Wisconsin U.S. Senate Candidate for the Democratic Nomination Kou Lee: An Undying Love for America
Kou Lee is A Hmong American businessman from Green Bay
By Jonathan Gramling
Kou Lee, a candidate for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate, has an undying love for America. When he was two-years-old, his parents fled their native Laos, traveled by night through the jungle and crossed the Mekong River to live in a refugee camp in Thailand before landing in the inner-city of Detroit.
“As a kid, coming from a war-torn country like Laos, living in poverty for many years in a refugee camp in Thailand, Detroit wasn’t as bad as I thought at first because what I had in Detroit was way better than what I had in the refugee camp,” Lee said. “I didn’t know any better. I was a kid just trying to grow up. I was nine-years-old starting fourth grade. I didn’t know how to speak the language. I didn’t know the culture. I was so new to the environment. But it was new in terms of, ‘Wow this is so cool! I’m learning so many things. I’m seeing so many things.’ That was the start of my journey. In Detroit, as bad as it is nowadays and even when I was there, my teachers, coaches and parents loved me and that is all that I knew. I went to school. I tried as hard as I can. And that is all I knew how to do. I think shortly after four years, I was accepted to one of the best high schools in Detroit, Cass Technical High School. After that, I went on to Michigan State University. I graduated from there with a business degree.”
Lee lived in Michigan after graduating and then was led through family relations — his wife’s — to Green Bay and Wisconsin.
“In my culture, you are looked down upon if you move to the village that your in-laws live in,” Lee said with a laugh. “I never thought that I would
move to Wisconsin because I didn’t want to be humiliated by my friends and family since I had followed my in-laws. I actually never thought about moving to Wisconsin. But during the 2005 economic downturn, we were just about ready to move south because my parents were in Detroit for many, many years. And they want to move someplace that is warmer. We were getting ready to move to Tennessee. That’s when I received a phone call from a headhunter who offered me a job in Wisconsin. It was a job offer to work for a local company in Milwaukee. My parents were ready to move south. And my wife had spent the last 10 years with me in Michigan. The least I could do was bring her back home so that she could be closer to her parents. As a grown man, I accepted the punishment for moving closer to my in-laws. My friends and family mocked me in that regard. But it doesn’t really matter. I enjoy it here and love Wisconsin.”
Lee worked as a grocery store manager before he and his wife decided to work for themselves as restaurateurs.
“My wife and I decided that we wanted to create more time for us to be together,” Lee said. “We figured that we needed to invest in something. If we were going to work this hard, we were going to do it for ourselves. We went on to buy a restaurant. You know you try to get away from work, but we bought a restaurant. We’ve been working in the restaurant for the past seven years until now when I got into the campaign.”
Lee is very much concerned about democracy. And while he is concerned about domestic threats to it, he is also concerned about foreign threats.
“I think the overall concern for democracy is that we now have a rival on the other side of the ‘Pond’ and we have to be very careful in how we run things here in the U.S. so that we don’t lose sight on the U.S. being the supreme power in the world and America is still America,” Lee said. “I believe that we are the last hope for humankind. If we allow countries like China to become the sole superpower on this planet, our lives will change. My kids’ freedom and the freedom of future generations of Americans is at stake.”
Lee is concerned about wealth inequities and the widening gap between the haves and the have nots.
“I think we have to reexamine these big corporations because I think that they do have behaviors that are over the line in terms of anti-trust laws,” Lee said. “If you drive to different counties in Wisconsin, this silence about wealth is there. People don’t say it to you, but you can feel it. It’s like the life has been sucked out of us. We work so hard as workers and small business owners. But we still cannot make it while in these last two years, we’ve seen multi-millionaires become billionaires and we see billionaires become multi-billionaires. What is happening is that this corporate power is gaining steam and getting bigger and is sucking the life out of the middle class Americans. Here in Green Bay, you’ve heard of JBS. It’s one of the biggest meat companies in the world. I think they were hacked around two summers ago. When that happened to JBS, my price at the restaurant for chicken used to be 99 cents per pound. Overnight, it jumped to almost $3 per pound and it hasn’t come back down. We have a shortage at the grocery stores for chicken, pork and beef because JBS got hacked. This is a prime example of how a big corporation that is squeezing out all of the mom and pop shops, sucking up all of the local businesses and they control the price. And when something happens to them, all of us suffer.”
Lee sees the healthcare industry consolidating and becoming uncompetitive. And that means poor and more expensive service for the customer.
