Latest / The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen / 435 - Is This The United States of America You Want? Chris Tran and Kenneth Nguyen

Transcript

435 - Is This The United States of America You Want? Chris Tran and Kenneth Nguyen · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

0:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Chris, thank you for hopping back on the podcast we did a podcast yesterday together at in the evening.
0:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I drove hours to be with you.
0:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And thank you for that.
0:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
0:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And here's the interesting thing.
0:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's we had our whole thing laid out.
0:17
[SPEAKER_01]: We knew what we're going to talk about.
0:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I drive up twenty minutes out of leaving your place.
0:23
[SPEAKER_01]: You text me and you're like, read this.
0:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's from our dear friend Julie my friend over at Share My Roots.
0:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Her Instagram handle is at Share My Roots.
0:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Shout out to Julie, a dear friend, and
0:36
[SPEAKER_01]: We already recorded something that is weirdly and oddly exactly what she was talking about.
0:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And she wrote it out.
0:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So eloquently that you and I said, you know what?
0:50
[SPEAKER_01]: We should probably redo our episode so we could address some of these things that she brought up.
0:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
0:57
[SPEAKER_03]: So right after, like you said, right after, you know, while we were recording, she posted this and then when you left, I saw it and
1:05
[SPEAKER_03]: It touched on everything we wanted to talk about, but she had it point by point by point to every address, everything that I mean I've had in my head.
1:14
[SPEAKER_03]: We've been discussed with multiple people and on topic where we said nobody wants to talk about this openly.
1:22
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the great thing.
1:24
[SPEAKER_01]: We said, nobody wants to talk about it.
1:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And then all of a sudden, it's in Julie's side guys.
1:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in your mind.
1:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in my mind.
1:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It's we need to talk about this.
1:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm scared shitless to talk about this.
1:34
[SPEAKER_01]: But today, I think we are making, we're being resolute about being much more, we got to put our foot down.
1:43
[SPEAKER_01]: We got to really talk about how we're feeling right now.
1:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, the thing is, you know, like day to day, I mean, it used to be year to year, decade to decade, whatever it is, things have changed.
1:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Now we wake up, look at the new cycles, look at the end with information flowing in so quickly, and especially how it affects us as how we live.
2:02
[SPEAKER_03]: And not to address it is a mistake because, look at, since we talk barely twenty four hours, they pass the bill.
2:11
[SPEAKER_03]: That is now going to affect
2:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Not just us, but everybody around us, if not the whole entire nation and the world going forward.
2:20
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
2:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Some people might not see this as important.
2:23
[SPEAKER_03]: It's a bill.
2:24
[SPEAKER_03]: They need their money, but they need the money to perpetrate or execute things.
2:32
[SPEAKER_03]: that's gonna be happening.
2:34
[SPEAKER_03]: And knowing what's been happening, now what funding we have to talk about these things.
2:38
[SPEAKER_01]: If this is the America that you want, then you might as well tune out right now.
2:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just saying that right now.
2:44
[SPEAKER_01]: If this is, yeah, this is that you really, really want.
2:47
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no need to listen further to this particular episode that we're not talking about Vietnamese culture on this show.
2:53
[SPEAKER_01]: We're gonna really get into American culture today on July fourth.
2:57
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, so like Julie said at the end, if you want to unfollow politics, culture, food, everything has it intersects.
3:04
[SPEAKER_03]: If you want to unfollow us because we want to bring this up as a dialogue, then yeah, fucking unfollow me.
3:09
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
3:10
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're at that point where if you don't want to talk about keep silent, be the good model minority and shut the fuck up.
3:17
[SPEAKER_03]: No, that's not us right now.
3:18
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and it was us.
3:19
[SPEAKER_03]: And then, let's get said, we were scared to speak.
3:21
[SPEAKER_03]: We don't want to alienate anybody.
3:22
[SPEAKER_03]: We, you know,
3:24
[SPEAKER_03]: We asked people wanted to be something for everybody.
3:27
[SPEAKER_01]: We do.
3:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And you and I, I think in the last five years of our lives, we're, we're just trying to conform.
3:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think we're done.
3:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we're done conforming.
3:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we just need to like, you know, what I, what I, what I thought about last night is
3:43
[SPEAKER_01]: If we rewind thirty years ago, after the Marine Corps, I could have went to law enforcement, which I did.
3:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I did apply.
3:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Full transparency.
3:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I applied to the law enforcement.
3:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I was going to take the path.
3:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And today I could have been an ice agent.
4:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I could have been an ice agent.
4:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I just thought you'd brought that up.
4:04
[SPEAKER_03]: I signed up to be a sheriff.
4:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
4:06
[SPEAKER_01]: We could have gone down this road.
4:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Whatever we landed every year that we landed every decade that we landed for whatever we were doing in our lives, it didn't take us down that route.
4:19
[SPEAKER_01]: We made decisions or decisions were made for us.
4:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what it is, but today we're looking at history and we're going way to minute.
4:28
[SPEAKER_01]: This does not make sense on what's happening.
4:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just not humane.
4:33
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't feel like humanity is at its finest.
4:39
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not, and for giveability, rehabilitation, just the humanity and empathy of people who has now gone by the wayside.
4:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Instead of being nice to somebody, they rather stand on some kind of talking point, which is like, it's weird to me.
4:52
[SPEAKER_03]: So just let me just have dialogue to get along, but no, they, you know, things get shifted, you know what I mean?
4:58
[SPEAKER_03]: And we have to talk about, since everybody wants to talk about it and inflict their ideology on us, but yet, you keep quiet because it doesn't align with you.
5:06
[SPEAKER_03]: And you just don't want an argument.
5:09
[SPEAKER_03]: So we as people have always been confrontational with issues, but yet as we get older, we get less confrontational.
5:16
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
5:17
[SPEAKER_01]: The topic of today, really, is this America that you all want?
5:21
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the question.
5:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think Julie started to write, you know, there's like twenty, twenty plates on her carousel.
5:30
[SPEAKER_01]: And she says, dear fellow Vietnamese Americans.
5:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And then she dives into this painful irony of us being immigrant.
5:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I just had a podcast recently with Dr. Namsi Kim and we were talking about Guam, a hundred and ten thousand people came from Vietnam through Guam and then through the four camps.
5:52
[SPEAKER_01]: When we think about one of them, you were one of them, you were one of them, you were one of them.
5:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So, and over with the majority went through Guam.
5:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, think about this.
