing right now.

From 1975 to 1979,

there's the Khmer Rouge ran by Pol Pot.

At that time I was 10 years old,

I still remember when they tortured...

a lot of people dying
by starving and sickness...

most of them were killing people.

That was a hard time

and that was the worst thing
that happened in the world.

Most Cambodians escaped from the war
in 1981after the Khmer Rouge regime,

and when they started to come here,

people don't speak that much English,

so that's why they started
working at donut shops

because most of them what they do
are family business --

This is my wife's nephew.

He just came
to the United States last year.

He came in a special case
they call "Lottery Visa".

He's a lucky one
that won a lottery green card.

The business we just opened--
it is kind of slow, it's brand new.

Hopefully, we can own it
for a long time until we get...

you know, some profit...

to take care of my family, my kid...

go to school, go to college...

I have a beautiful kid.

It's like, if you work for a company,

you have a different schedule
than the donut people.

The donut people, we wake up
at 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning,

and we'll be done by 12:00 or 1:00 o'clock
and take a couple-of-hours-nap

and, you know, get together and then,

go to sleep, and wake up,
and go to make some more donuts!

(man singing Karaoke in Cambodian)

(end of singing)

Yeah, we like to get together
because, you know,

we work seven days a week.

You know, some wake up at one,

some of us wake up at two,

some of us at three...

and we work seven days a week,

you know, this is the only fun
that we have.

♪ Cambodian music ♪

I would say 95% of the donut shops
in Texas, not just in Houston,

in Texas is Cambodian-people-owned.

One one-big -family, that's all.

♪ Cambodian music ♪

My parents bought the store in 1994.

They would always bring us on weekends
because we have school on weekdays.

I really dread waking up on the weekend
just to come make donut, you know.

They told me one day
I'm going to own my business,

and I kind of say
I didn't want to do this.

This is not my first choice
of what I really wanted to do.

For me, I thought going to school
was what I really wanted to do,

I wanted to experience that life.

One day I woke up and I realized
I didn't wanna work for somebody else.

I called my mom and I told her
I wanted to come back home...

and try this again,

and she was very excited,
very happy for me

that I can kind of woke up
and I wanted to do this.

I get up at four o'clock,

and my sisters,
they get up at about 2:00-2:30,

they're closer to the plant
so they wake up earlier,

to go to the plant and--

I'm fortunate to have

a little bit of both,

so I can stay in bed a little longer
and they can--

So when I first got to Houston
I didn't know--

I thought my family was
the only one that's doing donuts.

I come to find out

a lot of Cambodian people
have done this way before we have...

You know, it's like a community
of helping out each other, you know,

like, people were telling each other
what can make you successful

and I don't think anybody
was envious of each other,

they just wanted to see
our culture succeed,

and the donut business
is where it started

for a lot of these Cambodian cultures.

It's definitely a dream

that a lot of people wanted
when they are in Cambodia,

to have their own place.

Back in Cambodia,

it's a fast, fast-pace life.

Every day is a struggle to find,

you know, money and food for the family.

It made me realized
what I have out here in America.

As hard as I think I work down here,

I think that they work harder over there
to make a smaller living.

My first place when I came,

I learned in the one Donald's Donut
on el Dorado in Webster.

And then I breached it out to
a Yankee Doodle Donuts.

And then, that's when I met David
on the El Dorado store.

I was teaching him since he was young.

I taught him probably
about five years, I believe.

(David Buehrer) My name is David Buehrer
and this is Morningstar.

(Uncle Sam) Most of the time
I don't ask for help but, you know--

It surprises me it came up from David

just to ask me to get into
a business partnership with him.

(David B.) This is the first thing
I'd learned with--

when I was in high school
was how to roll kolaches

and Sam's family
they would let me roll a kolache

and they would immediately
unroll the kolache,

and then they would roll it again
to make sure it was perfect.

And for like the first three
or four months of me working there

they never served any of my kolaches.
(chuckles)

One day they just saw one of them
and decided it was okay,

and from then on,
they let me roll kolaches for them.

But it took like months

before they even serve
one of the kolaches that I rolled.

It shows the attention to details,
a level of quality,

and maybe, I just needed to learn more.

But it took months to learn
how to roll the kolaches right.

(David B.) One of the things
we wanted to do with Morningtar

is bring in the technique that we learned

from the Cambodian donut shops

and apply it to the foodie nature
that specialty copy exists in.

We have a lot of bartenders, and chefs,
and sommelier friends,

and a lot of our donuts
are inspired by them.

Yeah, at one point in high school

I was driving an hour
at two in the morning

to go and learn how to make donuts
in Magnolia, Texas, with Sam.

And then, an hour back,
and then go to school by 7:30...

but, you know,
you do what you gotta do to learn.

(Uncle Sam) In the nineties, you know,

that's when the donuts started here
in Houston by the Cambodian community,

and to now is a long time to me, like...

we feel like, it needs change,

it needs some time to change, you know.

(Uncle Sam) And then,
all of a sudden one day,

he said-- he calls me pou
--which is Cambodian like, uncle--

and he said, "Would you like to do
a donut shop and a coffee together?",

I said, "Sure",
you know, I never expected it.

In the future,

the new generations
they know that I own this store

and they want to do something like this.

I don't want to do
the same thing every day.

Especially, when doing it
for almost 20 years.

You're doing the same thing every day,

and to me, I wouldn't want to go back
and do the same shop

like a mom-and-pop shop.

This is the shop that I want to do
as the next one...

and the next one,

and the next one...

People have no idea
what go into a single donut here.

English subtitles by
Jenny Lam-Chowdhury