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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview K-0659, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Inspired by the leftist political traditions of her native Bolivia and by her mother's political activism, Katushka Olave brought her devotion to social and racial justice to Durham, North Carolina. There she worked to promote these values through volunteering and work in community organizations. In this interview, she shares her opinions on social activism, aid organizations, and Latino cultural identity. Olave offers insight into race, identity, and activism, including her effort to bridge the gap between the African-American and Latino communities in Durham.
Katushka Olave describes her activism on behalf of the Latino community in Durham, North Carolina.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
This is Alicia Rouverol of the Southern Oral History Program. I will be interviewing later today Katushka Olave. Today's date is December 9th, 1998. This is my tape number: 12-9-98 K0.1. This is a continuation of the interview that we conducted last week as part of the New Immigrants Project. The Listening for a Change Project funded by Z. Smith Reynolds. And we'll be conducting the interview at Durham County Literacy Council.
Yeah, just to follow up on a couple of quick questions from last time. Yeah, I realized I hadn't gotten your family's names or your grandfather's name, or any of that.
Well, my grandfather's name is Jose Caballero Mendez who died two years, no it was five years ago. And then, my grandmother, Emiliana Andia de Caballero, which we used "d-e-," like "of" translated into English. When you get married you use your single last name, and your marriage last name. My mother is Alicia Caballero Andia—.
That's my name.
Yeah. My father Silvano Omonte Rocha. I have two siblings, Eduardo
Omonte, Maria Teresa Omonte. Both are married now. I don't know what is
my sister's last name.
Great. Good.
I have another brothers also, but they are for my father's side. He had
had
You mean cousins:
Brothers.
Brother. So you have two brothers. And, did you have any sisters or no?
I had one sister.
One sister, so four. Okay, great. And I guess I had wondered when you had said something about that your mother had been involved in some causes I wasn't sure what that was, precisely. Whether those were social, or political, or some combination.
Okay. Well, my parents—, well, I would say my father, have never been involved in any political things. My mother, which—, my memory is not really too clear on that because I never asked her actually. But I hear some saying that she was involved, not deeply, but at least having connection with what we called the "guerrilleros"; it was the time of Che Guevara, in my country. And one of her first best friends was part of this movement, the Guerrilleras. She was the first Guerrilleras in Bolivia, which is the first women in the political or whatever it is.
That's pretty remarkable.
It is.
So, perhaps that background could be, or perhaps because I have in my
blood, since my name is Katushka and I'm a Russian
It has to be out there, yeah.
It's different and I think for me, and I value a lot of what humanity is, and I value also the rights from the human beings, it's because I saw them, I live with them, with the community in order to value. That would be different and that's what I was doing before I get involved. I just saw them from like, it's the same like you are watching a Christmas party. You know, you're out watching and you love it but you don't know how much those people they need to train themselves or, I don't know, practice or whatever, you know, get involved. How did they get those consumes? How did—.
In order to really learn.
Right. You know, so those are little things that make, and brought me to—.
And so were you hopeful, initially when you got involved in that political organization, were you thinking this might be an avenue for social change? Or what were—, you had talked about your boyfriend being involved—.
Yeah, well—.
But we didn't really talk about the nature of the organization.
Yeah, for me it was more kind of like, curiosity. You know, before I get involved in the political group, I was reading books about Lenin, Marx and all those, you know, talking about the Communists and whatever the Socialists. Which are also differences between those two denominations. So, and the popes they tell you really incredible things but when you see the practice, I mean that's, I mean like saying if it's a left party then they are doing what they need to do, I mean they follow those rules but not exactly the way it is because it's going to change depending on the social content.
In which you apply that.
Right.
Right, and how would you define that organization that you were, had been involved in?
Well, that's what we called movimiento de izquierda which is the left
side, which is Communist. So it's the "red" political thing. On the
other hand would be, like is the right hand, which is "Derechistas," o
"Capitalistas." Which, you know is divided that way.
Right, exactly.
And, you know, and it's different. It's—, they have different ideals, you know, so it's kind of like—, but for someone it's the same thing. You need to know it, more about it.
So this group, was it leaning more toward Marxism?
Not really, not too much. I would consider this group between.
Between Socialism and Communism?
Yeah. Kind of like neutral—, not neutral but they have a little bit of the Marxists and a little bit of the capitalists. You know, kind of in-between.
So their goals would have been, I mean, with some groups in Latin America, sometimes it's land reform, or sometimes it's government ownership of companies—.
