What Class are you Tankhun?
What Class Are You? is a periodic series about the ways that socioeconomic class shapes our lives. Thankun Thongjunthoug’s parents each moved alone to the United States from Thailand in their early twenties to make a new life for themselves. They met in Los Angeles, and started a restaurant there, and a family. But Thankun’s father wanted a safer place for his family, so in 2008 they moved to Vermont, where they had to work their way back to owning a business. Their restaurant in Montpelier, Pho Thai Express , has been open since 2015. In this episode of What Class are You? , we talk about what it was like to grow up in an immigrant family, and how Tankhun experienced the undercurrents of the American class system.