Sacramento celebrates life of beloved midtown store owner Calvin Yang with vigil, memories

Dozens of Sacramento residents gathered in-person and online through Facebook Live outside DJ Market in midtown Saturday evening to commemorate the life of store owner Chue “Calvin” Yang, who died Tuesday.

Yang was just one week shy of his 61st birthday when he passed away from a heart attack while working in his store. His loss was felt keenly and immediately by the community, who set up a GoFundMe for his family and filled the gates on his store with cards, flowers and balloons.

On Saturday, Yang’s customers and family members held a vigil for Yang outside the store at 24th and I streets where he had spent the last 20 years working seven days a week, 12 to 13 hours a day. The crowd swelled to about 60 people, spilling out over the sidewalk and into the street, all to remember the 5-foot-tall shop owner — his kindness, his dad jokes and steady presence in their lives.

“He had a heart of gold,” said Lawrence Rodriguez, a customer for almost 10 years. “They don’t make men like him no more.”

Holding candles, customers and family members stepped up to the microphone one by one to share their favorite memories and best interactions with Yang. Through tears and laughter, stories ranged from the sly comments Yang would make about his customers’ purchases of junk food and alcohol to the flower he gave a customer who was feeling lonely on Valentine’s Day.

“My father loved each and every one of you guys here,” said Kou, Yang’s second son, speaking to the crowd.

One customer named Chris, who did not provide a last name, said Yang always made sure to keep the building’s back light on for his sister, who lived just upstairs from the store, so she wouldn’t have to walk through a dark alley to come home at night. He even turned one of his security cameras to face her door, Chris said, just to provide an extra layer of safety.

“He was a very selfless man,” he said. “He was here for all of us.”

Many customers remembered Yang for the exercise plan he’d created for himself in recent years, which consisted of him speed-walking or jogging back and forth from his store and around the block so that he could stay active without being away from the counter for too long. In this way, customers said, he often put in as many as eight miles a day. He also liked to sit outside the store and play his qeej, a Hmong reed instrument.

In a world that’s become increasingly filled with uncertainty, customers said, Yang’s constant unchanging smile and upbeat demeanor became even more precious. One customer, Gary, waved to him from his bike to work almost every single day for 20 years, meeting Yang first as a single man and eventually going on to introduce him to his children.

“Especially these days, it’s so refreshing to see that kind of love,” Gary said.

“Everything was $5 in the store,” joked Todd Clark, a customer who used to live down the street. “I hope he’s up there … selling lottery tickets for five bucks.”

“He’s a fixture, and it’s just crazy that we’ll never see him again,” said Rachelle Barbour, a longtime customer. “Now I realize that everyone was having (their own meaningful) interactions with him. It’s part of what’s special about seeing people come together to mourn him.”

Remembering a remarkable life

Yang was born on Feb. 2, 1960, in Laos. Like many Hmong refugees, he and his wife, See Xiong, had to flee from Laos to Thailand to escape persecution after the Vietnam War. It was in Thailand that they were married almost 42 years ago, before they came to Sacramento as refugees in the early 1980s.

“I believed that he loved me so much,” Xiong said. “No matter what you do, he’s the same person, every single day.”

In Sacramento, Yang and Xiong settled into a new life, one filled with raising 11 children — seven daughters and four sons — and hard work. Yang balanced many jobs from operating a gas station to working as a real estate agent while going to school, eventually obtaining an associate’s degree in business.

Yang’s children remembered him as steadfast, dedicated to his family and to his work, and endlessly humble. He rarely talked about the daily ups and downs of working in the store, so the size of the community’s collective warmth for their father came as a surprise to the family.

“I said, ‘Wow, I can’t believe it.’ It was amazing. I never thought that all the residents would get together and do something ... for my family,” Xiong said.

Yang’s daughter, Mao, recalled her father as someone who always saw the good in people and whose heart could stretch wide enough to accommodate anyone. She recalled a visit to his store a few weeks ago, when she saw her father giving food and drinks to a homeless man outside the store. When she asked him why, Yang told her the man had tried to steal from him in the past and had tried to hit him when Yang confronted the man.

Shocked, Mao asked him why he would invite the man back into his business. His response was that the man needed that food more than he needed the man’s money.

“My dad said to me, ‘I know there is an innocent man in there, sometimes drugs and homelessness makes them do things they don’t want to do,’” Mao said in an email. “He said, everyone kicks this man out of their business, if he does too, where will he go to get food and drinks?”

Actions of love

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, some of Yang’s children urged him to close the store. He gave it some thought, they said, but ultimately decided that he needed to stay open for the community.

“He said … ‘I need to be there for my customers,’” Kou said. “Until the minute he passed, he was here.”

“He wanted to provide the best for his family and never wanted to see us struggle again,” Mao wrote. “Even up till he passed away, anytime you walked into the store, he was on his toes.”

His grueling work schedule left little time for his personal hobbies like hunting and fishing, his family said. But one thing he did always make time for before the pandemic were their family dinners, with all 11 children and 18 grandchildren gathered together. Even at these dinners, to which he would often arrive last after closing the store, he would put others first, serving the kids and plating their food despite everyone telling him to sit down and put his feet up.

He was the kind of person who expressed his love through action and service, said Long, Yang’s youngest son. One of the memories he’ll treasure is the moment he completed his last exam at Sacramento State, crying with happiness over the phone to his father, who celebrated with him.

“My dad … he was very short on words,” Long said. “To him, (saying) ‘I’m proud of you ...’ It’s a feeling I can’t describe.”

Yang had his family at home, Long said, but he also had his family in his midtown customers and friends. He and his mother are grateful to the community, they said, for keeping Yang safe, not giving him trouble and for continuing to remember him even after he’s gone.

“All the recognition he’s getting, wherever he’s at, he’s probably laughing,” Long said. “He would have never seeked this kind of recognition before. … He would just laugh and say ‘I’m just doing my job.’”

This story was originally published January 31, 2021 at 11:31 AM.