Right. I think it's more like land reform. Land reform and not getting too much foreign companies coming into the countries. Which is a good—, you know everything has its pros and cons. Yeah, so it's so hard to tell when is good—.
Exactly.
But, that was it.
And then the community work, when you were talking about the participatory work in the community, more when you had been doing the work that you had been exposed to through the missionaries. Could you give an example of what one of those projects might have been?
Okay, as an example of what we were doing is—, as I said, as I remarked
before we said that in Bolivia, it was only in the mountains in the
valley, we speak two languages, which is En—, not English, Aymara and
Quechua so if you go out of the city to the little village, little tiny
towns, like if you go here you will see the hilly-billys over here,
right? Over there you're going to still see the Indians, you know, the
indigenous people, which they don't speak Spanish, they speak Aymara. So
it's so hard for them to communicate so what we were doing, what is
called in Spanish "alfabetizacion," which is teaching them to write and
read in English—, in Spanish, right, which is "literacy"
That's not the way, or that's not really that effective.
No, it is not. Because you are still giving—, it's like you're treating
your old servants. Do whatever you want and they will come with
And when you said like some of those programs might have been supported by UNICEF, were any of them US Aid programs, because I know some of those were done internationally—.
Yeah, there was a lot. It's a lot. And the bad thing of those programs, and that's why—.
Kind of problematic, some of them.
I think that was a period of time when we started doing this, when it
was called "popular participation," because all these organizations they
were coming and—.
It's true whether that's done internationally or whether that's done on a local basis it's still the same process.
And it's so hard to be re-funded, because you never know whoever funded that program, if it's going to come back and follow up, but, you know that's the way the community felt—mistreated.
No, I think that's true. There has been a lot of criticism of US Aid programs internationally and a lot of critiques about people overlaying their perspectives on health care or farming and, you know, whatever. So it's pretty loaded.
I mean to say another, what is it, the Peace Corps. Well, depending, I
think depending on what the Peace Corps will do, but—, and depending
where they send their missionaries, you know, it's hard. But it's still
the majority of the projects is just short-term but it's not any good
living for them. So that's why they have the programs. So, there are
other programs, like this one we do this participatory communication we
It's longstanding.
Right. Not like just for the short-term and then just—, you know when I started doing this, what is it, participatory communication, I talked with everybody and say, what is the benefit of this—is this just a small program, is this just because we're doing—, because we are in a university and that's what they wanted us to do? What is going to be the benefit? So, when we find it out that it's not that, we wanted to introduce the popular, is that right, the popular communication inside of our communities. That was a good, you know, starting. And now there is more, there is more ways to do that participatory communication.
Yeah, and people here call some similar work participatory documentation projects. Which is a little different, it's not communication so much as it is field work projects where people are involved in ( ) it, et cetera.
But, you know, down there it's growing, that's perhaps the difference because I see here these kinds of projects but they are not giving any hope. I mean they give hope and then you just leave them. But down there they started a project like when I went last time I went to visit a women's club, kind of like a women's club like healthy. And there was located in one of the poverties, one of the neighborhoods that they have a lot of poverty, in La Paz. But it's amazing how any hope for that but now it's the same community. I mean if you go to the community, if you work with them, if you know what they want, and project is going to grow.
Right, exactly. And that's where it's more likely, much more likely, to sustain. People are trying to do that even more in folklore than in oral history but even in oral history people are trying to do more participatory, and have it be, you know there's this book, Listening for a Change, our project is sort of based on this book, that's about oral history projects that are participatory internationally, with the notion of, you know, where is the giving back and how do you create a project in a way that it does sustain, but it meets local needs as opposed to outside needs. You know, which is part of why Jill and I wanted you and Jackie to be involved is because we don't want it to be us coming in and trying to decide what—, I mean, we're in no position to understand the needs. So, it's—, but I think it's a huge issue and it sounds like actually some of the work that's being done in the Latin American countries we have a lot to learn from.
Oh yeah, it's a lot of, and there are some projects that are working really well and they help big communities, I mean little villages that they make bigger villages now, just really great It's really great and I think most of the countries this participatory education, what is participatory education, participatory communication, participatory everything—.
Wow, that's great.
