This is Rumble Strip. I'm Erica Heilman. Today is the last episode of this latest round of

What Class Are You shows, which is a periodic series that I make for Vermont Public about

socioeconomic class and its impact on our lives. This episode is about Tancun Tongjungtuk.

Tankun's parents each moved alone to the United States

from Thailand in their early 20s to make a new life for themselves. They met in Los Angeles

and they started a restaurant there and a family. But Tancun's father wanted a safer place

for the family. So in 2008, they moved to Vermont, where they had to work their way

back to owning a business. Their restaurant in Montpelier, Fou Thai Express, has been open since 2015.

In this episode, I talked with Tancun about what it was like to grow up in an immigrant family

and how he experienced the undercurrents

of the American class system. He begins with talking about why his parents came to the United States

in the first place. Their parents wanted them to, you know, pursue like excellence and wanted

them to go to America, hey, to build a better future for themselves and for our, like, for their children as well, but just, you know, my brother and I, and that's what they did.

Like my dad, if he thinks he does, like, it's all because he wants us to do well.

And, you know, that's his goal.

But my mom, she made a promise. Like she promises to her mom that

she will work, do everything for us. Like my dad, he had a goal. But my mom, she made a promise.

When you were growing up in, you know, elementary school, middle school, what were your parents doing?

Like growing, like when we moved here, we, my dad had to work hard because, you know, from going back from nothing to something, we like didn't have that financial power anymore, like as we did in L.A.

So we had to start all over again. And my dad,

you know, we didn't have that much money growing up, which is why I had to work hard, night

shifts, because the pay was better than, you know, than average. What is your memory of who you

...