Belkis Shoenhals

EF: Can we start by you saying your name?

BS: Yeah. So it’s Belkis Shoenhals.

EF: Where were your born and where did you grow up?

BS: Um, I was born in Mount Vernon, Ohio, which is about an hour northeast of here, and that’s where I grew up. I was born and raised there until I went to college.

EF: What was your childhood like? 

BS: Um … it was … wonderful. I had a fabulous, fabulous childhood. I was blessed and am blessed in many, many ways. But I noticed from an early age that it was like different than, than other children if you will, because Mount Vernon, it’s a very, mostly white town, very conservative, you have white, Catholic people there, or white Christians really um, so there’s not a lot of diversity. I noticed a lot of my friends, their moms, would be at home and bake brownies and, I don’t know, just do, do things. That didn’t happen in my household, my mom was always, very loud and call her family all the time and so I noticed this … I didn’t know what it was but I noticed this difference, like really early on, I just couldn’t put my finger on it. But it was really fun; uh, my dad, he was a history professor in Kenyon and my mom stayed at home and watched over me and everything but it was great in the sense that we traveled a lot. So since my dad was a historian he was always doing research, he taught Caribbean and Latin American history, as well as Eastern European history and Russian history, Middle Eastern history but because of that we traveled a lot and so we traveled mostly in Europe but, um we got to go to the Dominican Republic like three for four times a year, which is where my mom’s from. That was awesome because I was immersed in that culture and that’s how I learned Spanish. My mom, my parents always spoke to me in Spanish. My dad knew Spanish as well, so they always spoke to me in Spanish and then, also when I was there, I didn’t have a choice, I either figure it out and not be shy and talk to my abuela or, I don’t. So that’s where I learned all my Spanish, it’s like my second home, it’s like when I went there my brain just switched and I got used to the loud noise and the chaos in the street. You have this switch that just happens, you don’t even think about it really. I had a really, really wonderful childhood but I did notice those differences. My hair’s naturally curly and the texture’s a little different, and so when I was little, my mom kept my hair natural so I noticed, you know, “Oh, she has like, straight hair and why is mine big and curly and …” my classmates would be like, “Oh, like you’re just talking in gibberish like, you don’t really know another language”  I’d go to my friend’s houses for dinner and they’d have pork chops and mashed potatoes and my mom was making guandules and arroz con habichuela and tostones and chicken and they would be like, “What’s that?” You know what I mean? And, so, that’s part of me noticing a difference, I just didn’t quite understand it at the time. So I did encounter um …I  don’t know if you want to call it prejudice or whatever but people picked up on that and, and they labeled it as weird, instead of like, “Oh, that’s cool” they’re like, “That’s weird, that’s different” mostly weird, and so … but uh. When I was in fourth grade I made friends with Valesca, and Valesca was adopted from Chile, and so I finally had a friend, my very first friend, that was Hispanic. I had never, all my other friends had been white in the past and so her and I would speak in Spanish and just knowing her made me feel more comfortable about myself because I always knew I was different, I just didn’t understand why. She made me feel more comfortable and she really, made me feel more like ‘affirmed’ in my culture, even though I was half Dominican and she was Chilean, just us knowing Spanish  brought us together, you know?  So people kind of gave me more credit (laughter) I guess in that way. Cause they’re like, “Oh well … I guess so” But it was a wonderful, wonderful childhood, yeah. 

“Hair” Poem on Youtube

Elizabeth Acevedo “Hair” – ALL DEF POETRY

EF:  You mentioned growing up, speaking Spanish and learning with your exposure [BS: Yeah] in the Dominican Republic, can you tell me a little bit more about that? Growing up bilingual, what it meant to you at home and what it meant to you outside of the house. 

