Overview:

As a ‘melting pot’, cultures and traditions in the United Sates often blend and form new values and traditions. While this creates a unique culture, many immigrants risk losing important traditions from their homeland, as well as Americans may struggle to better understand their personal heritage. This divide can cause a sense of loss, but ultimately, our past and heritage shapes our future and self despite the challenges, as explored throughout this interview with Raphael.

In this interview, Raphael Ortega discusses how family culture and history shaped his own life, covering his personal experiences in the Catholic religion, family, and education within his multicultural background. Raphael Ortega covers a variety of subjects, with this interview focusing on themes of culture, mixed heritage, and multicultural families in the modern day. This interview has an emphasis on the similarities and contrasts of Italian and Venezuelan cultures, and explores the political and economic causes of immigration, specifically for Venezuelan immigrants in the 1970s. While this interview focuses on heritage and culture, it also shines light on the unique similarities and importance of love and acceptance in family. Overall, this interview tackles difficult topics and complicated subjects, but places emphasis on one important thing: family.

There is a content Warning for this interview. This interview contains a brief mention of a sexual abuse scandal within the Catholic church [timestamp: 17:59 – 20:06]

Please be advised

Bio:

For this interview I interviewed my brother-in-law, Raphael Ortega. Raphael is from an immigrant and mixed family. His father’s family is composed of first- and second-generation immigrants from Venezuela, originally settling in New York City in the 1960s/70s. His mother’s family is from Italy with a major influence of the culture. Raphael is the oldest sibling of 4 and has helped care for his younger brother with autism, as well as navigating a multicultural and divorced family. Raphael originally grew up in the Catholic church and has since left.  He is 26 years old with a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the Catholic University of America and works in the finance department of a tech staffing firm in Maryland.

Background Research:

The Ortega family moved from Venezuela during a time of economic upheave. During the 1970s, the Venezuelan economy was in a steady decline, while the country’s debt to the United States grew to over 35 million by 1982. With the economy in crisis the unemployment rate rose to over 15% in the nation, a driving factor for Raphael’s family to immigrate to the US in hopes of a better future. During this time period, Venezuelan Americans became the second fastest growing Latino subgroup in US, fueled by economic issues of the 70s and later political unrest in the 90s. In Raphael’s family, one major point of contention is the belief in God. His father grew up within Jehovah’s Witness, a Christian denomination characterized by its unique rejection of typical Christian believes and celebrations. His mother, however, grew up as devote Catholic, raising Raphael within the church until sexual abuse scandals within their branch of the church. The Catholic institution has faced sexual abuse claims for years, deeply rooted in the foundations of the church itself.

Bibliography:

Boer, Wietse de. “The Catholic Church and Sexual Abuse, Then and Now.” Origins, Mar. 2019, origins.osu.edu/article/catholic-church-sexual-abuse-pope-confession-priests-nuns.

Gauna, Anibal F. “Revisiting the Issue of Democratic Deterioration in Venezuela, 1974-1998.” Journal of Politics in Latin America, 1 Apr. 2017, journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1866802X1700900102.

Team, DivineNarratives, et al. “Jehovah’s Witnesses: Beliefs, Practices, and Structure.” DivineNarratives, 5 Aug. 2024, divinenarratives.org/jehovahs-witnesses-beliefs-practices-and-structure/.

Troconis, Irina, and Ilan Stavans. “Venezuelan Americans.” Oxford Bibliographies, 27 June 2018, www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199913701/obo-9780199913701-0081.xml.

Transcription:

Emmalyn Chasse 0:03

Alright, so I’m Emmalyn Chasse, and I’m here interviewing Raphael Ortega. Um, so can you just introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about your story that you think is going to be important for this interview?

Raphael Ortega 0:16

Sure. Hello. Like Emma said, my name’s Raphael Ortega, I’m 26 years old. I come from originally, Wilmington, Delaware, then I moved to Washington, DC for college. Yeah, I mean, I want to say, I have a crazy life, but I guess growing up, it always felt like, new things were being thrown, not just my way, but my family’s way. Coming from divorced parents was very interesting, I guess it’s the word I would use to describe, I guess my childhood with them. My dad’s side comes from Venezuela. I don’t think he was born in Venezuela, but I do know that his two older sisters, my aunts, were born in Venezuela, so it’s a mix between first generation. And my mom’s side is second generation, because my grandparents were born in the States, but their parents, so I guess my great grandparents, were not. They both came from Italy. Yeah. I mean, so, coming from different ethnic backgrounds, especially to0 very different cultures as well, one being from South America, the other being from Europe, I think growing up, I thought felt very normal, but also, I guess my preconceived notions of normal was being raised through those different generations.

