So a little bit about our project, we're working to make a map of the community, um, Esther, along with about a half-dozen other students have gone like, above and beyond, and it started as a class project and now it's uh, turned into a bigger thing.

Alright.

So, I guess the first question is, with this store, how does it fit into the neighborhood in City Heights?

City Heights is kind of a melting pot of different cultures, different communities. It's a place where people start their lives when they come from other countries. The store that I have here is a store that sells products from all over the world. And as these people migrate from other countries to the United States, a lot of them come to San Diego, and I do serve them with a lot of the products that they're accustomed to back home.

What are some of those products?

Some of those products would be some of the vegetables I sell that you wouldn't find in other places, a lot of the seasonings that I sell that you wouldn't find in other places. Canned goods, I have Taiwanese, Vietnamese, I have a lot of Thai products, I have a lot of Somalian products, stuff you just wouldn't find normally in other places. But I have them here in my community, around this store, is accustomed to using these products from their home, and they feel comfortable with it.

What are some of the more popular ones?

The product? In the produce department, we would have, if you've heard of durian, we sell durian. You're not going to find that in a lot of supermarkets around here, fresh jackfruit, big taro, small taro, Chinese broccoli, some of their leafy items, big Gai Choy, you're not going to find those in other places, but my customers are familiar with them.

So, that reflects where they're from. You said you had some students from the neighborhood and the community working?

Yeah, sure! We support our community 110%, the first way that we do it is by having products that they need and that they want, we also hire a lot of local people in the community as well, I know a lot of them are in school and need part-time jobs, other ones want full time jobs, to survive, to make for their families, and we're here for that.

Very cool. How many students would you say you have working for you?

Probably at least six or seven.

From here, do they often go to do interesting things?

Yeah, occasionally they do, yes occasionally. I do have a lot of full-time employees that are not students, but they are employees from the community, um I have Vietnamese employees, I have Chinese employees, I have Cambodian employees, and they're actually full-time employees, and they live in the neighborhood, but they want to work here, and we enjoy them being here.

So what are some of the issues that you feel are important in the community here?

For me, it's important to serve the community with what they need. If you migrated to an area, and you didn't have the comfort zone that you have where you came from, you would not be very comfortable for you. I would supply everything that they need to feel comfortable in this area and not have to go to another area.

Do you feel like this part of San Diego is very different from other parts of San Diego? And also, from the rest of the world in that there are so many cultures in one place?

It is different from other parts of San Diego just because you have so many different ethnic groups in this area, so yes, that's true. There are spots in San Diego that are, don't have the density we do. So yes, in this area, we do. Now, along with those demographics come a lot of financial issues, also. I mean, there are people who live in this area who do not have the capabilities of what people might have in other areas. Of course we have to cater to them as well, by having lower prices, or a larger selection available to them. Um, from around the world, I'm not too sure.

What are some changes you've seen over time in the neighborhood, especially the area around this store?

Things change a lot. The demographics change a lot. It used to be very, very heavy Vietnamese. We're seeing a lot more Thai, a lot more Indian, we're seeing a lot more Somalian. There's a lot of different groups that are coming in here. And also, there's elderly and senior people moving into this neighborhood as well, and we've adjusted a little bit to accommodate for them as well, because they need to have the convenience of our store also.

Have you had conversations with your customers about these things?

Oh, absolutely. All the time. We love our customers, we talk about it. A lot of customers know us by our first names, we know them by their first names, and they come here and it's kind of like a daily thing for them.

What sorts of conversations do you have?

About the neighborhood, there's some that we talk about their families, they ask us about our families all the time, we talk about the community a lot also, about you know, every community has its challenges, you know, there's crime, poverty, we talk about those type of things.

That sounds cool, and from my understanding this is a family-run business?

It's a family-owned business, yes. We have two stores, this one and the Vien Dong supermarket.

And that's over right across from Crawford?

Yeah, University and 54th. It's the owner of this business that owns both of them.

And so it probably serves a large portion of…

Yeah, and that one has been there over thirty years. This one has been here for eleven years. We've been in the community for a long time.

Interesting. As far as…in the food environment here, do you feel like young people have the kinds of access to food that they need?

Absolutely. I see more of the young people buying it for their families, in other words their parents sent them in here or their aunt and uncle sent them in here, but it's available to them, and they do, they come in here and get it for them. I don't know that they're getting it for themselves.

Do you find that young people are very knowledgeable about food?

Not as much as probably their parents or the older people in their family, no. And we've noticed that the younger generation is eating out more versus cooking at home, um, one of the reasons that the ethnic communities do like to shop at supermarkets is they celebrate everything with food whether it's a graduation, or it's a birth, or it's a birthday party, or even a holiday, they do it over food. Everybody loves to cook in this neighborhood. It may not be the same in other neighborhoods, some other neighborhoods they want to go out and eat somewhere to celebrate, here they want to celebrate at home with their family, and that's a lot of the people that we serve here.

I'm just about out of questions…

[various footage of the inside of supermarket interior and floor, including interviewer's shoes]

Another question I have is, maybe, what's your understanding of the relationship between the Crawford community and City Heights?

I'm not that familiar with it.