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Growing Up In Both Worlds · Asian Adjacent

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hi, guys, welcome again to Asian adjacent I'm James Lot Junior.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: We get some cooling my hair in front of you guys,
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and just I was like, let me do this really quick.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: Well I talk to you. So my friends were, Okay,
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: we see your.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Pictures with Asians, we see you as a kid with Asians.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: You call them them mommy and daddy and uncle. What's
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: going on? So today's result, I was gonna tell you
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: a little bit about what the relationship.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I have.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: With the Asian community in my life. Okay, that's better.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: I think you talking to my hair. So that's why
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: this show is dedicated to my mom, Wendy, who passed
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: away in twenty eighteen from breast cancer. She was Chinese,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: so my parents went to sell my biological.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: Parents, but he did. And Jim went to mail Or
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: High School.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Here in Los Angeles in South LA and it's very
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  Speaker 1: diverse over here, and back then in the fifties sixties,
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  Speaker 1: it was they had Asian and black and white, mente know,
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: all them in the same neighborhood and so their friend
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  Speaker 1: group was very diverse. I look at their yearbooks and
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  Speaker 1: it was very diverse. I was like, oh wow, it's
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: it's kind of fun. Their friends with everybody. So then
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: just sort long story shorts, my mother and father were
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: friends with the two people, Kin and Wendy. They're all
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: part of certain groups and they all became friends in
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: high school and everything. So Kid and Wendy got together,
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: it's high school sweethearts and got together and were dating.
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: My mom got my father and they were dating, and
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: so then my parents got married at some point. They
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: got married at some point, had me at some point
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: and made Ken and Wendy my my my. I said
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: my bonus parents, who say godparents. I had several godparents,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: but they made up my bonus parents and something from
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  Speaker 1: before birth. I mean, like it was when I came
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: into the world.
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  Speaker 2: Kid and Wendy were right there.
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  Speaker 1: So growing up, we're always always over with them or
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: with my mom. Everybody had to work, everybody's going to school,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: they had to work, and just you know, take some
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: village to raise somebody, that kind of thing, and that's.
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: Happen to me. So I don't remember this, but.
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: At some point I was calling Wendy mom. Now as
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: you guys, some of you guys, they don't may not
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: know this, or some of you guys, do who watched
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: my other shows. I call my mother Benita. When she
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: was when I was a kid, I called her Bonnie.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: That was her nickname. So I would call this Chinese
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  Speaker 1: woman mom, and my twin mother.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: You got people don't know they're just like me. I
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: would call her Bonnie. It just was. That's how it was.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: And the thing about with Wendy and Kin's families, they
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: took me in.
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  Speaker 2: I was.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I basically was because k when he had any kids yet,
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  Speaker 1: and so basically I was their kid because I was
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  Speaker 1: halftime with them.
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  Speaker 2: Uh.
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  Speaker 1: And so for me growing up, you know where I
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: was good because they the one of the Sun family
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  Speaker 1: on Chinese restaurants that were going through the back doors
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  Speaker 1: Chinese restaurants. Grandma her her mom. I called her grandma.
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  Speaker 1: And she only spoke Chinese, only spoke Mandarin. And I
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  Speaker 1: guess when I was a baby and when I was young,
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  Speaker 1: can I understood a Mandarin? I wish we kept going
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: with that, but didn't. She didn't didn't, but at one
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  Speaker 1: point I didn't understand it, apparently. And her brothers, my uncles,
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  Speaker 1: uncle Ronnie and Allough they're my uncles and aunts and
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: just on both sides just it was just it was
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: for me, it was a beautiful experience because I came
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: from ulticulture family already for my own parents, and then
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: I had them added in there. So for me, it
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  Speaker 1: was just normal.
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  Speaker 2: I did.
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  Speaker 1: It was there was no but I realized my friends
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  Speaker 1: though I realized at the time its the seventies, it
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: was not normal, but for me it was. I started
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: school in the early seventies where I lived in La,
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  Speaker 1: we called it mid We called it Midwaleshire. Now it's
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  Speaker 1: considered it's called Long but Estates or mid City in
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  Speaker 1: La and it was mostly Jewish, Black or Korean. My
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  Speaker 1: first friends was Ellen Bang and I was still friends
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  Speaker 1: this day. She's on the East Coast. She's Korean and
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  Speaker 1: we were friends. But and I was, you know, just
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  Speaker 1: a regular white folks. They're all they're all mixed together,
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  Speaker 1: so so they're all mixed together. But so I had
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  Speaker 1: so just for me, it was all just continuing. But
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  Speaker 1: half my time when we spent back and forth with
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  Speaker 1: both my my sets of parents, and he's always joke
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: walking down the street holding the hand of like mom Wendy.
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  Speaker 1: Some folks thought I was just I was just a
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  Speaker 1: mixed race kid, and until they saw kid walking up
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  Speaker 1: and thinking, hmmm, transracial adoptions weren't the biggest thing yet.
