In “Blessed Egg Rolls and the Evolution of Rockport, Texas,” Gravy producer Evan Stern takes listeners to the small town of Rockport, Texas, which hugs the shores of Aransas Bay on the state’s Gulf Coast, about 35 miles northeast of Corpus Christi. There, he visits Saint Peter’s Catholic Church, founded by Vietnamese arrivals in the early 1980s, and whose congregants host a monthly fundraiser selling such dishes as bun, egg rolls, and shrimp. 

Following the collapse of Saigon, in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese, Laotians, and Cambodians fled the Indochinese Peninsula to seek refuge in the United States. While a great many of these people famously resettled and established enclaves in cities like Houston and New Orleans, seeking work in fishing and shrimping, others moved to and impacted smaller, less diverse communities on the Gulf Coast.

For Gravy, Stern explores the challenges of resettlement and this community’s evolution. We hear from congregants including Trang Kelsey, who found comfort in Rockport’s oysters and fish that reminded her of her home island, Phu Quoc. Lyly Nguyen shares how the popularity of her family’s cooking among Rockport High’s football team—pho, lo mein, egg rolls—inspired them to open the successful restaurant, Hu Dat, which now claims three locations in Texas. 

Stern also examines the racial tensions following this mass migration. Noted environmentalist and fourth-generation fisherwoman Diane Wilson, who lives and works up the coast in the town of Seadrift, remembers how misunderstandings between residents and newcomers over misplaced crab lines and unspoken rules gave rise to conflict. Lyly Nguyen recalls harassment and violence following a 1979 territorial dispute that kept her home from school for a week. 

Finally, Stern speaks to Julie La Pam, a shrimper in Aransas Bay; seafood market owner Flower Bui; Saint Peter’s choir director Tam Nguyen; and Father Tung Tran. All proudly call Rockport home and remind us that churches—and communities, and towns, and cities, and nations—are made of people before brick and mortar.

 

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