5:59
[SPEAKER_01]: All those people that came from Afghanistan,
6:04
[SPEAKER_01]: they have to turn back very soon.
6:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That's imagine if you came in nineteen seventy five and by nineteen seventy eight you had to turn back and go back to communist Vietnam.
6:14
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just mind-boggling to think that you wouldn't have a connection to that.
6:18
[SPEAKER_03]: Especially we are asylum seekers.
6:21
[SPEAKER_03]: We a lot of people we know work for the US government during the time of war.
6:26
[SPEAKER_03]: How many times have we?
6:27
[SPEAKER_03]: How did we forget that as a community?
6:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Like what?
6:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a day.
6:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Our parents also served in the US some capacity for the United States.
6:37
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we're here celebrating July fourth, fifty fucking years later.
6:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And here we are, as a community, turning our backs on people like people from Afghanistan.
6:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just blowing to me.
6:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And Afghanistan is just one topic of many other countries.
6:58
[SPEAKER_03]: That's just one country that US had conflict or interest or whatever they did in that region of the world.
7:06
[SPEAKER_03]: you know, it led to be a disruptive whatever it is that for whatever their agenda they were there and we're not going to get into the politics of why were there you know me just like Vietnam we don't know the innate details but they were there so US has always been in some other country's business correct and somehow there's disruption there's war there's chaos and overthrow government whatever you want to call it you know me it happened
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't.
7:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And this is about us being liberal, progressive, conservative, not that.
7:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not, it's not that at all.
7:40
[SPEAKER_01]: We're not, we're not talking about that.
7:42
[SPEAKER_01]: We're just talking about pure human decency.
7:45
[SPEAKER_01]: We're talking about deportations as it relates to humanity, as it relates to not like no one deserves to be living in fear.
7:52
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what Julie wrote.
7:53
[SPEAKER_01]: No one deserves to live in fear to be stripped of human rights and dignity did our parents.
8:00
[SPEAKER_03]: She touched on a lot of good points.
8:01
[SPEAKER_03]: What is illegal?
8:03
[SPEAKER_03]: What's the definition of illegal?
8:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, you know, like she said, she said really eloquently.
8:09
[SPEAKER_03]: When we left our shores, it was illegal.
8:11
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a crime.
8:14
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a crime from our country, it was a crime from the country we landed on.
8:19
[SPEAKER_03]: And so we're deemed as critical.
8:21
[SPEAKER_03]: That's why we were refugees in a refugee camp.
8:23
[SPEAKER_03]: What the hell do you do with these people?
8:25
[SPEAKER_01]: The people from Afghanistan also left illegally.
8:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And then they were in legally.
8:30
[SPEAKER_01]: They were let into the United States like we were legally.
8:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And now they all are stripped of their green cards and they have to turn back.
8:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Like a gentleman in San Diego, just a couple of weeks ago, went to go to his asylum.
8:42
[SPEAKER_03]: They canceled his asylum, got detained on the spot.
8:46
[SPEAKER_03]: No warning, nothing.
8:47
[SPEAKER_03]: It's just, no, your journey's over.
8:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And I couldn't even imagine if my parents were in that office, you know, as refugees, just trying to get their documents the right way, the legal way.
8:58
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, your host country gave you the invitation and they just revoked it.
9:03
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
9:03
[SPEAKER_03]: Nope.
9:04
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I don't think that we're going to be able to change legislation and policy here.
9:08
[SPEAKER_01]: That's not the point.
9:09
[SPEAKER_01]: The point is we want to move forward.
9:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, we want to inform our community.
9:13
[SPEAKER_01]: We want to let our people know that the way certain people in our community are looking at this
9:21
[SPEAKER_01]: topic is way off.
9:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just entirely off when you think that you've assimilated and become American after fifty years that you can turn your back and you could side with this deportation policy.
9:37
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the real danger here.
9:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's the thing, what American, or what America did you want to see?
9:44
[SPEAKER_03]: This is the question of like, what is for the July, what is being American, and what is assimilating, right?
9:50
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're the benefactors of somebody from America, a good American family, sponsored us.
9:56
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm very grateful, thankful, that that happened, but yet that was America of the day.
10:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, Vietnamese as Americans now,
10:06
[SPEAKER_03]: don't even act like that American.
10:09
[SPEAKER_03]: If anything, they would hard on being my America, only my America, which what is that?
10:15
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
10:17
[SPEAKER_03]: And where they shut the door and other communities, other people that have the same affliction that we had.
10:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Same journey, different circumstances, but pretty much overlapping in the same circumstances, you know, being displaced, but yet needed in a host country,
10:34
[SPEAKER_03]: Then the host country now gives him the fucking FU.
10:38
[SPEAKER_03]: But yet, our people stand behind that, which is fucking mind-boggling.
10:44
[SPEAKER_03]: That's what we're trying to unpack right now.
10:45
[SPEAKER_01]: It's probably human nature to like, you arrive in a safe spot, you work hard and you save some gold and houses and you got your shit, you got your loot, you got what you want.
11:00
[SPEAKER_01]: What you do is you shut the door and you lock it and you throw the keys out.
11:03
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what you do.
11:04
[SPEAKER_01]: That's what we're doing.
11:05
[SPEAKER_01]: You throw the, and you booby trap it.
11:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You booby, you stare anybody else from coming in because you already got your spot.
11:13
[SPEAKER_03]: And yeah, I got my soul set up and nobody else can get it.
11:16
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
11:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you really have your spot?
11:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Because all you have to do is look towards what happened to the Japanese and the Chinese being excluded.
11:27
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that's the thing.
11:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like we can't forget that the history of America excludes people that look like us.
11:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But we have to dissect what the hell is going on.
11:43
[SPEAKER_01]: People are being removed for reasons that, I mean, I think we can do this differently.
11:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I think we can think about this differently.
11:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, think about this, like we were just basing off.
11:56
[SPEAKER_03]: The goal post has changed for what is a crime at three mobile.
11:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, as a recent, they just passed another one where DWI, if you're a green card holder, just by the DWI is now an offense that's removable.
12:10
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not an aggravated felony.
12:11
[SPEAKER_03]: Now that is removed.
12:12
[SPEAKER_03]: So the bar is being lowered and lowered and lowered and what they want to remove and how changing the goal pose and if it's retroactive or not, they're going to be moving.
12:22
[SPEAKER_03]: People who thought they were safe and think they're safe, are they really safe with the current conditions and what they want to implement.