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  Speaker 1: I mean there was things that came a little later,
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  Speaker 1: there was something happening, but it was there was There
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  Speaker 1: was always made for jokes with her. But I felt
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  Speaker 1: very comfortable in both worlds. And the one thing that
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: was great about mom, Wendy and kid, they were much
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  Speaker 1: stricter than my my biological parents were, so I learned
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  Speaker 1: a lot about etiquette and respect. My Auntie Deanna, which
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  Speaker 1: was my was Wendy's sister. I loved her, but it
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  Speaker 1: was so funny is that? And I say this with
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  Speaker 1: all just all of them. They grew up in a neighborhood.
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  Speaker 1: There were times blacker than me. They were like they
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  Speaker 1: first of all, they sounded black, I remember, and I
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  Speaker 1: just makes you laugh. But they were called back when
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  Speaker 1: they had answer machines, ranch machines and they were calm
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: Anty Diana or Wendy York around. They would call my
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  Speaker 1: house and say leave a message to call him back.
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  Speaker 1: My friends are like, oh, you're you're a mom called
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  Speaker 1: blah blah.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And when I told them, when I showed them who
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  Speaker 1: she was, where she came to visit once and they're like,
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  Speaker 1: that's the same lady. I'm like, they sound I don't
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  Speaker 1: sound totally black on the phone, and that you know
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: what I mean when they say sound black and they
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: did not say they It was hilarious. It's just it
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  Speaker 1: was just that they grew up in the neighborhood. They
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: grew up in the hood. There there was no there
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  Speaker 1: was no act, there was no heirs. It's just the intimation,
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  Speaker 1: the way they spoke, it was just like it just was.
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  Speaker 1: It was natural and they weren't trying to be anything
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  Speaker 1: and just just you go to the neighborhood, you like,
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  Speaker 1: do you sound like that? And so it was always
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: a fun source of amusement for us because of that.
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  Speaker 2: But for me, it's just normal.
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  Speaker 1: And then her and Ken got married.
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  Speaker 2: Now I would do a separate episode on that.
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  Speaker 1: That's a whole other story about you know, nineteen seventy five,
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: seventy six, Japanese and Chinese marrying each other. That was
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  Speaker 1: not that was that was very taboo. It was a
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  Speaker 1: big it was a big deal and it was a
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  Speaker 1: lavish way. But I'll talk about that in another episode.
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  Speaker 1: I want to save that for another episode. It was
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  Speaker 1: really good. I was the ring bearer, so I was
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  Speaker 1: in it. So I was I was there. I was
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  Speaker 1: their kid for the longest time. Later they had kids,
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: my brother, colleague, sister, carry and they call they look
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  Speaker 1: at me as their brother and older brother.
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  Speaker 2: I mean literally, the family does. And that's what that was.
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  Speaker 2: The beautiful thing is that.
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  Speaker 1: And they moved to Montabello, which had a large Asian
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  Speaker 1: community out there, and I always got to her house
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  Speaker 1: to logo as her house. And they made such good
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: food all the time. But that's why I learned. I
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: was a kid, you couldn't drink your drink until you
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  Speaker 1: finished your food or most of your food that you
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  Speaker 1: could have your drink. And it's just started a lot
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  Speaker 1: of manners and learn not just and also my I
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: was an overachiever as a kid, imagine that. And and
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: so whending them fostered that whole situation of education is important.
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  Speaker 1: Get your education. So myself, my brother and sister from her,
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  Speaker 1: we all got educations. We all did. We all got
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  Speaker 1: major k We followed net footsteps. She was a dental
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  Speaker 1: hygienis by the end a kid was in the navy.
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  Speaker 1: And so I grew up and just it was just,
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  Speaker 1: it was just it was part of my life. I
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  Speaker 1: never really questioned it or anything. And whenever there's a wedding,
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  Speaker 1: I was there. Whenever there's a funeral, I was there,
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  Speaker 1: I think. But one of the last times I was
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  Speaker 1: at I was at at a funeral for the family
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  Speaker 1: and I was always sit in the back and they're like, no, danger,
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  Speaker 1: you are a part of the family, you sit in
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  Speaker 1: the front. I was like, okay. I was like I
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  Speaker 1: was at the front and helped her resent part of
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  Speaker 1: the family. So I almost forgot about that. I was like,
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: that's what that was really cool, right. So that's why
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  Speaker 1: I and then just grew up in Los Angeles.
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  Speaker 2: You know, my.
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  Speaker 1: First loves were Filipino. You know, we ate Chinese food,
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  Speaker 1: went to New York Chinese.
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  Speaker 2: True.
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do an episode on why I think Chinese
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  Speaker 1: food and New York's the best story. This another episode.