BS: I was always very proud that I was bilingual and my parents always … made it, they made it a priority for me to be bilingual …they planned, they were like, you know, “When our baby is born, he or she will be bilingual and we’ll make sure of it” and they actually thought about having me be trilingual and teaching me German on top of it and then my dad was like, “Well …” “Maybe she’ll get too confused …” And I mean, I know I could’ve picked it up but he didn’t speak as much German, he spoke to me a little bit but mostly it was all Spanish and I was lucky because since my dad knew like four, four or five languages, he could converse with her and I think that really helped, hearing that exchange back and forth, and also the reinforcement of both of my parents committing to that. So at home, I was just so proud, and I remember my parents always saying, “Oh, and she’s bilingual” and, “Oh” and so when I heard them talk in a positive manner about it I, I was proud too and um, I think outside of the home … when I was young, people, thought I was lying or, “Oh” like, “You’re just talking in gibberish. You don’t really know what you’re talking about” whatever. My teachers thought it was cool, I remember that, and they’d ask me every now and then, “Oh, well, how do you say this? How do you say this?” and some kids would come up to me and be like, “Belkis, how do you say this in Spanish? How do you say this?” so I felt very cool in that sense. But then you have the other side of the coin. People thought it was weird I was speaking gibberish, and I think that maybe stemmed from a jealously, there’s this whole other world that they didn’t know or they wish they were bilingual and they weren’t um, and so I noticed that early on. As we got older and mature people were like, “Oh, that’s really cool like, I wish I was” and they saw the value in it um, especially when we started our second language in eighth grade, people were like, “Well, like the fact that you already know this is really cool” but when I was really young it was more of a jealously, negative thing but it became more positive growing up. And actually every job that I’ve gotten in my whole life, well not in college like, not working at the library in college, but every professional job I’ve gotten is because I’ve been bilingual so, I’m very proud of it. 

I don’t remember the music but for me the music’s always been tied to dance; they’re very intertwined in my family and in Dominican culture as well: you can’t dance without any music, you can’t have music without dancing so everyone know both, right?

EF: You mentioned music a lot, as part of you growing up, was there any particular song or songs or stories that you remember from your childhood that are part of you and your family? 

BS: I don’t know like that artist or the particular song but I just remember … I don’t remember the music but for me the music’s always been tied to dance; they’re very intertwined in my family and in Dominican culture as well: you can’t dance without any music, you can’t have music without dancing so everyone know both, right? And here people are like, “Oh, I don’t dance” well it’s not an option (laughter) where my mom comes from, where I come from. So that’s what I remember most, the music was just a given, but for me it’s the dance and so, my mom would play it at our house in Mount Vernon and, I’d watch her hips moving and so I’d move my hips. My dad, he was this big, tall German man so he couldn’t really dance that well but he would, awkwardly um, but I notice, yeah, the hips is what I noticed a lot. My parents put me in ballet when I was seven so I had this classical training on the side. But when I was in Santo Domingo or the Dominican Republic um … music was always playing somewhere: the neighbor had it on, there was some car playing it, it was always present until it got very late at night, and everyone went to sleep but, there was always … and that’s what I don’t notice as much in the United States and maybe it’s different in Brooklyn, or something. Or in parts of LA or something, but yeah, there’s always music playing somewhere.

EF: You were born in Ohio. When did you, as an adult or as you were growing up, when did you realize, “Oh I’m, I’m Latina and I’m living here in Ohio”? What was that, if you ever had that moment of understanding your identity? 

BS: I don’t know if there was ever a moment where I had this epiphany of realizing my identity. I think it’s just something … I think I always, my whole life I’ve always understood my identity because my parents put it at the forefront and they made it something to be proud of, but I necessarily wasn’t always proud of it. I was proud I was bilingual and I thought that was cool and neat um, but I think it wasn’t until high school really that, I always tried to assimilate to the culture, the dominant culture that was around me so I would straighten my hair, if my friends were coming over for dinner I’d say, “Oh, just make spaghetti or …” you know what I mean, I wouldn’t play the merengue and the bachata at my birthday parties, I’d ask my mom to play something else. I always tried, cause I wanted to fit in cause all the kids thought I was weird and it was like, “Oh, let’s not be her friend.” So I wanted to fit in and be like everyone else. So knowing though that I, this is who I am, but I wasn’t necessarily, I didn’t really own it, until high school when I actually kind of got this new group of friends and they’re  so into it and they’re like, “Oh play us the music … Have your mom teach me that recipe” and I was like, “Oh my gosh, they want to learn about it. That’s so cool” and I had never had that before. So it wasn’t really until I was fifteen that I was like, “Yeah. I am Latina and I’m just gonna own it” you know, “I don’t need to straighten my hair all the time, I don’t need to, I can play merengue in the car and …” Then in college, it was just really celebrated cause our family went to a school that was more diverse and, I was in la Fuerza Latina and it wasn’t even an issue (laughter) so, um, yeah it wasn’t necessarily having an epiphany of, “Oh, this is who I am.” It was more like, “This is who I am and I’m proud of it and I’m going to celebrate it and, and own it” and that was when I was fifteen, I’d say. 

