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Keith: Can you, can you tell us your name,
and can you tell us what you're doing in
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Pittsburgh? How long have you been
in Pittsburgh and where are you from?
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Ms. Luana Reis: My name is Luana Reis
and I've been in Pittsburgh for seven years now.
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I came in 2013 with a Fulbright Scholarship to teach
Portuguese at the University of Pittsburgh and since
then
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I've been teaching and now I am a graduate student in the
Hispanic Languages and Literature program in my third year of graduate
studies, the PhD.
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Keith: So your PhD is in literature?
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Ms. Luana Reis: Is in literature.
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Keith: Okay.
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Ms. Luana Reis: I'm researching Black female poets
like
contemporary Black female poets from Latin America and
also the US.
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Keith: Wow. That's so cool. The thing that
I've... because I haven't been in academia for so long
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but coming back to it, the thing that I've realized is
that people
are so creative when it comes to what they're
studying.
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I think it's great to see like all of the different... all
these different
academic scholarships that can be applied to different
research.
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That's great.
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So your family's still back in
Brazil, yes?
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Ms. Luana Reis: Yeah.
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Keith: Do you have like your whole family is in
Brazil?
Do you have family all over the world?
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Ms. Luana Reis: Yeah, my family is just me and my mom.
So my mom is in Brazil right now, in Bahia, so I'm
from
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Bahia its in the northeast of Brazil, so she's still
living there.
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Keith: Do you like Brazil?
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Ms. Luana Reis: I love it. I love Brazil it's an
amazing...
it's an amazing country despite all the problems that
we
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know that everywhere else also have problems but I love
Brazil.
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Keith: What do you love specifically about it like
you,
when you think about home what do you think about?
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You think about the the food, or going to... going for
walks
on the beach... what makes you homesick?
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Ms. Luana Reis: I think about community because I grew
up
in the same neighborhood all my life in the sense that
you
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know everyone around you, and you know your neighbors.
They come and visit you. People spend time in front of
their
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houses talking so we chat a lot and people are very like
part
of your life so that's one of the things that I miss the
most here
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because, for example, here I live in an apartment building
and
I never talk to my neighbors, like, I don't know who they
are, I don't
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know what they like to do what kind of music because
even
like the music from the neighbors we listen to this all
the songs
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and neighbors are listening to so we know like what kind
of
music they like we know information about their personal
lives
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as well and it's one of the things that I miss the most
about
Brazil like this sense of community this sense of
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being like part of something. And also I miss the
beach as well I miss the food a lot.
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I love the food and also connecting the food with the
sense of
community is very nice because you see sometimes with a
neighbor
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they make some kind of food and they come to your house
to
share, oh I just made this and I would like to share
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with you and you try recipes, like different recipes
and you share recipes you share ingredients because,
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for example, my neighborhood we used to have gardens
in our house so we plant things and then we share with
the
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neighbors and everyone, oh I know that their house they
have
this kind of plant or vegetable so when you need
something
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you know where to go to get those kind of things. So I
think that's
one of the things I miss the most like being part of a
community.
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Keith: So you just talked about community which
is a great way to talk... to move into my first
question,
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because people of African descent are, you know,
their heritage, their indigeneity is from Africa not Latin
America.
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So, you know as we all know Black folks were
taken from their homes, enslaved, and then released
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and it's not like they were sent back to Africa, they were
now
living citizens in the country that they were in.
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So do...in modern day Brazil in your community where
you're from at home, do you feel at home in Brazil?
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Do you feel like it's, like you belong there?
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Ms. Luana Reis: I do. I feel at home in Brazil
and especially because I think in Bahia this
connection
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with African culture is so strong and the fact that the
majority
of the population in Bahia is Black so I always felt
home.
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I was... I never felt like I was not part of, like, that I
was not
connected to my roots because if you go to Bahia you see,
like
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in the music the food everything around you it's very
connected
even in the language aspect you can feel that
connection
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so I always felt at home in Bahia. I visit other parts of
Brazil that
I didn't have that same feeling that I have when I am in
Bahia and
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especially like in Salvador or in my home city, that's
Feira de Santana, so I really feel at home when I'm
there.
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Keith: So there's different places,
there's places in Brazil where you feel…sorry I'm taking
notes
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and making check marks...there's places in Brazil
where
you do feel at home and then places where you don't?
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Ms. Luana Reis: Yeah.
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Keith: Is that because of the people that you
encounter
that maybe you, you don't feel at home because you're
not…
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because when you leave home you're
not a part of that community anymore?
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Ms. Luana Reis: Yeah, because the fact that in Bahia
more
than 80% of the population is Black you go everywhere
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you see people who look like you and so then you don't
feel
like you are this weird being that everyone is just
looking at
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you and staring at you. So when I go to other places that
I feel
that people don't see me as part of the community
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they see me as an outsider. So it's not a good feeling. So
that feeling
that you just part of the environment that you can go
anywhere
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you can walk around and people are not looking
at you like what is she doing here? So in other places
that I visited
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in Brazil I had that feeling so it makes me
feel not as at home as the way that I feel in Bahia.
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Keith: ...of your community that you live in Bahia?
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Ms. Luana Reis: Yeah.
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Keith: 80% Black people...do...what do young Black
people like yourself and...think
about growing up in Latin America?
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Like, you know, do you try to connect with African
roots or are the roots in Bahia and Brazil so strong that
you
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don't really feel like you need to do that searching or
that research?
Or is it, like, do you want to know what you might be
missing if you,
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if you lived in Africa, for example? I don't know if
that's the right way but...
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Ms. Luana Reis: Living in Feira de Santana
that's a it's a smaller city. It's a it's different
than
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when I'm in Salvador, that's the capital is the biggest
city.
