Conversation with Lance

Abby 00:00:00: - Okay, so hello everyone and welcome to our interview. 

Abby 00:00:03:- My name's Abby and I'm here with my colleagues Ryo and Isabella, and we're here today to conduct an interview to understand the experiences of Latin American communities in Ottawa. 

Abby 00:00:14: - Allow me to introduce our interviewee, Lance. Welcome, Lance, and thank you for being here today. 

Lance 00:00:20: - Hello, hello. How are you guys doing? 

Abby 00:00:22: - Good, good. 

Abby 00:00:22: - So the first question we have for you today is, what is your country of origin? 

Lance 00:00:27: - So my country of origin, I was born and raised in Haiti. 

Abby 00:00:31: - Okay, And what brought you to Ottawa? 

Lance 00:00:33: - So what brought me in Ottawa in 2011.

Lance 00:00:36: - There was an earthquake that happened around January, February. 

Lance 00:00:40: - And after that event happened, my family decided to move here, to immigrate here because the status and the economical state of the country started going down. 

Lance 00:00:54: - And my dad used to be a judge back in Haiti. So he had a lot of ties to the political system back here. So he decided to take us and move to Canada from that. 

Isabella 00:01:08: - That's cool. 

Abby 00:01:09: - Very interesting. 

Abby 00:01:10: - So I guess, yeah, do you have any family here and do you see them frequently?

Lance 00:01:15: - So I have my mom, my dad, and recently my grandmother came a couple years ago. And I also live with my older sister. 

Abby 00:01:23: - Okay. 

Abby 00:01:24: - That's cool. 

Abby 00:01:25: - And the next question we just have for you is what celebrations are most important to you? 

Lance 00:01:30: - In my community, there's a prevalence of celebrations that we do. Mostly we celebrate Christmas. 

Lance 00:01:38: - We also celebrate Gide. So that's a voodoo type of celebration. It happens around Halloween. 

Lance 00:01:49: - And also one of the favorite ones is 1st of January, which is the independence of Haiti that we like to celebrate too. 

Abby 00:01:58: - Very cool. 

Ryo 00:02:00: - Okay, move on to the next question. Can you describe a typical day in your community? 

Lance 00:02:08: - In my community, of course, as soon as we wake up, it's very, very loud. So how can I say it? 

Lance 00:02:14: - We wake up, we usually get some coffee with some bread, like a typical breakfast. 

Lance 00:02:20: - But usually in my community, the breakfast is pretty heavy. So we start off always either with some rice or with some type of carbs or pasta. And then of course, accompanied with some juice with there. 

Lance 00:02:36: - Moving on to the later date, because it's so hot over there, we usually always stay hydrated, go to the beach. 

Lance 00:02:43: - If we have to go to school, we go to school. 

Lance 00:02:46: - And then because it's a tropical country, the sun stays up all day. 

Lance 00:02:51: - So after school, we either play some soccer or go back to the beach. And then from then, we call it a day. 

Ryo 00:02:59: - Nice. 

Ryo 00:02:59: - And how do you celebrate your heritage? 

Lance 00:03:02: - Like I said, the biggest part of our heritage in Haiti is we were the first independent black country. So that was in 1804. 

Lance 00:03:12: - So every January 1st, we eat something named soup jumu, which was the significance of it is the French used to eat it every single day, but didn't allow the slaves to eat it. 

Lance 00:03:28: - So as soon as we got our independence, it was a sign that we are allowed to eat the soup jumu too. So every 1st of January, we decide to eat the soup jumu, it still gives that significance. 

Ryo 00:03:41: - And what are some values that you hold most here as a member of the Latin or Caribbean community? 

Lance 00:03:49:  - So the biggest value we hold is family and also helping one another. As soon as we know either you're Caribbean or you're Latin or you have descendants from the Caribbeans, it's mainly helping each other out either with life situations or support from them. 

Ryo 00:04:12: - And what would you like to share about yourself or your community that you think is important for people to know? 

Lance 00:04:20: - What I would like to share about my community is we're a community that's very strong and sometimes we're very wrongly represented in the media of today. But I just want to let everyone know that whatever is happening in the media is not really what's happening in the country itself. So that's what I would like to say today. 

Isabella 00:04:44: - All right. The next question I have for you is what foods do you make that remind you of home and where do you purchase your groceries to prepare your meals? 

Lance 00:04:56: - Perfect. So I'm a big foodie. 

Lance 00:04:59: - So the food that I like the most is griot. So griot is basically fried pork. 

Lance 00:05:07: - So basically how we prepare it, by a pork, you kill it from then and then you skin it. You only, you cut up the meat. Of course, you wash the meat. And then from then you cook it. And then from then you fry it from then. 

Lance 00:05:24: - And you can always eat it with some plantains. So it's basically bananas, but not the regular bananas, but like the green ones. From then you cut it, and then you boil it, and then from then you crush it, and then you fry it from then. 

Lance 00:05:40: - So it's basically deep fried. 

Lance 00:05:41: - And we usually get it from the African store because that's where most of the imports come from, either African countries or Caribbean countries, and then it's easier to prepare from then. 

Isabella 00:05:54: - How likely would you and your family be, sorry, how likely would you be to use the website that we're creating to upload your stories and how would you use it? 

Lance 00:06:06: - Very likely because it shows exposure and it brings exposure to our country and what's really happening from a perspective from someone that is, that lived through the country and not from a third party perspective, which really shows what's going on and what happened instead of just media attention from them. 

Ryo 00:06:29: - Cool. 

Isabella 00:06:32: - And then last question, do you have any other comments, other things to talk about? 

Lance 00:06:36: - From Haiti? 

Isabella 00:06:37: - Yeah. 

Lance 00:06:38: - For sure. I would just like to say that even though the political situation that's happening, I do wish one day that it gets better and so that the reputation that we do have gets better along the years from then. Yeah. 

Ryo 00:06:59: - Okay, thank you so much, Lance. Thank you for your time and answering all the questions. 

Abby 00:07:03: - Thank you. 

Lance 00:07:04: - Perfect. Thank you. 

Lance 00:07:05: - Thank you for having me, guys.