Latest / The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen / 510 - What Happens When You Get Deported? - Danny Quach

Transcript

510 - What Happens When You Get Deported? - Danny Quach · The Vietnamese with Kenneth Nguyen

0:00
[SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to the Vietnamese podcast everybody.
0:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I have a guest today that I have been wanting to talk to ever since he got to Vietnam.
0:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Danny Quack and Danny is a brother now.
0:16
[SPEAKER_01]: We have talked quite a bit in the last few months.
0:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And we hear to listen to a story.
0:24
[SPEAKER_01]: The intro is a little bit tough for me because it's not a typical introduction that I would do.
0:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And again, I don't know where to draw the line and where the boundaries are with this kind of introduction, I want to be very sensitive to how I conduct this kind of conversation with you, Danny.
0:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So here we go.
0:50
[SPEAKER_00]: All right, let's go.
0:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's do it.
0:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
0:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And I, I, thanks for having me.
0:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, thank you for agreeing to do this.
0:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It was very, very sparingly, I, I just don't know how to introduce, you know, this kind of situation, because,
1:06
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, it's sensitive and I want to make sure that I approach this correctly and I think that no way to introduce somebody like you is enough.
1:18
[SPEAKER_01]: We hope that the guests will learn more about you as we sit and talk.
1:25
[SPEAKER_00]: nice nice yeah me thanks for having me and thanks for supporting me through all this you know this is been it's been it's been quite a journey but to have brothers like you supporting me and it did to me the world so thank you thank you you know Danny um I probably like many other people who are following you probably met you through your Instagram account um
1:52
[SPEAKER_01]: being deported back to Vietnam and before we get into all of that, I want to take it back today one, which is how did your family make it to the United States?
2:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And what was your childhood like?
2:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, to start there, I was born in Gagia, Vietnam in 74, and I was, we went as
2:19
[SPEAKER_00]: out of Vietnam to America in 75.
2:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, that was a quite a journey from my family to to get us out of the country and across the sea.
2:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I was eight months old, I was eight months old when I lived.
2:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, just baby in my mom's arms.
2:41
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you know, the crazy thing is my brother was six months old.
2:46
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's too much younger than you, six months old, and also left from Rethia.
2:50
[SPEAKER_01]: We probably left my family probably left in the same day, the same time for the same port that you, and my, so you and my brother are the same.
3:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the craziest stuff.
3:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the, that's the, that's the, so there's just not just random, but then it's also,
3:11
[SPEAKER_00]: that the time that we loved, you know, he probably had the same 8.47, but it's a human by him.
3:16
[SPEAKER_00]: That's, that we're a human by my family, you know?
3:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And, um,
3:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So when you were eight months old and okay so you guys left and then where did you go from Vietnam?
3:30
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went out to see and then our boat ran out of fuel so we drifted and we drifted towards where they were heading towards Singapore and we drifted and we enough to get to this
3:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And it poured us into the port of Singapore.
3:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But once we got there, the port, the authority there said, you know, you can't enter here.
4:01
[SPEAKER_00]: We can't receive you.
4:02
[SPEAKER_00]: So they filled us up.
4:04
[SPEAKER_00]: They gave us supplies and stuff and then they sent us out on our way again.
4:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went back out to see, and we drifted some more.
4:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, we sailed some more, and we sailed towards the Philippines.
4:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And we made it to the Philippines.
4:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And once we made it to the Philippines, they welcomed us in.
4:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And then there was a US military there to take us in and help us
4:31
[SPEAKER_00]: to be in a camp there for a little while.
4:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And then from there, we went to states and we first landed in America, we landed in Philadelphia.
4:42
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's where you were born?
4:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
4:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you guys go to Fort Indian Town, Gap?
4:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you know, I don't remember exactly.
4:51
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I never got that information from my dad exactly where.
4:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, did you guys go to a camp before you got sponsored out?
4:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, we did.
5:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It was a camp in Philadelphia.
5:01
[SPEAKER_00]: What was it any of the people you said?
5:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's in Fort Indian Town, gap.
5:06
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the camp then.
5:07
[SPEAKER_01]: That's the same camp that we probably were in the same camp.
5:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I was in Borneo.
5:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I was still in my mom's stomach, but you and my brother were probably in the same camp because in Pennsylvania.
5:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So anybody who landed in Pennsylvania or the East Coast chances are you were coming out of Fort Indians.
5:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I never even heard of that name.
5:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'll definitely ask my dad about that.
5:27
[SPEAKER_00]: You probably remember his name for sure.
5:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
5:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So then you guys come out and then so Philly, but did you grow up in Philly or did you guys move out?
5:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So when we went to Philly, we were in that camp.
5:42
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like you have to put your name on a list to be able to be spawned by somebody and, you know, everybody was getting on that list to go to California or New Orleans because it was hotter, it was warmer, it was more Vietnamese there, but it took about six months for you to have to stay in the camp in order to get out because there was so many people on that list.
6:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And then dad found out that there's a list to go to Ohio, and if you put your name on that list, you get out right away.
6:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So it was like, you know, screw it.
6:11
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just going to put my name on that list, give my family out of the camp, and then we'll make our way to, you know, other places later on.
6:18
[SPEAKER_00]: So we have going to, to, uh, Ohio, a date in Ohio.
6:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, so we went there and we're in
6:30
[SPEAKER_00]: We stayed there for a few years.
6:31
[SPEAKER_00]: My other family, they were able to go to New Orleans.
6:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So they went down to New Orleans.
6:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And the family that came to the camp with us, they stayed in there a little longer.
6:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they went to, one is we went to Ohio.
6:43
[SPEAKER_00]: After about two years in Ohio, we ended up going down to New Orleans to be with them.
6:49
[SPEAKER_00]: But my dad, he had a job up in Ohio already.
6:53
[SPEAKER_00]: He was doing some,
6:55
[SPEAKER_00]: The scripting family that sponsored us and received us, they housed us, they got us a little mobile home, you know, and we stayed in slow mobile home and got my dad a job.
7:07
[SPEAKER_00]: He was welding organ pipes or organ pipes for like church health, church organ water.
7:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
7:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
7:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So he was doing that.
7:16
[SPEAKER_00]: When we went down to the Orleans,
7:18
[SPEAKER_00]: He was looking forked down there, he worked in a restaurant as a chef down there for a little bit.
7:23
[SPEAKER_00]: But he was just tidying like that kind of work.
7:25
[SPEAKER_00]: So he went back to Ohio again.
7:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And we stayed up, you know, Ohio for another two years.
7:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And then at that point we came back down.
7:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we went to Houston.
7:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we were in Houston since 79.
7:41
[SPEAKER_01]: that seems to be like a typical migration pattern for a lot of people that come out of Pennsylvania in that part of the world because it's like, it's really rural, it's really boring and depressing to come out not really, but actually, you know, for the Indian town gap because those,
7:57
[SPEAKER_01]: those towns are small, and so we'd also drifted to Ohio, and we drifted, and we, yeah, with the Alvestin and Texas for a little bit, before finally arriving in LA.
8:11
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like a lot of people kind of drift throughout the Midwest a little bit, and then you make your way out west, you know, and then you you find yourself settling into the the the the
8:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, anybody coming from Rethia or Rethia, similar to San Diego, you know, it's a port town, you know, it's far, a little bit far farther from, like on, which is, you know, like LA.
8:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, the patterns are very similar to each other.
8:40
[SPEAKER_01]: But now I'm interested when you get to Houston, you spend really the time of, you know, you're growing up in elementary school and high school and stuff.
8:49
[SPEAKER_01]: What was that like for you?
8:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Did you get into a lot of trouble?
8:54
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, being Vietnamese growing up at that era, it was a lot of, um, a lot of...
9:04
[SPEAKER_00]: a lot of prejudice against Asians, especially Vietnamese coming into these, you know, neighborhoods were predominantly white neighborhoods and stuff that, and, you know, they had already had the wave of Latinos coming in there, and then now you got this wave of Asians coming in their Vietnamese coming in there.
9:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So we did, you know, land on the lot of
9:27
[SPEAKER_00]: pushback, I guess from families, not really the families, but mostly the kids, you know, how kids are just mean in school and stuff and just, you know, all the names that they call you and stuff.
9:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was, that was a lot of stuff that we had to do with and, you know, you know, how else do you do with it as a kid, then, you know, like, you know, like, might have bought it or, you know,
9:48
[SPEAKER_00]: talk crap about each other's races and stuff, you know, and that was just, well, how we grew up, you know, it was like, you know, whites and Mexicans were we're clowning us and we were clowning them back as best we could.
9:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's how it was in elementary, that was just elementary, you know, then what's it started getting into middle school and stuff that got a little bit escalated, got a little bit rougher, you know,
10:20
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I grew up as a good kid in school.
10:22
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I wanted to do good things and wanted to be in the military and being optometrious in the military or something like that, you know, that was my, my, I guess my passion, not my passion, but like something that I was going geared towards as my drive.
10:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, I guess, you know, just to kind of get right into it when I was 13,
10:47
[SPEAKER_00]: My brother, my older brother, was two years older than me.
10:50
[SPEAKER_00]: He was 15, and we lived in this area where there's a lot of Chinese and a lot of Vietnamese.
10:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's a lot of violence within the Asians too.
11:01
[SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of violence going on with Vietnamese against Chinese.
11:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And so in 1987,
11:13
[SPEAKER_00]: My brother was killed in a shootout that happened between Chinese and Vietnamese down there.
11:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I can get into more details about it if you want, but yeah, we would say, yeah.
11:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, my,
11:34
[SPEAKER_00]: My, you know, my I have some older cousins and stuff and during New Year's Eve of 87, they all went to this fireworks show, you know, it was in the town area.
11:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, there's a lot of Chinese there, a bunch of Vietnamese that came to the event and everything.
11:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, my brother being the 15, he was able to join my 18 year old, 19 year old cousins and uncles and stuff to go to the event.
11:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So, at the event, there was,
12:03
[SPEAKER_00]: some little, I guess, a little, I wouldn't say scuffle, but a little verbal going back and forth between some Vietnamese and Chinese.
12:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, my family got into the car and to, to, to leave and then these, these three Vietnamese guys, they, they just, they roll up next to my, my family's car and they just start blasting into my family's car.
12:26
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, my uncle was driving my cousins were in the front and the back and my brother was in the middle of the back seat and up.
12:35
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they were just cruising down the street to go on with, and this car just pulls up.
12:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It just starts three guys and they're just not blasting, you know, two nine millimeters and a 45 into the car.
12:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't, you know, it was a miracle that nobody got it during that onslaught right there of, of bullets going into the car.
12:56
[SPEAKER_00]: My uncle, he,
12:58
[SPEAKER_00]: He ended up, you know, ducking his head and he turned the wheel and he hit this, um, this, this curb and then the car ended up turning, you know, the back end down the street like this.
13:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So the other car kept going.
13:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, it was like blocks down the street and for some reason the driver ended up putting his car over to the side and he put out his 45 and he shot one more bullet towards our family car and that one bullet struck my brother and then he died instantly.
