Donut Box of Dreams:

Untangling Questions of Debt and Achievement for Cambodian Refugees

By Kallyana Sperry

Screencap from “The Donut King”: Ted and Christy Ngoy posing with former President Nixon

Picture a donut box in your mind. What color is it? Is it pink? Donuts are a staple of American culture, with the media portraying them as the perfect quick breakfast and a beloved food for cops. In the minds of Americans, the pink box is synonymous with donuts and vice versa. But why is this? In the 1980s, Cambodian refugee Ted Ngoy started a donut enterprise, creating a chain of over 100 donut shops originating in Southern California.^[1] After debating money saving methods, Ngoy contacted the box supplier Westco and figured out that pink boxes cost less than white ones.^[2] Thus, dozens of Cambodian-owned donut shops began shelling out pink donut boxes, jumpstarting their popularization and cementing the pink donut box into the cultural schema of America. In the captions in the picture above, Ted expresses a desire to “pay” America back. But what does this sense of owing mean for Cambodian refugees in the US? Ngoy’s story represents a microcosm of US and Cambodian relations, as a web of entanglement emerges.

In the midst of the Vietnam War and widespread fear of communism, the United States Strategic Air Command released over 500,000 bombs in eastern Cambodia from 1969-1970. This deadly and strategic campaign, named “Operation Breakfast”, was meant to target the bases and sanctuaries of the Northern Vietnamese Army and prevent the spread of the Viet Cong.^[3] It was the first in a series of campaigns called “Operation Menu”, run by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Over the course of the 1960s and 1970s, the United States dropped over 3 million bombs on Cambodia, making it one of the most heavily bombed countries in history. As a result, an estimated 100,000-500,000 Cambodians lost their lives, with hundreds of deactivated bombs still littering the countryside today.^[4] In a 1971 press interview Nixon says, “in Cambodia what we are doing is helping the Cambodians to help themselves”, referencing the lack of American troops in the area, while excluding information on “Operation Menu”.^[5]

Destabilized from the bombings, Cambodia was catapulted into political unrest and strife, leading to the takeover of the Khmer Rouge regime. From 1975-1979, Cambodia experienced a genocide under the despotic rule of Pol Pot, leading to up to 3 million dead and generations lost. Thousands of Cambodians fled to safe camps in Thailand and bordering countries, while others made the journey directly to the United States, marking their new status as refugees.^[6] Among these refugees were my mom and her four siblings, who were rushed out of their home in Takeo by my ta (grandfather) before black clothed Khmer Rouge soldiers converted the entire village into a deadly labor camp. They ended up in Camp Pendleton, an enormous refugee camp in Southern California, before relocating to Corvallis, Oregon as sponsored by a church. Coincidentally, Camp Pendleton also provided refuge for Ted Ngoy and his family in 1975– perhaps my family and his unknowingly crossed paths. Years later, he rose to fame as the “Donut King”, creating a confectionary multi-million dollar donut industry.

Headline from itvs.org describing Ngoy’s rags-to-riches journey

Just like my grandfather, Ngoy started as a janitor for a local gas station, having little choice in job opportunities in America. This gas station was next to a donut shop, where he was introduced to his first American donut and quickly became obsessed with the concept. Through observing how the quick, simple, sugary donut appealed to the American consumer at nearly all hours of the day, he latched onto his new dream: entering the donut business world. He convinced his church sponsor to vouch for him and acquired a manager position at the donut shop Winchell’s, becoming the very first Southeast Asian trainee at the chain. After learning the ins and outs of running a donut shop, he bought his own store with the help of his wife and three kids working at Winchell’s. By the 1980s, he acquired 20 stores, only made possible with the labor of his family working on a lean payroll. During this, Ngoy sponsored hundreds of Cambodian refugee families and leased them donut shops, helping them establish lives for themselves in America. In the mid-1990s, over 2,400 donut shops were owned by Cambodian refugees.^[7] He and his wife Christy became millionaires only a decade after arriving at Camp Pendleton with nothing but memorabilia from their home country. Now a rich, self-made man in America, Ngoy became a steadfast supporter and funder of the Republican Party, eventually meeting former president Richard Nixon. In Alice Gu’s documentary The Donut King, Ted says wistfully, “I achieved my American dream”.^[8]

While Ted Ngoy’s story ostensibly portrays a successful, hard-working immigrant who pulled himself up with his own ingenuity and transcended class boundaries, it also provides a deeper look at the layers of pressure placed onto refugees in the United States. What does it mean that Ted achieved the “ultimate American Dream” not only through wealth, but by establishing himself as the king of donuts, the quintessential American breakfast? Peeling back the sugary layers of the American Dream reveals a rotten, blood-stained web tying the US to the destabilization of Cambodia and the eventual genocide that created thousands of refugees who landed directly in the country of the perpetrators. America’s expectation of immigrants, particularly Southeast Asian refugees, is for them to discard their past selves and home countries and remake themselves into model American citizens. In Dr. Linh Thuy Nguyên’s book Displacing Kinship she writes, “The trauma and victimization required by refugee (pathological minority) status had to be overcome to demonstrate achievement of model minority status”.^[9] If an immigrant becomes consumed by trauma and racism caused by refugee-making and displacement, they are labeled as “lazy”, “ungrateful”, and “undeserving”. If an immigrant achieves greatness and wealth by American standards, they are labeled as “high-achieving” and a “success story” as exemplified in the amount of attention Ngoy received, particularly from US presidents. The American Dream is, thus, to mold oneself into the latter category and capitalize off of all the opportunity the country provides.