EF: You already mentioned that your mom and your dad are very important in your life, can you tell me a little bit more about them? 

BS: I’ll start with my dad then I’ll end with my mom. My dad was born in Germany, in Humberg, Germany, in 1933 so he grew up there during World War II, and he came to the States when he was fifteen. During his time in Germany, he actually led a very privileged life: his father was a doctor and also and actor and his mother was an actress and, in the thirties they were very, very famous, they had a summer house and a regular house and a nanny and … all, swimming pool … very, very privileged life. And so my dad grew up going to private boarding schools, so he was very privileged and then he came. He was not close with his parents, so once he became a teenager, when he was fifteen he, his uncle was like, “Well come to the States you can with live me, finish up high school and stay if you want.” And so he went to my uncle’s house who lived in Jackson, Michigan. He was an engineer so he owned a bottling, bottle company, bottling factory or something and so my dad finished out high school, he went to Kalamazoo College um … and he went to college, got his Master’s, got his Ph.D., all one right after the other- he was very studious all the time and he was very interested in history because he grew up during World War II, you know. So he just stayed in the US and then, eventually, got the job at Kenyon and that’s kind of how it came to be. But, he didn’t have a lot of German traditions or, he’d make these little moon cookies around Christmas time um, with powdered sugar on them, but he didn’t play German music or anything, maybe because he came so young, that he assimilated um, and he was in the army too in the Korean War as well. So that’s my dad, and then my mom, and actually and he spoke to me in German a little bit, I know like, ‘bedtime’, ‘brush your teeth’, ‘good morning’, ‘I love you’, those, little things a child should know- ‘chocolate’ (laughter) ‘cheesecake’, very key words. He took me to Germany a couple of times, we went four, four or five times, but my mom, she was born in 1962 in Elías Piña. And Elías Piña is this tiny little, village, it’s literally a village, almost on the border of Haiti; you drive forty-five more minutes and you’re in Haiti. It’s inland, so it’s almost in Haiti, so she grew up there, dirt poor, family had no money whatsoever and my mom’s, my grandfather, he had an orchard and so he had fruit trees, he had um like coconut trees, mango trees, lime tress, lemon trees and so he would pick all his fruits and sell them at the market. But it was also around this time when Trujillo was a dictator at that time uh, when my mom was very small; his dictatorship ended a couple years into my mom’s life, thank God. But um, at the time um, he was there and so one of the other fruit men got jealous of my grandfather because he was so successful with his fruits, and so he was like, “Oh, well, you know that guy … he is against the dictatorship of Trujillo” and so the secret police were like, “Uh, oh” and so he actually had to flee to go into hiding um, and so he was like, “I need to get outta here” you know, “What do you want to do? Are you coming with me or not?” and my grandma was like, “No, I have all my friends here, I have my life here, I’m not going.” And so because of that, they parted ways and my grandma was a single mom from that point on, and my grandmother worked cleaning houses for the rich families in Santo Domingo, so my mom has a sister, an older sister, and three brothers and so, they grew up very, very poor …my mom doesn’t have a picture of herself until she’s, I think maybe nineteen, so I don’t even know what my mom looked like as a child or a baby or anything, they went hungry a lot and they’d actually get like relief packages from eh US, but by the time they got there they had like worms and stuff in them but they ate it anyway. Very, very poor like, rural poor, really poor. So, my mom started working when she was thirteen or fourteen, cleaning um, like my grandmother and, my mom ended up getting a cleaning job in Santo Domingo and so her sister went with her, and then eventually all of them were like, “Well everyone’s kinda over there so let’s just move to Santo Domingo” and so they started living in Santo Domingo when they were teenagers and then my mom, she actually quit school when she was like, thirteen so she could start working, and make money for the family, so she has like a, sixth grade education um, still smart as a whip though, in many other ways, and then in my mom’s twenties, she met my dad because, get this: my mom was working in a German restaurant and my dad had like a Fulbright Grant type of thing  for three years to study Dominican-Haitian relations and, cause he was like, “Oh, I’m going to get into Caribbean history, that sounds interesting.” So he got this Fulbright thing, and so he’s there. And he’s there and he’s like, “Okay, I don’t know Spanish very well, oh … where do, what do I do?” and he’s like, “Oh a German restaurant! Fabulous!” And so he goes to this German restaurant, and my mom’s working there that day and he’s like, “Oh, wow. She’s very pretty” and he’s like, “But I don’t know how to talk to her.” And so, what he did is he would just come back like several times a week, you know, and my mom’s a very like, straight-forward person so she was like, “What are you, what are you … what’s your deal? Like, what are you doing here?” And then my, and then in my dad’s broken Spanish, he’s like, “Oh, could we talk? Like, I’d like to get to know you more.” And so then they, over time, they became friends and then they started dating, and so, by the end of the three years, they wanted to get married. And so, you know my mom said ‘yes’ and my dad brought her over to the States and this was in…the early 80’s, I can’t quite remember the year, like ‘82 or ’83, something like that. And so they got married and then I was born in 1989, so that’s how they came to be. My mom is just, she’s just full of life, full of energy, she’ll tell you how it is though (laughter) very straight-forward, sometimes too honest. But she was like, “Would you rather me be honest or be fake?” (laughter) “What do you want?” and she’s just so full of life, wonderful dancer, wonderful cook, really smart, and in line with like people’s feelings, she can just kind of sense things, very close to God, very spiritual, she’s my everything, she’s my everything, I love her to pieces. 