13:35
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was, you know, usually traumatic too, not just my immediate family, but all my cousins and all my family around, you know, it just really affected us really deeply and everybody was real close to my brother, he was real friendly and he just loved on everybody and everybody loved them.
13:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was, that was, that was a.
13:59
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just an event that just shifted my life.
14:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Honestly, my brother was a hero.
14:07
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he was everything I looked up to.
14:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to be like him, you know, he was tall, you know, good looking, yeah, the good hair.
14:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, the good, yeah, the good hair.
14:17
[SPEAKER_00]: He has some curls.
14:18
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know where he got the curls, yeah.
14:19
[SPEAKER_00]: He has some curls in his hair.
14:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So he, um,
14:23
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I was wanted to be like him, you know, when I lost him, I, I just, I felt like I had no direction.
14:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I kind of, I kind of took to the streets and started, you know, hanging out with, with, you know, guys on the streets and kind of got into,
14:50
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that life isn't, that doesn't get you anywhere good, you know, and so I ended up doing some some things that, you know, I'm not proud of.
15:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I ended up doing some jail time.
15:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I ended up doing some some some time for a crime that.
15:12
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I guess, you know, guilty by association.
15:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I was with some buddies.
15:18
[SPEAKER_00]: We were playing some basketball.
15:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And we got into it with these black dudes at the basketball court.
15:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, it was an irrational thing.
15:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just guys that we were playing against.
15:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
15:33
[SPEAKER_00]: My buddy got an argument with some of the guys.
15:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Next, my buddy runs out with a gun and a couple other friends come up with guns and then they start.
15:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't piss the whip in these dudes.
15:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I stood on the sidelines.
15:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just at my best while my hand like, come on, man, you guys chill out, man, this is unnecessary.
15:55
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not even a big deal.
15:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's just chill out, let's get out of here.
16:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So we start making our way to the car and then before you know it, it's one of the guys.
16:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, he's gone out, I mean, shot an ear.
16:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And when he shot those two bullets in the air, the guy that I was with me and going to the court, he, I guess he thought that those black guys were shooting at us, he'd turn around.
16:21
[SPEAKER_00]: He'd just not had blasted back at them.
16:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So he unloaded 15 shots in the direction of these guys.
16:29
[SPEAKER_00]: They all hit the ground.
16:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And we just jumped in the car and we took off.
16:36
[SPEAKER_00]: about a month and a half later I mean we got we got away from the scene nothing happened and nobody got arrested we just took off.
16:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And so thank God nobody got hit.
16:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And those my buddy said that he was shooting in the air just to kind of scare people.
16:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So nobody got hit.
16:51
[SPEAKER_00]: But we jumped in the car and took off and then about a month and a half later I'm driving down the street and then
16:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I get pulled over, and these cops, you know, grabbed me, you know, beat the crap out of me, and they said that I have a fugitive aggravator, robbery warrant, or that event, that night, that whatever happened at night.
17:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I kept on telling him, I didn't do it, you know, and I was there, but I didn't do it, you know, but the cops didn't have nothing to do with that.
17:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And once you're arrested, you know,
17:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So we went to court, my family put all their money out there to give me a good lawyer to to represent me to give me out of the situation, we even had some some other family members pool in money to help me get a good lawyer and we thought we had a good lawyer and
17:46
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, this attorney, he pretty much was the money ran out.
17:51
[SPEAKER_00]: He is his fight for us ran out and I ended up having to settle for some time.
17:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to to sign for seven years for that and I ended up doing six years in prison for that.
18:09
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, nothing for nothing like no bullets hit nothing and it just.
18:15
[SPEAKER_01]: But how did they even mark that that event even happened and that you were part of that event?
18:20
[SPEAKER_01]: How did they even know that?
18:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what are the guys that was there?
18:27
[SPEAKER_00]: He got pulled over, leaving the event.
18:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And he ended up telling the police that it was me and my friends that did.
18:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So I guess the police put the case together to find out who I was and who my friends were, whatever, they got it.
18:44
[SPEAKER_00]: They went out there and they put a warrant for me and more from my buddy, the one that actually shoot her, they put a warrant out for him and so they end up resting me in my buddy and both of us went down for it.
18:56
[SPEAKER_00]: But he was doing his best so he wrote an affidavit that his statement was that I was there But I hadn't nothing to do with it.
19:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I was just there playing ball.
19:05
[SPEAKER_00]: He was to one that Beyond the fight with the guys.
19:08
[SPEAKER_00]: He was the one that you know shot at the guys and so he did his best to try to give me I'll throw up but
19:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, and my lawyer, you know, the whole time, you know, 18 months I was in county jail going to court when it didn't fair from trial.
19:22
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, we're going to beat this case man, you know, they got nothing on you.
19:24
[SPEAKER_00]: You got too much evidence saying that you're, you know, you're innocent.
19:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we thought, you know, I was, I was going to be able to get out, you know, and.
19:32
[SPEAKER_00]: But.
19:35
[SPEAKER_00]: What's the money runs out, you know, the attorneys, they just kind of give up on your case and then tell you, okay, well, you're going to have to He bargained for some time now.
19:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So he, you know, he bargained from You know, they were coming at me with a lot of years.
19:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, 35 years and then they went from 35 down to 25 to 15 into 10.
20:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when they were at 10 years, my lawyer will look, I can, if you give you and your family can gather another 10 grand for me, I can get you even less time.
20:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And we were already tapped out to my family, spent everything they had in.
20:17
[SPEAKER_00]: So they ended up having to get alone from my family members and my cousins, they put in some money and they would get that thin grant to the attorney and you got it to seven years.
20:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And at that point, my parents were still telling me, don't sign for it, you know, you're innocent, don't sign.
20:35
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, I was in the county jail for so long that I just felt so,
20:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, I felt bad for my parents that they were going through all this turmoil with me.
20:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just said, you know, I'm just going to sign for this time.
20:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And they said, no, you know, don't do it.
20:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And I said, you know, the Lord told me, if I go into prison, I'll go in there for one year.
20:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll be right back out and I'll be out, you know, on good time, you know, and so I trusted him with that.
20:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I signed for the seven years, and then when it's prison, and then ended up new in a total of six years
21:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when were you when you when you was a 19 and I got out right before I turned month before I turn 26 Yeah, and that was the total time that you you ever did was that six years.
21:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, did you ever go back in for any other reason?
21:29
[SPEAKER_00]: No never went back in for any any other
21:35
[SPEAKER_00]: At that point, you know, I found God in there and, you know, Jesus saved me and saved my my, you know, who I was, because I was, you know, I was real, what's I went in there, I was just.
21:48
[SPEAKER_00]: an angry kid and fight in all the time, you know, looking for trouble and just starting fights and stuff.
21:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And that was the first few years, and then after a few years and there, you know, I saw my mom and how she was just crushed.
22:03
[SPEAKER_00]: And that really, that really just to go told on me and stuff and I was like, I gotta, I gotta make a change, you know, and so I started searching for a way to change and during that search, you know, God found me in that,
22:15
[SPEAKER_00]: that time and he came and saved me through Jesus and, you know, you know, I'm not, if I get, you know, I'm not real pretty or nothing, but I just know that, you know, Jesus came and he changed my whole heart as a surrender to him and he just took to Kuhua was and gave me a new spirit and, you know, all that anger was just lifted from me, you know,
22:42
[SPEAKER_00]: All that violence and all that, you know, our Gretchen was just taking away from me.
22:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And I started seeing the world in a new light.
22:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I started wanting to make a change for myself.
22:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And so at that point forward, I was like, I gotta be a new man.
22:58
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we're gonna create a new man in me.
23:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, in the midst of that time, in 1996,
23:10
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a law passed that anyone that does more than one year in prison has to be deported to their country of birth.
23:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, me being born in Vietnam, I was in on the list.
23:26
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but I was in the middle of my sentence.
23:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So, for the next...
23:33
[SPEAKER_00]: three years of my sentence, I was just kind of waiting to once I get out of prison, I knew that immigration would pick me up and then take me and take me to deport me.
23:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Once I got out of prison in the year 2000, I was picked up by ICE, I'm sorry, it wasn't even called ICE back then, it was like a USCIS or something like that.
23:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the immigration picked me up.
23:58
[SPEAKER_00]: to deport me, but then because in that time, the Vietnam was in accepting us back, they released me on this, it was called Order of Supervision.
24:08
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I was released to society.
24:11
[SPEAKER_00]: My, it was on this kind of like immigration, for all probation that I had to report every month, and then after once a month, eventually after throwing good behavior,
24:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So I did that, you know, was good behavior.
24:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't get any some more anymore trouble.
24:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I, you know, well, I did graphic design, which school of a graphic design and,
24:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen to some designing for a while, also went to her school because I was a barber in prison and stuff.
24:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I went to her school in her license and started cutting hair also.
24:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was just hustling with men, and I was just doing a lot of different jobs.
24:56
[SPEAKER_00]: She's trying to stay busy and you know, stay out of trouble.
24:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, that's, that's,
25:03
[SPEAKER_00]: That's what that's what helped change me when I got out is, you know, it's focused on work, focus on family, you know, I was going to church and you know, just staying out of trouble in and All right.
25:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I got so many questions.
25:17
[SPEAKER_00]: All right.
25:17
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all right.
25:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I know that was long winded.
25:19
[SPEAKER_01]: No, I know I
25:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It's all so fascinating, you know, but I got to break it up because I have these questions that are like in between, right?
25:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, yeah, yeah, go for it.
25:30
[SPEAKER_01]: When I think about your journey, and you're in Vietnam now, and so the thought of deportation was always there, right?
25:37
[SPEAKER_01]: Because you knew in 96 that there's this fundamental change in the way the U.S. government is
25:52
[SPEAKER_01]: arguably, a long time in the government's purview, they're like thinking about this many years ago, 30 years ago, arguably, you know, and it makes me think,
26:08
[SPEAKER_01]: probably God had a plan for you to end up in Vietnam regardless, right?
26:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
26:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Because it wasn't back then it was going to be today.
26:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Now, it's like you, you're almost kind of, and it wasn't even your damn fault for like, you didn't do shit.
26:27
[SPEAKER_01]: to really land in jail for those years and it's almost like, man, you couldn't even stop the universe from putting you in where you are right now.
26:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, but just the more that I sit here and I think about it, right?
26:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like
26:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It just perplexes me.
26:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a mind boggling to understand that you should shit.
26:50
[SPEAKER_01]: You didn't do shit.
26:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You land in prison in 96, they're like, okay, well, we're gonna ship all these guys back.
26:56
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's almost like if you are a faith having man and if you believe in God, then you're almost like there's gotta be a bigger reason that you land in Vietnam now at this point.
27:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Pick the ball this.
27:10
[SPEAKER_01]: understanding in the West, you know, in America, and now you're, I mean, it's like destined that you're going to make, you're going to head back like you can't control it.
27:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Absolutely, absolutely.
27:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I think it was definitely predestined my God for me to, yeah, to take on this path.
27:28
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, for for all those years, even though I was out in America for 2000 to 2025, but those 25 years, there was always in the back of my head, you know, and when I you know, when I got with my wife, you know, I told her, I was like, I could be deported any minute now.
27:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So before we get married,
27:51
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to know, you know, since you knew that when we were dating stuff, but I told her, you know, before we actually, you know, time does not, you know, you know, what are you gonna do?
28:01
[SPEAKER_00]: It's because it will happen, not feel like it will happen one day, and it could happen any time.
28:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's like, I've always wanted to go to Vietnam.
28:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, wherever you go, I'm going.
28:12
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and I was like, man, you know, that's when I knew she was the one, man.
28:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Because she nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing wavers.
28:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, nothing.
28:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's like, you know, we're making new life in Vietnam that, you know,
28:28
[SPEAKER_01]: So this is already thought, like, you guys have already prepared your spirit for this.
28:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
28:36
[SPEAKER_00]: How did you meet your wife?
28:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So back in my high school days, my buddies, my best friends, you know, that she was my best friend's older sister.
28:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was always, you know, like, my buddy sister that I would, you know, well, you know, you're always looking out for your buddy sisters and making sure that they're okay and stuff and your buddy's a guy, right?
29:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, my mom.
29:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I got and my boy was, you know, I was older than my, my, my, my, my, my, my bro.
29:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And, but he, he was always like, you know,
29:10
[SPEAKER_00]: looking out for a sister and sometimes he would call me a payman can pick up my sister from school, you know, take her home and stuff.
29:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, yeah, bro, I got you.
29:18
[SPEAKER_00]: So back in high school, I drove a Jeep Wrangler and you know, I was I was only a Asian in a lifted Jeep and everybody was in like the drop-honders and Toyota's and stuff and I was in the lifted Jeep and I'd rode up and been like that.
29:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, so I go pick her up, you know, and then take her home.
29:35
[SPEAKER_00]: But we never had, and you know, she was dating somebody and I was dating somebody and do we're always friends and she was always like, you know, I just looked at her like a sister, you know, and so we were friends all those years and then once I went to prison, he, you know, as a friend, she kept in touch with me.
29:52
[SPEAKER_00]: She was like my penpile, and she wrote me, and you left me up in spirit and just, you know, she was sent me these,
30:00
[SPEAKER_00]: construction paper like all this he read me letter with like five six different his construction paper just to bring some color in my life you know and so that was that was amazing you know and and and we were just you know all this time you know is always just real platonic and friendship and uh he once I got out of prison I didn't I wasn't he
30:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you know, she helped me for first three years, but then we lost touch because she got into, you know, deep relationship with the long-term relationship.
30:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we, we, we were in contact for my last few years, but when I got out, I ended up living in Houston for about a year, got off parole.
30:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I did that.
30:41
[SPEAKER_00]: I got out at six years and I had a seven-year sense.
30:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to finish my parole.
30:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Once I finished my parole, I moved to California.
30:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I moved to
30:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Costa Mesa and live with my alcohol and helped them at his salon yet a salon up there in Costa Mesa.
30:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So I started working out there and My wife's best friend lived in LA and I would go up there and hang out with her and her friend and then she came to visit her friend My my my wife came to visit her best friend and then we we all hung out again and that was kind of well where we we connected as friends
31:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, she was still living in Texas.
31:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So I ended up moving back to Texas a couple years later.
31:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And we stayed friends and stuff.
31:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And then one day, you know, my cousin and then one of my wife's other best friends.
31:36
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I was single at the time and they were like, you know, very single, you know, why, why don't you date Mary, you know, and I was like, oh, man, you know, she's like my sister, dude, you know, like she's brought up where we're good friends, you know, but after they said that, it kind of put a little bug in my head and it started thinking about us like, man, you know, Mary's amazing.
31:56
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, she's always been just a great, just a great, hard person for her friends and, oh, that started, you know, I've always admired her and I've always,
32:05
[SPEAKER_00]: really thought highly over, but then I never thought of her as a, you know, as the data.
32:10
[SPEAKER_00]: But once they put that spark in my head, I started thinking about it.
32:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we hung out as friends again.
32:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is a kind of funny word.
32:19
[SPEAKER_00]: We went to hang out and she lived in Austin, she was at what's a UT and went up there at Austin to hang out with her.
32:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And she took
32:33
[SPEAKER_00]: I, uh, you know, was a little tipsy and I just laid it out there.
32:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, I could see you as my wife.
32:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was like, fuck, you're like, she looked at me like crazy.
32:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, how are you talking about bro?
32:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
32:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
32:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, no, I'm a pro.
32:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I could see, you know, you as she was like, you meet someone like me.
32:53
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, someone else, you know, out there, someone like me.
32:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, no, you.
32:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And she was like,
32:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And so she kind of spook her and she kind of like she she she she she goes to me She goes to me for a little bit Yeah, she goes to me man and then she came back and I was like I hope I didn't spook you know spook you and stuff you know if you don't you know if you don't feel this you know it's cool You know I was like in there's no big deal she was like I said so what do you think you know she was like
33:29
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll see, and I go, yes, she was like, why are you so happy?
33:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, hey, it wasn't a no, you don't.
33:41
[SPEAKER_00]: He's so, so, that's more, you know, we, I had to, I had to really fort, fort her.
33:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I couldn't just, you know, because you, my best friends, sister, and so I had to approach my best friend and I asked him, you know,
33:57
[SPEAKER_00]: what do you think about this, you know, I just kind of started catching feelings for your sister and I think, you know, and he was like, uh, honestly, I couldn't think of a better man to be with my sister.
34:10
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, what, you know, I appreciate that bro, appreciate the blessing man.
34:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's on what's the each family member, you know, with to for sister, which her sister is my age and she's two years younger.
34:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And her sister was in my middle school, you know, went to middle school together and stuff.
34:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow.
34:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to, I used to know it was, you know, seventh grade, sixth grade, you know, you, you know, you just like, that knowing the, the girls, you know, you're not really, you know, so his her sister, like she, she thought I was just like a knowing little, little brat.
34:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, so, so when I asked her sister, but you know, at this age, you know, she was cool, but I asked her, I was like, hey, you know, I'm thinking about how I'm good.
34:46
[SPEAKER_00]: They kind of wanted date, you know, Mary and you know, what do you think?
34:50
[SPEAKER_00]: She even, how do you know if she even likes you, bro?
34:52
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
34:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, she likes tall guys and stuff.
34:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're like, you know, you're not that tall, dude.
34:58
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
35:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You know what I mean?
35:01
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so I was like, I don't know, we'll see.
35:03
[SPEAKER_00]: So she was like, well, you know, it's cool with me, you know, and I was like, okay, well, she was like, well, you gotta make sure if she even likes you, you know.
35:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I ended up, you know, talking to her mom and talking to her dad and, you know, I got the blessing from all the family members.
35:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And then I, I mean, you didn't get, you didn't even get the blessing from her yet.
35:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I didn't get it.
35:21
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a perch.
35:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't get the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the
35:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And we approached it, you know, I approached it with respect and, you know, um, their chivalrous and ordered her, you know, and, um, and, um, but they evolved into us being able to shoot, you know, one day.
36:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, as a friend, you know, trying to get there, I wasn't aggressive and I wasn't pushing and I just, you know, we dated and stuff and then, uh, one day she was like,
36:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I do this.
36:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
36:24
[SPEAKER_00]: She was like, I think, you know, I admire how you approached it all and everything.
36:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, it evolved into us, you know, falling in love and, um,
36:37
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we ended up moving out to he and it's Arizona for a couple of years because she had a job opportunity out there.
36:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So I moved out there with her and we were still in the dating mood.
36:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And we dated for about another year out there.
36:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I had to go ahead and, you know, I felt like this was this is the time.
36:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So then I popped the question and, you know, then here we are, you know, yeah, 17 years, 17 years later.
37:07
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I wonder if there was any pushback because of your record, that the family did she, like have considerations as a felon did they ever bring that up?
37:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I grew up with their family before prison.
37:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So I knew they were, you know, as a kid.
37:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And I would eat dinner at their house as, you know, teenager and stuff.
37:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And so their parents, then they knew who I was and they knew that I was a good kid that I went, that they'd go through the prison stuff.
37:41
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, they always knew that I was good to their, their son.
37:45
[SPEAKER_00]: I was always kind of like a big brother to the son.
37:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was trying to keep him, I was trying to keep him out of trouble and stuff.
37:50
[SPEAKER_00]: But, um,
37:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was I was good with the family and that you know regard they they didn't hold that against me and and you know Mary my wife she didn't she didn't hold it against me there she saw that the the transformation that had gone through even why I'm now and and so
38:11
[SPEAKER_00]: She never let that end her approach to me and like I said, you know, I told her about the deportation stuff, you know, and that never stopped anything from her either so that
38:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, you know what's crazy Danny is that, you know, when I'm looking at this video or these clips of you in the beginning, when you first started to show up on the internet, so you get this feeling, I get this feeling as an audience.
38:42
[SPEAKER_01]: that you're a good guy, right?
38:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, it's registering in my brain that the laugh is infectious, your spirit is infectious.
38:53
[SPEAKER_01]: All of these really warm things about you come out.
38:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you're like, well, he's a deported brother.
39:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And then you start to like, for me, start to make all these calculus start to think about like, what was this guy like in jail?
39:09
[SPEAKER_01]: What was this guy like in prison?
39:12
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and then I'm like thinking about all the black brothers and the Mexicans like high five and you like so I'm building up this story I say this on a very basic level because We as just outside people we build these stories about brothers that are inside right Vietnamese gang members and you know They hard and they you know, they got their own code and
39:32
[SPEAKER_01]: But then you start to realize, like, everybody's journey is very, very different.
39:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And then what's so what you're perceiving like me, as an audience person, what I'm perceiving is the reality of who you were in the last 25, 30 years, right?
39:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that grinding of your spirit and the beatification, the making of the beauty of Danny Quatt,
40:01
[SPEAKER_01]: is happening 30 years into the journey of me seeing you on Instagram, right?
40:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So then like what I'm seeing shows up is not like this motherfucker just got to Vietnam and he's like this chirpy bird, right?
40:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Like that's not how it works and that's why this work of sitting here and having a conversation.
40:20
[SPEAKER_01]: So interesting to me sometimes because we get these feelings about who people are.
40:26
[SPEAKER_01]: and sometimes we're like dead on, but sometimes it's interesting to see like these stories, these mysteries of who these people are and then you get to hear like we've been on for like 40 minutes.
40:42
[SPEAKER_01]: transpire right in front of me like I'm like oh shit this all makes sense to me now, you know, and you know I might be off here and there the margin of error of like you know who my mind makes you out to be might be you know off, but we're like not even halfway through your story because now I want to hear about like
41:03
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, the day comes, deportation happens, um, so we'll get into that, but I just want to stop it because I just wanted to bring that attention to, um, all the people who are giving you the benefit of the doubt of like always a good guy.
41:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And then all the people who are not, you know, because there's just kind of like two basic camps, right?
41:23
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a fucking criminal and then, oh my god, like,
41:26
[SPEAKER_01]: No, a human being is a good human being, and they go through transformation.
41:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But like, I think in your particular story, it's just very obvious that you have this specific energy that, you know, the internet seems to really like, because you've built a quick following, you know, really quick on Instagram.
41:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And now we know why, because, you know, you have this sort of like,
41:51
[SPEAKER_01]: The spirit about you that you've been, you've been kind of transforming slowly into this really beautiful spirit.
42:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think there's a bigger mission for you in Vietnam and for this next part of your journey.
42:08
[SPEAKER_01]: But we'll take it from here.
42:11
[SPEAKER_01]: You get married and let's fast forward to getting deported.
42:19
[SPEAKER_01]: That deportation was like, I want to hear about the journey of deportation, and then really we'd love to hear what arriving in Vietnam again for the first time since you've left as a baby, what it sounds like.
42:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I got to say, man, thank you so much for that, man, and I really appreciate that.
42:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's, that's very, are warming for me to hear
42:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I don't, I don't glorify the, the, the so-called gangster days, you know, that's that's something I went through and, you know, that's not something I would glorify, but I don't want to paint a paint over it either, you know, I don't want to.
43:07
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, to wave it out the way, you know, that was part of my childhood.
43:10
[SPEAKER_00]: That's, that's, who I thought I wanted to be, you know, at that age, and I wanted to be a gangster for life, you know, and, uh, but once that, that transformation started to happen, I was, you know, I was, I was, even in that life, you know, you, you, you have brought the thread in these
43:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I was always good to my brother, you know, and I always, especially after losing my brother, I always felt like I need to be the best brother I can to for the next man, you know, and so that was always my drive in life even before the transformation is to be a good good brother.
43:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, once I started.
43:53
[SPEAKER_00]: really learning about who I really want to be in life to be a good man, good person, I wanted to help others help brothers to get out of that situation.
44:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So I would talk to guys in prison about getting out, not getting back into shit, not just kind of giving them an optimism that they weren't hearing from everybody around them.
44:20
[SPEAKER_00]: more ways to be a better criminal and, you know, on that stuff, you know, I was trying to be the other voice of a positive reason and direction and then, you know, and, you know, and, you know, some guys were just like, yeah, whatever, you know, and some guys, we, we, we, it resonated with some fellows and, and we're still friends to this day, you know, that they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they, they
44:44
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they paid homage to me to say, man, you know, I appreciate you, you know, sticking with me and giving me that that inspiration to know that I can change, and I know I can be a better person.
44:55
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so that was, that's who I've always wanted to be for others.
45:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, coming out of prison 25 years out of prison, I just wanted to share that
45:12
[SPEAKER_00]: criminals or ex-criminals or ex-convicts or something that you can, you know, stigmatisms, you know, they're all to say, you know, I wanted to be that, that, that, that,
45:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Some of the people, you know, they didn't expect, and you know, maybe some people would meet me at first, see me in a dress shirt and clean cut, then later on they would see me with a wife beaters, I'm on, and they'd be like, oh shit, you know what, you got all these pants and stuff, you know what, well with the hell, you know, and then I'd be like, okay, well, you know, this is who I was, you know, and this is why I'm not.
45:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, that, that,
45:57
[SPEAKER_00]: that view from other people, I've had that a lot through, especially like, you know, being married, having kids, you know, I had a, you know, different businesses before that I would meet people and, and we would connect in, in, in, in just, just in, it now.
46:14
[SPEAKER_00]: conversation and just kind of being there for each other and in certain conversations and then you know, a few months ago by our year ago by then it would, you know, the truth would come out.
46:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I'm not that I held the truth, but it's just in the story and in the relationship it would evolve into sharing that part.
46:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And a lot of times, you know, people were taking back my, you know, like, shit, I never, you know, I've heard so many times, like, I never met a ex-convict before,
46:44
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not like what I imagine.
46:46
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't.
46:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So I'd be like, you know, hey, man, you know, we're all kind of, you know, don't differently, you know, some, some stay hard forever, and they never change, you know, and, you know, I, I, and you've honored to God.
47:03
[SPEAKER_00]: For, for.
47:05
[SPEAKER_00]: taking over who I was and and because that's a render tie I was I had to make the choice to surrender who I was to yeah and that's what they were was able to give me to kind of get out of that and open open a new door and.
47:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, I don't, you know, I don't get preachy with friends.
47:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't get, you know, like, I'm not over religious, I have a post-relationship with my maker.
47:32
[SPEAKER_00]: I have a post-relationship with these Christ and I...
47:37
[SPEAKER_00]: That's my relationship, my personal relationship.
47:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And what people ask, how did you change and stuff then that is what I share with them?
47:44
[SPEAKER_00]: But I don't really push religion off-post because I don't really follow a real religion.
47:51
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just sharing the relationship.
47:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So that kind of helps people kind of overlook the criminal past that they find out about.
48:04
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
48:06
[SPEAKER_01]: What, um, thank you for sharing that.
48:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I hear you.
48:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that, you know, a lot of people would judge Christians.
48:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I certainly did, you know, I come from a very strict Catholic background and my dis-taste for religion and dis-taste for anybody in the Catholic Church, Randy, you know,
48:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I get it.
48:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I get that.
48:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that, you know, today, just with the experience of living for all these, um, the last few decades, uh, being around Christians and non-Christians.
48:37
[SPEAKER_01]: There's just, there's just assholes and every man free.
48:42
[SPEAKER_01]: There's assholes and Christianity and Buddhism and then there's secular people.
48:46
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
48:46
[SPEAKER_01]: The atheists were assholes, you know, so there's assholes everywhere.
48:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, there's the right people in Africa.
48:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's the right people in Africa.
48:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Within the poppin.
48:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, you know what I mean?
48:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and, you know, there's that there's that's, you know, uh, uh, stigmatism with the church as well, you know, and then you bring up, yeah, yeah, and then they, they kind of put you in a box, you know, and so, yeah, yeah, you, you're so right.
49:08
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very good.
49:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, when there's good people, there's good people and I have a lot of Catholic buddies that I've known since I was seven years old and you know, these homies are like still like my best friends of this day and they're older and they're deeply devoutly Catholic razor of whole family's Catholic and
49:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I fuck with that, you know, I really, I really dig these guys and you know, just keep in a real, you know, and I think that I could give respect to wherever you are, just be a good person and you know, I'm cool with that.
49:40
[SPEAKER_01]: in terms of planning for deportation like so you've been knowing this for a long time and I guess the question is in the back of your mind you've always had this and you've known that you're going to get to port it so you're probably making concessions you're probably making you know these plans for
50:01
[SPEAKER_01]: perhaps moving one day.
50:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And can you tell me, what did you plan for?
50:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when the day finally happened, what was the journey to going to Vietnam like?
50:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it like they put you in handcuffs and it was like a brutal experience to go through the whole deportation process?
50:26
[SPEAKER_01]: What was it
50:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
50:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, um, it was always in the back of my mind.
50:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, I wanted to prepare to go.
50:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I was actually my wife and I were going to voluntarily try to go.
50:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but there was no real, uh, news out there that they were going to be picking up Vietnamese, you know, immigrants to deport.
50:54
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
50:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't really go into deep planning yet.
50:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I was just kind of mentally, I was ready to go.
51:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But I guess mentally, I was preparing myself to be ready to go because I really, it really wasn't prepared, you know, I was, I thought I was.
51:15
[SPEAKER_00]: When I was,
51:17
[SPEAKER_00]: uh uh uh we had moved to Portland, Oregon for 15 years, had a lot of coffee shop and a bakery out there and stuff and you know it was just a real I was a um you know just contributing positive energy to the society there and the neighborhood and you know I got real real connected with the community there and um we did live in Portland.
51:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah in Oregon yeah
51:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's important Oregon for how from what you to what you were you in Portland, Oregon.
51:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, nine into twenty three.
51:51
[SPEAKER_01]: Twenty twenty three kid went to New Portland, Oregon, schools, public schools.
51:57
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
51:58
[SPEAKER_00]: They went to schools there.
52:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And then during COVID, we ended up having all the kids had to go to online school.
52:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And then after COVID, we just continued homeschooling them with the intent of going back to Vietnam.
52:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So we were doing kind of baby steps to kind of get there.
52:15
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when I moved back to Texas in 2023, my dad was getting sick.
52:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And so we ended up moving back so we can kind of be there for my dad and stuff.
52:29
[SPEAKER_00]: So, but with not with the intention of, okay, we're gonna, the next step is Vietnam, we're just kind of like, okay, well, one of these days, you know, one of these days is gonna, I was in Houston for like a year and a half, you know, getting into a new job and just kind of things are starting to grow.
52:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Things were starting to look so good, man, you know, like I had, I was making good money, I was helping my friends company, just, it was just everything was looking great.
52:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I went to report to ICE report, thinking, you know, hey, it's just another day, right?
53:06
[SPEAKER_00]: This is another, another annual report.
53:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I was with my team, we were on a job site.
53:13
[SPEAKER_00]: I left to go to immigration and I go.
53:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey, man.
53:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to see my immigration report.
53:20
[SPEAKER_00]: If I don't come back, you know, I'm going to be a Vietnam, you know, and I was just like, I'm out of here, baby, you know, yeah, I was just joking around.
53:27
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, I'm out of here, you know, if you don't see me come back after lunch and they're like, what day was that?
53:32
[SPEAKER_00]: What day was that?
53:33
[SPEAKER_00]: That was March 10th, I've only said.
53:40
[SPEAKER_00]: March 26th year.
53:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
53:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
53:41
[SPEAKER_00]: 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, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,
53:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So I was in September, 225 is when you reported to ICE.
54:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, September, September.
54:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I reported to ICE, you know, not everybody's on the uncontrollable piece, you know, joking around.
54:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I was just kidding with them.
54:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And then next, you know, I didn't show up and show back up to the work site.
54:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they're, you know, I had a call when I, when I get to the report, I guess, just to kind of give you the details on how them went down.
54:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I went to report.
54:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And usually they just kind of give you a piece of paper and you're on your way on this particular day they go hey you need to come back into the office and I I really didn't think anything of it actually is going to go in there and interview you real quick.
54:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So I I the officer Open the door and I walk through the door and then the door slams behind me right and he says sit out.
54:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And he pulls out these cuffs and he starts cuffing mine.
54:56
[SPEAKER_00]: He stays right in front of me when he's cuffs.
54:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And he goes, you will not be walking through those doors to the United States of America ever again.
55:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, what the fuck, what would you say?
55:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was like, he was like, now, now I'm under the cuff you up.
55:16
[SPEAKER_00]: And once again, you would not be walking through those doors to America ever again.
55:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just, I was just like, I mean, I knew he wasn't kidding.
55:26
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and I knew he wasn't, this wasn't preliminary.
55:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It was, this was, it was going down, you know, and I don't, yeah.
55:33
[SPEAKER_01]: This is it.
55:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, this is it.
55:34
[SPEAKER_00]: So he, you know, he cuffed me up.
55:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was like, man, can I make one phone call, please?
55:38
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, can I call my wife?
55:39
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and then let her know.
55:41
[SPEAKER_00]: It was like, you got two minutes.
