By: Michelle Sou 

For a kid growing up in my family’s donut shop in East Los Angeles, my actual routine had little to do with donuts. On hot summer days when donut sales were slow, my favorite thing to make was ice blended cappuccinos where I added extra canela y crema for my favorite customers. When I helped the evening shift employee clean up the front of the store when we transitioned to nightly window service, I was awarded delicious conchas and orejas from the panaderia next door she saved for me, for a sweet Saturday breakfast treat the next day. Most of all, I spent a lot of time on upside milk crates - dragging them up and down the store to use as my step stool for every part of my job. From cleaning the top of the glass donut display, stocking the drinks fridge after our weekly Costco run, to reaching for customers’ favorite California lottery scratchers at the far top corner of the counter. 

Being a Chinese-Cambodian American living between the 24/7 donut shop in East LA and grandparents’ homes in Chinatown and Montebello, it was challenging to find a community that understood my world outside of my family. It wasn’t until I had met the team that ultimately formed Pink Box Stories that I realized my real community was spread throughout California - other children like me who grew up in their family donut shops. 

We call ourselves the “donut kids” to acknowledge our shared identities growing up in and around donut shops as Chinese-Cambodian and Cambodian immigrants. We share experiences of long hours at the donut shop, unique connections with the community, resilience during difficult times, and dreams of upward mobility as the second generation growing up in America. Over time, we as donut kids have found our own pathways and passions, a privilege our parents were unable to have as they worked day and night at the donut shops. While many of us have only met virtually, we have been able to connect and collaborate to celebrate one another’s milestones, from the launch of Dorothy Chow’s “Death in Cambodia, Life in America” podcast to Phung Huynh’s billboard of her pink box drawings right off a major LA freeway! 

Fast forward to today, and I am so honored to be part of Phung Huynh’s latest project, “Donut (W)hole”.  A collaboration between Pink Box Stories and Phung, seven donut kids were interviewed together before Phung began drawing. In these interviews, we shared not just positive stories about how the donut shop has impacted our lives, but also the sadness and stress we experienced spending all of our time, especially our childhoods, there. Depicting donut kids’ portraits over childhood photos on pink donut boxes (a symbol of Cambodian-owned donut shops), Phung is able to capture just how far this donut kid generation has come.

The Donut (W)hole exhibition opens March 12 and runs through May 27, 2022 at the Self Help Graphics & Art gallery. We hope that you will not only enjoy the amazing print work and artistry but also engage and reflect on the cultural space even the smallest mom-and-pop shops offer to communities. 

Michelle Sou is a “donut kid” and one of the several print portraits created by Artist Phung Huynh, shown as part of our Donut (W)hole exhibition on view through May 27, 2022.