Conversation with Shameena

Ashmi: 00:00:02: Hello. The purpose of this meeting is for us to conduct an ethnographic interview for anthropology class. These are my classmates, and this is Shameena. She's my friend's mom, and she's from Guyana that's how I know her. So I'm just going to introduce my classmates briefly to you. That's Catriona, that's Sam, I'm Ashmi, this is Lexi, and this is Cordelia.

Shameena: 00:00:28: It's nice to meet all of you wonderful ladies. It's nice to meet you too.

Cordelia: 00:00:33: We just wanted to go over what exactly we're doing here. So this interview will be uploaded to a site called Anthro Harvest, which was created by our professor and our TA. It's essentially an online database, kind of like a giant library almost, where all of the interviews conducted in class will be put up there to be able to be accessed for future research.

Shameena: 00:00:58: Great initiative, love it.

Cordelia 00:01:01: So, to start with the questions, what brought you to Ottawa?

Shameena: 00:01:06: So, if it's alright, I'm going to be transparent; I don't live in Ottawa. Is that okay? I live in Toronto.

Interview group: 00:01:12: It should be, yeah.

Shameena: 00:01:14:
That's fine? Okay, because I think the same concept will apply. What you're trying to do right from this interview will still be applicable to your purpose. So, what brought me to Toronto. So I came to Toronto when I was 16 years old. Well, let's talk about Canada, I came to Canada when I was 16 years old. I came with my family. I came as a young child with two siblings and a mom and a dad, and essentially, we came to Canada for better opportunities. To live in a country where we can have access to better education, better healthcare, you know, a better life, good standard of living, so to speak, better food options, you know, more stability, and to be in a different environment where, you know, you can blend and be accepted, and that's Canada for us. So my dad decided to bring us here so that we can have and experience all of those things.

Cordelia: 00:02:27: Gosh, that's a really good kind of answer for that question. So you mentioned you came with family. Do some of your family members still live in Toronto?

Shameena: 00:02:37: Yes, yes. My parents still live in Toronto. Unfortunately, I lost my mom last year. But along with that, I have my dad still alive, I have two sisters and a brother in close proximity, we all live within 20 minutes of each other.

Cordelia: 00:02:56: Oh, perfect. So do you see-- And?

Shameena: 00:02:58 My friend also has his parents alive and well, and lots of extended family. So the Guyanese culture, I don't think I mentioned earlier, I'm from Guyana, right? So originally we came from Guyana. So the Guyanese culture family is huge, and so extended family is so important. So you maintain those relationships.

Cordelia: 00:03:19: And do you see them all frequently?

Shameena: 00:03:22: Yes, all the time because we often get together for birthdays or holidays or religious ceremonies, prayers, things like that. So, and you know, you just get together for no reason at all. Because that's what family needs to bring, especially because we are so invested in family. It's deep-rooted in our culture that family is important.

Lexi: 00:03:56: Hi there. Hi, how are you?

Shameena: 00:04:02: Good.

Lexi: 00:04:04: Good, awesome. So you were talking about all of the various celebrations that you all experienced together like birthdays. Which is like really cool. So I know you live in Toronto, but do you live in a Caribbean community or neighborhood where people do speak your native language?

Shameena: 00:04:23 So fortunately for us Guyana is one of the only English speaking countries in the Caribbean so English is our first language an English-speaking country in the Caribbean, so English is our first language. We have something called Patois, which is spoken English. We sometimes call it Creoles, which sort of it deviates from the English language because we were British ruled. So when slaves, eventually slaves came to Guyana, Indians, they had their language, which could have been from Hindi, Urdu, Pakistani, all of those things. Then that was sort of changed because of the British and so we were taught, like going up in Guyana, going to school in Guyana, we were taught fully English, all the courses, everything is done in English. So, yeah, no, sorry, I lost. My train of thought.

