SOMOS

Salina: 

We’ve talked about this in the past too with our community, not really having like, outside of maybe San Juan Bautista being a kind of community center. But not having like a space, a space where that kind of lifting each other up outside of the home. I think what has taken its place is like Facebook and I'm still hopeful that we'll have a physical place here somewhere that we can, that we can have that sense of community. 

 

Annette: 

I also think it’s difficult to create those spaces in a place that looks at you as if you were foreign. And looks at you as if that what you're doing is so out of the norm. So it is kind of hard to carve out those public spaces for our culture. You have to kind of have that resilience and that frame of mind like ‘I can do this, this is worth doing’. But it’s hard when others don’t value it and you give up. You know, you kind of go with the flow because it's so much easier. I can say that from experience because I did it. I stopped speaking Spanish and switched to English the entire time. And when I raised my kids, their primary language was English. So it's not that they don't know Spanish. They know a little Spanish. They're not fluent now, as they're getting older, they're getting better at it because now they're like having more conversations they're out working with the community. So they're kind of forced to get that now that they're forced to kind of understand those little things, you know, but it's like, I think for me it’s kind of sad. I think that’s the biggest failure to me personally. Like the fact that I just kind of went with it because it was easier. I think in doing that I inadvertently had them miss out on a lot of their culture. And not at all meaning to. It just kind of happened. 

 

Salina: 

I can relate to that. To your children’s experience. I speak Spanglish pretty well and I studied it in school and it's still, it just didn't stick for me. And partially because like most of my teachers were not Puerto Rican. So I go home to Puerto Rican Spanish and Dominican Spanish. And I'm being taught by Mexican teachers and teachers who studied in Argentina or other parts of South America and it wasn’t the same. So it's really hard. I think one of the things that I've come to terms with as an adult is that as a kid, I didn’t understand and I did resent my parents for not teaching me Spanish and had moments where I was like Oh, why didn't you do that? But now I think differently and can ask myself, Is it actually easy? I realized that they are already working

like three times as hard to get what some people get just for doing almost nothing and it’s so unfair. All of that extra work that we have to do as people that are still looked at as immigrants in a derogatory way. So now I feel like making that choice to say, I'm just going to be, and do what I can and sometimes do the easy thing, it's not necessarily like you failed, right? Like it's, it's hard to live here, it’s hard to do everything here as an outsider. 

 

Annette: 

I see that. For me, my personal experience, I do feel like I don't truly belong here or there. Right. And it's interesting because I see myself caught. So I went to Puerto Rico three years ago and I went through a very sad situation. My grandmother died. So we went to, you know, take care of that. But while I was there, I noticed something about myself. I was utterly relaxed. I did not feel like I had to do anything. I did not want to be any way. It was such a relaxing time for such a sad time. Right. And then I miss, of course my family, like I did miss them a lot even if here I’m like talking to them, you know, every day. But to be in Puerto Rico and with them, the  feeling was so different. Right. When I'm here in Lancaster, I noticed how my demeanor, the way I talk to people, the way I present my all that was completely different. And it took me going there for almost two weeks and coming back to see that difference in myself, it was like two different people. It's been three years since then, so I don't see the difference anymore. But I do feel like we can’t fully fit in here, or if I decide to, I have to speak a certain way. You have to portray yourself a certain way. Like you don't want to raise too many eyebrows. You don't want to be too vocal. You don't want to bring attention to yourself. And I'm really bad at that because sometimes I forget, I just say things and people are like, looking at me, like, what are you going about? Sometimes it's like, I forget and don't bite my tongue. I'm always in trouble. But it just feels like a lot of the time here, you just have to be very conscious of where you're at and who's around you and it's harder to be relaxed. Yeah.

 

Salina: 

Oh, I definitely feel that. The last question I have, um, I kind of feel like we've answered, but I'm going to ask it anyways, just to see if there's anything else that comes up related to what we’ve talked about. How do you make home for yourself? 

