Steven: I was actually adopted. I was adopted from South Korea at three months old by a Polish family on the west side of Grand Rapids.
Freddie: Okay.
Steven: Grew up west side Polish culture. If you spend much time.
Freddie: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know the west side. Frank's Meat Market.
Steven: Yeah, exactly. Yep, so you know. So, I have grandparents. They had four kids who all had large families as well. So, I've got lots of cousins and aunts and uncles in the area. We all lived for probably the first 25 years of my life within like a three-block radius of one another.
Freddie: Do you have any ties back to South Korea at all or no?
Steven: No. Um, my folks adopted me and then when I was about five, they adopted my sister who was seven months old at the time. We’re not biologically related, just two separate adoptions. I don't have any relationship to birth family there. I was adopted through Bethany Christian Services. They give you an 81/2” by 11” sheet of paper of information about the family, heights, weights, siblings. That's about it. That's all I know.
Freddie: I know a lot of people from different parts of Asia. I've been around Vietnamese, Cambodian, a little bit of a South Korean, Chinese, Taiwanese, Malaysia, just different places. And I'm a big movie dude, big into South Korean movies, culture, big in the Chinese. I grew up watching Chinese from the martial arts days when I'm a little kid. And then once I got over here in West Michigan, I made friends with Laotian, Cambodian, Vietnamese, just start getting more into the cultures, more food. And then of course our history from the United States being involved politically in those cultures and everything from the good, the bad, the ugly. I'm one of those people that if I go to another country, I'll go look at the tourist stuff, but I want to be 10 toes down with grandma and grandpa that’s in their eighties. But I got involved with the older people so they would invite me to come over. Hey, you coming to have food with us? You know, come to this celebration, that celebration, because I've always been curious like that, just to know that experience. Anything about me that you want to ask? Because like I said, I'm originally from Nashville. Good ole country music USA.
Steven: I am interested in what it was like growing up in the area and what brought you here to West Michigan?
Freddie: My father was in the music business in Nashville. My dad had his own career and then he got into producing. He traveled all over the world. So, I have to attribute probably a lot of my curiosity also came from waiting for my daddy to come home. What'd you bring me daddy? What'd you bring me this time? And he'd always bring something back for me and my brother. Him and my mom split up and then she started applying for jobs outside of Nashville. She wanted to go explore something different. So, we had a choice between Milwaukee, Wisconsin and Mount Pleasant, Michigan. Finished high school there. Went to college at Ferris (State University). My natural background training is welding. I did 25 years of that. I met a girl in Mount Pleasant that was from Holland (Michigan). That's how I actually came here. So, I stayed here. That's how I got over here. Yeah.
Steven: In your own words, your personal political values.
Freddie: Go ahead. You, you take off first since I was doing all the talking.
Steven: I'm happy too. I am a member of the Republican party, which feels very like controversial to say at times because there's such a vitriol in the political space right now. I feel like I'm watching people change what it means in real time. But…
Freddie: No, you are. You are. You're watching people that are trying to give things new definition and take them out of context is what you're watching.
Steven: Yeah, yeah. But I am very much. I think that as far as what I believe politically, just for some broad perspective on foreign affairs, a little bit more of a global perspective. I think being involved in other places is really important. That's something that's very high on my radar screen right now. Just watching a lot of what's going on in the world and some of the really important places that there's a lot of pressure building. And I think what it would mean if we did not get involved and did not play a role and how that is developing, because you see kind of where the stages are being set for a significant conflict across the globe and it's scary stuff. Domestic policy on economy, that's a little bit more conservative perspective. I spent a lot of time on government budgets. The way that we spend money in government entities is at times preposterous and we demonstrate little to no fiscal restraint. It's exhausting watching the budget exercises we go through to deem things balanced. Looking at just the way that we design things with no perspective to being able to sustain long-term anything that we do. We've built the entire federal budget on a house of cards, and at some point it's going to collapse on us. So I'm very much focused domestically on, we need to be looking at how do we balance our spending with what we bring in and find ways to make sure that we're focusing our attention on the programs that provide the most value to the people like you and I who pay taxes and finding ways to do that better because right now, particularly at the federal level, we're not doing it well at all.
