Will Unga (00:00):
Not all storms come to disrupt your life. Some come to clear your path. And so when you say, "Why do I still have hope?" Because there's a future generation after us.
Mary Day (00:20):
2020 made me afraid. COVID, social injustice, so much grief. I was really afraid that we were gonna lose hope and if we lose hope, we lose everything. So I went out and asked, "Why do you still hope?" to people I trust, the people of Zip Code Economies. And here is what I learned and you are, like me, gonna be so encouraged, so appreciative, and so inspired. Please listen. You're listening to Zip Code Economies 1.5, a special edition brought to you in a time of need by your Zip Code family.
	We all have those people in our lives who we met and they're instantaneously connected to us. And so it is with me and Will Unga from Salt Lake City. He's a Mormon, he's a Pacific Islander, he's this bigger than life guy who's just filled with joy, gregariousness. He's telling jokes. He's somebody you'd want to spend tons of time with. And then when you sit down with him, he's deep and vulnerable and quiet and reflective and you feel like you're with your very best friend. And all those things are embodied at once. So I sat down with Will to talk about hope and here is our conversation, the laughter, and the reflection.
Will Unga (02:00):
My name is Will Unga, U-N-G-A. I work for Delta Airlines in ground operations but I am also an owner for an import/export company. When I had first participated in Zip Codes, I was working at Salt Lake Community College. So last year I quit that job so that I could pursue my company and devote more of my time to that.
Mary Day (02:19):
Mm-hmm (affirmative). So how's your company going?
Will Unga (02:22):
It went as not how I expected. (laughing)
Mary Day (02:26):
Nothing like starting a company in a pandemic, right? (laughs)
Will Unga (02:29):
Well, actually in the state of Utah, right after the pandemic hit there were several earthquakes that happened here, and then all the racial injustice, marches, and other things. I'm sure that's spread out throughout the country, but in Salt Lake it was something that people don't normally see.
Mary Day (02:43):
What did you think about that when you saw that? You don't usually see it in Salt Lake, as you say, and, and suddenly you are seeing it. What was your experience?
Will Unga (02:56):
Well, there were two police shootings in Salt Lake City proper.
Mary Day (02:58):
Oh, no.
Will Unga (02:58):
Everything spurred with George Floyd then these two separate police shootings had occurred in Salt Lake City and when that happened there were big riots in the city. Cop cars were pushed over, there was fires, people getting hurt, people getting ranned over. Really passionate people actually on both sides, though the majority of them, of course, were talking about the injustices. Brave ones that wanted to oppose them wanted to do it in person. They came out and the protestors were vocal but they tried to stay nonviolent and some people in the crowd were being violent and there was talk about like them not actually being part of the peaceful protest and this and that.
	And so my thought about this whole thing is like there's gotta be a better way for dialogue, better way for resolution. I believe one of the officers got... and I don't remember the exact sentencing, but as I understand, it was quite light and so there was another protest and it was a lot more heated in that time. So going back to your question, my thought is there's gotta be a better way to resolve this. I don't know exactly what the solution is, but I do know that there's a better way to do it than what we've been doing thus far.
Mary Day (04:06):
Well, hear, hear. I mean, I think anytime you get polarized views and people don't listen and don't hear each other, it never ends well. It's so difficult in our-
Will Unga (04:17):
Yeah.
Mary Day (04:18):
... in our country right now, at least this is my perspective, but I wanna hear what you think. I find it hard to stand in that middle. It's uncomfortable. It's a courage we don't seem to be able to muster at the moment.
Will Unga (04:29):
You know, it's just kinda like the whole voting thing, right? I mean there's so many people so passionate about one side or the other and there's weaknesses that can be found on both sides. And in regards to voting, as high as the president all the way down to your mayor, your city council member, whatever side you choose, one, make an informed one, two, form your own opinion, and then number three, one of the biggest things that people should learn how to do and we don't do this, is no matter what opinion somebody has, respect it and especially if it's opposed to whatever view that you have because, uh, what I've seen lately is like people, they only respect you in terms of your political opinion, if it's the same as theirs.
Mary Day (05:12):
Right. That makes perfect sense, honestly. I agree with you. If I ask you more to broaden the lens a little bit away from just the racial injustice issues and just talk broadly about also the health issue, pandemic, the economic fallout. How do you see your community faring in the aftermath of the pandemic? It's still with us but it landed on our shore some time ago now and, and how do you feel your community is faring?
Will Unga (05:37):
Well the community that I associate with, the Pacific Islanders, we're normally give a hug and, and a kiss kind of a thing, and then since the pandemic, we've learned how to not do that-
Mary Day (05:37):
(laughs)
Will Unga (05:48):
... as much. And then there's other communities like in our cities. In Salt Lake City area, we I think are more liberal, generally speaking and when the pandemic came, everybody was wearing masks and everything like that as opposed to Utah County, which is further south. They all thought that it wasn't as important, they thought it was a fake, and all of a sudden when Salt Lake City's flattening the curve even more, Utah County's had a lot of spikes. A lot of people are going into the hospital. Dear friends of mine that I know, their parents are going into the hospital and one of them right now, her name is Cindy, her dad is in the hospital and she's-
Mary Day (06:27):
Mm.