Emmalyn Chasse 2:22
Yeah, did your parents tell you a lot about like their family’s immigration stories and stuff, or do you just kind of know like little bits and pieces?

[Pause]

Okay, let me say that again. I think the computer cut out. Um, did your parents tell you a lot about the immigration stories, or did you just kind of know like little bits and pieces from the family?

Raphael Ortega 2:56
Um, not so much from my mom’s side. I know from my dad’s side they, in terms of immigration, he wouldn’t share a lot, so a lot of it was coming mostly from my aunts and uncles. I think it also kind of had to do a lot with the area they grew up in on my dad’s side. They immigrated into New York City during the 60s and 70s, so they were the only non-English speaking family in their neighborhood, basically.

Emmalyn Chasse 3:39
Yeah

Raphael Ortega 3:39
So, they, I remember my aunt telling me they got, like picked on a lot, they were bullied a lot because of their background. She would tell stories basically how she essentially had to be almost like the protector for everyone, because they just saw these Latino, Latina kids, just, I guess, was like an easy target for them, so they learned how to like basically to fight at a very young age.

Emmalyn Chasse 4:15
Yeah

Raphael Ortega 4:16
But, I mean, they still are great friends with a lot of those people growing up, and I knew my abuelo, my grandfather, he basically moved the family out of New York City in the mid to late 70s, I want to say, right when my dad started to go to high school, so I think that was about like late 70s, early 80s, honestly and that’s when they moved to Delaware.

Emmalyn Chasse 4:51
Yeah, did they have any particular reason for leaving Venezuela or?

Raphael Ortega 4:57
A lot of it was for, better economic opportunities in America. I think, honestly, the biggest reason was probably because the political climate was very rough there, and I know my abuelo and my abuela did not want to raise their children there.

Emmalyn Chasse 5:19
Yeah. Do you think that how did your life differ with immigrant parents from like how you saw your friend’s life with American parents?

Raphael Ortega 5:35

I guess, to be honest, I didn’t really see a difference only because my dad honestly, tried to make sure he didn’t want to, because I think he dealt with a lot of the trauma of being a first generation citizen, and did not want to have to kind of put myself or my siblings through the same situations that he had to go through growing up. So, a lot of it was him just trying to be, you’re American through and through. I want to push that on you as much as possible. Like, I find out-Oh, sorry,

Emmalyn Chasse 6:20
Oh no, I was just going to ask, do you think, you lost any traditional culture through that, like, focusing on the American side?

Raphael Ortega 6:29
No, that’s a very fair question, and honestly, in a lot of ways, I kind of do feel like that, because my dad’s, my dad, my aunts and uncles, their first language was Spanish, and I only know Spanish to the extent of reading it. And even then, I’m not, I wouldn’t consider myself fluent like with my aunts and uncles, that are from Venezuela, and even my cousins that are from Venezuela, there is almost, there is honestly a language barrier between us because we were raised so, Americanized, that we can’t really communicate with each other very well, but we still, always love seeing each other. It’s always so much fun and like such a pleasure whenever they come to the US to see us.

Emmalyn Chasse 7:24
Yeah, are there any kind of cultural influences from either side of the family that definitely did impact you?

Raphael Ortega 7:32
I think a lot of this, a lot of that would come from my mom’s side and the Italian side, and that, basically every Sunday we would have, a big, dinner in our household, and that would just be a lot of the times, because my mom, being a single mother, she worked basically all day into the late nights, from Wednesdays into Saturdays. So, Sundays was the one day she could rest, but she still wanted to make sure that my brother and I still got to spend time with her, and that’s kind of like, a very big traditional Italian thing is have like huge Sunday dinners to make sure that we’re still, I don’t want to say like, engaging with her, but like, we’re still coming together and making sure that like, no matter what we’re dedicating the time that we should be spending with our my mom.

Emmalyn Chasse 8:41
Yeah, absolutely. Do you think that these different, um, like, cultures have influenced your identity in any way, especially when you were, like, a child growing up with the different influences?