There is—, I think the movement is really big and I think it's not only
set in one country; they also have this in Brazil, with this, I think I
talked a little bit about Pablo Freire, who write the Pedagogía del
Oprimido, which is talking about education. You know, how to teach
community, how to teach—. It's totally different the way you teach in
the university and the way you need to teach—. And you know it makes a
lot of changes. And that's actually a really good book that you can
read. It's really interesting
And Brazil also has the Augusto Boal, who is the father of the Theater of the Oppressed, so the whole nation of performance of oral history has really grown a lot out of that movement, so there is some wonderful stuff. And, in fact, there are some really wonderful oral history projects that have happened in Brazil too.
Yeah, I saw a few of those. And I think with this Pablo Freire, I think he was the first one who did all this, you know, movement. And he showed them.
So it sounds like the work—to take, to kind of look a little bit at the community work that you have done there and now the community work that you have done here, can you talk about how some of this work has translated for you here? I mean, in what ways is it different, in what ways is it similar?
Well, perhaps the similarity will be the language, because I work with also, I mean, Bolivian people but they didn't speak Spanish. And now here I'm working with Latinos who are Hispanic but they don't speak English. But they speak Spanish. That's a similarity, but also the difference is I speak Spanish, but when I was doing this in Bolivia with the indigenous, I didn't speak the main language.
So you're really in a much better position right now here.
Right, I mean it's more—, it's easy to communicate with them, you know,
it's not too hard. It will leave out of the slangs that each country
has, you know. I mean the way they speak Spanish, you know. And we have
different slangs that we use. But it is still, you will be able to
communicate. So that would be kind of like a similarity. And the
difference is that I am in a country that is not my country.
Who's free?
Yeah, everybody's free that's why everybody does whatever they want, you know. But that is not really the point, or the community here. And also the community over here since we are talking about different countries, also I see different cultures. We are not the same. That's what disappointed me a lot when I just came, and still there are people here that they don't know the difference between the Latinos. I mean that doesn't mean that I'm—, that I don't want to recognize the Mexicans. But there is a lot of difference, there is a lot of difference with the cultures. Because if you go to the history, you will see all North America, Central America, and South America was, they were living, I want to say they were Incas, I mean there were indigenous peoples that they are different also. Different tribes. Like in Mexico there are the Aztecas. In all Central America are the Mayas, and in South America, some of the South America, not the whole South America, we are the Incas. It is still a difference. There is a lot of difference. So that's because we have, you know, this different cultures meet those. There are stereotypes also that we have, so that's a difference also.
Yeah, and I think also people, as you are saying, they tend to group Latin Americans or Hispanics in general, you know as opposed to understanding that there are huge differences culturally between Bolivia and Mexico or Puerto Rico.
And there are countries that they didn't have this indigenous—, like in
the
Yeah, so it sounds like that's, you were saying that's been a frustration for you. What about, as you've gone about this work with the different groups, I mean, we talked last time about El Centro and El Pueblo, the organization in Raleigh, it sounds as though you started with translation and then you moved more into cultural work and then from there really back into literacy, it sounds like. Can you talk a little bit about that, both as the development of that but also we need to go in and fill in some gaps a little bit on, I'm a little confused on when some of these organizations, so this is really, I think, kind of important historically.
Well, it's a lot to tell about. But I think as they say, sometimes you go in a circle and you want to get out of the circle by yourself and come back to the circle.
Yeah, right, right.
Yeah, exactly, exactly.
I mean, if you have your own goals in life and I think for me it's real
important to value my people. But when I saw people, not people that
they are up on the top. The queen. My people, my hard people, my work
people. You know, and I think there is another saying in Spanish is "Que
pequeño es el mundo." And also is—, when I
Your path.
Right, so that's great. I like that—. Then when I found out that that was not really the way it is supposed to be, I just said out. You know, even though they are still serving the community, but not in the way—.
So, El Central?
El Central.
So, how would you define their way of serving the community?
They provide services, yeah, that's an organization that provides more services.
In terms of?
In terms of language, education, because they have ESL classes, and, what else. Sometimes talks about and they try to fight for the rights. You know, things like that. And then later on it's coming and why go up on causa multicultural and they were—I think getting in my path. It's really what I wanted to do. You know, get with the people, live with them. I mean that doesn't mean that I want to live next to them. But—.
More frontline still?
Right. Because I—, and perhaps it's because with my volunteering
experience, I wanted to do, because I was volunteering with families and
helping them and helping there. And also for my personal knowing, you
know seeing what was the difference in this area. How people was
treating our people, how you can help them, you know, to understand that
thing. So,
Duke. That's funny.
A big change. You could just see it, you know, every organization has their own policies, their own—, how do we say in Spanish, línea politica.
Their own political line.
