Conversation with Laurine Beau de Rochars

Title

Conversation with Laurine Beau de Rochars

Description

Laurine is a student at the University of Ottawa. She is currently studying in the graduate program in Anthropology. She mentioned being recruited to participate in the study through Taylor Paterson, our T.A., for this course in the Anthropology of Latin America and the Caribbean. Laurine is originally from Haiti. She was born in Port-au-Prince and grew up there until age eleven, when the 2010 earthquake hit, and she and her family moved to the United States. Later, they moved to Toronto and then to Ottawa, where they have been living ever since. In this conversation, Laurine shared how it can be difficult to feel fully accepted by the Haitian community on and off campus as someone who doesn’t speak and, for the longest time, was not allowed to speak the native language.

Date

2025-02-27

Format

MP3, 19 min 33 s

Language

English

Interviewer

Lucille Nkunzimana

Interviewee

Laurine Beau de Rochars

Transcription

LUCILLE NKUNZIMANA: So, my name is Lucille Nkunzimana and I’m doing and ethnographic interview for Doctor Weinstein’s class in Anthropology of Latin America and the Caribbean and my interviewee…
LAURINE BEAU DE ROCHARS: My name is Laurine Beau de Rochars and I’m the interviewee.
LUCILLE: Okay so, we’ll just hop right into the questions. What is your country of origin?
LAURINE: The country is Haiti.
LUCILLE: Okay, and what brough you to Ottawa? Was it school? Was it…
LAURINE: So, I came here, so I was raised in Haiti until the age of 11 so I came here at 11 with my mom and my sister. SO, we came here in 2010 after the earthquake that happened in Haiti. After the earthquake we moved to the states for three months and then we moved to Toronto for like a year and then to Ottawa and I’ve been here ever since.
LUCILLE: So, I also grew up in Haiti. I don’t know if this should be part of the interview (laughter). But, yeah, so I also grew up in Haiti. SO, my parents aren’t Haitian, but my mom was raised there so...
LAURINE: Okay, nice!
LUCILLE: …yeah, we also lived through the earthquake… LAURINE: Oh, you also?
LUCILLE: Yeah! SU, but a lot of people did move to the US and Canada after that so...you mentioned that you moved here with your mom…
LAURINE: And my sister as well but my dad stayed back because both my parents are doctors. So my dad, He moved to the states with us but then when we moved to Canada, he went back to Haiti to continue his practice because you can’t be a doctor in Canada so he had to stay there.
LUCILLE: What kind of medicine does he practice?
LAURINE: Ortho…uh…
LUCILLE: Like bones and stuff? Ok, cool! So, in Ottawa, do you live in a Latin community or neighbourhood where people speak Spanish or Portuguese and celebrate various Latin American occasions?
LAURINE: No, I would say no. I live in Finley Creek so it’s like a newer area it’s like, uh, no I wouldn’t say that.
LUCILLE: Would you say it’s a diverse area?
LAURINE: Yeah.
LUCILLE: Ok! So, there’s a lot of diversity but it’s not necessarily…
LAURINE: Like a community? No.
LUCILLE: And do you have any celebrations that are most important to you?
LAURINE: To me? No, but I know my mom likes two of them. She likes Christmas and Easter.
LUCILLE: Mhm.
LAURINE: Oh! I do like Carnaval! Yeah...
LUCILLE: Yeah, that’s fun!
LAURINE: That’s the one that I enjoy.
LUCILLE: Yeah. Ok! And then, could you describe to me a typical day in your community, even though it’s not a Latin American concentration, what does it look like?
LAURINE: Well, for my mom all her friends live either in Haiti or in the States or like in Montreal so she’s always on the phone with them so I wouldn’t say that I have a Haitian community here so a typical day would honestly be overhearing my mom talk on the phone or when she watches news about Haiti either on her phone or the TV. But also, at work there are some Haitians but it’s like Haitians that were born here so it’s not the same.
LUCILLE: The experience is a little bit different, yeah.
LUCILLE: And do you have any specific way that you celebrate your heritage, like I know you said your mom obviously keeps up with the news and everything but are there any people here that you celebrate certain holidays with, or do you do something special with your family?
LAURINE: Um, I would say... Oh! One thing that I do do is on the first of January, well on the 31st of December we would go to church and stay until like 2 am and then the next day January first we eat like a soup.
LUCILLE: SO, I’ll skip to one of the next questions, but would you say that that’s one of the foods that reminds you of home?
LAURINE: Yeah, for sure.
LUCILLE: And then, do you have like a specific grocery store that you guys go to to get stuff, or could you just get it anywhere?
LAURINE: Uh, we get stuff at this, I don’t remember the name but it’s a store on Walkley, I don’t know if you know it. It has like a lot of, I think it’s named Caribbean store or something so yeah that’s where we… and then for, um, like, meat and stuff, we go to the Asian grocery store.
LUCILLE: Mm okay so that’s one of the ways that you celebrate heritage so it’s like for the New year but also Independence Day and then do you have any values associated with that? So, like, you did mention your tradition where you go to church, like, would you say that that’s a value that you hold close to you as a member of the Haitian/Caribbean community?
LAURINE: So, I personally, am not a Christian but I still go to church because my mom wants me to go to church. I don’t think we share the same values, which is fine. Um but I do like one thing that I like is how the independence day is a symbol for, uh, the liberation.
LUCILLE: Yeah, and like unity and…
LAURINE: Yeah, yeah.
LUCILLE: Um, okay and was there anything that you want to share about yourself or your community that you think people should know?