Raphael Ortega 8:56
It’s a great question, I guess, yes and no, and that a lot of it like almost feels, I think a lot of it is a comes from the fact that I always knew that I don’t know how to, like, say this, but like, I knew, like, my parents weren’t really like the other parents, and that I could always see, like, how do I want to say this? Like, I knew my dad, like, he came from a very tough childhood and upbringing, and I think a lot of what he did throughout his life was to make sure that, like, he never wanted to make sure that my brother or myself experienced the hardships that he did. So, he worked a lot just like my mom, and I think the same goes for my mom as well, like her parents also were very, like, she has told me before, she would essentially come home from school and then would essentially have to cook for herself. So, she also was kind of raised by herself, because her siblings were either, she had one well, she has one sister that’s much older than her, and then her younger sister had, had special needs and required more attention. So being the middle child, she always felt like she had to be the one to kind of like, support herself in that capacity because her parents, attention was elsewhere. And I think a lot of like, their parenting styles came from the fact that they wanted to make sure that both my brother and I, especially my brother, as someone with special needs, was being, like, was making sure, they want to be taking care of and not having to feel that burden of, ‘oh, even though I’m the oldest, I need to be the one to step up and do this, or, like take care of my siblings’, they always wanted to kind of like, almost like, rectify what happened with them in their childhoods. And I don’t know if that was because of their culture, but I think it dealt a lot with their upbringing,

Emmalyn Chasse 11:58
Circling back a little bit to like coming from the different countries and everything, do you think that those sides of the families feel like they made, like, the right choice? Do you think they were happy moving to America and like, living there?

Raphael Ortega 12:14
I would definitely say so. Both on my mom’s side and my dad’s side, they would not have had the opportunities that they did staying in their home country. Like, for example, on my dad’s side, everyone on, every one of my aunts and uncles and my dad included, managed to graduate college and were able to pay for it themselves, which is something that I remember my uncle telling me growing up that he never thought that that opportunity would be possible, let alone going to college, but especially, where they came from, in Caracas, which is in Venezuela, which is a very, like, it’s a very rough part of Venezuela. And I know with my mom on her side, even though I don’t think my aunt went to college, and I know my mom went through, she went through, like a cosmetology school to essentially become a hairdresser. She essentially, probably wouldn’t have the same opportunities if her mom, her mom’s mom stayed in Italy, because a lot of them, coming from that baby boomer generation, they, yeah, they probably would have just still stayed in the smaller villages where they come from in Italy.

Emmalyn Chasse 14:00
Yeah, so you talked a little bit about kind of your parents’ dynamics with their siblings. How would you describe your experience being the oldest sibling, and I know that your brother has some special needs, and I know you’ve been very supportive with that as well. So how would you kind of describe that experience?

Raphael Ortega 14:19
Yeah, um, I mean, honestly, it’s kind of just felt like something that was like always second nature to me. I always knew that, like if, my parents needed something because of my brother, that is on the spectrum, I always knew, it was one of those things where it’s like okay, if he needs like attention right now, it’s not because they’re they don’t want to engage with me or do stuff with me. It’s like, Mateo needs that special attention right now, and growing up, it was always like I understand, why he needed it. And it was, and coming from that, I think it was one of those things where it’s learning, especially like at a very young age, that, a lot of the times, trying to engage with my brother wasn’t going to be the same as engaging with my other younger siblings, that he requires special attention, he gets overstimulated by small things, but knowing that if he does reach those points, how to calm him down and bring him back sort of to where he is. Honestly, I know I said it before, but it just gets to a point where it becomes second nature.

Emmalyn Chasse 15:57
Yeah, absolutely, so a little bit changing gears. You grew up Catholic, and I know that you are no longer Catholic. Um, would you mind telling me a little bit about that experience and kind of any changes that you saw in your life personally when you made that change?

Raphael Ortega 16:19
Yeah, um, my mom. So, it’s kind of like a two part-er in that my dad was never raised Catholic. His parents were actually Jehovah’s Witnesses, so he always grew up, to be quite frank, resenting the idea of religion, and I think a lot of it was because of the way that his family brought that like, the strict religious bringing of that, of that religion to him and his siblings. So, I grew up with a father that was pretty ambivalent, and like, I don’t want to say resentful, but I can’t think of a better word, honestly, towards the idea of religion. But my mom was a huge, devout Roman Catholic. She honestly used to teach people at the church, like when they would want to convert, they would essentially, go to her and she would help them with like the baptismal progress and confirmation. But I think a lot of it came down to growing up, how do I want to say this, without, like beating too much around the bush, with Roman Catholicism, there were, there are those touchy or how there are those certain, I’m really trying to think of like

Emmalyn Chasse 18:19
You’re good, you’re totally good.

