Conversation with Luis Abanto Rojas

Roxane: Esta bien.
Luis: Perfecto. Perfecto. Muchas gracias. Oh, Roxane. Danielle. Ustedes viven en la misma casa.
Roxane: Sorry, we don't speak that much Spanish.
Danielle: I don't speak that much Spanish.
Roxane: I understood house.
Luis: I got excited when you say all that.
Roxane: Yeah, I took a class first year, that's why.
Luis: Oh, okay. No, I was saying you are at the same house. Oh.
Danielle: Yeah.
Luis: I have the same house.
Roxane: Nice.
Luis: Okay. So thank you for your invitation. I know it's been kind of tough to get organized, but.
Okay. Finally. Okay, here we are.
Danielle: Sounds good. Sounds good. Um, so. Hello, professor. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us today. My name is Danielle. Um, and our group will be conducting an ethnographic interview to learn more about the experiences, traditions, and cultural heritage of the Latin Caribbean community in Ottawa. Your insights and personal stories will help us better understand and appreciate the diverse perspectives within the community. This interview will take approximately 20 minutes, so please be mindful of your time. Feel free to share as much or as little as you are comfortable with, and remember that you do not have to answer any questions that make you feel uncomfortable. This is an open and respectful space and your voice is valuable to us.
Luis: Thank you very much.
Danielle: No problem Roxane.
Roxane: I'm Roxane, and for a little introduction, I'm taking this anthropology class as well. It's actually my first anthropology class, but I'm a fourth-year student in conflict studies and human rights in my last semester, so almost done. And I also have a minor in sociology. And just before we start, I'm going to start recording whenever Simone has done her introduction so that we can start.
Simone: Hi, my name is Simone and I'm in the same program as Roxane. I'm in human rights and conflict studies. I'm also in my last semester. I'm very excited to be done. This is my intro. This is it is my first anthropology class, and it's very interesting. Like it's very interesting learning about different cultures. And I really appreciate you for being here.
Luis: Oh, thank you very much. And again, you're doing a hard work. Uh, very professional. So I'm here to make any contribution you like me to do.
Danielle: Thank you. Sounds good. So first question is, what is your country of origin, professor?
Luis: Country of origin is Peru.
Danielle: Perfect, perfect. What brought you to Ottawa, by any chance?
Luis: Oh, to Ottawa particularly. It was a master's degree. So I, I migrate actually, I did a kind of detour. I, I left my country in back in 1985. Maybe your parents were not born at that age. And then I lived, um, six years in France, where I was a refugee. And, um, and so at university, I met a Canadian girl and my girlfriend, and that brought me to Canada, but not to Ottawa. We went to Kitchener, Waterloo, where we lived two years, and I attended, uh, I mean, the continuation of the undergraduate studies at Waterloo. And for the Masters, we decided to come to Ottawa, to U of Ottawa because French. So French was the I think the connection with Ottawa is we didn't have any family here.
Luis: Yeah.
Danielle: Okay, great. You actually did answer my third question. Do you have family here? And do you see them frequently? And you? I think you said no. Um, so I'm just going to skip to the last question. Do you live in a Latin community or neighborhood where people speak Spanish or Portuguese and celebrate various occasions?
Luis: Um, in fact, no, no. And I've been living in, in Ottawa for the past 30 years now, and I found that quite interesting because there is not a Latin American neighborhood.
Luis: There are corners like plazas.
Luis: I was, um, so impressed, actually, when I came to Canada. How the multicultural visual. If you want to say something, you can see it in the mall plazas, especially in the small mall plazas. So where you can find like a Latino store or African store or Arabic store or a Caribbean. So that combination. Yeah, it was kind of wow. Oh, wow. That's that's good. But in terms of neighborhoods, no, not really or otherwise.
Luis: It's not I mean, our population is not big to start. It's not it's not huge. Just Toronto maybe Toronto. Yeah. Yeah. I notice a very old Hispanic neighborhood like the Ecuadorian is very interesting back in the 70s. But here. No. When I came here, the. I lived in Vanier. Vanier for 13, 13 years, actually.
