My name is Thế Trịnh and I adapted the name Sharon when I arrive in the states. I am from Phan Thiết and I grew up with 4 brothers and 4 sisters. I’m the middle child. My mother and father were both Teo Chew, but they escaped China to live in Vietnam. One of my siblings died during the journey to Vietnam. In America, I live with with my husband, my older sister, and my two daughters (when they are not at college). We settled down in San Jose, after moving around a lot in the 1980s.
Before starting up our laundromat, we did so many things. My husband and I met in Boston, so we initially tried to do nails in the East Coast. It was popular for Vietnamese to do this because it’s easy and requires no English skills. It wasn’t working out for my husband, so he delivered pizza. When I got pregnant with my first daughter, I had an injury that limited my ability to do nails. So I stopped working at the nail salon and we then moved to LA where my sister and her husband were looking for a job as well. We did random business stuff. Finally, my husband decided to move to San Jose to work for a computer repair shop with a business partner. He cheated us, so we stopped working with him. My sisters in Long Beach wanted to try a Bánh Mỳ (Vietnamese sandwich) shop so we moved back down to Long Beach to set it up. After a year, we realized it wasn’t working, so we moved back to San Jose. By this time it was 1997. We started set up a water store called “Pure Water.” We did this until 1999, and sold our water store to my brother-in-law and started up our laundromat.
We finally settled down with this store. It is a 20 minute commute to work every morning, by car. There is no skills to run this store really. We just manage the machines and do laundry drop offs– washing, drying, and folding other people’s dirty clothes. In terms of running a business, we just acquired the skills by learning from friends and family.
An ordinary work day starts at 5am. I have to wake up at 5am to get ready so that I can open the store by 7am. Sometimes, customers like to wash their clothes in the morning before work so I have to be prompt when opening up the store. I usually have a couple loads of drop-offs a day. We weigh the load and then sort out the dirty clothes to put in the washer machines. Then, I throw them in the dryer and fold them and package them into bags and hangers. I like to interact with the regulars and they really like me so a lot of them are my friends. Sometimes, I give them a free soda or let them use my detergent. Most customers are from the nearby neighborhoods. People come and go because the economy is bad. No one sticks around for long. Over the years, fewer and fewer people use laundromats because they buy their own machines in their home. The drop-off clients are usually the wealthier people who could afford to pay $1/lb for us to do their laundry for them. Around 5pm, my husband comes to take over the night shift. He comes to wipe down all the machines and mop the floor. If there are drop-offs left, he will finish them for me. He closes shop by 10pm every night. We’ve tried to work with different friends, but we don’t like it because business with friends can be bad for our friendship. Mostly, it’s been me and my husband. Sometimes, my sister comes to help, but she is busy helping with other family business in SoCal as well.
Because of our long hours, sometimes I don’t get to eat my lunch. There really is no time to rest at the store because I constantly have to manage the machines, the drop-offs, the customers, etc. Sometimes, my husband will work the whole day so that I can go out and buy supplies and materials for the store (i.e. more detergent, laundry bags, hangers, etc). Since we run our own business, there is practically no vacation time. We only close on Thanksgiving and Christmas day. If ever I want to go on a vacation, my husband will take all my shifts and do extra duty so that I can travel. We never get to go on vacation together because one of us always has to look over the store. I will only go two weeks at a time so that he doesnt have to overwork himself.
Our small profits make us low income. It fluctuates depending on the seasons. In the summer, people wash their clothes less because they wear less clothes. In the winter, they wear more layers and have to wash them more often. This kind of business depends on the economy–so if the economy is down, our business is down as well. I think our business is slowly declining and we cannot do anything about it. It will only get us by, and I hope that once my daughters graduate and get their own jobs I can retire or at least, work less.
This job is challenging because it’s a lot of labor. It is not a good job to be washing and folding dirty clothes every day. Sometimes, we have to face homeless people coming in to sleep in our store. Or robbery. It has a happened a couple of times. The biggest challenge is always money. Less and less people come to the laundromat. The challenges in my life are to be at peace. I don’t want everything to be about money. I just want to find peace and happiness even though I have to work so many hours. That is just the reality of life. You have to work hard.
I think this job is seen as very low. Why would anybody want to wash other people’s clothes? I want my kids to understand this because I want them to avoid this type of future. They can do anything they want– I have and will support them in their future. As long as it is not the same as mine. I know it is hard, but I want a better future for my kids. I want them to go to school and graduate to find a good job. I don’t need them to support me in the future, I just want them to be happy. This is not my dream job, but this is the best I’ve come up with. It’s good sometimes because I get to keep busy and not be bored with my life. The worst part is just always being in debt with finances because this job makes low income. I will always appreciate the interesting people that have come and gone through this store. Some of my customers (friends) have even passed away. Others, move on to better things in their life.
There is no quitting. I don’t want to quit because then I will have nothing to do. I am old but I still want to keep busy because there’s nothing else in life i need to do. I am happy and I keep working because I want my family to be okay. Sure, there are always struggle but we came all the way to America for this kind of life.
Contributor: Tracy Nguyen
project kiếm ăn 