“There is no competition at all,” Lee remarked about the healthcare industry. “Here we are talking about changing the system into something new. But we don’t talk about the competition within the industry. There is no competition. Take United Health for example. They are in Wisconsin between Appleton and Green Bay. During the start of the pandemic during the first quarter, they announced that the deposited $1.2 billion for the first quarter right when we got hit by the pandemic. As a business owner, I’m sick to my stomach because every day, I drive home. And I see the gigantic new building that United Health is building. Every little program or clinic or mom and pop shop, they absorbed them. The sad thing about this entire thing is the only thing that you and I know about our medical healthcare that is transparent is your deductible. I know that I owe $50 to go see a doctor. Besides that, you and I do not know how much it is to go see a doctor. This is a prime example of an unchecked industry that is controlled by millions of dollars and they have the biggest and most powerful lobbyist group in Washington, D.C. And I think they bought every U.S. Senator including the ones from Wisconsin. And that is unfortunate.”
Lee is concerned that large sums of ‘anonymous’ money is destroying the U.S. election system, limiting people’s ability to run for office and the competition of ideas.
“I think in 2010 when Citizen United was approved by the U.S. Supreme Court 5-4, it opened the flood gate for non-profits and big corporations and millionaires and billionaires to influence elections,” Lee said. “That’s how these super PACs and dark money were created. For me, if I become the next United States Senator from Wisconsin, we’re going to require transparency. We want to know where this money is coming from. And we are going to put a limit on it. I think that would lessen the money gap facing candidates and people like me who want to do something about it and want to make positive change for our country and our community so that we can invite and welcome more people like myself to the stage. And I think that would be the solution to this political issue that is facing America.”
Lee feels that the widening income gap is impacting the availability of affordable housing.
“There was a time when 70 percent of wage earners in America could buy or build their own home,” Lee said. “The reason we have a shortage of affordable housing is there are too many people who are part of the workforce who cannot borrow to buy a home. Why? With this income inequality that we are talking about, the workers in this country have been screwed since the 1980s. They work longer hours. They work more jobs for less pay. And then we call them socialists and greedy when they say they can’t afford a place to live. If you raise the wages of the workers, you create the economic situation and conditions where workers can make more and can buy their homes. In some other parts of the country like New York and Chicago, they have built a lot of affordable housing. But you also have to do a good job of maintaining it. Here’s the problem and I think it’s an epidemic. There are places in the country that has tons of affordable housing. But it sucks. The air conditioning doesn’t work. Something is broken. The heat is screwed up. The lights are out. It’s not even livable. If they would just maintain it and take care of it, people would be happy to live in it. We need more affordable housing. But we’ve got to maintain what we build.”
Lee is very concerned about the recent overturning of Roe vs. Wade and a woman’s right to choose.
“If you look at it closely, this issue came about not because someone thought about it yesterday and did it today,” Lee said. “I think it was engineered by the Republican Party and Donald Trump for many, many years. You had a fundamental right that was in place for 50 years and now we are going to repeal it. What’s next? Civil rights? Our right to marriage? It’s trickling down from one to the next. As the U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, when it comes to your personal freedom, I will always come down on the right to privacy. I’m for the right to choose.”
Lee feels that the U.S. Congress is stagnant and not doing its duty to the American public. It isn’t getting the job done.
“As of today, I think the U.S. Senate is going to approve some sort of gun laws so that we can protect our children,” Lee said. “And I think that is a very good first step. And I guess you can’t achieve everything at once. I applaud the Senators for coming together to show America that we are no so divided as we seem. We can actually come together, work together to get things done. And not because of gun laws, but the symbolism that even though I’m red and you are blue, we have a common purpose here that is the American public, that is the democracy that is protecting our country. No matter what, we have to come together somehow. You might not get your way100 percent. I might not get my way 100 percent. But somehow we are protecting the system that is working for all of us. I think that is a good start.”
Lee wants to get it done for America and the people whose hopes and dreams depend on the federal government to act in the interest of its people. Lee wants others to be able to achieve their American Dream like he has been able to achieve his.
“Everything that I have, everything that I am, every breath that I take and every freedom that I enjoy, I owe it to the United States of America,” Lee emphasized. “That’s why I love this country. I love Wisconsin. And if allowed, I would love to be the greatest Senator for Wisconsinites and all Americans for the decisions that we make in Congress impact everyone across stateliness. I want to be a great server and great worker for the state of Wisconsin.”
As a Hmong American and American, Kou Lee wants America to be all that it can be.
