00:00Hey guys, my name is Tabina. I'm a Pakistani Haitian.
00:05Hi, my name is Connie and yo soy Peruana.
00:10Hey guys, my name is Tracy and I am Jamaican.
00:15Hi, my name is Melissa Guzman and I am Dominicana.
00:22Caribbean people in general just have this zest for life.
00:25They don't have like that anxiety that we have here in America.
00:29You know, you can like believe to know and learn to think but you can't really teach someone to feel
00:33and so much with culture comes from that kind of like core integrity, willpower that you can't really just manufacture.
00:39Jamaican culture number one is global.
00:41We wear our flag colors on just about any and everything. It's because it is near and dear to us.
00:47I think the essence of being Peruvian really is honoring our ancestors, understanding our history, understanding our culture,
00:54and understanding our food. Our food is built on resistance.
00:57Family is just the root of everything. Food, our music, us playing dominoes.
01:03All those things pretty much all lead to the same core basis which is bringing the family together.
01:09We are composed of a myriad of other ethnicities.
01:14We have Chinese Jamaicans, Indian Jamaicans, Syrian Jamaicans.
01:18One thing that is unique, no matter where you're from, you're Jamaican, I am a Jamaican. 100%.
01:24I brought a few items that I felt like always reminded me of home between being in the Dominican Republic,
01:30New York, and also Miami, Florida.
01:32The first item is Jolos.
01:37And then the second item I have is Vaporub.
01:43My mom believes it can cure everything.
01:45It doesn't matter if you have an illness, if you have chicken pox, if you have a pimple, if your
01:50husband left you.
01:51The other item I have is dominoes.
01:57Dominoes in our culture is very serious.
02:00I was playing as a child and I was treated like an adult even though I was like three, four
02:04years old or five years old.
02:06It didn't matter.
02:08This is one of my favorite foods.
02:10I can eat it morning, day, night.
02:13It does not matter with Dominicans.
02:15We can find a way to incorporate plátanos in every single meal.
02:20Whether it's a snack, whether it's breakfast, it does not matter.
02:23You're happy, eat plátanos.
02:25If you're sad, eat plátanos.
02:27So one of the pieces I brought is a janama.
02:31And my father, he's a Muslim Haitian.
02:34So it's like a portable prayer mat.
02:37Prayer mat, there's an image of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
02:40It's where our Kaaba is and that's like the direction we're supposed to pray in.
02:44And it's just like the details on it is just really beautiful.
02:47It's handmade.
02:50My cousin actually is a jewelry scarf designer and she essentially employs artisans that have been like disenfranchised around the
02:58world.
02:59And they're silk, they're pure silk.
03:00And the block printing and textiles are all hand, hand drawn.
03:03So they're very, very like precious.
03:05And the next item I brought are my Inti and my Antara.
03:10I lived in Peru for approximately two years before we moved to the United States.
03:13To me, it's incredibly important to honor my ancestors, to honor the legacies.
03:18I come from the Incan Empire.
03:20So I bring these so people can see that this is a religion.
03:23We believe in the sun.
03:25We believe in Pachamama.
03:26You know, all these different deities that represent nature.
03:29The tattoo on my right arm is honoring my ancestors.
03:33In the middle, it is Machu Picchu, which is the central city in the Incan Empire, which basically is like
03:41holy ground for the Incas.
03:43And the tattoo on my left arm is achacana.
03:46And achacana is the ancient cross of the Incas.
03:50I was born and raised in Jamaica.
03:55The bottle of white rum.
03:57No Jamaican home goes without a bottle of white Jamaican overproof rum.
04:05Also, Jamaican mint tea.
04:09We are, more than anything else, we consume a lot of tea.
04:13You know, when you go into the home of someone who is Jamaican, you always see different artifacts from back
04:19home.
04:19Whether it's a wall hanging, something in their kitchen, of course.
04:23No matter where we traverse on this earth, Jamaica is in us, with us all the time.
04:29It's really important to keep my culture alive because it's a part of who I am.
04:33When I was a kid, you know, waking up at 8 o'clock in the morning to clean the house
04:37with some bachata, it wasn't fun.
04:40But now, it's almost like it's Saturday morning.
04:43I'm going to wake up, I'm going to clean, I'm going to blast the music.
04:46I feel like I'm becoming my mother's daughter.
04:48And as I grow older, it's like, you know, when I have kids, I want them to be able to
04:52embrace their culture as well.
04:54So how I keep my culture and heritage alive is literally that I feel like I tell people, like, to
05:00know me is to know I'm Peruvian.
05:02I feel like me, as a Peruvian American here in the United States, as the minority, I have a responsibility
05:08to my culture and my people to just continuously teach people what it is.
05:12I think the best way to stay in tune with your culture or the customs is to definitely just ask
05:18your parents.
05:19Your parents do these things every single day.
05:22It's something that was passed down, so I believe that it is our charge, our task.
05:27What was passed down to me, it's my task and duty to ensure the continuity stays intact.
05:34I don't want to give up on language, so like Urdu, Arabic, Creole, I should learn fluently.
05:40If everyone was absolutely the same, the United States would be super boring.
05:44You have this melting pot of people coming in, and besides their differences, they embrace each other.
05:49They learn from each other, and I think it's just one of the most beautiful things.
05:53Hi, my name is Connie, and I'm Peruvian, and I will always keep my culture alive.
05:57.