Luis: So my closest community in terms of culture was the Portuguese. And together with the Portuguese, there used to be, um, Portuguese language Spanish people who were actually closer to the Portuguese than to the Hispanic. But that was in my closest, maybe in Vanier. But that's all the generations now. I mean, they are gone. They are gone to other neighborhoods. And so. Yeah. So yeah, no, no, I haven't lived in a Hispanic community or neighborhood here. Hopefully there's one that can develop with time. Yes. I'll be I'll be asking a few next questions, and it's starting with your most important celebration from your culture to you.
Luis: Mhm.
Luis: The most important celebrations. That's a kind of existential question.
Luis: As a Peruvian we have an official celebration which is July 28th.
Luis: Okay. July 28th. So the Embassy of Peru will organize something for local Peruvians. A kind of picnic, sometimes something at their embassy. But I have to tell you that my biggest celebration has been the festival. The soccer festival organized by a national club, Sporting Peru.
Luis: And that's funny for me because you don't expect that from a soccer club. But I think in anthropology it makes sense because I know this is more a male thing, but if I can say that for 30 years, probably 3 or 4 guys, they've been organizing this festival every year. So it's a summer festival and they call the other teams the Mexican Colombians and whoever would like to play soccer. And it goes from a different generation young guys, juniors and also adults and grandpas like me.
Luis: And when we talk about a soccer player, that person will come with the family. So I have children and we'll have the food like, um, yeah, an international Latino fair, summer Some affair, and that's been going on for 30 years. And that's when I've seen lots and lots of people at the same time, same place. Fantastic. I think for me, that's probably my biggest community. I would say the soccer teams.
Roxane: That sounds very fun and very I feel like festive. Definitely in the summertime. The next question is, could you describe a typical day in your community in whichever context?
Luis: Um, well, um, I'm kind of absorbed by my job, but I have the pleasure of working with my language.
Luis: So, um, my job is to serve, uh, people here at the Faculty of Arts, and I am in the language training for all students. So I see people every day, like all origins. And while I was only a Spanish teacher, I used to have more contact with the Spanish language countries. I used to send.
Luis: Students to Mexico or Chile, Argentina and Spain to organizing groups like going going there. And so my typical will be teaching versus having some administration today and also contacting community institutions like embassies or omgs. Yeah, I mean typically.
Roxane: Thank you. And the next question is how do you celebrate your heritage?
Luis: Um.
Luis: Well, I have to tell that my Hispanic heritage is already quite celebrated by Canadians. That helps a lot. So. And we have different, uh, activities during the year, like, for example, the Latin American Film Festival in May. It's a two-week, two-week festival. And, and where we have, uh, movies from all 20 countries. So every country invites their, their locals and we have new new movies, new new filmmakers this year. Ah, I co-organize it here at the University of Ottawa. That was interesting. But that that that celebration has been there for probably 20 years because the Ottawa Film Festival used to organize it. So that's one of them. Um, 2 or 3 years ago, the saw the Parliament of Canada.
Luis: Uh, created this, uh, Hispanic, uh, Hispanic month celebration in October.
Luis: And, uh, yeah, that's a Canadian celebration. Not of countries, but I mean Canadian with, uh, Latin American origins roots. So that's a big, a big celebration. October. There are many things going on in October. I think those are the two main celebration communities and the MyHeritage.
Roxane: Thank you so much. And the last question for me will be, what are some values that you hold most dear as a member of the Latin community? Oh.
Luis: Wow. That's another existential question.
Luis: And.
Luis: I would say, you know, being born there, educated there. So I migrate already when I was 17.
Luis: So I can say that, um.
Luis: We are used to, to deal with trouble all the time. And we are okay with that. Okay. I mean.
Luis: Probably we have more patience in that case.
Luis: We don't panic.
Luis: We we have kind of more hope. that maybe.
Luis: Um, so you're more resilient to any adversity. And I and I like that. But at the same time as being migrant and combining this migration with Canada, when I match together, I say no. But this country has fantastic things too. Like I feel respected.
Luis: I.