Will Unga (06:27):
... fearful that, uh, he may not make it.
Mary Day (06:29):
Oh, no.
Will Unga (06:30):
And she's a nurse. She's a nurse for crying out loud, you know? So I don't know. I don't wanna be that very, very small percentage that me or my family just happen to get it. So, to me, it's better to be safe than sorry.
Mary Day (06:44):
I think that's a good motto to live by. The way we see it here, I'm definitely... wear my mask and all the people around us wear our masks and we wear 'em at the bank when we're here, is that we wanna be part of the solution, whatever that solution looks like as we gain more information. We don't wanna be part of the problem. We wanna be contributing.
Will Unga (06:44):
Yes, absolutely.
Mary Day (07:03):
So, I wanna ask you a specific question and I hope it doesn't make you uncomfortable, but you're a m- man of color, how are you feeling personally during all these issues of racial justice in the country that we're facing and you've talked about how they also boiled up in Salt Lake City and in the area around that. How are you f- f- thinking about that?
Will Unga (07:20):
I don't know if I told you this but I used to live in Foster City in the Bay Area. I'm a Bay Area original. When we first moved here to Utah, it was, uh, back in 1981, and my dad, he's a religious guy, when he moved us from the Bay Area to Utah, I remember we were driving on a Saturday. We got to our new house on a Sunday and he said, "Let's go to church." We went to church. There was nothing but Caucasian people there and right when we walked in at this place, it was in Provo, Utah, I never felt so many stares in my life. And it wasn't the stare, it was the way that they stared at me as a little kid and I remember saying to myself, "I would rather be in the projects in Sacramento than I would be at this foreign land kind of a place." It made me feel completely uncomfortable.
	Fast forward that like 30-plus years right now. I think it's still here in the state of Utah just underlying. I would daresay racism but I think some people are being more brave in terms of being blatant in the way they talk and the way they treat people of ethnic origin. And I have all these different conversations with people. I keep on thinking about that time, I'm not sure if you might remember this more, but like when, when the government once said, "We segregate the black people because we're separate but equal." Do you remember that saying?
Mary Day (08:48):
Oh, I do remember that saying.
Will Unga (08:52):
Yes. And to me, when I talk with my wife or my family members, I'm like, "You know what? They did that with people of color. If they did that with people who are different, that doesn't make anything right." Separate but equal isn't equal. It doesn't make any sense to me and I have a hard time coming to grips with that saying. And I'm speaking generally 'cause not everybody in the state of Utah is still at that mindset and I really don't know why from 1981 when I first came to the state up until now, there's a lot of people proclaim to me that it's gotten better but I'm like, man, you, you don't really know until you experience getting pulled over by a cop and it was like you ask what's wrong and they say, "Oh, no, nothing. I just wanted to check and make sure." Make sure what? Make sure what? That I'm not stealing this car? Make sure that I'm obeying the law? I didn't go over the speed limit, this and that and they said, "Do you have something to hide?" And I'm like, "I'm just asking you a question. You're asking me a question, do I not have the right to inquire about why you've pulled me over?" That kinda thing.
Mary Day (09:55):
It's actually really meaningful what you're saying. You know I'm a white woman. I'm, I'm gay but my sixth grade best friend is African American and I remember being in sixth grade and I said, "No, I understand." Actually, actually I told her my grandma was, is Catholic and that she had a cross burnt in her yard by the KKK as a child and Sharon said, and I remember this so clearly, we're in sixth grade, we're on the bus, and she said, "That's a hard story," some version of sixth grade language, but she said, "That's a hard story but your grandma can hide being Catholic. I can't hide being black." And what I took from that is I can hide being gay. I have to say it, right?
Will Unga (10:38):
Yeah.
Mary Day (10:39):
You can't hide. And so I think that's a, that's a piece that I don't know and all I can do is listen and extend my empathy. But I don't know what that's like. Your willingness to share what it feels like, what it is, actually helps those of us who cannot walk in your shoes. We don't walk in your shoes. I can't understand unless you explain it to me.
Will Unga (10:59):
Yes.
Mary Day (11:00):
Have you been pulled over?
Will Unga (11:02):
Yeah, plenty of times. When I was in college, too. Especially. (laughs) W-
Mary Day (11:02):
Hm.