Lexi: 00:05:26 No, that was perfect. That was a perfect answer to that question. So my next question to you is, are there any sort of celebrations that are like really important to you and your culture also?

Shameena: 00:05:38 Oh, absolutely. So there's a cultural aspect and then there is religious celebration, right? So culturally in Guyana as a community, if you're living there, you're celebrating things like Caribbean days and culturally you have like traditional things, like the equivalent here would be in Canada, would be in Toronto, here in Guyana. Where we celebrate huge festivities and food and music and costumes and things like that, right? So absolutely, we celebrate, the culture we celebrate as a community. But then religiously, we have Guyana, it's very diverse, and even Canada, we're so diverse here, comparatively, that you have celebrations of different religious holidays that are happening. In Guyana, growing up, things like Diwali in the Hindu culture and religion is celebrated in the whole community, or Pakwa, celebrated in the whole community. For the Muslim religion, you have things like Eid celebrated again by the whole community celebrates together. And similarly for the Christians, you have Christmas that's celebrated across the community. And then in Canada, I know it's a little bit more individual, but you share, we still have shared cultural, you know, things like Christmas we all celebrate together, but the neighbors will still share their festivities, their food, and invite you, so you're still able to taste some of that here in Canada, but not on the same scale, I think, in Guyana. It's so nice to be able to experience that here.

Lexi: 00:07:35 Oh, that's lovely. I'm going to pass the phone to Ashmi.

Ashmi: 00:07:39 Hello. So adding on, another question is, can you describe how a typical day in your community would look like?

Shameena: 00:07:47 Well, that's-- in Guyana, I'll start with Guyana, as a child growing up, a typical day in my community would be just, you know, great food, like just cooking food and planning a food for that day. So you would have the local markets would come around and, you know, I remember my mom just waiting for after breakfast is finished and waiting for the market, community market person to come along with your protein and your vegetables. So, you know, community market is very important. They like supporting local businesses within your neighborhood. And that's how you would plan your meal, okay? And then you're getting together just... regular chit chat, like you have community neighborhood getting together and just having a, you know, some tea, coffee, sharing thoughts. It's very much a community-based village where people just get together. You can't find your mom then she's at the neighbor's house, right? So it's beautiful that way where everyone gets to spend time together. It's very, and I see shared, it's a shared sort of space, right? How do I compare that to Canada in a typical community day? I mean, we try to emulate that world, but it's very hard to do that here. So you're staying close and connected to family. So, you know, for me, my regular day, I make sure I get up in the morning, I prepare for work, but I make sure I connect with my sister and my brothers and my aunts and uncles, checking on my dad, checking on my kids, making sure everybody's good, you know. So you try to still maintain some of that cultural traditions that you are used to, right?

Ashmi: 00:09:54 I really love how you talked about the sense of community and belonging. I think that's really important and kind of like, it's different in Canada when you comparatively talk about that. But adding on, another question is, how do you celebrate your heritage?

Shameena: 00:10:12 How I celebrate my heritage. I think the most important thing for us is food and music. I think that's what's really important, and that's really what separates us community from another community, but it's important to share in that. So, you know, I often hear I love to go visit the different festivals. So last year I did, it kind of in Brenton, so Brenton we had different festivals going on, so we had a huge mountain festival in one of our squares there and the music and the food is very different from what I am used to and similarly we have when we have Caravana people come out and share in our culture and our food so Canada allows you to be able to still experience that on that grand stage where you know you can actually go you have Taste of Danforth coming up they're trying to reinvent here in Toronto as well so I'm excited about that but yeah similarly all traditions, all cultures are celebrated here. Toronto is so multicultural, so diverse, and it makes me feel just great at home because I'm able to still experience that. But definitely the food and the music for us, yes.

Sam: 00:11:33 And then we want to ask, what are some Guyanese values that you hold most dear?