Luis: I mean, my inclusion is much, much way bigger than my inclusion in Peru. Peru is we have a system of kind of colonial castes. You know, I'm not allowed in certain urban neighborhoods, things like that. A lot of corruption too. So I don't like that. I'm not proud, actually, about those.
Luis Abanto Rojas: Chase. Wow, that's another existential question.
Luis Abanto Rojas: Eh, I would say, you know, being born there, educated there.
Luis Abanto Rojas: So I migrated already when I was 17.
Roxane Akakpo: Yeah, the big story is like closest seller market and like the little, yeah, they have a lot of stuff there.
Luis Abanto Rojas: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the place for. Yeah.
Semon Jama: OK.
Semon Jama: That's good.
Semon Jama: The third question goes how likely would you and your family be to use the website we're creating for uploading your stories?
Luis Abanto Rojas: This could be something in the sun.
Luis Abanto Rojas: Would you repeat the question please?
Semon Jama: How likely would you and your family be to use the website we're creating for uploading your stories?
Luis Abanto Rojas: Oh.
Luis Abanto Rojas: A site you're creating.
Luis Abanto Rojas: I haven't checked that site, but I find that fantastic. I mean to have.
Luis Abanto Rojas: A non-alternative for those stories to share.
Luis Abanto Rojas: I mean to connect people.
Luis Abanto Rojas: Oh, no, thank you very much for your work.
Semon Jama: No problem.
Semon Jama: Thank you very much for sharing your stories.
Luis Abanto Rojas: And.
Luis Abanto Rojas: Yeah.
Semon Jama: And yeah, sorry.
Semon Jama: And then it goes.
Semon Jama: And how would you use it?
Semon Jama: It would be better to serve the community to any suggestions from you about access as well as what should be posted would be greatly appreciated.
Luis Abanto Rojas: Yeah, I think so.
Luis Abanto Rojas: I think so.
Luis Abanto Rojas: I mean the big differences between, you know, the time I came to Canada and now is that you can give a voice to people.
Luis Abanto Rojas: I mean the good use of social media, I think, is very, very positive.
Luis Abanto Rojas: And then the interesting part is the micro story, you know, the micro story, people's stories, those micro narrations, they in fact give us more information than, you know, the big discourses when we see them testimonials or people of all ages.
Luis Abanto Rojas: So we can have a better understanding of this history of migration, so giving the voice today, you know, all the communities, the best you can do.
Luis Abanto Rojas: And to have a digital archive of that, you know, together with my, my team, linguistic team in Spanish. That's what we plan to do, to do interviews with people from the community.
Luis Abanto Rojas: And our goal is just linguistic, just to hear the narrations, you know, so students can understand.
Luis Abanto Rojas: So it's to develop the oral and listening comprehension story, but the content can serve to other areas.
Luis Abanto Rojas: Or areas of like sociology and anthropology, yes. So I mean, we are in the same frequency.
Luis Abanto Rojas: I think this is a necessary work to do while the communities are still very, very active.
Semon Jama: Thank you very much.
Semon Jama: And last but not least, do you have any comments or concerns you would like to share with us?
Luis Abanto Rojas: Well, I have to congratulate you for this initiative and please come and see me anytime. We are here at.
Luis Abanto Rojas: Laurier St. This is Department of Modern Languages.
Luis Abanto Rojas: We work with the other linguistic profiles.
Luis Abanto Rojas: We are basically international communities and happy to help with other communities too, like the Arabic Community, Chinese, Japanese, and so on.
Semon Jama: Thank you so much.
Semon Jama: I really appreciate you coming here and sharing your stories, and thank you for giving us your time.
Luis Abanto Rojas: Oh, thank you very much.
Luis Abanto Rojas: Thank you, Roxanne.
Roxane Akakpo: Yeah. Thank you so much.
Luis Abanto Rojas: And yeah, and Simon, OK.
Roxane Akakpo: Thank you.
Roxane Akakpo: Enjoy your day.
Luis Abanto Rojas: Thank you.
Danielle Muceros: Thank you so much.
Luis Abanto Rojas: You too. Thank you.
Luis Abanto Rojas: Bye bye. Gracias.
Danielle Muceros: Gracias