55:44
[SPEAKER_00]: grab my phone, and then you call my wife, and I was like, they got me, I'm getting deported.
55:52
[SPEAKER_00]: These call, you know, my buddies and I entertain, let them know, I'll not come back to the job site.
55:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'll give you our call, you know, soon whenever I find out, you know, what's going on?
56:05
[SPEAKER_00]: More details.
56:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, that's two minutes with like two seconds,
56:15
[SPEAKER_00]: takes me to the Iceholding Facility and, you know, I end up in there for six months.
56:23
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, for six months.
56:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
56:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And what was it like in the Iceholding Facility?
56:32
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I got,
56:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I got to say that it was different than Chris, you know, it was actually harder than Chris to to to go through that because, you know, you're in there with like a bunch of Latinos from, you know, Salvador, Mexico, Honduras, like everywhere, right?
56:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You're with all these different Latinos and these guys coming in two, two days, two weeks they're out of there, right, two, a couple days, they're out and then you're in there
57:04
[SPEAKER_00]: people from Sudan, you know, like Africa, a lot of Africans, a bunch of Asians, right?
57:11
[SPEAKER_00]: At this point, they're their grab in Asians, like crazy, right?
57:13
[SPEAKER_00]: They grab a Vietnamese to get a couple of Chinese guys in there, but mostly there's a lot of Vietnamese and they're not at this point.
57:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, but it wasn't harder than prison in the sense of the,
57:32
[SPEAKER_00]: the violence and the gangs because in immigration everyone's on this you know they're teetering on getting deported and so they're not wanting to cause any trouble so there was you know the violence was was less I mean there's still fights you know and just basic fights but there was no real like real violence and prison stuff you know prison dogs and so
57:55
[SPEAKER_00]: But it was tough on the fact that, like, mentally, you know, there's no endgame, right?
58:02
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no endgame, like in prison, you know, you got to sense, you sense, and you're gonna be out in parole.
58:08
[SPEAKER_00]: In immigration, you're thinking, shit, I'm gonna be fucking deported.
58:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know shit about this country that I'm going to, you know, so that's, it's a whole another different type of,
58:21
[SPEAKER_00]: stress and strain on your, you know, on you, right?
58:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was pretty, that was really tough.
58:28
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, I tried to, I did my best in there to, to state positive.
58:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and I, I worked on, you know, like I said, I was graphic designer before.
58:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I put up my pen and paper and I just kept designing, every fucking day where I was designing new designs.
58:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was kind of keeping myself,
58:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, gravity is busy, but then also kept myself grounded by taking a journal and I wrote a journal every day every fucking every day for six months I wrote a my journal and uh, so I had this, you know, a couple hundred pages of of of of like a memoir of that time
59:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And so did your wife get to come visit your kids get to come visit during that time they did the first three months We were behind we were I was in another facility that was more I guess a little bit more maximum security So they had The last with the phone, you know just like the typical which you envision prison visits look like with the glass
59:27
[SPEAKER_00]: So that was real, you know, just that disconnection from your wife and kids and that was that was really, really hard to to deal with, but After three months, they transferred me to another facility that was more like a stepping stone to actually being on the plane to be deported.
59:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And that facility you're able to get contact visits.
59:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So.
59:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and.
59:53
[SPEAKER_00]: When I first got into immigration, they gave me a paper and said, we have 90 days to deport you, right?
59:59
[SPEAKER_00]: So I got this, I'm thinking three months, right?
1:00:01
[SPEAKER_00]: From I would think, and we're going to be out by Christmas time.
1:00:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, so from September to Christmas, I'll be out by Christmas.
1:00:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, at my 87-day mark, the hand of me a paper is said, we have another 90 days to deport you.
1:00:17
[SPEAKER_00]: I was like, what the fuck does the first paper even mean that?
1:00:21
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I'm saying?
1:00:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it says, we have to, and all this craziness, you know, and then at the end of that 90 days, they just give you another piece of paper for another 90 days, you know?
1:00:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, I ended up,
1:00:32
[SPEAKER_00]: in there for six months, but there was guys in there for like year and a half, you know, two, almost two years before they got deported.
1:00:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's no apparent reasons.
1:00:42
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no particular details on why they were there for that long, it was just they were just lost in the sauce man, you know, and so I, you know, my six months is nothing compared to some of these, you know, mom, mom, mom, brothers that, and it's in there for over a year stuff.
1:01:02
[SPEAKER_00]: at, I think it was about two and a half months, they let me know, you will be on the next plane in can two weeks, you know, and so then, then now like the real nerves start kicking in like oh shit, you know, where am I going, you know, what am I going to do and all that stuff starts just just coming down on you and.
1:01:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, but you know, I, I, I still like I still stayed positive as best I could, I read, you know, my Bible and I did some fellowshiping with some brothers in there and just kind of lifted our spirits to know that I just felt like like you were saying before, you know, there's this this calling on my, on me and there's something in my spirit that says,
1:01:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's what I share with my brothers and they're two, a lot of them were just, you know, they hung their heads really low because they were like, I don't even fucking speak Vietnamese.
1:02:02
[SPEAKER_00]: That good, you know, I mean, I don't I left when I was, you know, same age as you and stuff and then so.
1:02:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I just did my best to try and lift brothers up and let them know they got you know you got skills man, you know and you know if you speak English and you speak a little bit of it means you you you're highly skilled and you're highly favorable in Vietnam and so you know that that that's that's how I kept myself.
1:02:29
[SPEAKER_00]: uh, lifted, despite lifting up brothers.
1:02:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And so when it came to, to, to gain time to, to go, um, I was ready, man.
1:02:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I was, I was, yeah, barefoot, um, but I mean, that doesn't take away from the, the fear that it was, was coming on me, you know, or the, or the, the, the, the, I guess the stresses of about to land in this country that I know nothing about, um,
1:02:58
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, I'm just a tiny, I'm thinking when all of the brothers out here right now who are facing deportation, like, what would you say to somebody who is really thinking about, like, damn, I know my number is up next.
1:03:16
[SPEAKER_01]: What would you tell a person who's going to be
1:03:26
[SPEAKER_01]: right now and during that six month unknowing journey of staying in definitely inside of this lock up.
1:03:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I would say what I've said to brothers that I've actually had to talk to, that are out there, about to go to, you know, they're about to go to report in a few months, and I tell them, you know, don't run, don't run from the laws, man, because you're just going to live this life of a fugitive, and that's not good for you, not good for your family.
1:04:02
[SPEAKER_00]: So don't run, man, you just go report just just just go, you know, going there.
1:04:10
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I just now being here.
1:04:16
[SPEAKER_00]: I can tell them that it's not as bad as I thought, and it's not as bad as you think.
1:04:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the enormous, awesome country.
1:04:25
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the economy, it's just skyrocketing.
1:04:27
[SPEAKER_00]: The people are super welcoming, super nice.
1:04:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And so don't fear that you're going to be discriminated over here.
1:04:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Because that's what we all did.
1:04:35
[SPEAKER_00]: We all all of us that were in the deportation that obviously had never went back to visit because we couldn't.
1:04:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Most of the everyone of them were thinking we're going to get back here.
1:04:47
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to call us you kill.
1:04:49
[SPEAKER_00]: They're not going to, they're not going to fuck with us.
1:04:51
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to look down on us and stuff.
1:04:53
[SPEAKER_00]: But they, but I've never, I've never felt that since I've been here.
1:04:56
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, maybe that was how they treated, you know, people were treated like that.
1:05:00
[SPEAKER_01]: That's a bit of a means of Americans treat,
1:05:08
[SPEAKER_01]: That Vietnamese American just treating fucking Vietnamese Americans, you know?
1:05:11
[SPEAKER_01]: We're real.
1:05:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Vietnam?
1:05:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, people in Vietnam are like, you know, wait, you went of us, you know?
1:05:16
[SPEAKER_01]: They're probably not going to eat.
1:05:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not like that.
1:05:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm not walking in your shoes, so I don't know.
1:05:22
[SPEAKER_01]: But I get imagine people in America are community doing that, you know?
1:05:26
[SPEAKER_00]: not for real.
1:05:28
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's this buddies that are all like tatted up, you know, and everywhere sleeped out.
1:05:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're like, man, when I get back there, they're going to be, you know, I'm going to stand out like a sore thump, you know?
1:05:38
[SPEAKER_00]: But do like, no, there's, you know, it makes people who doesn't have to have to admit this girls all sleep now, you know, and make tats and everything, and
1:05:45
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, they got normal.
1:05:47
[SPEAKER_00]: They got those guys, you know, those those those those those those those cholo barbers and stuff, you know, and then it's like, oh, guys, those guys are trying to have more than I'll tell my boy, oh, they're like, those guys are trying to have more than you, man.
1:05:57
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, and when you talk to those barbers, because I've been to the that shop, when you talk to them, they're like the most polite northern, you know, accents.
1:06:06
[SPEAKER_01]: They do do like that's cool.
1:06:09
[SPEAKER_01]: They're really soft-spoken, and but they look like gangsters, they look real hot.
1:06:14
[SPEAKER_01]: The reason why this is important is because the visual signals that we have on our bodies in America, in Vietnamese American society, and in American society, is very different from the signaling that's happening actually happening in Saigon, tattooed
1:06:31
[SPEAKER_01]: people in tattoos in in Saigon are not talking hard like the way of Vietnamese American would talk if they're all tied it up.
1:06:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just not it's just apples and oranges, you know, it's very different.
1:06:46
[SPEAKER_01]: They're looking at you.
1:06:47
[SPEAKER_01]: They're like, um, he's probably just a normal person who's art, you know, and don't realize there's like prison tattoos.
1:06:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:06:54
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't, they don't,
1:06:59
[SPEAKER_00]: correlate that to prison as much as as much as ex-conviction.
1:07:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:07:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we do it America and then you know, the values, ex-conz that are going back to Vietnam, they're thinking, oh shit, you know, they're stare, they're staring at me, they're staring at me, I'm like, bro, they're probably admiring your tattoos, if not, you know, looking at them just still, he must be you give or something, but they're not.
1:07:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
1:07:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I mean, they're, of course, everyone makes a judgment when they see another person, right?
1:07:27
[SPEAKER_00]: But they're not judging you negatively, you know, like Nick, but people think, you know?
1:07:31
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, I share that with brothers that haven't got here yet.
1:07:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't, don't, don't, don't fear it, man, you know, it's, you know, just embrace it, bro.
1:07:39
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, just get over here.
1:07:41
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a good life over here, man.
1:07:43
[SPEAKER_00]: People are, you know, our money goes afar, you know, our money goes long way over here.
1:07:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to have a ton of money to survive
1:07:54
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, but I, you know, Danny, what was it like once you got out of the detention center onto the plane and were you shackled on the plane?
1:08:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it was wrong.
1:08:06
[SPEAKER_00]: That was that was pretty pretty horrible experience.
1:08:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I would say because I heard that once we got out in team,
1:08:23
[SPEAKER_00]: a dorm.
1:08:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And they had us all staying around there for like about 24 hours and just waiting in this dorm.