LAURINE: Um, maybe language. Because one aspect with us is like the language because in Haiti, it was colonized by the French so there’s still very much this remnant of like French is the superior language, right? So then when I grew up there even at school creole was not allowed to speak even though everyone speaks creole. SO then like my parents enforced that rule at home so everyone only spoke French, and the reasoning was that us kids we need to focus on French hand then creole is so easy to learn if you’re in the environment that we would later on catch on but then we ended up moving to Canada so then like I didn’t. Because I honestly feel like my grandma, for instance, that joined us in 2014. She helped raise us, like, me and my sister, so she would only speak creole and her French was not good so we would answer her in French and I understand Creole but it’s still like a language loss because it’s not natural [to me] to speak creole. And Haitians have a strong pride about the language and it’s like they, not everyone, but they will mock you if you don’t speak creole and stuff like that. And also, like another aspect of the language part is that a lot of the Haitians stutter because it’s in the genetic pool but it’s so prevalent in the speech that even people who don’t have a stutter will stutter but it’s just in the speech. I don’t know if I’m explaining it well, but I don’t know the term in linguistics but it’s a thing because language is so easy to pick up and stuff so they also all stutter but they don’t have the… because it’s like genetics, right? But it’s interesting to see how it’s like intertwined in the language.
LUCILLE: Yeah, it’s also um it’s like part of its genetic and part of it’s like that’s just the culture because most people have a stutter um you start to talk like that just because it’s your environment.
LAURINE: Yes! Exactly, yeah, so they both feed off of each other. It’s just interesting!
LUCILLE: Mmhmm! Do you think, like, um, do you think it’s difficult to put together, or to reconcile the fact that parents don’t want their kids to learn creole because it’s the “inferior language” or it’s “shameful” but when you don’t know creole it’s also “shameful”? [LAUGHTER]
LAURINE: Yeah!
LUCILLE: It’s weird because you’ll be at home and nobody wants you to speak in Creole, like that was a thing for my mom, she wanted us to learn…
LAURINE: Creole?
LUCILLE: Yeah, and we did but everyone around her was telling her not to do it because it was, especially for girls, for little girls it was not “proper”. But how do you, yourself, like is that something that bother you?
LAURINE: It does bother me, yeah, for sure. And anytime I’ll, because now I’m old enough to understand how wrong it was and then anytime I bring it up to her [Laurine’s mom] she’ll just like ignore it, she doesn’t understand how it’s actually bad. And then, she’ll say, “oh no” and that I speak Creole fine. And like, yes but I like I don’t because it doesn’t come off natural. I have to overthink so hard so it’s really not. So, yes, it’s definitely hard to reconcile that and yeah, it’s like…
LUCILLE: Yeah, it’s just one of those things that like you can, I don’t know, people probably tell you all the time like “oh well if you just keep practicing, you’ll get better” but…
LAURINE: It’s like if I was still in the environment then like yes like I would actually absolutely be fluent, right? But then, I’m not like I moved here when I was eleven like that’s a young age to have a language loss. And also, it’s really more shameful that it’s like a status thing. Like the reason [not learning creole] was status. But guy would just, like boys, would be allowed to speak creole and then it’s weird because um like it’s so ingrained din my head to not speak creole that when I hear kids talk to their parents in creole it takes me aback because my reflex is to think it’s rude. But it’s not impolite, it’s a language, right? But it’s like it’s so ingrained in your head so it’s hard to like uncode your brain.
LUCILLE: To unlearn like the hierarchy and then the status rules and everything and people--yeah, you’re right. I think it’s going to be useful for people to hear that because I think it’s difficult to explain when-- because everyone’s experience is different, too, so even if you do come from a country that you have a local language that you weren’t allowed to speak for whatever reason, I think that reason is always going to be different and in Haiti it’s like, it’s exactly like you said, there’s, like, a discrimination but it’s, like, it goes back so far in, like, the history of Haiti’s colonization that it’s still a thing today like I’m sure there’s little kids right now being told off for speaking creole at home when they—when it’s not proper.
LAURINE: I’m sure now English is more pushed on them than French.
LUCILLE: Mhm, yeah, for sure. [LAUGHTER]
LUCILLE: Yeah, well thank you for sharing! Um, and then I’ll just ask you like two more questions and the first one’s going to be: how likely you think you would be to use the website to upload stories? So, like if it were to become more of a public forum do you think you and your family would use it to share?
LAURINE: Yeah, I would, yeah. Um, I would if it’s like a prompt or something, I would but I can’t think of stories just like that but if there’s like a question or something.
LUCILLE: Like if it became a discussion sort of forum? Kind of like Reddit?
LAURINE: Yeah! Yeah, sort of.
LUCILLE: Yeah, okay, yeah! Cool! Um, and then, yeah, so you already answered the second part so how you would use it would be more for like answering questions that people had that came up on the forum. Did you have any other comments or concerns about it?
LAURINE: No, I can’t think of anything, did you have any questions outside of this? [LAUGHTER]
LUCILLE: I don’t have any more questions outside of what was provided for us in the document but if you think of anything that's worrying you or anything you said that you’re double thinking and I will figure it out with Taylor and the professor to see if we can cut the recording.

Original Format

In person