Will Unga (11:07):
'Cause I met my wife at Southern Utah University. She's half Japanese and half Caucasian-
Mary Day (11:12):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Will Unga (11:12):
... um, but she was raised in Salt Lake City which is more diverse. And when I first went to Cedar City for college, I had a California car and that car is tinted in the driver's seat but it's legal in California. And they pulled me over all the time. I probably met and saw every one of the police.
Mary Day (11:30):
(laughs)
Will Unga (11:30):
All 10 police officers of Cedar City. Every time they pulled me over I already knew what it was. I rolled down my window and they said like, "Can I see your driver's license and registration?" And I'm like, "Sure, can you tell me why you pulled me over?" It was like, "Oh, I just had a call about..." i- it was a dumb reason. So I got my information but before I got it I will tell them like if my license was in my backpack, I told them, 'cause I'm from California, I said like, "Hey, I'm reaching in the back of my car and I'm grabbing my backpack. I'm grabbing my backpack because my driver's license is in there." And they said, "Okay." And they'd grab a flashlight and point it until I grabbed my backpack and I brought... It was so weird. But my wife, girlfriend at the time, she was saying like, "Why are you, why did you say that?" I was like, "Because I don't want them to shoot me." (laughing) And she didn't understand that-
Mary Day (12:15):
Mm.
Will Unga (12:15):
... you know, 'cause a bunch of my family members from the Bay Area, they'd always have to tell the cops what they're doing before they did it because their friends just got shot like two days before that. And so they say like, "Hey, I'm gonna, I'm reaching in the glove compartment. You told me to get my thing so I'm doing this." But for my wife, it was odd for her that I was speaking to them in the way that I was but I told her, I was like, "If anything happens," 'cause I think at that time they didn't have any bodycams.
Mary Day (12:41):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Will Unga (12:42):
I could tell them in court I had informed them that I was going out to reach my backpack to get my driver's license and then I will give it to them. And they can't say that I didn't say that because somebody was in the passenger seat with me. And she said, "I never would've thought to say that," and I go, "I never would've either if other people who cared about me kinda gave me a heads up if I ever got pulled over for stuff like that."
Mary Day (13:05):
Do you have kids?
Will Unga (13:06):
Yeah. One boy, 10, and then one girl, 7. So they're young.
Mary Day (13:10):
For your son, do you worry you're gonna have to have that conversation with him about the police?
Will Unga (13:17):
Because he's still kind of young, not really 'cause he's just worried about playing his games and-
Mary Day (13:17):
(laughs)
Will Unga (13:26):
... playing with the kids right now. In the back of my mind, yes. Yeah (laughs). In the back of my mind, I, I wonder how that conversation will go especially if we still live here. My wife right now, she's open to the idea of like moving out of state but where out of state? We would have to look at the schools and the neighborhoods and everything like that and so I actually am more fearful for my daughter.
Mary Day (13:43):
Oh.
Will Unga (13:44):
Um-
Mary Day (13:45):
Why?
Will Unga (13:45):
Just because she's a girl.
Mary Day (13:47):
Mm.
Will Unga (13:47):
She's female. When people say it's a man's world out there, man, I don't dispute that or say anything. I don't know why it's like that, especially in American society. There's a whole lot of different discriminations. I think women is the most overlooked one, you know? Just being a woman. They get paid less, they don't get as much recognition as, uh, some of the men. And this is funny, this is coming from a man. (laughing)
Mary Day (14:12):
It really will speak to people that you recognize it because I think that when you're standing in the group itself and others recognize that there's this difference, it's helpful, it's validating to everything you know and experience. And that's what I try to do for others who are in groups that I'm not in and you've just done it for women across America so I appreciate that on behalf of your daughter and all of us who are female.
	So one thing that I'm trying to basically do for listeners is from the voice of someone other than me, from all the different people we talk to, you tell some things that when we listen make us all sad and wish for something different. And so the question then is how do you not give up? How do you not give up for change? How do you keep going? Your spirit when I talk to you feels light but how does-
Will Unga (15:19):
Yes.
Mary Day (15:19):
... that happen? What do you do? How do you think about it?
Will Unga (15:24):
To answer that question I have to tell you a little story about an aunt of mine. We called her Veni, V-E-N-I. Yeah, sh- she since passed away.