So, you just need to play it. I mean, and sometimes I find that people that they work in the place because they need. You know, if they're interested in economics only, but they are not happy at all. And I don't know, I'm not that type. I would prefer not having too much money, but being good and doing good work. So,—.
And NECD is a community organization, but it's got some Duke support. Doesn't NECD have Duke support?
NECD is North and Central Durham.
Come in.
Should I turn it back on, or should we hold off?
Yeah but I think that—, oh I was saying about the NECD. Well, that is community service and they put that name because it is located in north-central Durham. So, and that's where the Afro-American community lives. You know, so it's a special neighborhood in Durham. What was I trying to say?
We were talking about how different it was getting involved in that organization in comparison to El Centro and Causa.
Oh, okay. Well, the difference in being involved in that they show you more about the difference. You know, the human being difference
Meaning?
What we call, or what we say—, I don't want to say that. I don't use really frequently that word, racismo, or racism.
And are you talking about this in terms of the Afro-American and Latino community?
Right, in terms of Afro-Americans, Anglos and Latinos on other cultures. It's a lot. And also being in another, you know, as Latinos we're considered a minority. And being part of another minority, you know, culture is hard. But I think there is a difference. The Afro-Americans are, I would say, the high level minority. And then would come the other ones. You know the other cultures come down. But, you know, what's really strange for me is working with them. When I say it's strange, it's not because I don't like them—the way they were accepting me. They wanted me to be involved in little tiny things that they were doing. Which I was like, "Why do they want me? Are they playing with me or what?" You know, you never know what could happen. But I think it is because I was really open and I was telling them and I talked with them, how communities, how we organized this. And showing them, or giving them information about that, what it is about the community, what the needs are of the community. And when they realize that they are the same needs that their own community has, they were like, "so we're in the same shape?" We are in the same shape, you know, it's the same. So, perhaps that's why we link really good.
To realize that the needs are the same.
Right.
Do you want to talk a little bit about what those needs are, that
African-
Well, I think the big need is housing in both communities. There is not any support from the city about that, and you know for some reason our community won't establish, or put their seats in the same community where we have the Afro-Americans. But there is not any help, there is not any support at all for them. So that is one thing. The second one, I would say, is violence. You know, it's—, they have their way in violence the Afro-Americans, and Latinos they have their own way. It kind of like in the beginning the Afro-Americans going for the drug thing and Latinos have this violence because of the alcohol. You know—.
A lot of folks are here solo. A lot of the men are here solo. That's what I—.
Right. It's the sadness of missing family that brought them here. But it's—, I sometimes feel like I would rather be an alcohol rather than a drug user. You know, which neither of those are good. But if I need to decide, or maybe smoker or something like that. So those are the two similarities, you know, the same needs. Talking about education, not because I want to hurt them, but I think the percentage of illiteracy in Afro-Americans is really high, in their, you know, English language. And for the Latino community, of course it's going to be higher in English because it's not their main language. But it's not as bad as we thought, you know, comparing their—, talking their, speaking their own language.
So you're saying that their literacy in their own language is good, the Latinos, but not English? What, I'm not sure—.
Yeah, their own native language is not as high literacy as gonna be
English because they don't—, I mean comparing to the Afro-Americans we
have a high
Here at the Durham Literacy Council what is the make-up of the population that you work with here?
The majority is Afro-Americans.
Do you have ESL programs for the Latino community here?
Yeah, that's what I do here. I do the ESL programs. But in another program I have the ABE and the GED. There are more Afro-Americans that are taking those exams. But, anyway, so that was, you know, the same needs that both communities has. Also health. A lot, perhaps. You know, birth—, what is it, maternity.
Right, prenatal care.
Prenatal care.
HIV.
A lot, a lot. I mean a lot of health education needs to be done in both communities because it's just getting worse. Not only HIV, also the development of the community, the growing of the community. I mean more babies every day. Young people, I'm talking about sex. Sexuality education is a big issue. I would say in the Afro-American, maybe eight years old they're having sex now. That is a lot. Then I would say another is educated themselves, I mean educated into the system.
Sort of learning the system?
Learning the system, right.
So that's an issue in both communities?
Yeah, in both. Because that's still, you know, they are Afro-American,
they live, they're born some of them here but they have in their blocks
and their roads and
Exactly. Different heritages, yeah.
So, also what else is there? Well, now it's the same needs.
When you were talking more about the racism, were you meaning in the organization or do you mean just in the community?