Rebecca Karl’s work Recognizing Colonialism offers a view of the world stage as arranged by dominant countries. She explores the idea of Social Darwinism, the colonial theory that stronger countries triumph over weaker ones because of certain inherently superior traits.^[10] Her analysis on diachronic mapping of the world stage and how the Global South is portrayed as backwards can lend us useful insight into how refugees are viewed once arriving in the Global North. Parts of this rhetoric are mapped onto the refugees themselves and within that group a version of Social Darwinism appears. Those who are able to assimilate into American values can succeed, while those who cannot are wrapped in guilt and told they are simply an example of why their country is deemed “backwards”, as molded by Western colonial values. Their actions are informed by this sense of reclaiming their identities as Americans, because without this reclamation they are racialized as unworthy of care. Aihwa Ong speaks of this in her book Buddha is Hiding, “This combination of paternalism and subordinating care, which had a legacy in plantation slavery, was directed toward transforming decadent immigrants into loyal, dependent, and affectionate subjects.”^[11] Through the US’ delegation of who is deserving of care, based on their racialization of minority subjects, immigrants are imbedded with a sense of debt and loyalty to the country.

For refugees, there is an added layer of wanting to repay the debt they feel imbibed with. As I’ve learned from my family, the model for the US taking in refugees includes an organization, such as a church, financially sponsoring a family– they have no choice but to feel grateful for their sponsor for aiding them in securing jobs and housing. In a conversation with my grandmother, she told me how grateful she feels towards America for taking her and my family in. They had nothing but each other when they arrived and America took them under its benevolent eagle wing. To refugees, success means showing America that it was correct in aiding them. Thus, America becomes the benefactor and overseer of those it has adopted into the country, while ignoring its complicity in refugee-making.

Opening the bright pink donut box and ripping through the fabrication of the American Dream, we can begin to sift through the desires of immigrants, as well as the endless well of imagined debt. There is an idea of personal ownership of the elusive American Dream and once you capture it, you have succeeded. However, in the end it only serves to benefit the growth of the US as a country– the American Dream is to elevate yourself in the process of bettering the country. Ted Ngoy rose from the ranks of refugees cast off as statistics in newspapers and posed with the very man who co-conspired a bombing campaign on Ngoy’s home country. Nixon thus becomes emblematic of the US as an imperial power and Ngoy the face of immigrant struggle turned success. Their photograph together is a spectacle of clashing histories of displacement, boundary-making, and identity construction.

Works Cited

Albert Paper Products. “Why Is Donut Packaging Pink?” Albert Paper Products, September 22,

2022.

Chandra, Gowri. “How Ted Ngoy Built Southern California’s Doughnut Empire.” Food & Wine,

September 29, 2022.

Karl, Rebecca. “Recognizing Colonialism: The Philippines and Revolution.” April, 2002

“Libguides: Primary Sources: Vietnam War: Operation Menu (1969).” Operation Menu (1969) -

Primary Sources: Vietnam War - LibGuides at Florida Atlantic University. Accessed May 6, 2024.

Ngo, Alice Gu, director. The Donut King. Greenwich Entertainment, 2020.

Nguyên, Linh Thuy. Displacing Kinship: The Intimacies of Intergenerational Trauma in

Vietnamese American Cultural Production. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2024. 20-21

Ong, Aihwa. Buddha Is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America. Berkeley: University

of California Press, 2003. 73.

Owen, Taylor, and Ben Kiernan. “Bombs over Cambodia .” The Walrus, October 2006.

“Rescue and Rebuilding Lives.” Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. Accessed May 6, 2024.

Schanberg, Sydney H. “Cambodia Forgotten (2).” The New York Times, April 9, 1985.

“The Donut King.” ITVS. Accessed May 6, 2024. https://itvs.org/films/donut-king/.

Venema, Vibeke. “The Donut King Who Went Full Circle - from Rags to Riches, Twice.” BBC

News, November 28, 2020.

1. “The Donut King.” ITVS. Accessed May 6, 2024. https://itvs.org/films/donut-king/. ↑

2. Albert Paper Products. “Why Is Donut Packaging Pink?” Albert Paper Products, September 22, 2022. ↑

3. “Libguides: Primary Sources: Vietnam War: Operation Menu (1969).” Operation Menu (1969) - Primary Sources: Vietnam War - LibGuides at Florida Atlantic University. Accessed May 6, 2024. ↑

4. Owen, Taylor, and Ben Kiernan. “Bombs over Cambodia .” The Walrus, October 2006. ↑

5. Schanberg, Sydney H. “Cambodia Forgotten (2).” The New York Times, April 9, 1985. ↑

6. “Rescue and Rebuilding Lives.” Holocaust Memorial Day Trust. Accessed May 6, 2024. ↑

7. Chandra, Gowri. “How Ted Ngoy Built Southern California’s Doughnut Empire.” Food & Wine, September 29, 2022. ↑

8. Venema, Vibeke. “The Donut King Who Went Full Circle - from Rags to Riches, Twice.” BBC News, November 28, 2020. ↑

9. Nguyên, Linh Thuy. Displacing Kinship: The Intimacies of Intergenerational Trauma in

   Vietnamese American Cultural Production. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2024. 20-21 ↑

10. Karl, Rebecca. “Recognizing Colonialism: The Philippines and Revolution.” April, 2002 ↑

11. Ong, Aihwa. Buddha Is Hiding: Refugees, Citizenship, the New America. Berkeley: University

    of California Press, 2003. 73. ↑