Conversation with Ivana by Linda Iganze

Title

Conversation with Ivana by Linda Iganze

Description

Ivana is a self-assured Peruvian woman who has preserved her brilliant heritage after emigrating to Montreal, Canada, at the tender age of nine. She later moved to Ottawa to pursue higher studies before finally settling into a thriving career in event management while continually reaffirming the traditions and cultural practices that constitute her heritage. Ivana now resides in Gatineau but remains intimately connected to her heritage through family gatherings, cherished culinary traditions, and continuous community participation.

Date

2025-03-16

Format

MP3,13 min 43 s

Language

English

Interviewer

Linda;Iganze

Interviewee

Ivana

Transcription

Linda:  0:00 Hi, my name is Linda, and I am a student at the University of Ottawa in anthropology. I am doing an interview about the experience of Latin American and Caribbean communities in Ottawa. Your thoughts are important and will help us understand culture, migration, community. We just get to start by introducing yourself.
Ivana: 0:27 Hi Linda, I'm Ivana. I am a Peruvian that came here to Canada at nine years old.
Linda 0:34 I have a list of questions that I'm going to ask you. But you don't have to answer all the questions. Just answer the questions that you are comfortable with. And I would love to start with what brought you here in Ottawa.
Ivana:  0:50 So I came to Ottawa because I was planning to study in the University of Ottawa. I studied communications and I decided I finally to stay because I was living in Montreal before. So then I, as I say, like I came here to study and ended up like choosing another career which is event management. So that's what I've been doing up to today.
Linda: 1:22 Do you have a family here or do you see them frequently?
Ivana: 1:27 Yes, I do have my mom and my dad here in Canada and I do see them frequently. We, me and my mom, we spend a lot of time going on little trips. Every two weekends we decide to go to little to other places like Manotec or maybe Cornwall or then go to Toronto. Sometimes go to Quebec and visit other places in Canada.
Linda: 2:07 Thank you. Do you live in Latino neighborhood where people speak Spanish or Portuguese and celebrate various occasions? Ivana 2:18 I feel now I don't live in a Latin community. I surround myself by Latin people. Yes, but mostly they live in Ottawa. I live in Gatineau. So I do see myself with a lot of Latin people to go dancing, have meals together But it's more distant. I used to live, when I was living in Montreal longeuil I was surrounded, all my neighbors were Latinos. And as I just first arrived, those were my support, my first friends. But now it's really hard to get involved with the Latin community.I feel it is not easy as it was.
Linda: Are there the celebrations that are most important to you?
Ivana: 3:13 I feel. Well, can I say birthdays?
Linda: 3:16 Yes, feel free to say what you want.
Ivana: 3:19 I feel birthdays are very special because you get to celebrate the person who you love that is here another day with you. So I feel that's the most beautiful celebration you can have. But I do celebrate also as in my culture, I do still celebrate Christmas and New Year's and those are the celebrations that I do still celebrate.
Linda: 3:50 So do you have like a specific way that you celebrate New Year, Christmas, based on your culture ?
Ivana: Yeah. So Christmas, actually we do. For us, Christmas is like on, on the 24th that we celebrate. So we do, we do wait until midnight of the 24th and then we say Merry Christmas. Yes. And we eat at night.We, we eat at 12 after, after celebrating.
Linda: 4:24 Is there any specific meal that you eat?
Ivana: 4:27 We do a buffet actually. We try to make a huge like 3 turkey and then we can put like rice and salad and like, we try to gather as much like family as we can and also friends. We try to be in accompanying but by a lot of people that we love, we love to do that, you know. And New Year's for me it's. Well, yeah, in Peru when I go back there, you celebrate with family and friends, but that mostly New Year's is celebrated more with your friends. And over there they used to do this tradition where they put, they put a. Like not a person, but they put with, with clothes, they make it with clothes and they put like a balloon as a face, you know, and then they put like fireworks on it. And then they make it explode. Yeah, you see a bunch, a bunch of fireworks everywhere. But that's something I really miss because here you cannot really do fireworks. I've seen some fireworks though. But yeah, you're not allowed. It's just like in the parliament and that's it.
Linda: 5:53 Can you describe a typical day in your community?
