via Khmer NZ
Monday, July 26, 2010
By Michelle Rindels
Staff Writer
The staff at Bubba's Bagels, 11043 Nevada City Highway, Grass Valley, left to right: Erika Johnson, Apolinario Lares, Miguel Lares, Susie Bryant, Kannitha Tann, and Srey Rath Sreang.
Photo for The Union by John Hart
Photo for The Union by John Hart
Kannitha Tann's mother remembers the years of Pol Pot, the cruel dictator whose communist experiment in the late 1970s killed off about one-fifth of Cambodia's population.
Children were placed in separate concentration camps than their parents, but Tann's mother tiptoed out under the cloak of night, stealing whatever food she could find and delivering it surreptitiously to her five children.
At 27, Tann is too young to remember the darkest days of her native Cambodia, and she's far removed from it as she stands behind a glass case of magazine-perfect golden bagels at her restaurant, Bubba's Bagels on Nevada City Highway.
Food is plentiful at Bubba's, and customers file in at the lunch hour for thick, fresh bagel sandwiches. The hole-in-the-wall shop is a poignant symbol of the American Dream for the Cambodian and Guatemalan employees, who immigrated from their war- and poverty-stricken homelands for a better life.
“In Cambodia, I didn't see any future. There was nothing big for me or my family,” Tann said. “With the bagel shop, there's more freedom.”
A dream deferred
Coming to the United States was a dream long deferred for Tann.
“I always wanted to experience new stuff here,” she said. “My mom always wanted to come here, and she was trying to get all of her kids out.”
Two attempts to leave Cambodia via Thailand failed. On the third try, a family member got out and started sending for his family.
Tann's family bought a donut shop near Big 5 Sporting Goods and saw the bagel shop on the market in the mid-2000s. They snapped it up.
Even though the breakfast snacks are unheard of in Cambodia, “I fell in love with the bagel,” Tann said.
Tann's husband Howie was lucky enough to get an American sponsor in Rhode Island who brought him over as a refugee. A long-lost family friend, Howie reconnected with Kannitha after 20 years apart. They married and now have a 2-year-old son.
Multicultural staff
In the back of the restaurant, the air is warm, and the language is solamente español — only Spanish.
Apolinario Lares shows the massive stash of pre-cut bagels in the walk-in freezer, the only respite from the industrial oven.
Lares, 36, and his two younger brothers Miguel, 21, and Ronaldo, 28, started work at Bubba's three years ago. They trade off, with two working the day shift and one working the graveyard shift to prepare for the customers that sometimes knock anxiously on the shop windows before the 6 a.m. opening.
Guatemala — a Central American nation racked by a 36-year long armed conflict that ended in 1996 — still suffers from endemic poverty. Even Nevada County's 11.5 percent June unemployment rate looks cushy in comparison.
“There isn't much work there,” he said. “People make $8 a day there. People can make that much in an hour here.”
Lares hasn't seen his wife and children for a few years, so he talks to them every day on the phone.
Much of his money goes straight back to Guatemala to send his children to school there.
He's planning a vacation soon.
“I miss them,” he said.
Meanwhile, he enjoys work at the shop and has mastered a few trade secrets in spite of the language barrier.
The bagels are a nice perk, too — the spinach and cheddar ones are the best, Lares said.
Facebook following
The bagel shop has a loyal following on Facebook, where college students in a group called “Life is not the same without Bubba's Bagels!” opine about their favorite flavor and lament the lack of Bubba's great “hangover food.”
About eight local businesses re-sell Bubba's baked goods; skiiers on their way to Tahoe make a bagel stop before they hit the slopes, and the shop gets orders to deploy the famous fare in care packages to Iraq and Afghanistan.
Inside the modest storefront, bordered by a liquor store and fast food restaurants and guarded by a cartoon bulldog on a red Bubba's Bagels sign, employees say the multicultural staff is like a family.
“It's not just a business — they pour their whole life into it,” said employee Erika Johnson, 21. “It changed my life. They taught me about hard work and sacrifice and love for family.”
Next to her, Tann starts to cry, touched.
“It's true,” Johnson said.
To contact Staff Writer Michelle Rindels, e-mail mrindels@theunion.com or call (530) 477-4247.
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