EF: Do you have a lot of experience working with Spanish speaking community in Columbus or in Ohio?

BS: Yes, indirectly. So it hasn’t been my primary role but I have. I did an internship with the Ohio-Hispanic Coalition in one summer, and so I’d answer phone calls and of course, speak in Spanish and I’d translate documents and then I …for a while I worked at BMW financial services from 2011/2012 and I worked on their incoming customer service line, and so I’d get calls from people with questions about their financial account, and, but it’d be the bilingual line. I’d speak to them in Spanish and it is an empowering experience, knowing, cause you don’t think about it really, but when you really do think about it you’re like, “whoa”. You’re translating languages and it’s a very wonderful gift that someone can bring to the world, I think. Um, but yeah, so I worked there for a year translating calls and doing that and documents as well. And then now where I work, I work for a non-profit housing counseling agency and  we also do affordable housing development and we work on the West side, in the Hilltop area and that actually has the highest density of Hispanics in Franklin County. So, a lot of our clients are Spanish speaking so I translate for them. For some time, we did uh, we do foreclosure prevention counseling and so for a while we didn’t have a Spanish speaking counselor so I’d translate those appointments um … But yeah, I mean that job and the job I have now, I got them because, because I was bilingual and they really valued that. I was an intern last year for the Quran Institute for the study of race and ethnicity and I translated documents from English into Spanish for them.

EF: Does your mom ever talk to you about those first years, what was it like for to move here and have her child here and her marriage?

BS: She always grew up wanting to come to the US, that was like her dream, and so when she met my dad and they decided to make that move, she was elated, okay? She always talked to me about language and learning English so, when she first came, she wanted to work, she wanted a job so she was a waitress for some time, but this is Mount Vernon, Ohio, okay? So it’s like, rural, not urban whatsoever, and so the guy was like, “Hey can I get a Bud?” Bud Light Beer, but he said ‘Bud’ and so my mom was like, “Uh, oh Bud … Butter!” and so she brought him a thing of butter and he’s like, “What is this!?”  so there are those things or my mom had never been on an escalator um, been up in a skyscraper, you know, my dad really introduced her to all these things, she took classes to read and write, math, tell time …driving (laughter) so, she told me about learning all those things and that it was difficult but, she was just very motivated because, she’s like, “I’m in the US, I’m and American and I’m proud. I’ve always wanted to become an American and have that American passport and be in this country, and so I’m gonna do my best to learn the norms and the language of this country” that was always really important for her, and it still is as well um. I mean it was a struggle, but she’s very proud but the only thing I think is that, she wished she would’ve maybe lived in Columbus just because Mount Vernon is so, white (laughter) but like the thing is she has friends and people were really accepting, but she also encountered some racism as well, especially in the early 80’s. It’s gotten a lot better since then, and actually, there’s a sizeable Mexican population that lives there now, but in the 80’s and 90’s, nothing, nothing, I mean, there’s a Spanish department at Kenyon (laughter) okay that’s what? Like ten people? So, a little lonely in the sense that there wasn’t, but I felt that same way but it was a little lonely in the sense that, you have no one that’s like, you, but she was just so happy to be in this country.

