“Being a small business definitely has its challenges but more importantly, it has a lot of joys. You know, you can pivot at an instant, I mean, I definitely found that out through the pandemic, where I found the strength of being a small business; being able to adapt and work directly with the clients and to ensure a strong relationship was really important for me. The pandemic was hard, but I think there are always so many ideas and bringing them to fruition might be my biggest challenge yet. For anyone out there, small businesses really are important and I think you should always try to support them when possible. I mean first of all, just the footprint of a community. We wouldn't want to go into each community and look parallel to another community. I mean, in small businesses, everybody plays such an important role where you all can be leaders versus following a footprint of a structured business or footprint of an already given direction. For anyone thinking of starting one, I’d just say to go for it! Whatever dream you have, you can bring it alive. Listen to people, talk to people, share ideas with people and don’t be afraid to change as you're going down your path, you know, be open minded…but taking the initiative to want to participate…showing up and working your hardest and thoroughly enjoying the challenge.”

“I took time off from my career path which was Urban Forestry and I discovered Fresh Approach, a non profit. I loved community and food, plus sharing food with my community. Besides that though, knowing that there are people who don’t have access to healthy food is really devastating to me, especially living in California where we literally have so many farmers that are growing organically and locally.

I’ve mostly been in non-profits for most of my career and I’ve seen how it’s really challenging; you’re always at capacity, you’re always at minimal funding and from experiencing those challenges, I’ve come to understand how important it is to take care of yourself. I used to–like sacrifice my body for my work, but now I’m like, I’m not gonna do that, I’m not going to sacrifice myself for my work. Especially in nonprofits, learning to know that sometimes things won’t work out and telling myself It’s OK, and making sure to take care of myself first. From my journey though, I want our youth to know that it’s OK to have a different career path, like letting them know that you don’t have to go to college and follow that road that everyone tells you to do because I didn’t do that. I went and became an AmeriCorp member and through becoming a member, I worked my way up and got to be a manager at that non-profit and got to become a certified arborist because of that. So there’s so many avenues that you can take to get you to your goals and there are so many different jobs and careers here in the green business; You can be IT, you can be marketing, you can be a designer, you can be building, you can be administering, there’s just so many fields you can pursue in a green career.”

“I always check, triple check my Uber rides. Basically, there was this one time my freshman year of college, and it was the first weekend I was out. My roommate and I went to the club and she got way too hammered and I was like, we need to take this girl home. By the way, am I allowed to say this? So then, I called an Uber and I wasn’t really paying attention to their license plate or what the guy looked like and so I didn’t check and–keep in mind this was in L.A so it’s very dangerous at night, it was probably 1, 1:15. So I get my hammered friend into the car–let's be honest, I’m not too…I don’t have my head on my shoulder, I'm pretty “hammed” too. Anyways, we’re driving in downtown L.A and all of a sudden I realized he wasn’t using a map or anything and he pulls off onto the side of this dark street and stops the car and says I’m not taking you anywhere unless you venmo me $100. And I was like, I don’t have $100 because I was broke and my roommate was literally unconscious next to me in the car. At this rate, I realized OK, I didn’t ever check if this was my Uber, I don’t even know if this is my Uber. I end up venmo-ing him $20 and he’s like, no you have to give more or else you have to get out of the car. Being broke, I had to get out with my friend in downtown L.A in the middle of the night and at this rate, I’m running around with my phone at 1% trying to get cell service. Of course it ends up dying but luckily, there’s these 3 people walking into another car and I ended up sprinting down to them and asking them to call an Uber. I felt so bad because they had to call us a $75 Uber all the way from downtown to West L.A but anyways, I’m still here today. It also ended up being a random car.”

“My flute keeps me going. You know, people think I do it for the money but I don’t ask for anything. When people come to Chinatown, I want them to feel welcomed, to make them feel connected with my Chinese culture. I could wake up at 11:00 am everyday, relax, and live life. But I choose to do this. I choose to show others the importance of diversity and the importance of Chinese culture. If no one else continues the tradition, the songs, then all of it will be lost in history. I’m here to preserve my culture and the celebration of my people.”

“I still remember when I was younger, my grandparents would take me to Chinatown to get baos at the corner spot. They aren’t here anymore but I can still remember the smell wafting through the air as I ran towards the door. At times, I feel like I took those times for granted. The time that I had with my grandparents. Now, I come back here once in a while and reminisce on my childhood and the memories I got to share with them. I guess moral of the story, don’t take your family or friends for granted. Our time is finite, so cherish it. Share it. You’ll be glad you did.”

“I don’t know what to make of it anymore. You know, just the other day, I see in the news, that an Asian lady was attacked because of her race. But then you have all these tourists and people coming to Chinatown. Like, when will we see those same people standing up against racial attacks? It’s great to come explore and see Chinatown, but people need to see that some of us live in fear. A fear that we will be the next victim in the news, you know? We need more people to care about more than fresh dumplings. We need them to care that our race is being targeted.”

“When I was 12, I went to my best friend’s ranch. We were like little kids and we thought it was a great idea to take water guns and spray a Mama cow and its baby. So we’re spraying the baby cow and the mom. The mom chased us both down. My buddy ran along the fence as the cow chased him and his Dad ended up reaching over the fence and ended up picking him up and pulling him over the fence. And I just stood there and watched as the cow turned around and looked at me. That’s when I just ran for my life. I didn’t–I didn’t get run over thankfully. You know, we learned a very valuable lesson that day. Don’t spray cows with water…im just kidding, don’t be dumb kids.”

“My job for a long time, you know, I tried to work with this company, maybe already seven years. I mean, I had to try myself, I got my second job, it’s definitely hard on me, especially being older. My English is no good either, you know, doesn’t help me. Even with all my struggles though, I tried to finish objective, you know, don’t stop, you have to be looking at making better life for you. It’s not up to anyone else but you, you know? That's it.”

[Translated]

“I mean, being a farmer has been a blessing and a curse. You know, it’s not easy to run a business; especially a farm where a lot of your money comes from how the weather affects it. This year especially, the storms in the Winter were really bad. It destroyed a lot of crops and damaged a lot of our equipment and it turned out to be a bad year for us. But I guess it's a blessing because, in a way, it has made our family stronger, the urge to keep going and moving forward from that tragedy.

The storms this year, the bad weather, it makes us stronger to keep going. Funny enough though, I don’t think that I’d give people that advice in our business…to be honest ,there’s always going to be challenges in our business but what I’ve learned is that some of the biggest challenges are your own customers. It’s hard to please all but choosing to always be kind and personal is important…and you know take it how it goes.”

“God, everyone be wanting the watermelon coconut. They sold out so fast I couldn't even get em. Like they all wanted me to save them but I couldn't save em. I sold outta the watermelon so I didn’t have to sell any more. I mean I’m just living life out here you feel me? That was kind of a joke but you know it’s true. I didn’t wanna be here but I am. Like Dory said, just keep swimming, so if any of y’all out there need a little motivation, that’s my biggest advice.”

“My challenge is to eat well. You know, it’s the–it’s the cornerstone of life. You know, I enjoy food and family and that’s all that I really need. I mean, I love going to the market because I get to meet so many people–you know Reuben over there with his Cowboy hat or Jose at the other counter. You know, life is too short to not enjoy it…whether you're wealthy or not, you just have to take what you’ve got and live life to the fullest.”