12:30
[SPEAKER_03]: And some people might say we're fear-mongering and speculating, but it's already written.
12:35
[SPEAKER_03]: It's being passed.
12:36
[SPEAKER_03]: It's passed.
12:37
[SPEAKER_03]: It's right in front of your face, what do you talk about if you're married?
12:40
[SPEAKER_03]: We're trying to see what we'll do to our culture, to our people, and being Asian American, or are you just trying to be American?
12:48
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you allowed to be American?
12:50
[SPEAKER_01]: No, well, you're not.
12:52
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to be white American.
12:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You have to act like a white American.
12:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I never wanted to say that.
12:58
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what?
12:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm passing.
13:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You and I are really fucking good at white passing.
13:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm really good at it.
13:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I can be white passing.
13:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I can be a white guy.
13:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And that shit was something that I believed in.
13:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I went all in on that bullshit for so many years of my life.
13:17
[SPEAKER_01]: And I look back and I go, what was that all for?
13:22
[SPEAKER_03]: I did the same thing, you know, high school, you know, everybody's calling you a fob, group, kink.
13:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And you went to the opposite.
13:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I started to skate, surf, you know, listen to punk rock music, did everything that was really anti-venomies, you know what I mean?
13:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Trying to fit in, but you truly never did.
13:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And like you said, we're very white adjacent sometimes.
13:42
[SPEAKER_03]: If you want to say it that way, even though people call us mug off and you know, you're a banana, you're coconut, but we're we're always that if you want to use that word token kid, right?
13:53
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't bunch of white Mexican friends, but I was the only Asian kid because why they saw you're the exception.
13:58
[SPEAKER_03]: I go, what the fuck is that the exception mean?
14:00
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
14:02
[SPEAKER_03]: So, exception or accept it, either way.
14:07
[SPEAKER_03]: We you can act the certain way but are you fully that way you know me and if now to be fully American is what?
14:16
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't care if it's left or right, you know, what is deemed American right?
14:20
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know to the right now.
14:21
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm very confused with that means I thought that patriotism I love I pledge my legions, you know, I love this country and fallheartedly
14:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And so for all you out there think that we don't love America you guys you're foolish do we like that we love America we love what it represented what it afforded us what it you know I love it Americans we have the right to say what we want we have a right to say what what is being said right now which is it's not fair you know you know here it is here's what bothers me
14:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Here's what bothers me.
14:56
[SPEAKER_01]: I think when I think about putting my white hat on, and having Asian friends who are really proud of being white adjacent and walking around feeling safe, I go, oh my God, that's a real reality.
15:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a real reality that an Asian person can be like a white guy or white in white society, and you can be like, oh, I'm safe.
15:21
[SPEAKER_01]: They can't touch me.
15:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But then as I live in the community and I live with people around my neighborhoods and in my city who can't speak English, who don't have papers, or Vietnamese people who are in weird predicaments with their immigration status, I begin to think, man, I look just like them.
15:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that's the part of humanity that we need to start reframing and thinking about.
15:50
[SPEAKER_03]: We reframed our own self where different hats, codeswitch, you name it, try to fit in, try to do this, be very Americana, do everything that you could.
16:00
[SPEAKER_03]: And when they said, you know, speak English, do this, do that.
16:04
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's, you know, but again, lately I've been feeling not, not.
16:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Except it, you know what I mean?
16:13
[SPEAKER_03]: And can we act and then just put our head down when we're not?
16:16
[SPEAKER_03]: No, you know what I mean?
16:18
[SPEAKER_03]: The true fabric about being American, this is an the cult of melting pot of all cultures that we have an opportunity, which we did.
16:25
[SPEAKER_03]: And we do we still have it today.
16:27
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, the illusion of it is there.
16:31
[SPEAKER_03]: But I don't, you know, everybody's now a rat race and trying to make money, trying to fit in, trying to get that house, trying to do this.
16:37
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're at that age where it's tiring.
16:41
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're just chasing our tails to have the time.
16:45
[SPEAKER_03]: And the people that are successful that have it have the means have built this empire are the ones that now.
16:51
[SPEAKER_03]: I feel like they're gatekeeping and they're not paying it forward or even having it helping him.
16:58
[SPEAKER_03]: And we're not here to beg for anything, Ken.
17:01
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we are no stuff.
17:02
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
17:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You and our both Vietnamese Catholics.
17:07
[SPEAKER_01]: We came up Vietnamese Catholics.
17:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Very Vietnamese Catholic families and how many people from our churches and how many people in our world of Vietnamese Catholics that are actually on board with this deportation business.
17:25
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's where I like.
17:26
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't want to lose.
17:28
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the craziest shit.
17:29
[SPEAKER_03]: I do not want to lose faith in what my, they're good people.
17:32
[SPEAKER_03]: We know this, but yet, but their own policy, who to be good for has shifted?
17:39
[SPEAKER_03]: Like, I'll give you example, the church I go to.
17:42
[SPEAKER_03]: They have math and regular masses, but they have Vietnamese masses.
17:44
[SPEAKER_03]: They have Spanish masses and they have regular masses.
17:47
[SPEAKER_03]: I, ironically, I go to all three, sometimes, you know, whatever the schedule is, I can go to a Spanish mass.
17:54
[SPEAKER_03]: because I know that the hymns and everything, I just say in my own, whatever I'm comfortable with.
18:01
[SPEAKER_03]: But we all share that same Catholic background, but yet, do our people look at the Hispanics, how they look or do they look at us and say, these are my brothers and brothers and sisters in Christ and say, hey, they need help.
18:17
[SPEAKER_03]: And I think we touched on this yesterday where
18:21
[SPEAKER_03]: a good majority of Vietnamese who came here don't even have to be religious but it was helped out by the Catholic Charities okay they have filled out paperwork got people sponsored you know resettled people you name it but yet our church sometimes I only see them do it for their own
18:41
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, when the newcomer comes, they settle them, but have you reached outside our old culture to give that hand or, you know, I'm not saying that nobody does it, I'm just saying the good majority of us don't, where it's like paying it forward to another culture, another person in need that has same circumstances, or if not even the same need, your help and assistance to settle here, to simply to feel comfortable in a foreign land.
19:08
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the crazy thing is,
19:11
[SPEAKER_01]: the newly appointed bishop of San Diego.
19:14
[SPEAKER_01]: He's the first, I think bishop that was appointed by the new pope, Pope Leo.
19:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Spoke out against ice.
19:20
[SPEAKER_01]: He said, yo, that's not cool.
19:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Shouldn't be doing that.
19:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, he spoke out against it.
19:26
[SPEAKER_01]: And he uses his platform, you know, as a Vietnamese American bishop,
19:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, appointed by Pope Leo, he's straight up saying, yo, this is not the business.
19:37
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not what we as the Christian Catholic caucus people should be doing.
19:46
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, and, you know, you take religious, you take religion, you take politics, you take race, okay?
19:55
[SPEAKER_03]: They have to be melted in, but it shapes policy, correct?
20:01
[SPEAKER_03]: because if it wasn't for certain policies, we wouldn't be here.
20:04
[SPEAKER_03]: If it wasn't for certain policies, we were now being taken away from here.
20:08
[SPEAKER_03]: And so when you don't advocate, you don't speak up, you don't change the mindset, and think, oh, do the way I did it.
20:15
[SPEAKER_03]: But the way you did it was very far away.
20:18
[SPEAKER_03]: It was a different time, different place.
20:21
[SPEAKER_03]: And going back to the religion where the Pope now, and I asked you this question yesterday,
20:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Do you believe our parents, our generation, our culture?
20:30
[SPEAKER_03]: Would they follow the pope or the president?
20:33
[SPEAKER_03]: I believe they will follow the president.
20:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, and I find that hard to believe, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna bet different on that just because I know how devout some of the Catholics are.
20:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But the people of Spoken, the people voted for Trump.
20:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And I guarantee you go to church nowadays.
20:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And the reason why Chris and I are bringing this up is because we come from the Vietnamese Catholic background and we know how entrenched they feel about this immigration because we have family who are Vietnamese Catholics.
21:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It's safe to say that the majority of Vietnamese Catholics are probably going to side with Trump about getting everybody out.
21:13
[SPEAKER_01]: If you are not legal here, you don't have papers, then you need to be picked up by ICE and you need to be kicked out.
21:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't think Pope Leo agrees with that, and I definitely am sure Bishop Michael Fam of San Diego does not.
21:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I would love to hear the comments.
21:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And you only don't comment back with people because a lot of these times, I'm talking to academics, it's out of my pig grade.
21:37
[SPEAKER_01]: There's no way I can't comment and sound like I know what I'm saying because I'm a student of all of this.
21:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But in this respect, I think there's only one limit test to me.
21:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Jesus Christ says, you know, God is love.
21:54
[SPEAKER_01]: Are we operating out of love?
21:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Are we treating our fellow human beings in the world with love?
22:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And if the answer is no, then, you know, I get it.
22:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It might be hard.
22:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It might be challenging to figure that out.
22:07
[SPEAKER_01]: But we should put some effort into probably deporting people in the right way.
22:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Instead of sending these goons onto the street.
22:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't make any sense.
22:18
[SPEAKER_03]: The thing is, I'm going to, you know, immigration policy has always been there.
22:22
[SPEAKER_03]: You know the rules, you, the people have taken account of me.
22:25
[SPEAKER_03]: I fucked up.
22:26
[SPEAKER_03]: They're taking account of me.
22:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
22:29
[SPEAKER_03]: That's me.
22:29
[SPEAKER_03]: That's who that person is.
22:31
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, they should go.
22:33
[SPEAKER_03]: They know that they know that they're going to be accountable for it.
22:36
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it fair?
22:38
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, there's nobody's going to have a VT for them.
22:40
[SPEAKER_03]: But to your point, how they're doing it to people who are doing it to try to do it the right way, drag them off the street, cancel their court dates, don't even give an opportunity to do it the right way.
22:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Now that's the real issue here.
22:53
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you don't see any city in that, just look to our own community and our parents, how they struggle to fill out paperwork, go into their court date, get in their documents, get in their papers, correct, right?
23:05
[SPEAKER_03]: And not even give an opportunity to ask into those papers.
23:09
[SPEAKER_03]: and being stripped from it is what we're asking right now from the community.
23:13
[SPEAKER_03]: You talk about doing it the right way.
23:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay?
23:17
[SPEAKER_03]: What have you were invited to do the right way?
23:18
[SPEAKER_03]: And then also they changed your mind.
23:20
[SPEAKER_03]: Say, oh no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no
23:28
[SPEAKER_03]: And if nobody, and nobody, voice up, you know, and this is where we're at right now.
23:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, David Chappelle, he goes, what's up, DJ Khalid, right?
23:39
[SPEAKER_01]: He's like, well, you Palestinian, and you're like the the fattest Palestinian, and he said, wait, isn't it's weird, like all your people are dying, but you're the quietest Palestinian, like on social media.
23:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Julie from her handle share my roots.
23:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to introduce what she said.
23:59
[SPEAKER_01]: She goes in the United States of the United States of the United States of the United States of the United States of the United States of the United States of the United States of the United States of the United States of the United States of the United States of the United States of the United States of the United
24:22
[SPEAKER_01]: to Vietnamese refugees to America.
24:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's four years after the fall of Saigon.
24:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And we do have celebrities and I think that in Hollywood, there's people who are working to kind of like make these situations come to light.
24:39
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm just saying that I know that there are people on the ground in America that are great
24:45
[SPEAKER_01]: good Americans that are doing what they're trying to do.
24:49
[SPEAKER_01]: But at the end of the day, there's no reason to go about all this scaring and this painful scare tactics that's happening in the world today in America.
25:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's the thing, it's freaking people.
25:05
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm already getting calls from people that have green cards and are naturalized.
25:08
[SPEAKER_03]: It's saying, is this real?
25:09
[SPEAKER_03]: When we had this discussion six months ago, they go, no, that's all.
25:14
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, it's all conspiracy theory and this and that and whatnot.
25:18
[SPEAKER_03]: You're looking too much into this.
25:19
[SPEAKER_01]: It's against the constitution.
25:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, here we are.
25:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Here we are.
25:23
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, scotists have changed the rules of content.
25:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Everything's right now is being amended.
25:31
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, we're being beholden to one piece of verbiage that can change a whole pattern of how immigration is dealt with.
25:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to remind all of our listeners that we are children of immigrants.
25:50
[SPEAKER_03]: We are the product of refugees.
25:51
[SPEAKER_03]: We are a product of asylum seekers.
25:53
[SPEAKER_03]: We are a product of people fled war.
25:55
[SPEAKER_03]: We are a product of people telling us that we are traders.
25:58
[SPEAKER_03]: We are that you can't go to jail.
26:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Go to an imprisonment camp.
26:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Reeducation, all that.
26:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And the fear was there.
26:07
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
26:09
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, if you're saying to fear torture was there.
26:13
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you speak otherwise, we know we can attest to this.
26:18
[SPEAKER_03]: But yet, you don't see the fear and other people that they would be tortured in their own work or country.
26:23
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you never wanted them in here, okay, that's policy.
26:27
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's what it is.
26:29
[SPEAKER_03]: But now we're talking about people that's already here trying to do the right way.
26:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Even then, where do you set your bar and what's the limit?
26:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Oh, it's just wiping it all out.
26:37
[SPEAKER_03]: No, just start this whole immigration all over and nobody else coming in and coming in.
26:42
[SPEAKER_03]: I, who can answer what the right way is right now?
26:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you know, I want to address the Vietnamese men of our generation who came when they were ten, twelve, fourteen years old and got involved in gangs and they got, they're getting swept up.
26:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to, I want to really address that.
26:58
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, because anybody ever thought that if America was not involved in this war, that all these kids that came in the seventies and the eighties would have had parental guidance, would have had the proper guidance would not have been picked on and bullied and have to have joined gangs and then commit murders.
27:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm putting it right back squarely on to the US government that that happened that that is the fault of the amount and and and fuck are the people who said well I went through that time period and I didn't go to gangs and all that shit well good for you there's a lot of people
27:38
[SPEAKER_01]: who didn't and are suffering and went to jail because psychologically they just couldn't handle certain things or criminals and people who did time.
27:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that when we think back on all of these people who are getting deported now, I don't know what the number is, but over ten thousand.
27:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Over ten thousand have been deported now.
28:00
[SPEAKER_03]: No, people are two hundred a little bit less than three hundred as since the administration took over yes.
28:06
[SPEAKER_03]: It's going to be more.
28:07
[SPEAKER_03]: But to your point on that, and I agree with you, because like, okay, and we're talking about, let's talk about today where this alpha male masculinity say, oh, you know, bullying and stand up on your own, you know, I don't be that pussy woke ass shit, you know, okay, let's take it back then when you are now this fob, don't know the language, you're being picked on.
28:28
[SPEAKER_03]: you're told to be stand up for yourself when you do you get a trouble you do stand up even your own community says don't rock the boat you know you're you're guessing this country you know take it on the chin right but also on the flip side they said no you'll be a pussy stand up for yourself what's right you can't counterboy unless you stand out and so all these guys that stood up to the bullies
28:49
[SPEAKER_03]: that get harassed, you know.
28:51
[SPEAKER_03]: And all the guys that you said that did it the right way, never had any trouble.
28:54
[SPEAKER_03]: And they asked them this.
28:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Have they ever felt that they were safe when they were growing up?
28:59
[SPEAKER_03]: Did they not get bullied?
29:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Did they wanted to do something about it?
29:02
[SPEAKER_03]: They held their tongue.
29:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Now you hear about this generational trauma growing up.
29:06
[SPEAKER_03]: The horrible was that they wish they could have done that.
29:09
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, they have a safe passage.
29:12
[SPEAKER_03]: Somehow they put their head down.
29:13
[SPEAKER_03]: And but
29:16
[SPEAKER_03]: When you're talking about this tough guy, we're like, okay, we want to tell him not to do that.
29:21
[SPEAKER_03]: Of course, nobody wants violence.
29:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Of course, nobody wants it.
29:25
[SPEAKER_03]: But do you want to run home from school?
29:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Every goddamn day you're alive.
29:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And the more you run, the more they're chasing you.
29:32
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm not trying to justify their actions of joining gang, doing crime.
29:36
[SPEAKER_03]: It got out of him once it became clicks and big organization.
29:40
[SPEAKER_03]: But he started out as looking out for each other.
29:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the thing.
29:43
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all I'm addressing.
29:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It started out with problems that were built into the system and that it was not corrected and it just kept snowballing.
29:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And maybe there's this thing called the, you know, the federal prison, the complex prison complex industrial complex.
30:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
30:03
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about money making.
30:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about
30:06
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, making laws that doesn't rehabilitate humans that went through some bullshit.
30:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But instead, like, fuck it, it works for us.
30:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's lock them up and make money.
30:17
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, and that's funny that you said that because statistically in our let's stop about our community and let's stop about California as a whole crime has dropped.
30:26
[SPEAKER_03]: gang initiation and membership has dropped.
30:29
[SPEAKER_03]: People with certain communities don't do this.
30:31
[SPEAKER_03]: The young don't do this nonsense that a lot of them do and now the jails aren't filled anymore.
30:37
[SPEAKER_03]: So that complex has kind of slowed down if not, you know, they're they're doing a good job of not reproducing criminals but yet now that whole industry is collapsing.
30:48
[SPEAKER_03]: And now you see a different industry that took its place, which, like the privatization, let's talk about when the whole industrial complex, as you say, with GEO, core civic, everybody that has involved in private prisons.
31:01
[SPEAKER_03]: They were building prisons in mass.
31:03
[SPEAKER_03]: And all of a sudden, now they went dormant.
31:06
[SPEAKER_03]: And all of a sudden, this year, they're all reactivated.
31:09
[SPEAKER_03]: So you can see that as a humanitarian thing, a business thing.
31:13
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you follow stocks, that's what you do.
31:14
[SPEAKER_03]: You're making money.
31:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Fuckin' more, but hope you can spend it and choke on it.
31:17
[SPEAKER_03]: But anyways, you know, but the thing is, it's not purely about money, profit.
31:23
[SPEAKER_03]: How you gonna scale.
31:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, everybody knew, you know, the hard hard crime was to lock them up for a long time where they'd have beds, bodies in the bed.
31:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And now that you have bodies for immigrants,
31:35
[SPEAKER_03]: in the beds, processing fees, whatnot.
31:37
[SPEAKER_03]: I mean, we can take it all different angles.
31:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's working out.
31:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It's good for business.
31:42
[SPEAKER_03]: It's good for business.
31:43
[SPEAKER_03]: So, if you want to package us as making it safer, okay, you can say it that.
31:48
[SPEAKER_03]: You want to package us as, you know, you don't want immigrants here, but the fact still remains, there's a profit to it.
31:53
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, and are they doing it with due process to profit from it?
31:59
[SPEAKER_03]: It's been proven time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and time and
32:24
[SPEAKER_03]: It had its time, it ran its course.
32:25
[SPEAKER_03]: There's still some knuckleheads don't give me wrong, you know what I mean?