Ivana: 5:58 Typical day in my community, I think mostly we do like to, when we go out, we just like to say hi to each other. But it's not just, just be polite here as in Canada over there. It's more like, hey, like they knock your door and they ask you for sugar, you know, that kind of stuff that you don't see here. And you can call a friend, just tell them, hey, like I want to hang out with you in like a few minutes I'll be at your house. And then you present yourself to their house and like nobody's gonna tell you, no, I'm busy, or they're just gonna accept you over there. So. Typical day. I think it's the same thing as here, you know. Yeah. In my country, the last time I visited, actually it was in December last year. I saw that Everybody works until 7:00, so that's like minimum. And they usually work until Saturday and like Sunday they rest. It depends. But mostly they work a lot compared to here. Here you have more like Saturday and Sunday and a little bit more free time at night, you know. So, yeah, It's different.
Linda: 7:29 What are some values that you hold most dear as, like a member of a Latin community?
Ivana: 7:37 So many values. I feel unity, the warmness, everybody. It feels beautiful. Like how you see the people supporting each other and enjoying life and having fun. I feel if we bring this to Canada, this would be amazing.Yeah, that's what I really love about Peru. It's like everybody is welcoming and they're really nice, but not nice. Hi, nice, but, you know, really nice. So, yeah, I. I really miss that.
Ivana: 8:21 Every single time I go there, it's like, it's like a party. Even with your family, we do. I remember, like, for dia de la cancion creolla, we tended to just celebrate. It's like for us, it's like instead of like doing Halloween, we do like the day of the Creole song. I don't know, it's not cruel, but Creolia.everybody's dancing.
Ivana: 8:48 I don't know how to say it, but anyways, yeah, so we did celebrate that and we put. Everybody's playing an instrument
Linda: 8:58 Would you like to share something about yourself or your community that you think is important for people, like, for instance, me to know or other people to know?
Ivana: 9:09 I think it's mostly what I said.We Peruvians tend to be very heartwarming and also very hard workers. You can see a lot of Peruvians succeed here because they want to put their best and do their best and always. We're always like supporting of each other. We're never gonna leave you outside the door. We're also.We're always going to be welcoming and we're also going to be really happy.
Linda: 9:41 What food do you make that remind you of home and where do you purchase your groceries from?
Ivana: 9:51 Okay, well, so this year I said to myself that I would make more perine food, which I'm really proud because it tastes really good. Yeah, so I've been doing aji de gallina, which something I love is with chicken. And it's like I'm using a lot of spices that I brought lately from Peru.
Ivana: 10:17 It's because, like, the spices over there and the, like the hot they become, that it has flavor. That's what I like about that. So I like to add like different condiments so it has different tastes. And yeah, so I do that.I do like to cook. I like to cook. And yeah, like, I purchase my groceries in super, say, like Walmart,Loblaws.
Ivana: 10:50 Like where. Wherever I find. But like, mostly if I want to Purchase, like, Peruvian food. You cannot find a lot, but you can find, like, some frozen fruits in Latin market. There's one in Gatineau.There's really small also. And it's. They have, like, some good stuff, like lucuma, which is, like, frozen fruits. They do have, like, ginka cola, which is like a pop drink, and they have frijoles and some spices.
Ivana: 11:37 And. Yeah, you can cook a really good meal with that. It's not gonna taste the same, obviously, as if you have, like, all the ingredients that you were supposed to have in your country.
Ivana: 11:51 Yeah. Back home. But, here, it brings me home just by doing something, you know, Like, I feel good, and I love bringing my people, my friends, like, home and just, like, making them taste like a part of my culture, a part of my country, it makes me happy.
Linda: 12:12 Our last question. You know, like, there's a website that has been created, and these stories are going to be uploaded. So my question is, how likely would you or your family be to use the website?
Ivana: 12:28 I think it would be a really nice way to represent everybody, and it'll be nice to see that there's more people like us and Latinos, and then we can, like, share our cultures. And I think, yes, we can. We can use it for that.
Ivana: 12:50 And actually, there's a lot of, like, groups in. In Facebook where we post about, like, somebody that's making some food and, like, businesses and try to support each other, but there's no, like, special website for that. So I think that'll be a really nice idea if you can implement that to. Inside the website and. Yeah, it would be nice to see.
Linda: 13:16 So we are at the end of our interview. Do you have any comment or concerns that you would like to share?
Ivana: 13:26 I'm just very happy to have had the chance to do this because I feel having the word to express about my culture is very enriching and I'm grateful for this experience. So thank you so much.
Linda: 13:42 Thank you.

Original Format

In person