In the community. Not the organization, the community. No, there was not any racism in the organization. That was vice-versa was really open. You know I belong now to different organizations inside of that community and they want me to be a liaison person with the Latino community and themselves but I—.
How do you feel about that role?
I like it but it is really—, you need to be really careful about those things because nobody—, I mean when you do that you don't need to feel as a person, you need to feel as a community member what another feels. You know, I'm a little bit sensitive about that because that's not my type to get enemies or something like that. For me—.
Are you worried that people will take that, will judge you from your own community if you are working in the African-American community?
No, I'm not talking about that. What I'm saying is—.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
As a liaison person is—, when I say be careful it's because kind of like
you
Doses?
Doses, then he will get really good. It's the same thing being part of a different organization because you need to start from the beginning and when I say, what was it I said before, the promise or something?
The—, I thought you said promise.
No. The proud. When did I say that before then. I forget.
You were talking about working in the African-American community—is that the part you are thinking of?
Becoming a liaison person, I just lost it from my mind. Anyway—.
It will come back.
So, it's like you're feeding the baby, it's like the same you're going to start doing with them. Because the community doesn't know about what is really in other communities. You know, it isn't that the community's big but they are closed mind.
So they don't understand, probably, a lot of what is going on in the Hispanic community?
Right. So they need to know, get aware of what is going on, what is the community, what is—, you talk this way or why you don't talk this way. You know, just the only examples are in the way they talk. They—, from nature they speak a little bit louder and they don't speak like, blah, blah—.
So different cultural differences and all of that stuff, yeah, so are
you
Well, it's not a long way. But what I'm saying is like you need to know when, you know when you're feeding the baby, you feed the baby but you don't know how much it's getting or not. Right? So that's what you do with them. I mean not only with them but with any other organization that they don't know too much. It's just give them a spoon and a spoon and a spoon and they assimilate all that stuff and then they say, "Oh, that's right. That's the way. We are looking in this way for saying for us what's green, but you are telling us that it's not green it's like blues." And things like that. So, they are getting to know more about that, the community. They don't have—, when I say closed mind, it's because some of them they don't know. They don't know.
It takes a while for people to learn across those, about different cultures.
Exactly.
It really, really does.
And they, I would say, not a majority, but there is a percentage of the Afro-Americans there, they don't like Latinos because they are taking away their jobs. You know, because Latinos are also considered hard workers, as they are. But—.
Yeah, there's also some studies that say that that issue is overrated, that that's not—, that doesn't really hold up statistically, some people say, but that it's perceived. So as long as it's perceived then that's how someone may respond if someone's taking my job, you know But it points to people fighting for scarce resources.
So, you know—. But it's really good. I like it. I like to be involved in
that because I learn more about them and they learn also more. And I
think my mission is to
Okay, so that's what you meant by the carefulness, is that in some ways there's a responsibility in the liaison role. You know, that that's maybe what you're pointing to; the weight of being a contact person, because it needs to go well. Or that's a bad—.
Yes, and you need to give them good information, because for one thing that is not really good you can cause—.
Right. You had said there was someone else involved at NECD that was less, or maybe it was at Eastway, I'm not sure, where there was someone who was Latino who wasn't connecting quite as well to the community, or in some ways, wasn't as frontline. I mean we don't need to talk about who the person is at all. But I just mean more the notion of—.
Well, what happened is sometimes we have our own people that they don't want, because they don't have these experiences, they don't want to be or they don't want the community to be involved with other ones. Do you know what I'm saying? It's like, why do I need to do, why—that's their language—why me, Katushka needs to be or I need to talk with this Afro-American community, while they are mistreating my people. But that's not my vision. But, you know, somewhere they have that vision. So you know—.
And what is your vision then? I mean I—.
Well, my vision is that in the world we have bad and good people and
it's
It is interesting because Jackie said something very similar in my interview with her. That in the end, as much as she saw the cultural differences she also said, you know, "We're all human beings and we all have a lot of the same needs and you know we need to be working together."
Well, you know if you are thinking we are human beings and everybody
needs the same, you know, you need to treat everybody, I mean, perhaps
nobody will agree with me, but we need to treat everybody equal.
Well, and see what's so interesting is how that's such an American concept and yet, you know how do we always see it played out? No we don't, you know?
It is a little bit hard.
Yeah, exactly, it is hard. We're pretty close to 4:15 here. Maybe to just close up because you really have to go, right?
Yeah.