32:28
[SPEAKER_03]: But as far as you compare today and twenty years ago, it's like it's self-corrected itself.
32:35
[SPEAKER_03]: But then now it manifests into another problem.
32:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And like you said, nobody ever gave you a playbook on what you need to do here there survive.
32:45
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when you listen to other podcasts and you listen to other people who are in the public space talking about ice, they're talking about, you know, government controls.
32:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not even conservative and liberal progressive.
32:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not even like political parties.
32:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not even conspiracy theory.
33:01
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what it's about.
33:02
[SPEAKER_01]: This is about testing the limits of control in society.
33:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But what is it at the airport TSA?
33:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I mean, before two thousand one, two thousand five, there was no TSA.
33:17
[SPEAKER_01]: We went through the airports and there was no issues going through the airports.
33:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But little by little, we got to like clamp down and we got to find ways.
33:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not a conspiracy theory.
33:29
[SPEAKER_01]: This is just how it's rolling out.
33:32
[SPEAKER_03]: That's it.
33:33
[SPEAKER_03]: Well, like we were discussing, you know, that came about after now.
33:36
[SPEAKER_03]: You love it.
33:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Right?
33:38
[SPEAKER_03]: Anti-terrorism, you know, you have a boogeyman.
33:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Everything was anti-terrorist, Patriot Act, TSA, a bunch of new government agencies that tackled that department, that core issue.
33:50
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, all these anti-terrorists officers, organizations, this, tackling that one problem.
33:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, the new boogeyman is immigration.
34:01
[SPEAKER_03]: And they tie all immigration to this.
34:04
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm not saying that the immigration problem is not something to be talked about.
34:10
[SPEAKER_03]: That control of it, the narrative of it, how it's now become that boogie man.
34:14
[SPEAKER_03]: You should fear this.
34:17
[SPEAKER_03]: And I ask people, what are you fearing about these immigrants?
34:21
[SPEAKER_03]: What have they done to you?
34:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Who hurt you like that?
34:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna go to Obama.
34:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Obama deported more fucking people than any president, right in the history of.
34:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And arguably, that's pretty fucked up, right?
34:39
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, but he didn't use AKs, ARs, and fucking, the fucking sacrifices, and you don't hope.
34:46
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's the way it was done, right?
34:48
[SPEAKER_01]: There's that sort of like, okay, we get it.
34:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Immigration is an issue.
34:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Duportation is something that it's an obligation that the government has to do something to kind of like fix the problem.
35:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And having democratic presidents, you have a lot of people coming over the border.
35:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Obama, arguably, again, was the president that deported so many people.
35:13
[SPEAKER_01]: But the fear and the way that do props, the tactics.
35:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that is what really, what I really want Vietnamese American young people, old people.
35:27
[SPEAKER_01]: People in Vietnam that think about like, there's ways to do things that doesn't disrupt and create chaos in society.
35:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want people to think like the next election cycle to really think about what we're saying because
35:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, a lot of the Vietnamese American older folks voted for him, voted for this type of wholeheartedly.
35:47
[SPEAKER_03]: And they're still dug in on it.
35:48
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
35:49
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's what we mean.
35:50
[SPEAKER_03]: Like we all say we're law-biting for the most part as much as we can, right?
35:55
[SPEAKER_03]: But yet they're changing what the law in abiding is.
35:58
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, so why should I just surrender to somebody that just says they're that person?
36:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Because they have a vest on or should I just be showing a badge and identification like before?
36:07
[SPEAKER_03]: or piece of paper, hey, you're fucked.
36:09
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
36:10
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm here to talk to you, and this is me.
36:12
[SPEAKER_03]: That's not happening.
36:13
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, so I'm just gonna show up.
36:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Or, guys right now, flying with a green card, coming back international.
36:21
[SPEAKER_03]: If you have any record on, and it doesn't matter if it's expung, it doesn't matter.
36:27
[SPEAKER_03]: If you hold a green card, you have any crime that wants border patrol season, you would now in that removable status to be removed.
36:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And also, you would not vacation, it could never even see your home again.
36:43
[SPEAKER_03]: So ask our community to think about that, all the ones that's been traveling, think it's their save because they have that card because I have my papers, you know me?
36:52
[SPEAKER_03]: And how far else would they go?
36:54
[SPEAKER_03]: First, the removal, like we talked about, then the people seeking a green card, then the people now that holds a green card, and now they're even talking about birthright citizenship.
37:07
[SPEAKER_03]: So, they keep moving the goalposts of what?
37:10
[SPEAKER_03]: And so, if you can't see the pattern of what they're trying to eradicate, I mean, maybe you can call me delusional blind, but dude.
37:18
[SPEAKER_03]: And I hate to pull project to in twenty-five, but it's right there in the playbook.
37:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Written for you in the wide open.
37:26
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, and it asked audience to read that and comment to us that if the guys that architected that are not in charge right now, tell me about that.
37:36
[SPEAKER_01]: If they are, leave a comment in the comment section and we'd love to hear from you.
37:42
[SPEAKER_01]: We want this debate to rage and go viral online, obviously, because we want to see where the community stands on this.
37:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, I'm very curious how my people is, you know, I don't want to be disappointed, because we, you know, as a culture, very, we're very good-hearted nature people that we try to help, or is that just a facade?
38:02
[SPEAKER_03]: Is that just optics that we try to help, or very selective who we want to help?
38:06
[SPEAKER_03]: And then we're very selective in the battles.
38:08
[SPEAKER_03]: We want to, you know what I'm saying?
38:10
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know now.
38:11
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm really questioning my own community where they're even going to guess their own policies.
38:17
[SPEAKER_01]: We talked about this on our podcast that we did yesterday.
38:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to alienate.
38:24
[SPEAKER_01]: the family that I have.
38:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean that in every general way, the family, my friends, the people that I love that don't agree with me with the administration current administration's ways.
38:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I know a lot of people are cutting each other off.
38:38
[SPEAKER_01]: They're cutting their parents off, they're cutting their siblings off.
38:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if we escaped harsh
38:46
[SPEAKER_01]: conditions, fifty years ago, after the war, we escaped fifty years ago.
38:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And we value each other's relationship.
38:56
[SPEAKER_01]: We valued our siblings, we valued our parents.
38:59
[SPEAKER_01]: We are Vietnamese that love family.
39:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And help us.
39:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
39:05
[SPEAKER_01]: We allow fifty years later.