Freddie: I voted democratic my whole life. But now I'm at an age where I realized that to vote the way we've been kind of corralled to vote is actually the brainwashing and the propaganda that went on. Realistically, we should strictly, strictly be voting on people who are really trying to do good and are trying to really look further than just what they want or their party wants, or even their own initial interpretation. You know what I mean? I think though, that a lot of people have to start really understanding that, look, the way this country is set up if you really want to make a difference with something, you do have to stand by your neighbors. You have to stand by your brothers and sisters. I've always been like this; most citizens of the United States, and most people who come here, they all want the same thing. Okay. So, 65 to 70% of the stuff you're going to agree on pretty quick. When you look at 35 or 30% of the other stuff, there's only going to be about, I'd say between 8 and 15% of the things that are going to be a hard line between people when you look at each other politically. That stuff can be worked out, but I think that we’ve gotten so far away from individuals understanding. Yeah, we have a two-party system. It's worked fine now. I hear a lot of people that make the statements now, basically, well, everything's all tore apart we need revolution and we need this and we need that. So, my thought is, but it was good enough for your great grandfather. It was good enough for your grandfather. It was good enough for your father, but now you're telling me it's no good. Whether you like it or not, whether it looks ugly to you or not, it's still the same system. The difference is money leads now, money leads. And that's the thing that people have to realize. Staying in politics for 40 years, lobbyists, padding pockets, doing all the different things they do. Large corporations, getting them to vote the way they want them to vote so they can push their product or do whatever it is they want to do. Those are the things that are really, I think our biggest problems. But it's like, hey, we don't want you to focus on that. So, what make you, what make you guys focus on each other, race, religion, gender, cultural, you know, we'll just do you like that and keep you busy. And a lot of people just don't, I don't know if they don't take the time to actually kind of pull back and look at it and then say, you know what today, regardless of what I think, today I'm going to have a conversation with somebody who has a different opinion. And I'm going to sit and listen to them. And I'm just going to ask them basic questions and see if there are things that we can actually start agreeing on first and work from that angle versus we're going to first come out with clubs and sticks and whatever else to hit each other over head for the things that we disagree about, you know?
Steven: I love everything you said. I so appreciate the refreshing perspective. I spent six years working in government, in the legislature, working as a Republican with Democrats. And what I can tell you is that of the real things that our government actually does, 95% of it will get borderline unanimous agreement. Right. It is very little that the elected officials that we vote for do that is actually divisive. And yet somehow every single thing that we talk about is that five percent difference. We're so trained to see the other as the other. There's a part of it that it's the way our society has changed. Right. There are parts of it that our attention spans have gotten so much shorter. And you're right, money is driving so much of it that like the media has this perverse incentive to make us upset. So, they've found out that, you know, the more of this stuff that we report on that gets people fired up one way or the other, the more people are going to watch, the more we're going to drive viewership.
Freddie: Yeah, sensationalism.
Steven: Exactly. So that drives it on the one end and then on the other end, politically, the folks that run for office have kind of come to the same conclusion that I need to make the other guys look bad to get people to want to vote for me, right? I have to talk about all the bad things that the other does. It has just created such a toxic environment around us and it's so sad to watch because like you I very much like...this nation is built on something great, right? Great ideas, I believe. And if we could continue to hold true to those things, to the spirit of what this nation was founded on there are great things in our future, but we continue to focus on the things that divide us and see one another as only those things more and more. Freddie, it's been incredible talking to you. I think that this has been one of the better conversations I've had since I can remember. You are quite the person to listen to speak. I think there are a lot of people that are very fortunate to have you around because I really valued your perspective.
Freddie: Well, same to you, Steven. Thanks for your time. And I hope this whole thing is done across all ages, from all different backgrounds. High school, college, even maybe even in junior high as you transition. It's been great. I appreciate it.