EF: Tell me about one of the most difficult times of living in Ohio, and also one of the proudest or happiest times of living here.

BS: Mmm … most difficult … I would say the most difficult time I had was in middle school, in my life I think and … a lot of it was I had a particular friend group at the time that … the typical girl high school drama. But it was also still a time where I felt very alienated and different and I was in a Spanish class and, we had a party and so we all were supposed to bring in a Hispanic dish so someone’s like, “Oh I’ll bring chips and salsa” (laughter) cause that’s super Hispanic um, better get Tostitos and I was like, “Mom, mom. You have to make majarete. And majarete is a sweet corn pudding, and there’s like cinnamon and anisette and brown sugar, it’s delicious, and corn, obviously, and eggs but it’s like a corn pudding, custard type thing and it’s delicious. And so I was so, so proud and I was like, “I’m bringing something different and everyone’s gonna try it and like it and learn about, you know, Dominican culture” and I bring it, and it’s there and it looks delicious and I have a lot, my friend Ali, she was in the class with me so of course she had some, the teacher had some, no one else touched it. No one else touched it! I just felt horrible, and I almost felt embarrassed that no one even tried my mom’s corn pudding, and my mom stayed up late making it, cause you know, she’s like, “It has to be fresh,” Cause I’m like, “Mom you can make it a couple days early” and she was like, “No, no, no. It’s gonna be the best thing and I’m gonna make it fresh, it’s gonna be fresh” and you have to grate the corn and strain it, it’s a big process and, I just felt so … I felt so disappointed and I think that’s, that’s why I guess it was the worst time growing up, it’s like, when you’re little you kind of know there’s a difference but not really and you just, you know, you’re playing with your friends and its okay and you play dolls and it’s fine, but when you get to middle school I think you get to this point in development where, you’re like, “Yeah, there is a difference and these are the things” but you don’t have that emotional maturity to be like, “Oh, that’s just, you know, maybe ignorance on their part or, you know, of course they haven’t been exposed to that culture so that’s just why they’re…” you know you’re not quite there to kind of sort that stuff out and so you’re at this really weird place um, as I’m sure a lot of middle-schoolers are um, but it’s a, it’s especially alienating when, you know, you can’t even fit in food wise or race wise or… household wise, I think that’s why it was the most difficult is, I figured out why I’m different, but I didn’t have that level of maturity at the time being twelve, thirteen, fourteen um, to really, maturely understand these different viewpoints … and especially my hair, you know that, when you get to elementary school, you’re kids, you’re playing, you’re eating worms, whatever but, but then I got to middle school and the girls, they had this beautiful, straight long hair or, or they had curling irons and so they had these perfect, Victoria’s Secret model curls (laughter) and then there’s me, and it’s like, “My hair is curly but it’s not the cute curl that they all had”, and no one had my type of hair, and so I remember … that was a huge thing, was my hair in middle school (laugher) I know people laugh like, “Your hair” but really like, if you’re a woman of color it’s a thing, it’s a big thing and so, I was always trying to control my hair and trying to make it look like a white person’s hair and trying to make it straight and, I mean my hair’s straight today um, I finally got the hang-of-it, but you know, I wear it curly, it just depends… And then, the proudest moment growing up in Ohio … hmm … honestly, I think my proudest moment was… I am pretty proud of myself right now um, I think it just started, I don’t know, I feel like I’ve had this phase of being proud, of growing up in Ohio but it was really, it started when I went to Denison, because I grew up in Mount Vernon, I was so excited to get the hell out of there, you know, meet some, meet some different people from different countries, not just other Hispanics, people from all over the world and Denison for me was a great place because you had students from China, Japan, Taiwan, India, various African countries, Puerto Rico, Mexico, all these different races and religions and ethnicities and it’s really where I came into my own. I think and, and super early talked about like, owning my Latinaness but really that was there where I was like, “Yeah!” because like I got there and they were like, “Oh! You speak Spanish? Cool, I speak Arabic too on the side” and, and I was like, “Ah, so cool!” and then you know taking, majoring in Sociology and Anthropology, you just grow even more, and so I think doing my summer research project on Caribbean-Hispanic acculturation and graduating from Denison, and growing into my own in a non-profit sector um, it’s, it’s not necessarily a specific event that I’ve been proud of but, it’s just kind of, I guess my adult life, I’m really proud of it and I’m really proud of everything that I’ve accomplished thus far.