To just close up a little bit, maybe we could come back a little bit more to, you know, this whole thing of, you know, having decided to come to the States—you could have gone elsewhere I suppose—but why the States and what has been the hardest part about coming here and maybe just—.
The hardest part. Well, coming to the United States is—. Perhaps when I
The complications there?
Yeah, the complications of my marriage, blah, blah, blah. So, that's the reason I wanted to come here, not focusing because, "Ooh, let's go to the United States and make money." Because I was not valued that way, perhaps because I live here and know what it is. But that was different. And also it's because you have also more chances here.
The opportunities. What about as a woman? I mean have you had more opportunity here as a woman at all, or—?
Well, I think women has opportunity here, more than in my country. Yeah, definitely. But, I would say, as a woman I think I realize, I mean I—, not realize, what do you say, I—.
Discovered, no?
Yeah, I would say I discovered that it's not only a stereotypes. There are not only stereotypes for the men; it's also stereotypes for the women here.
Here in the States?
In the States, yeah. And I just didn't know that. I mean, this was for me a really big experience, that I'm learning a little bit of everything.
I bet you are.
That was, you know, even though I'm sharing with people and just for me what is linking this is when I started taking care of this child, the way they educated me that was not comparing the way people was educated here.
So, the way they educated you, meaning the people in—?
Bolivia. In Bolivia, you know, values, manners, all those things. So when I came here, and I'm reflecting in this little boy the way they raised me, the way it is my culture—.
Right, you saw your own culture probably being played out.
Yeah, and you see that way the difference. You know, and the stereotypes of women there, because over here there is not only one stereotype there are different stereotypes.
So what are the stereotypes there versus here?
Well, I would say the one that is really clear is the one of like that women down there are conservative. You know, really soft, but here they are more liberal. You know, there are not any—, well, of course that was at the time I was because now it's changing also. But it is still, women has their own vanity in my country. But here, they don't care about it. You know, they don't care. They just go, "Ah." There is not any respect for themselves, they don't respect themselves. They don't let themselves be treated as women.
They don't let themselves treat—?
Treat other ones, or see them what the values for a woman is. You know, I think it's lost all the values for a woman is lost here. Just perhaps for the way they live or, you know—.
Are you talking about here?
Here, yeah.
So there's less sort of—values of women are sort of less definition or
Not the definition, I think everybody knows what is the definition. But, I'm saying like the values. Why there—.
The values of a woman?
A woman, yeah. That's really gone, it's more materialistic. It's not really—, everything is really superficial. It's not really—, everything is really superficial, it's nothing for the spirit, nothing for the heart.
Yeah, so that sounds like what would be the down side in your estimation of living here.
Right, yeah. Not only in the women also in the same society it's—, that you will not be able to change all of that. I mean that's the way it is over here and if you go to Bolivia you will say, "Oh my God, it's some sort of still but, you know, there's still time but they are just values I mean—, and so I have the and your life and your life and society that they still keep it.
What would be the parts—, I think we should wrap up here. Do you still keep a link to Bolivia, I mean you're talking about the cultural differences?
For me the most important, anywhere that I go, is to keep my own culture and that is what I'm doing with my own children.
Yeah, so you're keeping that alive.
I want them—, I mean, you know, I still, and I think we talked before
about that that there a lot of, it's sad to say, but there are a lot of
Latinos that they don't want to keep that, they're the second or the
third or the fourth generation. I think that is the most
Only what is hard?
Dead.
Dead is hard, yes.
What my grandfather used to say. But, I'm still keeping and I'm going to keep until the end of my last day.
Do you plan to stay in this country?
I'd like to stay here, but I don't know for how long. I don't want to predict myself. Whatever is coming for the next day is going to come. I'm not really—, you see that's another thing that I don't really like here is too methodic things, you know, and I'm not. Perhaps I can be here for long but, who knows? You never know.
So it sounds like in some ways it's a mixed bag, being here, from what you're saying. That there's—, I mean you've got some of the freedom from the social constraints, maybe, from what you came from. But did you find here what you wanted to find?
Well, I find it perhaps, yeah. I find what I want. But I find it in my way, because I don't want it to belong in the same circle I was belonging in Bolivia. I belong to a different circle here.
So you've created your own community here.
Exactly, my own ways. But I think that I like it. I like that a lot. And
I would say that culture is the most important thing and precious thing
that I will never get
Yeah, that's great. That's critical. Well we should probably wrap it up. Thanks Katushka. This is the end of the interview with Katushka Olave.
END OF INTERVIEW