1:08:31
[SPEAKER_00]: So they put us, they give us our street clothes back on, which was stinking old clothes has been sitting there for six months, right?
1:08:37
[SPEAKER_00]: So they put this clothes back on us.
1:08:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we, we get shackled up from, you know, shackled like this.
1:08:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they put a chain around your waist
1:08:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they check on your feet on a chain together.
1:08:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you're literally looking like, you know, a Hebrew slave, bro, you know what I mean?
1:09:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're just, like, you know, and you can't really walk normal and you're here, you're armed like this.
1:09:06
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they from there, you know, you get on a bus, right, for our, our situation, we went on a bus.
1:09:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we went to Louisiana from Houston.
1:09:16
[SPEAKER_00]: That bus ride was, you know, long,
1:09:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we get to Louisiana and we sit in the bus for like eight hours just sitting in this bus at the skate waiting for them to open this gate.
1:09:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Once they open this gate, we go in there.
1:09:31
[SPEAKER_00]: We bring us towards the plane and we sit there for like another four hours waiting to get on the plane and we're just like, what the fuck is this older, you know what I'm saying?
1:09:40
[SPEAKER_00]: You can get us, get us a fuck out of here.
1:09:42
[SPEAKER_00]: We're all like, we're just getting you know, we're here.
1:09:43
[SPEAKER_00]: You get us on this fucking plane, let's go, you know, but you know, which is in this, this, this, this, from one case to another, just situation, right?
1:09:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Once they Once they start escorting us off the plane, I mean, I'll have the bus to get on the plane.
1:10:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you know, it's like the, it's, we're on the tarmac, you know, we're not, it's not, it's not like a, like what it's not like the corridor or like, yeah, you're on the fucking tarmac, how does book, and then you walk walk out there, and you got to walk across this tarmac.
1:10:18
[SPEAKER_00]: climb up these stairs and get in there and, you know, and, you know, people are like, this, you can't walk like that, bro, you know what I mean?
1:10:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you're, you know, you get up there and these guys, you know, they're not, they're not the most courteous, you know, they're not like, they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not, they're not, you know what I mean, they're not by the sentence, they're freaking ice officers, and they're very,
1:10:41
[SPEAKER_00]: They're very on guard, right?
1:10:43
[SPEAKER_00]: They got the guards up, they got the best on, they got all their stuff on.
1:10:47
[SPEAKER_00]: They're ready to share it, yeah.
1:10:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're ready, first, for someone to make a move.
1:10:55
[SPEAKER_00]: They, you know, we get on this plane.
1:10:58
[SPEAKER_00]: We, I mean, we're just like shoulder to shoulder, the whole plane's packed, like 200 people on this plane, 200 plus.
1:11:09
[SPEAKER_00]: half of the player now was to have maybe like a quarter of the plane was going to louse and then the rest were going to Vietnam.
1:11:17
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they also had like about maybe about eight or 10 girls on the plane, Vietnamese girls.
1:11:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I think there was like a couple of louds girls too.
1:11:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And these girls were like, they're freaking like nail nail salantex, bro.
1:11:29
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
1:11:30
[SPEAKER_00]: That's got picked up, you know?
1:11:32
[SPEAKER_00]: And they're all shackled up and I'm like,
1:11:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they're picking nail techs, bro.
1:11:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And then I kind of do nothing to you.
1:11:37
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
1:11:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So you know, they might give you a manicure or something on the plane or something, bro.
1:11:41
[SPEAKER_00]: They'd let make her shackles off, bro.
1:11:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, so yeah, man.
1:11:47
[SPEAKER_00]: So they, you know, we're all the plane, you know, just packed in like short deans.
1:11:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, the plane ride, we went from Louisiana to Alaska.
1:11:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And we said Alaska for some hours.
1:12:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And then from there, we flew to Guam.
1:12:04
[SPEAKER_00]: and then from Guam to Laos, dropped off all the the Nals guys and then made our way to be enough and shackled the whole time for the whole time.
1:12:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And then when we got to Vietnam, they kept the shackled all the way to, we got, well, they, they unshackled our feet so we could walk to the door and then they, right when we got to the, you know, to the exit door, one by one,
1:12:34
[SPEAKER_00]: and then they told us to step off the plane.
1:12:36
[SPEAKER_00]: But none of these officers, these US officers and the marshals, they are all stood in within the plane.
1:12:42
[SPEAKER_00]: They never, they never even, one put out in to be enough.
1:12:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So they just stayed on the plane, got us off.
1:12:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, there's a long staircase to go down.
1:12:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And we go down and there's like just a line of going on officers like, I mean,
1:13:02
[SPEAKER_00]: then there's a ton of a bright and you don't know what to expect.
1:13:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
1:13:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And you're thinking like, people are thinking, you know, the gang is going to treat you like shit.
1:13:09
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to fucking beat your ass.
1:13:11
[SPEAKER_00]: They're going to fucking lock you up.
1:13:12
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't know what's going to happen.
1:13:13
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, but man, I got to tell you man, these officers were so
1:13:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice.
1:13:19
[SPEAKER_00]: I heard they were very courteous.
1:13:22
[SPEAKER_00]: They were like, you know, a watcher step coming off the stairs, you know, like, you know, they, you know, we're unshackling at this time, but they were still like, hey, you know, watch your step, super respectful when they spoke to us.
1:13:33
[SPEAKER_00]: They treated us with dignity, that we haven't been treated with dignity for for so long, you know, and still.
1:13:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for for for, and they, you know, these guys on the playing role.
1:13:42
[SPEAKER_00]: The officers, you know, I'm not going to trash talk them, but they treated us like trash bro.
1:13:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, this, this, just a quick story on how they, just to kind of give you an example how they would treat us.
1:13:52
[SPEAKER_00]: This one guy, he needed to use the restroom, right?
1:13:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And we were approaching the, the, the, the airspace of Vietnam.
1:14:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And so they said, you know, we're not going to let you go.
1:14:06
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, we still had hours before we were in a land, right?
1:14:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And so this guy was like, hey, I need a peat, you know?
1:14:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they said, no.
1:14:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the guy, he then check was in he stood up and he's like, he starts cursing at the news, like, I'm gonna freaking pee in my pants, you know, I'm peeing the seat if you don't let me go fucking pee.
1:14:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Like then they were like, the other yourself, I don't give a fuck.
1:14:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And he sat there, he was like, well, he was like, fuck you, so he started, you know,
1:14:33
[SPEAKER_00]: yelling and cursing at these guys, then they came, bro, they came over, they grabbed them, they threw them in the back of the plane, and they put them in this, um, uh, I forgot what the name was, I forgot what they were calling the bag, but it, it, it was literally a giant duffel bag, and they put them inside the duffel bag and they sift it up to its neck.
1:14:54
[SPEAKER_00]: like this.
1:14:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And they had it like this.
1:14:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And so he's just like inside the stuff back laying on the floor in the back of the plane.
1:15:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And they were like, um, you know, if you, if you, if you cause any more trouble, we're going to put your head in that bag, you know, and so so when they, when that happened a bunch of Vietnamese guys were like,
1:15:13
[SPEAKER_00]: They weren't writing, but they were, you know, like, that's fucked up, you know, they were like, hey man, let him out, you know, he's just me loud, yeah.
1:15:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, they were just like, just let him pee, dude, he'll be back in a seat, you know, like you're causing more trouble, but just not letting him take a two second whiz, you know?
1:15:26
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, and so.
1:15:28
[SPEAKER_00]: And so all these guys are starting to make an uproar and a couple of the officers and they're all going around like, hey, keep it down, keep it down, and stuff.
1:15:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And what are the Vietnamese guys like?
1:15:39
[SPEAKER_01]: We could take these guys, even if we're in cuffs, you don't?
1:15:42
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, shit.
1:15:43
[SPEAKER_01]: We could make them, you know, we could take these guys.
1:15:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And then, you know, some of the other guys are like, nah, hey, we're not gonna go there, you know what I mean?
1:15:49
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, we can voice our opinion, but you know, we're not gonna go rush these guys.
1:15:53
[SPEAKER_00]: It's somebody who was like, that's Russian.
1:15:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's rush them, you know?
1:15:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, we're like, you know, so it was madness, bro.
1:15:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And these Paul, these officers, you know, I think there was about, I say there was about maybe 20.
1:16:06
[SPEAKER_00]: 20 staff, some of them were officers, some of them were there to attend to the officers, I guess.
1:16:13
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, they started getting real tents in there.
1:16:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's so finally, the one of the officers like, I guess he was maybe higher ranked, who's it?
1:16:23
[SPEAKER_01]: It's nothing guy out and let him go pee.
1:16:25
[SPEAKER_01]: So he's got to shut the fuck up.
1:16:26
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, wow.
1:16:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So then they'd let the guy out.
1:16:30
[SPEAKER_00]: They told him, hey, you know, we let you out.
1:16:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you going to shut up?
1:16:32
[SPEAKER_00]: He's like, yeah, that's the only reason I'm freaking making up for is because I can either use the restroom and you're out freaking not let me go.
1:16:39
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyways, so they let him go and then things quieted down and then we, you know, that's when we kind of went everything calmed down and then we were able to exit the plane.
1:16:50
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's just a method that we should.
1:16:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, a necessary role, you know.
1:16:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And so anyways, that's the lack of dignity that we received, right?
1:17:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And then once we got off the plane, these officers were just, you know, you need to use the restroom, you know, like just the real real human decency man.
1:17:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And then they said, you know, the officers are like, you're a free man now.
1:17:18
[SPEAKER_00]: you're in Vietnam.
1:17:19
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have a record anymore.
1:17:21
[SPEAKER_00]: It's in your chance to start a new life.
1:17:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't bring all that.
1:17:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't bring no trouble here.
1:17:26
[SPEAKER_00]: And they won't be no trouble.
1:17:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And they just, you know, hearing those words from, from, from these officers,
1:17:34
[SPEAKER_00]: hearing, seeing them helping you do your paperwork, you know, them escorting you onto your, whatever vehicles people are taking buses to their cities and stuff.
1:17:45
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I ended up taking a plane from Hanoi down to Saigon and then from Saigon, we got a bus and we went to get, yeah.
1:17:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But just the whole way, man, these guys were just so respectful, man.
1:17:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, we, we, we just had a whole new respect for these guys that we didn't see, man.
1:18:05
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't.
1:18:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and this is what I'm talking about.
1:18:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I say this all the time, it's like, I don't think that,
1:18:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, call on a whole damn country and the Vietnamese government communists and labeling every time you turn left-right and it's like, communist, communist, you can't do that because human beings
1:18:29
[SPEAKER_01]: in different situations and different places are just human beings and I think that when we think about Americans there's a lot of good attributes to Americans but Americans on a plane who have a little bit of power over these guys who are getting deported.
1:18:50
[SPEAKER_01]: are ugly inside who are not going to let you go to the bathroom and then you got communist going and quote unquote on the ground receiving deported brothers from Vietnamese American society acting like human decent human fucking people and that's
1:19:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I think why we have to always be really aware of these labels that we give to each other in society because they can be, it could be just,
1:19:26
[SPEAKER_01]: God don't even know what the word is.
