History
Cambodian donut shops in California
Cambodian donut shops in California are the family-run donut shops that refugees from Cambodia opened across the state from the late 1970s.[1][2] By the 1990s Cambodian Americans had come to dominate the state's donut shop trade, and many of the owners were Cambodians of Chinese ancestry.[1][3]
History
Refugees from Cambodia first reached Orange County in 1975, by way of Camp Pendleton.[2] More came in later waves, in growing numbers after the fall of the Khmer Rouge,[3] and from 1979 many resettled across the United States.[1]
Among the first arrivals was Ted Ngoy. With help from his church sponsors, he joined the management training program of Winchell's Donut House, the first Southeast Asian accepted into it in PBS SoCal's account, and he gained experience running a Winchell's on the Balboa pier in Newport Beach.[2] He then bought a small shop in La Habra, Christy's Donuts. Gen Leigh Lee dates the purchase to 1977,[1] and PBS SoCal to 1979.[2] Ngoy expanded into a chain of 32 shops reaching from San Diego to the San Francisco Bay Area. He trained many of his relatives and helped other Chinese Cambodians get started in the business.[1] The business gave newly arrived refugees from Cambodia a path into work of their own.[2]
One of the people Ngoy helped was Ning Yen.[1] Yen began as a Winchell's baker in Santa Ana, a first step that thousands of Cambodian immigrants took toward the middle class.[4] He bought his own shop in Irvine in 1984, joined the supplier B&H Distributors in 1986 and became its president in 1994.[4] Lee, writing in 1996, named him the owner of B&H.[1] More than 80 percent of the company's customers were Cambodian business owners at that time,[1] and new owners came to Yen for advice on running shops and getting financing.[4] The Los Angeles Times called him the "godfather" of Cambodian donut makers.[4]
The shops multiplied through the 1980s.[1] Counts of shops in California owned or run by Cambodians differ. A 1993 Los Angeles Times article put the number at about 2,000, and a 1995 Wall Street Journal article at about 2,450.[1] PBS SoCal gives about 1,500 by the 1990s.[2] In 2002 the Los Angeles Times estimated that Cambodian immigrants ran about 75 percent of the nearly 2,500 donut shops in the state, and that B&H supplied 1,600 shops in Southern California.[4]
How the shops worked
Most of the shops were private and owned by families.[1] The trade asked for little English and few technical skills, and the work could be learned quickly.[1][4] In a typical shop the husband baked through the night, the wife worked through the day and teenage children helped after school.[1] Family members were a source of cheap labor, as in many other small businesses run by first-generation immigrants.[1]
Owners raised the money to start from their savings and from loans by friends and relatives. When those were not enough, many turned to rotating credit associations, known as huis.[1] With that support from family and friends, many owners reached the middle class.[4] Lee wrote that the income let most owners buy homes and pay for their children's higher education, and that Orange County was home to several hundred Chinese Cambodians, most of whose families owned donut shops.[1]
The bright pink boxes common in West Coast donut shops are, in popular lore, the choice of Ngoy and his business associates, who picked them because they cost less than white boxes.[2]
Decline
After the rapid growth of the 1980s, Lee wrote in 1996 that the business was in decline. A weak economy, a crowded market and competition had hurt many shops, and some owners let a baker or helper go to cut costs.[1]
By 2002 independent shops faced more pressure. Winchell's renovated its stores and raised its advertising budget, and Krispy Kreme, which opened its first Southern California store in La Habra in January 1999, drew large crowds. National coffee chains and bagel shops took sales as well.[4] Some independent shops added muffins, croissants and premium coffee drinks; others cut staff or closed.[4] In 2001 sales at B&H came to $12 million, 20 percent less than three years before. With owners' children going to college and into other careers, Yen worried that no one would take over the shops when their parents retired.[4]
See also
References 4
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 UCLA Asian American Studies Center, Gen Leigh Lee, Chinese-Cambodian Donut Makers in Orange County: Case Studies of Family Labor and Socioeconomic Adaptations, in Reframing the Immigration Debate (1996)
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 2.5 2.6 PBS SoCal, Elaine Lewinnek, Thuy Vo Dang and Gustavo Arellano, The Cambodian American Reign of Doughnut Shops Began in This La Habra Shop (April 13, 2022)
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 AAPI History Museum, Seeking Refuge (undated)
- ↑ 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 Los Angeles Times, Marc Ballon, A Hole in Their Dreams (April 7, 2002)
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