 

Annette: 

Home is just my kids. Like, wherever they're at, I'm at home. Cause I know that the important things in my life are safe. I say, my kids but I also mean that I love my husband and he is part of it, but my kids are of me. Right. They came from me. So you know, it's just that whole idea that they’re my family. My kids and my husband- that is home. And it's just the feeling of just making a space for yourself where you feel comfortable to be yourself when you need to be, you know. I love my house, I love my home, but then this is my room where I can just, you know, just kinda just relax, you know? It’s funny because it's also my work space. I spend 70 plus hours in this place sometimes. Like we, you know, especially now with COVID, so I miss a lot of what's happening outside the doors . As the kids grow older I see them less and less because they have their own responsibilities and stuff. But I think that as long as I can have them around and have them come visit it really doesn’t matter where I’m at. Just as long as they’re there. I know that they can reach me. So for me it’s not so much about making a home but feeling at home with the people that are most important to me. 

 

Salina: 

That is really sweet. My sister and I moved out but there are still our younger siblings back home and we all live in Lancaster so we do see each other. For my mom and dad even though the younger ones are home they still struggle with us not being home anymore. We’ve talked about it and joke about it but they’re like, well of course we love having the younger one’s here but it’s different because we want ALL of you here. 

 

Annette: 

Yeah. She’s right. Like I try not to think about it because my sone is 20 and I can see him one day coming to me ready to move out. And my daughter is graduating soon and I’m not going to have her here with me so it’s like it becomes harder to think about home when my home is so far away. 

 

Salina: 

I understand that for sure. With my parents and with Covid we started using video calls to stay connected since we can’t physically be together. And my dad will sometimes call and just have the video going while he’s cooking or doing something just because he likes for it to feel like we’re together. It’s really sweet. I’ll mess with him and be like ‘you’re not even talking to me I’m just watching you cook’ and he’s like ‘that’s okay’. 

 

Annette: 

Right! It doesn't matter. I can completely understand that. My son not long ago went and installed Zoom on my mom's laptop. So I did one session with her and she was ecstatic, so happy. And I was like, ‘we can do this more often!’ She's like,’ Oh, can I do this with my mom?’ I was like, ‘yeah.!’

 

Salina: 

I love that. One beautiful thing that has come out of all of this is that we’re communicating even more than we did pre-Covid. Like a lot of my aunts and uncles that are like using WhatsApp and stuff to communicate. Now we’re having weekly or bi-weekly family conversations over Zoom or Meet. It’s great. 

 

Annette: 

I think for me Covid has also brought it home even more the fact that my family is so far away. Right. Cause I have my mom, my parents here and all three of my siblings, um, well in the States, my mom, until my siblings are here, the other one is like four hours away. But the rest of my family is in PR. So it's like, you go through hearing about this illnesses and you're not there for any of them. And I grew up with all of them, like, how do you cope with that? Knowing that even now more than ever, you can't go anywhere.

 

Salina:
Right. And it’s really been one thing after another that has hit the islands. 

 

Annette: 

Right. It's hard. I always say if you're from Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuban or Haiti, you have pretty thick skin because as we’ve gone through lately, all of it: Covd and the earthquake and the storms and all the electrical issues and water pollution that came about from all this. I mean, I don't even know what else you can throw at that region and yet we see that our people come out of it, smiling and still have that feeling of home. Someone remarked on the fact that they went to Puerto Rico, just before Covid and everything kind of got really crazy. They're like, ‘people are like really hard up, but everybody's still singing and smiling.’ And I'm like, ‘what are they supposed to do?’. It’s like people expect to see a community that is dejected and that's not what they're getting. So they get the mistaken impression that everything is okay, because there's, you know, we're still smiling, we're still singing. We're still, you know, celebrating. It's like, but that's just how we are. That’s our culture

 

Salina: 

That's actually a really good point. And I liked the way that you articulated it too, especially like comparing it to the conversation we're having about the sense of community here. And it bleeds into the politics and bleeds into how much aid or care or attention is at the Southeast. And it's like only when people are at their worst or we like, ah, look, see, they need help. Let's step in. Um, and then quickly step out. Tene and I were talking about how a lot of people are feeling like sometimes organizations come in and think they know exactly what a community needs, but it's like, did you actually talk to anybody? .