Mary Day (15:33):
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Will Unga (15:35):
But this the funny thing about her. She was, I guess according to societal s- standards, she would be considered overweight. But every time there was a dance at the church or something like that, I remember as a little kid seeing her dress up-
Mary Day (15:35):
(laughs)
Will Unga (15:49):
... and she looked in the mirror and she'd go, "I'm gonna kill the guys tonight." (laughing) She goes, "I am gonna dance on that dance floor. I'm gonna start by myself-
Mary Day (16:01):
(laughs)
Will Unga (16:01):
... and after that, all the men are gonna come to me and all the women are gonna wanna be me and, oh, yeah you better watch out." (laughing) And I think when you're saying that, you know, you feel the sense o- of likeness with me, I think my family really taught me that, you know? And then also, when I was talking about my daughter, in our culture, more old culture before I think Christianity hit the islands, we were more so of a matriarchal society. The women were the ones who held the ultimate authority and that's a whole nother, uh, discussion historically 'cause th- they kinda vary within the different versions, but generally speaking, we were like that. So when my aunt Veni would be like that... She was actually my second mom. She would be my protectorate, she would be my (laughs) disciplinarian-
Mary Day (16:47):
(laughs)
Will Unga (16:47):
... she would be my, uh, mentor, she would be my guide, she would be my everything. And so when she had passed away, my heart was extremely heavy but when we all got together and we talked about how her personality, how her outlook on life is, a- and man, I re- I remember we had some hard times as a family but she always came by and I always remember her. She'd just grab me as a kid, you know, or when I was younger, and she'd just like rub my head and she goes, "Don't worry, Will. It's all gonna be okay. You have me. You have me."
Mary Day (17:20):
We all need a Veni.
Will Unga (17:21):
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Talking with you before I felt at ease. I felt like you were kinda like my Veni at that time. I was like, "You know what? Mary asks me something, I'm just gonna tell her." You're good peoples, I believe. I appreciate you. I, I'm glad you invited me back to... (laughs)
Mary Day (17:39):
Well, th- thank you. I, I don't think I've b- been paid a greater compliment than that in a long time so I appreciate that. So one question I think that, you know, and you are like me. We have to just be joyful in the place we're standing, even if it's not a joyful place to stand. So then the question people will have is do you ever get sad? Do you ever feel discouraged? Do you ever feel like maybe it won't work out? And then what do you do at that moment?
Will Unga (18:09):
Sure. Do I get sad and discouraged, all that stuff? Absolutely. People deal with it differently. Kinda like when Veni passed away, I need some alone time. I needed some alone time to grieve, to think, to cry. And I think crying, it is not a bad thing. It's a release. You have a lot of energy in you that i- it has to be released, I believe. And then after that in, you know, Oregon and depending on what people's spiritual perspectives are, some people say that she's in a better place but one thing that I know is that she wasn't suffering because she had some physical ailments and then when everybody gets together after I spend my alone time, you go to your support groups, your, your family, your, your good close friends who could basically be family, and you look for that, for me, a renewal. Always honoring her memory because she's family. We have that blood, we have that line in us. We make sure we continue it. So e- even though she's passed away, I just shared with you about Veni and her attitude about life and although society saw her as a bigger woman, she saw herself as the most sexiest creature on Earth. (laughing)
Mary Day (19:19):
That's a brilliant story, by the way. You told the story so well I can see her in my mind. And now Veni's in me, right? And now I'm gonna pass her on, so. That's exactly how we create legacy. So in a word or a short phrase, the question is why do you still have hope?
Will Unga (19:41):
Why do I still have hope? That is an absolutely great question. (laughing) Something's come to mind and it, and it goes something like this. Not all storms come to disrupt your life. Some come to clear your path. And so when you say, "Why do I still have hope?" Because there's a future generation after us. There was a generation of trailblazers before us. We're living here right now, I think because there are things that we need to do and the reason why I have hope is because the people that came before us believe in us. They were trying to make things better for us than what they had to go through. And I think it's only fair as we should be obligated to our future to make things hopefully better for them than we are going through right now. That is why I think I have hope.
Mary Day (20:55):
I think about my conversation with Will all the time. He said something in particular that he got from someone else but felt compelled to write it down and so do I. Not all storms come to disrupt your life. Some come to clear paths. I like those words. I need those words. It's nice to see things not just as losses but as opportunities and I think that's what he meant. He also reminded me of my grandmom. Not him, but his Veni. I like to think of Veni and Grandma together right now somewhere looking down on all of us, ensuring that we're protected, safe, remembering what we're supposed to do, and most of all, hoping like they did.
	So I want to say thank you, Veni, thank you Grandma, thank you Will. These are all part of my family, the family I chose, the family I need. And if we keep them in our hearts, we'll get through everything together. It saddens me to report that David [Waight 00:22:06], the father of Cindy, the nurse friend of Will's, did not survive COVID. And so we dedicate this episode to him, to his family, and to the hundreds of thousands of other people who have suffered from this terrible illness. We will not let you down.
	Next time on Zip Code Economies 1.5, we talk to Lahela from Oahu. She's inspiring. Please join me. You've been listening to Zip Code Economies, a production of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Please visit our website, zipcodeeconomies.org. And of course while you're there, don't forget to subscribe and leave us your thoughts wherever you listen to your podcasts, at Stitcher, Apple, or TuneIn. Thank you so much for listening.

This transcript was exported on Mar 08, 2021 - view latest version here.



ZCE1-5-E2-Will-Unga-V1 (Completed  03/06/21)
Transcript by Rev.com
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