Shameena: 00:11:41 Well, again, respect for family, coming to me, right? Taking care of your elderly, like making sure that you are looking after your parents. Hard work, hard work is really important for us. You know, going out there and earning your living and making sure you're doing the best you can, putting out the best version of yourself. And again, celebrating our food, our music, togetherness, and maintaining that community closeness. Whether it's your neighbors, and it doesn't have to be Guyanese neighbors, it could be any other culture, but you try to build up within your own community.

Sam: 00:12:24 I really love that. And then we wanted to know if there's anything you wanted to share about yourself or your community that you think is really important for people to know.

Shameena: 00:12:33 Well, I do want to let you know, Guyana is a very diverse country, and we have six different nation races. In Guyana, and it's diverse because of centuries of migration from different places, right? And I'll tell you, we have [inaudible word], we have, so we have indigenous people. And indigenous people there, we have a special food that they make called pepperpot, which is delicious, right? And that's one of our traditional foods. We'll make the food when we celebrate important occasions like Eid and Christmas and things like that. We always make pepperpot, you have to have your people there. We have Africans brought over by the transatlantic slave trade that came to Guyana. So we have indigenous people, we have Africans, we have Indians that came over through indentured slaves, laborers from Pakistan and India. We have Chinese and Portuguese migrants that came, we have Europeans, and we have Middle Eastern communities as well. So we have a whole host of different race that migrated to Guyana, each with different-- some have different languages and religions and traditions and cultures, but all integrated into one big country. Yeah.

Catriona: 00:13:54 Thank you for sharing that. Our next question really ties into that as well. And it would take it one step further and say, where in Toronto do you go to purchase your groceries to make these traditional meals?

Shameena: 00:14:06 I am glad somebody asked that everywhere, with living in Toronto. You do not miss a beat when it comes to the best West Indian food. And for me too, it's all about religious, not only cultural, but religious as well. So having the ability to be able to be a Guyanese woman and enjoying and maintaining that culture from the food perspective, but also from the religious perspective, to be able to obtain, like, for example, halal meat, kosher meat, and to be able to go to a mosque where I could break fast anywhere. And given this is the month of Ramadan for us, similarly, we would experience the same in Guyana. You could walk to the mosque and you would have all kinds of food at the mosque, I'm able to experience the same here in Toronto. I have mosques in every different direction, five, 10 minutes from my house, that I can go and enjoy breaking up the fast there and enjoy Ramadan and just this community closeness with everyone.

Catriona: 00:15:09 Thank you so much. Our next question is more tying back to the Anthroharvest website itself that we mentioned earlier. How likely would you and maybe your family be to use the website that we are creating to upload these stories? And how would you use it in general? And also any suggestions that you may have about access and what should be posted.

Shameena: 00:15:32 Well, certainly, I would definitely use it if I would find value in it first. And so once I try it and I launch it, then I see that there's a value here for me, but not only for me, but I can add value for other people to benefit from it. And also, you know, it's important that it's accessible, so when you guys are considering something like that. You wanted to make it user-friendly, accessible, different languages, considering different disability and things like that so that you can allow people to benefit from it. And because that's your intention, you want the more people to visit it and obtain some form of benefit from it.

Catriona: 00:16:15 Absolutely. Do you have any other comments or concerns at all about any of the questions you've been asked or anything you want to add?

Shameena: 00:16:22 And I think it's wonderful, too, that, you know, this is an opportunity for you guys to indulge in other culture and understand heritage and history from other cultures and making, bringing awareness to it through the website that you're making and launching.

Ashmi: 00:16:42 Well, we just wanted to thank you for your time. I know it must be hard doing this with your busy work schedule, with Ramadan especially, but we really appreciate you taking the time for meeting with us and all your questions or your comments and all the information you gave us. So thank you very much.

Shameena: 00:16:59 My pleasure. I'm honored that you picked me. I feel very honored to be able to speak. Oftentimes we don't get to speak about heritage and history or where we come from. Recording ended