1:19:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I think the more I do this work the more I just realize like human beings are just going to be human beings good or bad wherever they are and we can't even there's no longer this like you know conservative liberal Communists fucking just
1:19:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I just think now like human beings are human beings and when brothers are about to be deported from America, you just realize that on the other side there's Vietnamese people that look at you like a Vietnamese human and I think that they connect with you from this very cultural like we are like brothers and sisters in
1:20:07
[SPEAKER_01]: in an ancient, you know, we share the same blood line with each other.
1:20:11
[SPEAKER_01]: If we take it all the way back to hundreds of years ago, and this war happened in the 60s and 70s, and it just like broke everybody and shipped everybody all across the world.
1:20:20
[SPEAKER_01]: But now, you know, we just have to realize that we share so much DNA and blood lines with these people in this big ass country
1:20:33
[SPEAKER_01]: recognize that on the other end, there's warm receiving souls that are willing to take are deported brothers and sisters in.
1:20:43
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so true, man.
1:20:46
[SPEAKER_00]: That's so true.
1:20:47
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's how I'm glad you asked that question for me to share that because, you know, but these brothers that are going and going to go through this or about to or or in the midst of it,
1:20:59
[SPEAKER_00]: I want them to hear this and I want their families to know, that it's not like what they think, you know, it's not, it's not, they're they're they're the old
1:21:11
[SPEAKER_00]: you come, you know, man, communist, you know, this just that mindset that we thought that they work, and we know growing up, you hear the horror stories.
1:21:23
[SPEAKER_01]: But because that was true in the 70s, that was true in the reeducation camp.
1:21:27
[SPEAKER_01]: All of that evil and dark shit that was happening
1:21:31
[SPEAKER_01]: that we cannot discount the fact that there are men in our parents generation that went through that absolute nightmare hell of a fucking life right we we know that but we also know today that's not the same stuff the same people now the same people and you know those those memories that they hold on to you know you can't discount that you know they went through that
1:21:56
[SPEAKER_00]: But they hopefully they're able to open their their minds up in the hearts of to see that people are different, you know, the younger not just the younger generation, but you know, some of those old guys that did that shit back then they had to live with it too, you know, and so hopefully they they're able to forgive and learn to forgive others forgive their past, you know, but you know, like even my aunt when I got here.
1:22:22
[SPEAKER_00]: I had to have Gonglan officer show up at the house to help we do paper work and interview my aunt and stuff like that.
1:22:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, they were all in fear, right?
1:22:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Because they're there from here.
1:22:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But when they hear Gonglan, they get, they get tensed up too.
1:22:38
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they tensed up.
1:22:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But then this officer was, you know, just really nice guy.
1:22:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Really just,
1:22:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Friendly guy and he was making comments to them as like you know about me and you know don't worry about this and that and He's actually became a friend.
1:22:58
[SPEAKER_00]: He's actually a friend and we we we go have coffee and hang out and you know, he's a good guy Man, and he's just a human being that like you said man, you don't you don't
1:23:07
[SPEAKER_00]: put this, this, this, this image of on on someone that he is, it's not even, it's it's unrighteous to do that to this person, right?
1:23:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Like you can hold a memory of 50 years ago on somebody that's the only 30 years old.
1:23:24
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
1:23:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just right.
1:23:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just right.
1:23:29
[SPEAKER_01]: He's again.
1:23:30
[SPEAKER_01]: That guy's young enough to be our son.
1:23:31
[SPEAKER_01]: Shut up.
1:23:33
[SPEAKER_01]: You're all dude.
1:23:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Young enough to be our son.
1:23:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Literally young enough to be our son.
1:23:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And then like, here we are, right?
1:23:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:23:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a creepy shit ever.
1:23:41
[SPEAKER_01]: 28-year-old Gongan kid, you know, I'm like,
1:23:44
[SPEAKER_01]: system I can young cop, you know, and you just need to, you know, in a system that I don't know, it's perplexing to me sometimes.
1:23:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm happy that, you know, that you're in a good place now.
1:23:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And I want to hear what your life has been, you know, ever since you walked into or walked out of that plane.
1:24:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, well, you know,
1:24:07
[SPEAKER_00]: that the video, that my first video on Instagram, that video was inspired by one of my friends and his wife.
1:24:15
[SPEAKER_00]: They were like, bro, you know, I called them because they live in Saigon.
1:24:18
[SPEAKER_00]: They moved here from from America and the brothers and people over here.
1:24:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And I called them one of the, you know, first people I called after I called my wife.
1:24:26
[SPEAKER_00]: I called when I was like,
1:24:27
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm here, you know, whatever he was and they were like, you got to pick a video of yourself and post it posted on Instagram, like, e-meeting and I was like, well, I was like, I'm not even, you know, the, the, the, the, the, you know, face of the content and work out, yeah, I'm not the content creator kind of dude or nothing like that, you know, and then I was like, all right, though, you know, so I hung up with them and I just busted out the camera and I was like, yo, you know, I'm here to Vietnam, that and I, you know, and then, you know,
1:24:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I posted it and but you know what I mean I just I just didn't think that that was going to go anywhere really and then my my My three days later my cousin calls me from Florida and she's like you know you're fucking video You know you go you know you go you fucking go viral and I was like what are you talking about she was like that video You put on Instagram if you didn't lately and I was like no, and I looked at it and I was like Picking
1:25:21
[SPEAKER_00]: I was in the views and freaking, I got like 4,000 followers in like 3 days and I was like, what the hell, it just happened, you know what I mean?
1:25:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that was that was pretty exciting to see that, you know, kind of perspiring, but then, you know, just like actually like the emotions that were going through me when I got off, you know, we got out just like,
1:25:42
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm here, I mean, in the motherland.
1:25:44
[SPEAKER_00]: That's where I was born.
1:25:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Look, I'm surrounded by my people.
1:25:48
[SPEAKER_00]: I've never been surrounded by this many Vietnamese in my life.
1:25:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Besides, it's a book I've taught in Bosa, but this is different.
1:25:57
[SPEAKER_00]: This is like, it was really cool to see all the Vietnamese people just kind of living, doing their thing at the airport and everything, but it was, it was just,
1:26:12
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what the words for it are, it's just like I was, you know, he's exciting, but then it was, you know, a little bit of fear of like, you know, what I do, you know, this is strange land here and stuff was was was you know, you know, when you describe full of toy, you've been around full of toy, you know, you know, when I think about that, I just had a thought.
1:26:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm going to start using this analogy from now on.
1:26:35
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like
1:26:37
[SPEAKER_01]: When you are in Vietnam and you are around all these Vietnamese people, it literally is like a solid gold bar.
1:26:45
[SPEAKER_01]: But when you're like full of talk, it's like gold plate it.
1:26:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, on the outside, it's gold plated, right?
1:26:58
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, all right, it looks like gold, but on the side, as you know, it's like, hollow as fuck, there's some other material that is, you know, copper or whatever, but when you're in Vietnam, you like, you break that bar of gold, and you know, inside that bar of gold is more gold.
1:27:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just a solid bar of gold.
1:27:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And we, in it, you're like, there's a motherfuckin' solid bar of gold.
1:27:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And then we, like, foot on top, you're like, they should just gold, but it's just gold plated.
1:27:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, that's perfect.
1:27:28
[SPEAKER_00]: That's perfect.
1:27:31
[SPEAKER_00]: That's perfect.
1:27:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's like, that's that's it, man, it's it and you build that solid that solid that solid goes like that her you know that that
1:27:46
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when you have a solid gold, if you had a bar going in, you would admire it and you would admire it.
1:27:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:27:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I embrace it, right?
1:27:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And you would take it in close to you.
1:27:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's how you feel when you're in Vietnam, you know, when I would got here, I was like, I feel like, man, you know, this is, this is something I wanted to embrace.
1:28:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's totally, you're in a new area.
1:28:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It's kind of like, you know, where we were yet, and stuff, you know, trying to find your way.
1:28:08
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a good, not fear, but it's a good, um,
1:28:16
[SPEAKER_00]: change, you know, it's good.
1:28:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
1:28:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you know, you're, you want to receive the change and you want to accept it.
1:28:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's how I bought that novelty is going to wear off, you know, people, people are going to be assholes, you know, I'm telling you, there's a lot of, there's a lot, there's, there's a lot, they're not.
1:28:35
[SPEAKER_00]: In a sense, if it's an American would call them an asshole, but I just say that that's just how they are, you know, some of them were just rude, you know, but that's that rudeness is just part of the culture, you know, it's like, it's not really, so then it's not being rude, they're just being them, they're just being, they're just being straight like, yeah, you can get the fuck out my way dude, you know what I'm saying?
1:28:57
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, like, like, New Yorkers, you know, that's just, that's the, you know, that's in culture in New York, that's the bunch of what happened, but other people from other states be like, that's rude, but that's just their culture.
1:29:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, they said the culture here is, you know, but, but then there's a different sense of like a softness within that moodness, right?
1:29:14
[SPEAKER_00]: There's like this, this, courtesy, right?
1:29:18
[SPEAKER_00]: This, this, this, it's like, it's like, it's like,
1:29:21
[SPEAKER_00]: like, ultra-curious and like, like, you know, you know, you know, like, very, like, you know,
1:29:28
[SPEAKER_00]: very, very respectful and, you know, I think there's a, the other, and, you know, there's, there's, it's kind of, they're kind of rude, but then, I mean, they're not rude, like I said, they're not, I mean, they're not rude, but it's just, you have to learn that their rudeness that you think is rude, not as your, their kosher, you know?
1:29:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:29:44
[SPEAKER_01]: So, what's the next, what's the next year, three years looked like for you?
1:29:50
[SPEAKER_01]: What, what do you have in mind?
1:29:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'll start at the three-year move,
1:29:59
[SPEAKER_00]: In three years or so, I hope to be able to figure out a way to be able to give back to the states, because there is a way, there's lawyers and there's attorneys that are going to bat for us to be able to, to, uh, sponge our old cases.
1:30:21
[SPEAKER_00]: And there's judges that are sponging these old, you know,
1:30:28
[SPEAKER_00]: to be really to re-sponsored back to the state.
1:30:32
[SPEAKER_00]: So, you know, yeah, I'm not pushing for that immediately.
1:30:36
[SPEAKER_00]: There's some guys that are like really trying to get on that right away.
1:30:38
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not really pushing for that right now.
1:30:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But I know that, you know, hopefully in three, five years or so, I can be able to make my way back.
1:30:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But until then, I want to build some sort of
1:30:52
[SPEAKER_00]: ground, but they're putting fear and Vietnam in business in some sort of business.
1:30:59
[SPEAKER_00]: And right now, I'm going to be starting to get into the vacation rental business.
1:31:07
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, we rented a home and then we're going to the arbitrage.
1:31:13
[SPEAKER_00]: to rerun it and it's kind of start from there, I'm also working on, you know, all those designs I was talking about from in there, what I was doing was I was designing a pair of shirts, I was designing teachers and hats, which is good positive, you know, powering messages and so I'm taking those designs and
1:31:36
[SPEAKER_00]: digitizing and putting on on my computer and just kind of redoing the designs and eventually, soon here, I want to be dropping a collection of apparel.
