EE FONG “DAVID” SAELEE, a Southeast Asian refugee who found success in Stockton despite crushing setbacks that would have defeated a lesser man, died April 9 in a farming accident. He was 63.
You may know Saelee as the strawberry peddler with the popular stand at Davis and Eight Mile roads. Saelee was also a child soldier, a strong father, a highly profitable marijuana farmer and, in my case, a true friend whose loss is a body blow.
“He woke up like, 4 a.m. every day and didn’t get home until 8 p.m.,” said his eldest son, Tom. “That was seven days a week at the farm.”
Saelee was of the Iu Mien tribe, also known as the Yao people, born in the mountains of Laos. According to a Iu Mien website, “When the United States intervened to support anti-communist forces in the early 1960s, they contracted for help from the hill tribes of Laos. Like many other hill tribes, the Iu-Mien got involved and engaged in guerrilla warfare …”
Saelee became a soldier at age 12. He spoke little of it to me, except to say with deep sadness that age 12 is too young for the horrors of war. I can only imagine what he endured.
When the Vietnam war ended in 1975 with victory for the communists, the Pathet Lao came for the Iu Mien’s scalps. Saelee’s family fled through the jungle. They crossed rivers and mountains, seeking safety in a Thai refugee camp. En route a man in his party stepped on a landmine. He had to be left behind.
After a long spell in the camp, Saelee was given the right to emigrate, though he lied about his age to earn it, and he was separated from his mother in the process.
First sent to Oklahoma, his sponsors reunited him with his mother in Riverside, California. The Saelees bounced from Fresno — where Saelee met his wife, Farm — to Modesto to Sacramento, finally settling in Stockton.
To get off welfare, Saelee cut a deal with a northside farmer to rent a piece of his land, grow strawberries, and open his first strawberry stand at Hammer and West Lane. Saelee worked 16-hour days, with Farm and their young children helping in the fields. The strawberries were extraordinarily good. Fruit from early-season harvest tasted like strawberry ice cream. The stand prospered.
From adversity, a lifelong friendship
Then catastrophe struck. One morning when Saelee was out in the field, a thief broke through the window of the family’s trailer and climbed in, terrifying the young children who had been sleeping.
Saelee, who came running, drove the intruder off and called 911. Sheriff’s deputies jailed the man. But the next day, after the man’s release, an arson fire burned Saelee’s trailer to the ground. The Saelees’ every single possession was destroyed, from Farm’s wedding dress to the children’s school books to the family’s important documents. The Saelees were left with only the clothes on their backs.
I met Saelee after concerned customers reported his plight to me at the Stockton Record newspaper. Deeply touched, I emptied my wallet to Saelee and wrote a column saying that good family deserved community support.
And they did. After all, what do Americans expect from immigrants? That they get off welfare, learn English, get a job, and contribute, emphasizing education to their children; Saelee did all that. While other kids played, his family worked in the field after school and on weekends.
“I tell my children, ‘You have to work twice as hard as American children if you want to succeed in this country’,” he told me.
The outpouring of support showed Stockton at its best. Saelee was able to rent an apartment and feed and clothe his family. To say he was grateful is an understatement. We became lifelong friends.
He’d show up at the newspaper’s lobby with flats of strawberries. I’d say, “David, I can’t accept gifts.” He wouldn’t hear of it.
We’d scuffle like boys. Usually I managed to stuff money down his shirt pocket while his hands were full. But it was never as much as what he gave me. We would part grinning.
He’d call me every spring to come out and get the best strawberries. There followed an annual Kabuki. I’d come out, but I’d take my place in line, wanting no special treatment. He’d spy me from behind the counter and call, “Mike! Come out back!”
I’d go behind the stand “Okay, as long as you let me pay.”
“No. You take,” he’d insist, thrusting not only a flat of strawberries at me, but a heap of fresh produce.
I would refuse. He would insist. We’d scuffle like boys. Usually I managed to stuff money down his shirt pocket while his hands were full. But it was never as much as what he gave me. We would part grinning.
Deputies, unable to prove the thief burned the trailer, were unable to arrest him; the idea that the vengeful boogeyman was still out there so frightened the children that Saelee moved his family to Valley Springs. On top of his 16-hour workday, he now had a 45-minute commute.
He called me one more time for help. When City of Stockton contractors dug a big trench along Eight Mile Road to lay pipe for the Delta Water Supply Project, the knuckleheads chose a spot directly in front of Saelee’s stand to pile a mountain of dirt. The 15-foot mound entirely blocked the stand from the view of passing traffic. It was unbelievably thoughtless. The Saelee’s business plummeted.
I did a column saying the city was hurting the hardest-working family in Stockton. To her chagrin, I named the City Hall Karen in charge of the project. The dirt mount was removed.
From berries to buds
Saelee aimed higher. After marijuana was legalized, he applied for a permit to grow pot legally in Calaveras County. A racist speaking at the Board of Supervisors said the county didn’t need gooks; to their credit, the Supes had the guy removed.
And they granted Saelee the permit. Saelee invited me up to see his farm. I’m no expert, but it looked like a model marijuana farm, big and clean, efficient and secure, growing four strains of weed.
“On a good year I could make $1 million,” Saelee said.
He continued to operate the strawberry stand, including our Spring ritual. Several weeks ago he left me his annual message.
“Mike, the first strawberries are in. You come out,” he said.
Normally I went right out with cash in pocket, ready to scuffle. Not this time. I was just out the door for an overseas vacation. I planned to look Saelee up when I returned.
It was not to be. On April 9, Saelee was working on the pot farm in tandem with a friend who was driving a forklift. The friend overlooked Saelee, hit and killed him.
David Saelee was buried April 20 at a ceremony at Lodi Memorial Park & Cemetery. The ancient Mien rituals involved hooded family members, bamboo sprigs, and a shaman who read funerary prayers. I cried for the loss of a man I so admired. A man who crossed not only mountains and rivers, but immense cultural chasms into which so many have fallen into despair and dependency. A man who thrived in a strange new land out of sheer willpower and love of his family.
The Saelees say they plan to get through this strawberry season before deciding what to do. Thanks to their upbringing, the kids have futures. Tom, the oldest, was raised to run the farm. Crystal, 28, earned a teaching credential but decided instead to work as a Bay Area hotel receptionist. Tiger, 25, earned a pharmacy degree from University of the Pacific and is a working pharmacist. Felicity, 16, the youngest, is a sophomore in high school.
“My dad, he just taught me how to work hard,” Tom said. “He taught us just do the right thing, take care of each other. I feel like all of us children, we have a good work ethic because of our dad.”
I said to Tom that his father was one of the most remarkable men I ever met. A good man.
“The American Dream,” Tom said. “One-hundred percent.”
Michael Fitzgerald’s column runs on Wednesdays. On Twitter and Instagram as Stocktonopolis. Email: mfitzgeraldstockton@gmail.com.