EF: If I was, if your mom was here right now, what would she say about you? 

BS: Oh my gosh! (laughter) … she would be like, “Yo estoy tan orgullosa de mi hija y mi hija es mi todo, mi estrella, mi corazón, mi cielo, mi luna, mi sol” y, y ella habría dicho que está muy orgullosa de mí y mi trabajo y que yo soy tan inteligente, oh yeah, que yo soy tan inteligente y que yo sé de todo y, y como yo siempre … sigue adelante y, y que yo soy exitosa y … todo eso. Um, ella está muy, muy orgullosa de mi. Y yo, y yo de ella, y yo de ella. 

EF: If you can keep a memory alive forever, what would that be?

BS: Ohh …i t would be … Christmas of 2012 and that would be because … I was with everyone that I love and with everyone that means the most to me and um, and that’s because, I was in college already, so it was my sophomore year in college and I went to Santo Domingo with my parents like our tradition that we always did. It was Christmas because my dad was at my grandma’s house, my abuela was there, all of my uncles, the food was particularly good that year, and there was music and, and I just remember because some Christmases not every family member could be there, it would vary um, and also I was younger, but that one sticks out because I had fully realized who I was as a person and more or less what I wanted to do, I had become me, you know? And my dad was there and he’s not here anymore and so, so having him there um, and it being in recent years and, it just every, everyone was there, it was just perfect, like the food was amazing, all of my family, all my aunts, my aunt was there from Puerto Rico with my cousins um, everyone was there, you know? There was this picture, I’ll show it to you, there’s this picture of my dad, okay, my dad’s six, six-five, very tall German man with a big belly, and then, and there’s my mom, my mom’s probably five foot, right? My grandma, she’s like four, she’s older now so she’s probably like four-eight maybe, and then there’s this picture of my grandma next to my dad and then my mom behind my dad but making bunny ears (laughter) but it’s this perfect picture and it’s from that Christmas and it is just cool cause you see the height difference, so I would keep that day alive forever. 

EF: If you had to give any advice to immigrants or from the various jobs that you’ve done, from even your family history, uh what would you tell them? 

BS: I would say: be proud of where you come from because people will love you for it and … be confident too um … and, I would just say, learn as much as you can about the resources available in Ohio, and I know about Columbus but in Ohio I guess um, learn as much as you can about the resources that are available because I think the beauty about this country and Ohio, that I know cause I’ve always lived here, is that um, for every need, there is a resource. If you need help with your heat, there’s a resource for that, if you need help with interpretation, there’s a resource for that, and so I think as a new immigrant, I would imagine that they’re just in a place of like, “Oh my gosh I’m so excited I can’t believe I’m here” but like, “Oh my God what do I do now!? It really happened! Ahhh!” I think just, just be very proud, hold your head high, be proud of where you come from, but be a sponge, be a sponge because there so many helpful things and so many people wanting to give that help.

EF: So Belkis in twenty years from now or more, what would you want, maybe your kids, to know about you?

BS: I would want them to know about me, I want to pass on the language, from the time they’re in my belly I’ll start talking to them (laughter) and I only want to talk to them in Spanish um, and I want them to know my love of dance and my love of food, and I want to teach them all the dance I know and all the food I know and, and I mean my mom will live with me when she’s a senior citizen anyways so she’ll be in the house and she’ll take care of them and she’ll have her own bedroom and everything (laugher) … I want to raise my children like my parents raised me in that, they were always very proud. 

EF: Is there anything else uh, that you would like to add to this interview that I haven’t asked? 

BS: I guess from my personal experiences but I think what I’ve found living, now that I live in Columbus um, is that, no matter what country we’re from, we’re all united by language um, language I think is what unites all Hispanics, that we have that common language so, whether you’re from Peru or Mexico or Cuba or wherever um, Spanish is that unifier, and I haven’t met a single Hispanic that doesn’t love dancing or music or food and I think that’s always something that all Hispanics can bond over and that we’re all very … warm and close and like, we kiss each other on the cheek, we hug, and I find that incredibly comforting. It’s really interesting cause you meet Europeans and they’re all very different from one-another or, you know, Asian countries as well but, but it’s so cool that we have this language that unifies us all and that we have these, these trends, you may have different dances, or different foods every, here and there, but we have this … un fuego, or, or, sí, un tipo de fuego que …que … is, it’s just unique.