1:31:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's something I'm working on.
1:31:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Working on my book, I've been writing my book still, kind of continuing to get that wrapped up and finished.
1:32:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Get that book out there.
1:32:04
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's the few projects I'm working on and I'm also working with one of my friends.
1:32:12
[SPEAKER_00]: my friend and her and her partner have a company and in Houston they're doing some work here in Vietnam it's a gone and they want me and my wife to be the ambassadors in Vietnam or their company in America and so we'll be kind of like the liaison between the Vietnamese company and the American company and so that's another little project that we're working on as well.
1:32:35
[SPEAKER_00]: So those are things that I'm working on to gain profit, but at the same time I also want to establish that.
1:32:44
[SPEAKER_00]: So when I do go back to America, I can always have something to come back to Vietnam for.
1:32:49
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not trying to go back to America and just be gone.
1:32:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I really want to be able to travel back and forth.
1:33:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the community here, so to have them, you know, kind of just building the, I mean they kind of be building on us all, you know, but I want to be part of that wave and ride that wave, but also you don't give gobs to others here too.
1:33:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I also see you as a speaker one day too.
1:33:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I do.
1:33:22
[SPEAKER_01]: I think your energy, I think the way you communicate is really lovely.
1:33:27
[SPEAKER_01]: It's clear.
1:33:28
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a positive, it's uplifting.
1:33:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I can see you touring back in the US and all over Vietnam telling people what your story.
1:33:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Because ultimately what your story, yeah, ultimately what your story does is it uplifts people.
1:33:45
[SPEAKER_01]: If you have in a bad day and you hear your story, I'm like,
1:33:50
[SPEAKER_01]: probably is not so bad.
1:33:52
[SPEAKER_01]: And then here's somebody who can just kind of like, uh, offer you an alternate view of like the way life can be lived.
1:33:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, man, I appreciate that, bro.
1:34:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I really appreciate that, bro.
1:34:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It, um,
1:34:04
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, that would that would be an honor for me to be able to share my story with with the world and that and this right here, you know, this this podcast right here and it's an honor for me to be here on your podcast and to be able to share my story to help us, you know, it's not for my personal gain, but if I can, you know, like just the whole.
1:34:27
[SPEAKER_00]: the visual of a soldier reaching back out down, you know, to lift another soldier out, you know, is this, is my, is my mantra in my life, you know, to do that.
1:34:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if I continue doing that with my life, you know, whether in here in America, you know, if I can speak to folks, or do that in Vietnam, I mean, anything out of Vietnam in America or, you know, wherever I go with it,
1:34:54
[SPEAKER_00]: would be that would be glorious for me to be able to do that.
1:34:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you said it's not a personal game for you to, you know, and I see that.
1:35:04
[SPEAKER_01]: But for me, this is a personal game to sit and talk to you is a personal game.
1:35:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And I say this because I hope that other brothers who are deported.
1:35:16
[SPEAKER_01]: can sit with me so they can give me my personal gain and here's what I mean by that.
1:35:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a lot of brothers are afraid to come up until their stories, you know, and I get that, you know, like media people like me exploiting their stories.
1:35:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'm going to let you know now.
1:35:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to let the brothers know.
1:35:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to exploit you because this is no gain.
1:35:40
[SPEAKER_01]: This personal gain helps me.
1:35:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to press dudes all I'm going to press guy all the time Now I struggle with existing in a society, you know, because I have no other stresses other than like my own brain Doing its own number right like as an artist and at somebody who's just living the life of just I would call it I have a luxurious life and not when it comes to money, but
1:36:04
[SPEAKER_01]: free time.
1:36:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have a lot of pressures.
1:36:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not being deported.
1:36:07
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not.
1:36:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't have a gun in my head.
1:36:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not living on the street.
1:36:10
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I live a luxury life where my life is normal.
1:36:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And I ain't got nothing but free time.
1:36:15
[SPEAKER_01]: I think about like all these crazy things that caused depression.
1:36:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Because when you're living a free society, you, you have nothing really, you care free.
1:36:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And you, so when I sit
1:36:27
[SPEAKER_01]: with the Danny quacks of the world.
1:36:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a personal gain for me and I want all the brothers to know.
1:36:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, I'm going to exploit you for your difficult story.
1:36:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So I can understand like life better and I can make
1:36:43
[SPEAKER_01]: make sure that I share your story out into the world.
1:36:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So people can understand like your life ain't that bad out there, you know, like for me.
1:36:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And, and I know that a lot of brothers have voiced their opinion about sharing their stories with me in the past and I
1:37:01
[SPEAKER_01]: scared off a lot of guys because, you know, it's, you know, I'm a media guy, but I sit with your story and it's a personal gain for me that happened to be able to share it with the world.
1:37:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's the way this works, right?
1:37:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, well, first of all, I gotta do it for me first, you know, it's like,
1:37:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I do it for my personal gain because I get to understand that man my life ain't nothing compared to what guys like you have to go through you know, like the injustices that you have to go through is just it needs to be the world needs to know about it and I want more.
1:37:37
[SPEAKER_01]: deported brothers to come on to the podcast.
1:37:41
[SPEAKER_01]: People in Vietnam come on podcast and share like I don't bite and you know I just asked a lot of questions but I don't you know it helps people like me and the West when we have nothing else to worry about and we're worrying about like
1:37:56
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, God, I'm making $120,000 a year, so I want to make $150,000.
1:38:00
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, that 30 grand stresses me out, right?
1:38:05
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
1:38:06
[SPEAKER_01]: No, those things should not be stressing you out.
1:38:08
[SPEAKER_01]: The promotion or the lack of making an extra 50 grand a year should not be like the thing that you focus on, you know, that's stupid shit that I think about all the time, right?
1:38:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And I say that now that I've sat with you and heard your entire life story is that I appreciate you allowing me to sit with you from my own personal game to be able to like really be able to ingest your story and learn from it.
1:38:37
[SPEAKER_01]: So thank you so much, Danny, for sharing.
1:38:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's not ending yet.
1:38:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I say this to all my guests, I would love for you to return at any time with, you know, you have emerged and you get your release your line.
1:38:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Let's talk about it because I, I'm, you know, that would take another hour, hour and a half to hear about your merchandise and and what went on in your mind as you were creating it while you were in captivity, right?
1:39:03
[SPEAKER_00]: That's like, well, that's, that's when I'm going to be coming on for my personal game.
1:39:10
[SPEAKER_00]: But I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not, I'm
1:39:39
[SPEAKER_00]: because I'm not going through that, or I'm not, you know, I haven't had to go through that.
1:39:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And so...
1:39:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, yeah, with your life going through what you go, and then, like, how positive you've turned out, I'm like, what the fuck do I, what do I complain about in my mind, you know?
1:39:56
[SPEAKER_01]: What is my life so...
1:39:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I have nothing to complain about or nothing to be depressed about, you know, going through my life, compared to your journey.
1:40:07
[SPEAKER_01]: But maybe because you've gone through all that like hardship, the way you've turned all
1:40:14
[SPEAKER_01]: of that into gold and you've spun it into such positive energy.
1:40:18
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why I'm like, you should be probably speaking on a public circuit, right?
1:40:22
[SPEAKER_01]: You should be finding an agent and a manager to be giving, you know, to go around universities and to go around and commencement speeches and like go through that whole thing.
1:40:32
[SPEAKER_01]: As you're building your profile online and and yourself as a
1:40:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, you want to be my manager?
1:40:44
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, who has a really good manager?
1:40:46
[UNKNOWN]: I just talked to Fookmup.
1:40:46
[SPEAKER_01]: He's a, he's a white guy who speaks like really good Vietnamese and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah
1:41:07
[SPEAKER_00]: and his physical fitness, man.
1:41:10
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, that's a good transformation, man.
1:41:13
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, when people say the world is becoming like a darker or more evil, I don't see it.
1:41:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I see the world due to social media as a very inspiring place.
1:41:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I feel like a lot of people are doing really positive things like you.
1:41:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And we are all learning from the spirit.
1:41:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, when you put out your merch, when you were talking about it, I remember thinking there's a magazine called Ink Magazine, and Fortune Magazine, they're all entrepreneurial magazines that I read as a kid growing up.
1:41:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember an article about the company, you remember the happy face, the yellow happy face, smiley face?
1:41:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a company called, I think it was be happy.
1:41:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And I remember that company, whoever they were, they were making hundreds of millions as a result of their positive merch.
1:42:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when you said you were doing merchandise, I was like, I thought about that company because born from hardships and arriving at a positive place is sort of like, that's your brand.
1:42:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I'd buy that whatever you're like pushing out because I want that energy in my life.
1:42:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I want to feel good about like the journey that I'm taking, you know, and I feel like you've spun that, you've spun hardships into into a very positive journey.
1:42:36
[SPEAKER_00]: appreciate that road.
1:42:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, it's not easy to be resilient, but if you live that resiliency and live it the life of live it out in your life, it strengthens you.
1:42:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's just what I've been trying to do and just be resilient through life.
1:42:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's just built straight within
1:43:01
[SPEAKER_00]: All that being said, I still go through dark days too, you know, there's still weak moments where, you know, my wife and kids, they just went back to the states and up near alone, you know, and, you know, I was like, hey, I just got them back in my arms, you know, I just got them back in, and now they're gone.
1:43:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And so, you know, there are those, those type of moments of stuff too, but, but I don't dwell in those moments because I know that
1:43:30
[SPEAKER_00]: they'll be back again.
1:43:31
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll see them again.
1:43:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can take this time to work on my writing, work on my designs.
1:43:37
[SPEAKER_00]: And so there's something that good can come out of it.
1:43:41
[SPEAKER_00]: But just in any pit that you jump into, you can either keep on digging that pit down deeper, or you can just try to make your way out.
1:43:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And so that's all I'm trying to do with my life is just kind of get out
1:43:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:44:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm an honest.
1:44:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I hope that you continue to keep creating the Instagram posts and the social media posts because they are highly motivational, they are energizing me.
1:44:12
[SPEAKER_01]: I love to see, you know, you so look forward to all the new stuff like where as you are remodeling the new place that you're building or
1:44:23
[SPEAKER_01]: seeing your anticipation of your family coming into Vietnam.
1:44:28
[SPEAKER_01]: These things are so interesting and so fulfilling to watch.
1:44:32
[SPEAKER_01]: So I hope you keep making them.
1:44:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I appreciate it, man.
1:44:36
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope that gives me that fire to keep it going, man.
1:44:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
1:44:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sure a lot of us feel that way too.
1:44:42
[SPEAKER_01]: So, Danny, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today and I really appreciate you.
1:44:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And hopefully we'll have you back on very soon.
1:44:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for listening to the Vietnamese with Kenneth Wynne.
1:44:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Special thanks to Brittany Tran, to Jane Wynne, Catherine Wynne, Tina Fam, Sydney Jamie, and Crystal Tran.
1:45:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Please find us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at the Vietnamese podcast.