 

Annette: 

I think about having my kids in elementary school. You know, I’ve always been an involved parent in PTO and PAC and all that. And the counseling centers come to tell us how to parent, 

because we were not doing it “Right”. And you know how hard it was not to say something that day?! We see it all the time.  Because they have this idea that we just are unable to parent because it's not done the way they're used to, you know, the way they believe it should be. And then to see that reflected when my kids were in elementary and middle school. And then again, when they were in high school, it's like, does it ever change? Like why do you continually bring people into our schools that have no sense of what an immigrant community goes through that don't understand the cultural differences between themselves and the people they're trying to teach? You know, why do you believe it's okay to bring someone in to tell your parents how to be parents? Like what makes you think that that's right. And we’re supposed to smile and thank them. I had a heated conversation about this one time when I was involved at the middle school level. One of the counseling groups came to a PTO meeting to complain that they had all this stuff that they were offering to teach parents how to be good parents, but no one was coming. Like the attendance was so low. And I was just sitting in the back. I was  really quiet and listening. And this gentleman -tall, white man- stands up and says, you know, he had really good strategies for those families and those families needed to hear and, you know, he keeps saying  “them” and “those” and it was really getting to me. Right. So, when he I was like, so who are “them”? And what are “those people” and exactly who are you to tell our families how to be good? You have no understanding or the community. They’re not asking for a handout. 

They're not asking you to get them straight. They're just saying specifically, I don't understand how to help my child with this subject matter. Right. So what kind of resources can you provide for them so they can help with that? We didn't ask you to tell us how to parent. After all that, I was told that there was no reason to be angry, that there was no reason to be confrontational. And I'm like, I didn't think I was either, but okay. And that happens still to this day, I have a 20 and a 17 year old and the issues are still the same.

 

Salina: 

Right and it really bleeds out into our city at large too. You and I have talked about this a lot in the past. LIke when you go downtown, even if we love it or feel like this is our city, we still constantly ask: how well are we represented? We're not in the galleries. You know, the music isn’t ours unless it’s Hispanic heritage month? 

 

Annette: 

It's all fun and interesting to see and really there's nothing wrong with the art and music as it is now but there is something wrong with it not being inclusive of all that Lancaster holds you know. Like how truly are we actually present or represented at all times? And how can you truly say that you represent a diverse community when none of that is visible and then it's expected to stay in the South side. Like our culture stays in the South Side but not bleed anywhere else.  Like, why is it okay to do that? But then expect that same community to back you and be there for you when the reverse is not happening. So I think that goes again to a feeling of home because people have made the southside their home. Right. They are slowly making it into a community and kind of creating that sense of what they come from right. And I'm sorry, but sometimes who you think is the “bad guy” is the person that's going to have your back when you're out here. So it's hard to see them sometimes as a bad person. Right. And too often the powers that be want you to point out the “bad guy” but that’s not how it is for us all the time. 

Because we don't see them like that. And really we don't see those folks coming to our communities and helping them with that. We see the people that are here, that yes. It’s not about judgement. Like maybe they are not doing certain things “correctly”. Right. That they're not following the path that you would like them to, but they're the ones that are bringing you, you know, a meal, the ones that are watching out for your kids, they ones are making sure you're, you know, you're okay. Yeah. I wish people understood that. 

 

Salina:
Right it’s out of necessity and sometimes we just know that we can take care of each other better than systems do. 

 

Annette: 

Right. When, you're part of that neighborhood. You're part of the family, the extended family. So, um, they, they do. And, and I remember feeling that in Puerto Rico. Ultimately, I’ve learned along the way. You just make your home where you can. Right. And, and you share the things that for you mean that, and then you kind of forget everything else.