When I am in Salvador I feel that I don't have to do
too
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much research to feel connected to Africa because
the way people dress on the street like the outfit the
prints,
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the African prints, like the music you can hear a lot of
like African
language and music in Brazilian music. But in Feira de
Santana
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I feel even though it's just an hour and a half
away it's a completely different environment.
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So in Feira de Santana I've in especially because I grew
up
in Feira de Santana and I think that I have to do a lot to
get to
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know about Africa and especially because when you go
to
school like you don't study a lot about Africa besides
slavery.
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So it's like oh when you talk about Africa in school
when
you read the books it's all about slavery or sometimes
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when they're talking about some kind of disease or hungry
oh...Africa.
So you are raised with this idea of Africa when you think
of Africa
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you're thinking about disease or hungary and even like in
daily
conversations with people they will say to their kids
like,
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oh, you have to eat all your food you cannot leave
anything on
your plate because people are experiencing hungry in
Africa.
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So you every time you think about Africa
you're thinking about this kind of things.
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So this was my idea of Africa growing up.
But then when you go to Salvador that's a...it's a
completely
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new world and you think about Africa you think about
color,
you think about happiness, you think about music,
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you think about dance, you think about all these
emotions.
They are not negative, they're really really positive.
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So it's a completely different experience from what you
learn
from school and what you learn from your environments from
the TV.
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For example, if you turn on the TV every time they talk
about
Africa it's about disasters or problems but then when you
go to Salvador
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and you see oh...it changed your whole idea about oh
Africa.
It's beautiful, it's colorful, it's vibrant, it's special,
it's really really good.
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And also with their Afro-Brazilian religion Afro-religions
in
Brazil that's very present in Salvador you can see like
this connection
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with the African gods so it's a completely different
perspective
even in different places and different cities in Brazil
you can
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feel that change and then in Salvador and Rio de
Janeiro
or like other cities that I could see the most like this
connection
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with Africa that changed my perspective like from
something
that's negative related to problems, to something that is
really really good.
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Keith: ...you would say or, sorry, would you say that
it's not like African culture has been taken away from
people,
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it's more like people have brought their
African heritage with them to Latin America?
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Ms. Luana Reis: Exactly. So they didn't come alone,
they came with their music, their gods, their food,
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their poetry, their songs, so they didn't
come on those boats alone by themselves.
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They were never alone. They came with all of this culture
baggage.
So it's really interesting when you start studying about
this
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because I was much older when I started to realize
this
aspect of the history that's not just the suffering,
that's not just
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the beating, that's not just a plantation, it's like to
look at those
people as people, as human beings who were doing so
many
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different things when they were home. So to think that
they
were not just slaves, they were people who have been
enslaved.
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Just to change this perspective it was like a big change
in my life
like, to see that those are poets, musicians, they were
doing so
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many great things and they brought that with them.
So it was not just the suffering, it was not just the
problems
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they experienced in those times, like they came with
their
gods and they were able to keep those connections
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even though they experienced so much repression,
they were able to keep the language, they were able to
keep their gods,
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their celebrations, and to see that in Brazil today
when
people think about Brazil they think about Carnival,
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they think about
samba, they think about
Pele.
So to see that in Brazil like today when you think about
Brazil
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people are thinking about something that's connected
to African culture I think it's, like, it's an amazing
thing
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to think that those people were so creative or so
incredible
that despite all the hardships that they had to go
through,
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they were able to preserve all that. And today when
people
think about Brazil they cannot think about Brazil and
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erase the African culture aspect of the country.
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Keith: ...thinking of everybody as human beings…
and being able to accept different cultures
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into our culture, I feel like that's a big problem right
now.
Does that...is that problem also in Latin America? Is
there, is there racism?
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Is there...are there classes, are there a lot of poor
Black people
and a lot of rich Indigenous people? How does that work in
Latin America?
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Ms. Luana Reis: Yeah, there is racism in Brazil
and all over Latin America. I actually think there is
racism everywhere.
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People are always trying to create this kind of
hierarchy
that you think that some people are more like special than
others.
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But in Brazil we have a very interesting situation
that is the denial of the existence of racism.
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In the United States for example, you cannot do
that…
it's… you cannot deny the existence of racism.
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People have to accept that it exists because
you have, like, you have the segregation, you have all
those
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facts that make it make it impossible for
you to think that racism doesn't exist.
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But then in Brazil you have this myth of racial
democracy
that people until today believe that in Brazil it's like
this racial
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paradise, there is no racism because we are all
miscegenated, like
everyone is mixed so there's no White, there's no
Black,
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we're all mixed and because of this racism doesn't exist
because we
all are a combination of these three races like White,
Black, and Indigenous.
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But then you see in reality and daily life that this
racial democracy is a myth because if you think
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about where are the Black people?
Where do they live and in what kind of conditions?
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In the Indigenous communities in Brazil, where are they
and what
kind of conditions are they living in and where are the
White people
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and what kind of social conditions do they have?
And then to think about the people who have this idea of
specific
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social positions when you think about Black people and
I
had the opportunity for example to go to the
university.
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I studied at the university in Brazil went to the
public university and I became a teacher.
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I was teaching English and at some point in my life
I was teaching at the university in Brazil.
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And then when I entered those places people would look at
me they
wouldn't think that I would be in those places in the
position
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of a teacher or instructor. So to think about that people
have this
idea that because I am a Black woman I should be doing
something else.
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So it shows like we all experience as Black people in
Brazil
we experience racism in our daily life. When you go to a
shopping
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mall, for example, people are following you and certain
stores.
Why is that? It's just because you're poor? No. Because
even when
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I was like university instructor, I used to go places and
people asked me to
