Sweet rewards

More success stories of immigrants with their own businesses. DP

Local Cambodian doughnut shop owners: Having own business a dream come true

By Kendyce Manguchei, News-Sentinel Staff Writer

Lodinews.com: "Before we opened the business, I didn't eat doughnuts at all," said Dorra Yonn, the owner of Star Donuts in Lodi.

Her husband and co-owner Jim Yonn, learned everything about the doughnut-making business for a decade before he took a chance and opened Star Donuts in 2002, redesigning a storefront on Kettleman Lane that once housed a sandwich shop.

These days, Dora Yonn said she just has to have a steaming cup of coffee and doughnuts each morning. Her favorite? Raised doughnuts, with maple icing.

The Yonns, like most doughnut shop owners locally and throughout California, are Cambodian immigrants who learned the trade from fellow refugees who entered the United States in the 1970s and '80s.

None of the area's doughnut shop proprietors could think of a doughnut shop that isn't operated by Asian immigrants.

The Cambodian-born owners of doughnut shops in Galt and Lodi said they came to the United States without knowing a word of English, without knowing what to expect, and without modern work skills.
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