Raphael Ortega 18:20
Like, I just because there were really strong, to be completely blunt, there are really strong allegations in our local church about what’s happened, what was happening at the time, and without going too much into it, I think my mom knew someone that was going through one of those experiences personally, and that really shook her world completely. And because of that, she kind of pulled myself out of the church, through her own volition, but I was at such a young age, I didn’t understand what was happening to me. It just sounded like, “Oh, I’m getting my Sundays back, like, this is awesome”. But I think growing up now and looking back at those memories, it’s kind of like, yeah, that was kind of odd how, like we would go to church every Sunday, and then, one day we stopped. And then anytime, when the priest would try to say hi to me at school, because I went to, ah, the same Catholic school that we went to church, like anytime when the priest would try to talk to me, my mom would kind of, like, be very protective of me, being like, I don’t want you to talk with him, like, why don’t you go wait in the car? Like, through viewing that through a child’s eye, it just felt, didn’t feel weird, it just, kind of felt like, okay, like, my mom doesn’t want to talk with this person, like, it’s not the end of the world. But I think looking back at that now, it’s kind of like, okay, that makes a lot of sense why she was doing that, and I think because of all that, it kind of helped, or, I don’t say helped, but like, it kind of like made me internally realize how even though I was baptized Roman Catholic, I went to Catholic elementary school, Catholic middle school, I even went to a Catholic College, how I just can’t really support the idea of an institutional, an institution like that when such, not the best at using terminology here, so I apologize, but like, when learning about such like, events and things like that have happened, it really makes it hard to hold faith in the idea of the institution.

Emmalyn Chasse 21:12
Yeah, once your mom kind of distanced herself from the church, did she continue any of the beliefs or any of the studies, or did that kind of make her retract fully from the idea of religion?

Raphael Ortega 21:25
No. So, I mean, my mom and even to myself, to an extent, we practice our religion, but not so much in a church, or, like the formal church setting. And I think a lot of that, especially, like, how that does, that also kind of helped me realize, oh, I can, I don’t have to follow the church’s ideals of what it means to be a true Catholic, like 100%. I can believe how I want to believe, and no one can take that away from me. Like my mom still made sure even, like, even though we weren’t going to church anymore, she still wants to make sure that we were still saying prayers before we ate dinner, and to me, that didn’t feel weird or anything, that just felt like, okay, like, this is just a normal ritual that we always do.

Emmalyn Chasse 22:30
Yeah.

Well, those are the questions that I mainly wanted to focus on. Okay, do you have anything else from this conversation that like you kind of wanted to touch on, or anything else you wanted to explain that you think is important.

Raphael Ortega 22:49
Off the top of my head, no. I think honestly, like being raised by very, very different cultures, but also, they had, a very similar, I don’t want to say like, goal, but like, sort of like, driving force in that, they were very, very much family oriented, even though they never spoke the same language. Like, my uncles all the way in Venezuela, like my aunt’s uncles, cousins, they all still would reach out, even when my father passed, I would get constant WhatsApp notifications from my dad’s, like, second cousin or whatever, like someone that I met once when I was two or three years old, maybe, reach out to me at just to, like, check in, to make sure that I was okay, and it’s very touching knowing, even though I don’t have a clear memory of these people or who they were in direct relation to myself and my father, that’s still, and even with that language barrier, they still want to, they still value the idea of family and how important it is to protect one of their own. And I think that’s something that’s pretty beautiful, that like, if I can’t even like communicate, like communicate with them, that that love almost transcends barriers, is very moving.

Emmalyn Chasse 24:30
Would you say that even though Venezuelan culture and Italian culture are like, from literally, like, opposite corners of the world, would you still say that, like, there’s more that’s kind of similar than different.

Raphael Ortega 24:46
Like, what do you mean if you don’t mind me,

Emmalyn Chasse 24:48
I, like, the customs and the values because they’re you’d like you’ve said they’re both very family oriented, and they both seem to have a lot of emphasis on, like, being around one another and sharing that love. It definitely seems like there’s some more similarities as opposed to differences.

Raphael Ortega 25:04
Yeah, no, that’s definitely true, and I think viewing it also, like in the sense that, I think I mainly view it more so in the language as well, a lot of it is like bringing together love, family, like putting that first and foremost in the front of our minds. I think that is, kind of like, how, like that, to be completely honest, initially brought both my mom and my dad together, was those ideals and those values, so kind of like what you said, like, yes, they are from literally different parts of the world. Like, it’s, it’s really beautiful to see, like that connection still transcend the language barrier.

Emmalyn Chasse 25:55
Well, I think that’s all I have for now, but thank you for answering my questions, and it was, it was really interesting to learn a lot more about it, because I definitely thought that there was a lot more differences and similarities, but it’s really cool to see that, like, the love and family is kind of what outshines all of that.

Raphael Ortega 26:14
Thank you.

Interview & Transcription Process:

This interview was held over Zoom on March 8, 2025, and transcribed using Otter AI.