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  Speaker 1: But I grew up multiculture over here too. South La
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  Speaker 1: was a little more multicultural in the eighties. People think
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: they think it was, and we'll talk about that in
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  Speaker 1: the future episode too. How you know, we had the
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Korean markets, but we had a lot of Filipino and
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  Speaker 1: some Chinese and Japanese. We were a big chinatown here
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  Speaker 1: and we all grew up together.
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  Speaker 2: I had.
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  Speaker 1: I had a multicultural friendships too, were all I grew
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  Speaker 1: up all kind of people too. Plus I worked at
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  Speaker 1: jobs that were very you know, mixed up also, And
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: uh yeah, Now I've never been to any Asian countries.
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  Speaker 1: That's on my list. I have been a Hawaii and
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: which has a large Japanese population. There I get to
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: do that, and that was a lot. That was a
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: lot of fun. I'll pie jumpers on that too at
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: some point that And then I have cousins and what
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: I'm saying to add into there, and I have cousins
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  Speaker 1: on my father's side they're half Filipino. And I met
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: my first cousin, Lee back when I was like tener
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: eleven and just thought she was beautiful because I just thought,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: oh my god, who are who are these people? And
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: they get to meet her other siblings and we're all
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: friends now, you know, we're all cousins and friends now,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: especially on Facebook. So I have that arm of the family.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: They're there are also. And then my daughter married a
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: man who is half Filipino half black. So my grandkids
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: who my grandkids are a quarter Filipino or however that
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  Speaker 1: works out. So that's where it's reda. They're so cute kids,
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  Speaker 1: if I say so myself, then that's find of my
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: ancestry of DNA that I have some Asian and me
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: also I'll do I'm do an episode on that too,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: because when I found that out, I was like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: where it's from and all that.
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  Speaker 2: It's very interesting.
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  Speaker 1: So as you can see, I have been Asian adjacent
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  Speaker 1: my whole life and it's been a wonderful experience for me.
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  Speaker 1: I love other cultures I love, but I love that
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  Speaker 1: I can actually I know these cultures because I grew
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: up with them and it serves me well in my
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: work today. I do a lot of multicultural work, and
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: I work a lot of you know, on my shows,
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: you'll see in Asian insurance companies and things like that
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  Speaker 1: we talk about we showcase the talk about serving the
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: communities and it's it's it's I just love that.
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  Speaker 2: I love that I don't have a narrow view of life,
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  Speaker 2: and this show is just basically just it's another.
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  Speaker 1: Slice thing say it's part of our society and culture
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: series to say it's something that I'm just I'm just
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: sharing that. I you know that everybody doesn't grow up
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  Speaker 1: the same that some of us. You grew up in
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  Speaker 1: with different twists, And for me, it was all good.
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: It was nothing. It was all good. I mean, I
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: never forgot. I was thinking, that's I'm talking to you
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: guys something. It was this one time I'm at Long
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Beach Airport. So I was going to Sacramento to visit
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  Speaker 1: my kids, my grandkids. My sister Carrie was going to school,
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: you see, Davis. I was going to and it was
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: just my old side Sacramento.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: So I was just up there.
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  Speaker 1: So I go, I'm at the I'm at the bar
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: having a drink because I hate flying. I hate to fly.
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: It's about the bar having a drink. And then I
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: hear Jamie. That's my that was my childhood name. If
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: very well, call me Jamie. If there are very few folks,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: I let call me Jamie. Even into adulthood. Mom Wendy
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: was one of them. And I turn around and there's
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: herank kidd. I'm like, oh my god. We were on
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: the same flight and when it was Jet Blue, so
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: he had a sign seating. Their seats were two rows
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: behind me. It was crazy. The same side as the plane.
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  Speaker 1: It was so weird. So we're flying just segment was
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: like a forty five minute flight. It was like lee quake.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: So we landed, I got off the plane fir. I
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: was ahead of her, so I waited for them. We
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: walked out together and they got to They got to
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: see my daughter. I think she didn't have any kids
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: with her, so she was saying to see my daughter.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: And I got to see my sister. We all get
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: to seats. We had like a little family moment. I'll
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: just never forget that A Segment airport was like so weird.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: I don't know how long they were staying or anything,
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: and I was there for like two or three days.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: So it's kind of funny that we were on the
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: same flight. And see Long Beach Airport is the smaller
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: airport than Lax. I love Long Beach because because then
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: they don't. I wish it was Almos, which was a
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: little bigger for more flight options, but it is. It's easy,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: breezy covergir just you just you just can get it
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: out of there so easily. Anybody's on the Long Beach
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: knows this, and they really fixed it up. Like I
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: remember when it was like bare bones and they started
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: really fixing it up. So but I know that bar
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: very well. Out of that bar all because I hate flying.
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I need to drink befog on that plane.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: So anyway, and.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: So that's what this episode's about.
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: Why I'm part of this community and we'll have more
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: episodes coming out every week talking about this. This is
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: Asiana Jason. I'm James Lott Junior. We'll talk to you
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: next time.