39:07
[SPEAKER_01]: this political discourse to get out of control and we fight each other and we don't want to stay with each other.
39:14
[SPEAKER_01]: That makes no sense to me at all.
39:18
[SPEAKER_03]: It hasn't made any sense to me in the last ten years.
39:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Over ten years that how
39:25
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I could sit, you know, and like most families, my parents are very, you know, Republican, voter Trump, you know what I mean?
39:33
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'd never had, you know, that's, that's their right.
39:36
[SPEAKER_03]: They earned it to have a vote, you know what I mean?
39:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And they chose their way.
39:41
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, I spelled out what it could affect them, like in the Medicaid medical social benefits and all that.
39:49
[SPEAKER_03]: They don't seem, they think that's all I.
39:53
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, being, and now with the budget pass, I'm gonna see how that life plays out because not to re-explain to them how, and then here's a sick part.
40:00
[SPEAKER_03]: Now they're gonna call you to help them navigate this.
40:03
[SPEAKER_01]: That is a recurring pattern that, okay?
40:07
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll call their kids or siblings that voted for Trump or husbands and wives that voted for Trump.
40:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Now they're being deported and then they have to call in for help and the people on the other end is like, wait, you voted for Trump and they're like,
40:22
[SPEAKER_01]: we regret it.
40:23
[SPEAKER_01]: This is happening all over the country.
40:26
[SPEAKER_01]: We regret voting for Trump.
40:27
[SPEAKER_01]: We had no idea.
40:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Which is fine.
40:30
[SPEAKER_01]: That's all good.
40:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But right now, let's think about how we approach the next few years of being American.
40:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this the America that you want?
40:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the question that we return.
40:41
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the question.
40:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, is this the America that you want?
40:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know what?
40:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I do want to go to Vietnam, but I'm not going to go to Vietnam because there's many reasons why I'm not going to go to Vietnam.
40:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Because I get that all the time.
40:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Fuck you, why don't you just go back to Vietnam?
40:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Why don't you just go back to the homeland?
40:55
[SPEAKER_01]: No, because the United States is my home.
40:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm born here.
40:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And I love America with all of its wards, with all of its problems, with all of its shit, it's still my place.
41:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And Vietnam is also my place.
41:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I love Vietnam too.
41:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I can love both places.
41:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I can hate certain things about both places.
41:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So shut the fuck up about me leaving and going to Vietnam.
41:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, it's just like what everybody got in the country for four years as a US Marine.
41:24
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm staying here.
41:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Yes, like me.
41:27
[SPEAKER_03]: I love America.
41:30
[SPEAKER_03]: You know, it was raised here.
41:31
[SPEAKER_03]: And then all the people like, you know, that bullshit where like, if you don't like it, get the fuck out.
41:37
[SPEAKER_03]: You're in your account for you.
41:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And you're complaining about California.
41:42
[SPEAKER_03]: Aren't you the same guy that says, if you don't like it here, get the fuck out.
41:46
[SPEAKER_03]: But you want to tell me, but yet, you don't want me to complain.
41:50
[SPEAKER_03]: But I don't even complain.
41:51
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm bringing up issues.
41:52
[SPEAKER_03]: It's not about complaining.
41:54
[SPEAKER_03]: Is this right?
41:55
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it wrong?
41:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Is it to understand?
41:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
41:59
[SPEAKER_03]: If I have to understand how to navigate it, cool.
42:01
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm just addressing things, right?
42:03
[SPEAKER_03]: But the first thing they go to is, if you don't fucking like it, get the fuck out of here.
42:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's very anti-American to get the fuck out.
42:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you live for it.
42:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I am reminding you.
42:15
[SPEAKER_01]: to run is not American.
42:18
[SPEAKER_01]: To fight each other is very American.
42:21
[SPEAKER_01]: To fight each other in Vietnam also very Vietnamese.
42:24
[SPEAKER_01]: It's human.
42:26
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to be discussing this shit.
42:28
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to be in battle with each other and do it civilly.
42:31
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to be in discourse.
42:32
[SPEAKER_01]: This course.
42:34
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to talk about this and we need to figure this out together.
42:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not leaving here.
42:39
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's the thing.
42:41
[SPEAKER_03]: I want to have faith in my humanity and my people.
42:45
[SPEAKER_03]: Maybe they're false understanding or like the people that regret it.
42:49
[SPEAKER_03]: I didn't fully understand.
42:51
[SPEAKER_03]: Or they were sold something and now they're the reality sets in.
42:56
[SPEAKER_03]: But I've also met people who are dug in.
43:00
[SPEAKER_03]: They don't even care if it fucks them entirely.
43:02
[SPEAKER_03]: The whole family, they're just, they're so driven by their stands.
43:07
[SPEAKER_03]: They don't want to hear anything else.
43:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have the energy to debate all this shit.
43:09
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why.
43:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And I get it.
43:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Understand.
43:12
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm not even tiered to debate if I brought up something counter it with something that, okay, I'm wrong.
43:17
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm, we're mad enough to say I can see it.
43:20
[SPEAKER_03]: I'm mad at him to say, okay, I didn't know about that.
43:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, tell me about that.
43:24
[SPEAKER_01]: That overwhelming majority of America is feeling Trump today.
43:29
[SPEAKER_01]: They voted him in.
43:30
[SPEAKER_01]: There are a lot of people are happy on obviously we're seeing a lot of protests for people like in our camps where we don't like what we see.
43:37
[SPEAKER_01]: We don't like how America's being ran.
43:39
[SPEAKER_01]: This is not the America we want to.
43:42
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that eventually the only way to change the shit is really to get out and vote.
43:48
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the way you
43:49
[SPEAKER_03]: That's it.
43:49
[SPEAKER_03]: So this is encouraging dialogue where okay, no don't be so the talking point don't be so it's just because that makes you happy and if you actually look at the whole if you say you you you you play the long game and you're with the community you with the humankind you with the goodness of like bringing people together
44:09
[SPEAKER_03]: and not be just self-serving and just for yourself.
44:12
[SPEAKER_03]: If you're that person and you look at what is gonna happen, would you vote in your own interests or the interests of a whole?
44:19
[SPEAKER_03]: And I have to ask that.
44:21
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
44:22
[SPEAKER_03]: Are you just self-serving?
44:23
[SPEAKER_03]: This is just best served as you?
44:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Or is it gonna serve us as a community?
44:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Because a lot of people talk about community, a lot of people talk about, we're in this together.
44:33
[SPEAKER_03]: But yet, I see a lot of people just in it for themselves.
44:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But that's human nature.
44:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's, you know, Vietnamese or white or black or Mexican.
44:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You were all in this for ourselves.
44:42
[SPEAKER_01]: You were human beings and human nature.
44:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But we need to remind ourselves that question that you just asked, you know, like what, what is this?
44:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Are we, are we together?
44:53
[SPEAKER_01]: We, are we all saying fuck yous and we're just like really on our own here.
44:58
[SPEAKER_03]: Even our community, look at me when we start all this social media and look into our community.
45:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Me, you knew that we had such a divided community on all different levels of aspect.
45:09
[SPEAKER_03]: They haven't had knots, they're connected, they're unconnected, the working man versus the well-connected man, that has a push job, and then the title, the non-intitle, you know what I mean?
45:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay, we can go on and on, you know, the one that's been here longer, and the one that just came, you know, and the newly arrived that, you know, and it's all skewed now.
45:35
[SPEAKER_03]: Are we united as a culture?
45:39
[SPEAKER_03]: It's fucking hard to say.
45:41
[SPEAKER_03]: If somebody asked me right now, I don't see you united, you know, front of our own culture here.
45:46
[SPEAKER_03]: We see a mix bag of, look at the young and the older now.
45:51
[SPEAKER_03]: It seems like there's a big battle online.
45:54
[SPEAKER_03]: I only hear voices from the young.
45:58
[SPEAKER_03]: And they have more empathy, more social impact of seeing what it is for others.
46:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Then the people that have raised them and have told them to have empathy, to have, you know, to care.
46:11
[SPEAKER_03]: But yeah, when they start to care, they're like, well, you care about their own, don't do that, walk as shit, don't do this this.
46:16
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's like, are they still human, dad, mom, uncle, you know what I mean?
46:20
[SPEAKER_03]: My brother, you know me, but yet you want to be selective who you want to do that for.
46:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I tell you what, man, I think we need to invite people on the other side of the aisle.
46:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely.
46:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I would love to do that.
46:35
[SPEAKER_01]: So I'm inviting anybody who wants to, I mean, obviously we can't get everybody, but, you know, let's do, let's invite, let's put it out there, let's see who wants to comment and who wants to sit on the round table.
46:48
[SPEAKER_03]: We get six to six people.
46:51
[SPEAKER_03]: And however, you know, they know their policy and granted.
46:55
[SPEAKER_03]: I don't know policy as well.
46:56
[SPEAKER_03]: Okay.
46:57
[SPEAKER_01]: We openly admit that we're just a bunch of knuckleheads here.
47:00
[SPEAKER_01]: That's.
47:01
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, which is socially aware of what is in front of us and I'm okay with being corrected.
47:06
[SPEAKER_03]: You know what I mean?
47:07
[SPEAKER_03]: Correct me if I'm wrong.
47:08
[SPEAKER_01]: We're knuckleheads with hearts.
47:10
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the best way I can describe it right now.
47:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a knucklehead with a heart and I'm very quiet about how I've been feeling about this, but thanks to Julie, my turn from Sharma Roots.
47:24
[SPEAKER_03]: Julie, because you gave us the balls to actually voices and do this today, because we knew on social media that was not that many voices.
47:35
[SPEAKER_03]: And we, for us to stay silent,
47:40
[SPEAKER_03]: is being that hypocrite where you're not even just because we don't shut the door, it doesn't mean we're not even giving a hand or a voice.
47:47
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you want to come on, Julie, I'm talking to you right now, Julie, you should come on and we could talk more about this and create the next episode with you, Julie.
47:59
[SPEAKER_01]: disclaimer, Chris and I are friends with Julie from Sharma Roots.
48:02
[SPEAKER_01]: We love and respect her so much, but after she wrote the carousel that post, we feel like deeper connection with Julie, so just want to be.
48:19
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we're going to put this carousel on this thing so they can scroll through it.
48:24
[SPEAKER_03]: And if you
48:27
[SPEAKER_03]: Take a look at it, you don't feel anything cool, you know?
48:29
[SPEAKER_03]: And like me, you both know, not everybody's gonna be aligned with what we're thinking.
48:35
[SPEAKER_03]: And I'm just asking, allow me to have empathy to feel for others.
48:41
[SPEAKER_03]: But I just wanna ask, you know, if you think we have freedom, independent, to feel and act, however we choose, and I just wanna be good to humans,
48:54
[SPEAKER_03]: and have the empathy, but yet don't attack me for having a heart.
48:58
[SPEAKER_03]: You can quote the law, you can quote everyone, it's cool, it's laws law, I'll abide by it.
49:02
[SPEAKER_03]: And that's for sometimes people want to preach and lecture to me about right and wrong.
49:07
[SPEAKER_03]: What is right and wrong, right?
49:10
[SPEAKER_03]: If somebody needs help, I mean, you are going to try to help.
49:15
[SPEAKER_03]: Now, do we help everybody?
49:16
[SPEAKER_03]: Absolutely not.
49:18
[SPEAKER_03]: But I feel right now, the
49:21
[SPEAKER_03]: We need healing in our own community.
49:23
[SPEAKER_01]: That's first.
49:24
[SPEAKER_01]: That's first.
49:25
[SPEAKER_01]: We need to go ahead.
49:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think we, I've made my point.
49:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I appreciate you coming on and, you know, we will try to put around table together.
49:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's the next thing and debate online.
49:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we're, it's open season now.
49:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's open season, baby.
49:41
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, we just wanted justice for Independence Day to have a dialogue.
49:45
[SPEAKER_03]: And it's just a dialogue.
49:46
[SPEAKER_03]: That's the American way is to talk about this, to unpack it, to see what everybody stands.
49:52
[SPEAKER_03]: Right?
49:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And have a great barbecue out there.
49:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Enjoy your July fourth weekend.
49:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And we will be eagerly awaiting to read the comment section.
50:04
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah, hey, you know, happy July fourth and, you know, we're celebrating a day where we got rid of the monarchy.
50:10
[SPEAKER_03]: There's no kings here, you know, and that's where what America fought for is independence.
50:15
[SPEAKER_03]: So just remember that on Fourth of July that there was no kings in America, and that's what the America was built on.
50:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you Chris for that.
50:23
[SPEAKER_01]: That's awesome.
50:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
50:26
[SPEAKER_03]: Peace, brother.
50:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynn.
50:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynn, Catherine Wynn, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie and Crystal Tran.
50:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese podcast.