Diana Loja, Hispanic Community Liaison for the Village of Sleepy Hollow, as well three members of the Loza family, a father, brother and daughter, discuss their personal and family connections to sewing and tailoring in Ecuador. The interview with Ms. Loja was recorded on February 22nd at the Galgano Senior Center in Sleepy Hollow, NY. The interview with the Loza family was recorded on January 5th, 2020 at ArtsWestchester in White Plains, NY.
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Music: https://www.purple-planet.com
Sewing Community is part of ArtsWestchester's Folk Arts Program, made possible in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.
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01:30
Hi, my name is Diana Loja. I was originally born in Ecuador in a small town. I live in the USA, in Tarrytown for almost 15 years. And now, here, I am working for the Village of Sleepy Hollow as a Community Liaison. I love my job because it is helping to make a difference for people, trying to unite the community, especially the Spanish community. Like for this event that we are having today with ArtsWestchester. It is great to see how the community and how parents involve their kids. How the love of being a tailor makes a different in the community.
How did I get connected to fabric? Actually my father and his brothers were tailors back in the country. They used to do mostly school uniforms. So I grew up in that environment. My father came in 1987 to this country. He left the business there for them. I always had the connection to textile and tailoring as well as designing clothes, so when I was eight or nine years old, I started taking tailor classes. And I starting designing and sewing clothes. We were in a small town and he had a small store there. He would go travel to different towns to get the fabric. Back in Ecuador, most schools where the uniform. So mostly what he would do would involve making uniforms for the schools. I mean he would be special things…but it was uniforms. Without a uniform you couldn’t attend school. Years ago, everything was tailoring. Especially in South America.
One thing specially from the country that I am from is a thing called pollera which is a traditional skirt from Ecuador. Those skirts are made out of silk. A lot of families in the United States buy the fabric here in New York City and they send it to Ecuador. Those skirts, the price for them can run from seven hundred to eight hundred dollars. Why? Because of the silk and because of the hand crafted designs they do. And it is huge. They use that a lot in the traditions for church. Even here, as the people immigrate to this country you’ll see a lot of those traditions. You’ll see those traditions on the street, especially in Westchester County. Especially in the Ecuadorian community. There are a lot of tailors especially in Ossining right now. You see a lot of that type of fabric. And people will go there because they don’t want to lose that tradition. You are going see that a lot in ceremonies in town. You see it in Peekskill because there is a large population of Ecuadorians there. They have not lost their tradition, so you will see the clothing that they use and made by local tailors.
Actually, they are customizing them here, now. People don’t have to import or export them anymore. It got to the point where… I used to take part in those traditions and I remember having to bring my clothes from there because there was no way here…it was too expensive. You only use them once or twice…these type of things. But people now are spending so much money on it. The shoes, the blouse, even the accessories that go with it…even how you do your hair.
04:58
We come from a family in which everyone had worked with a sewing machine. We know a lot about sewing. So we just showed up today. I know the weather is kind of stay at home but .We love to do these kind of things so we decided to come and enjoy. I hope that a lot of children come to this because it is children’s and parents program. Very useful. I come from Ecuador, from South America. I learned to sew when I was 14 years old. I started working in a shop doing leather work, making wallets, suitcases, briefcases. My daughters knew that the family did this work and they would always ask me, “why don’t you sew anymore?” Well, because now I work in construction. But I do know how to sew! So they were very happy this morning when I told them that we were coming here. When I said “lets go out” they said ok, we are going to church. I said “no, today is not the church, we are going to another place.” They asked “where are we going?” I said we are going to do something at the ArtsWestchester building, some kind of program they said “ok that’s nice, cool.” But when they got here and saw the machines they said “oh that’s nice daddy!”
07:32
I knew that my whole dad’s family, they…I think it was like kind of a company…they used to sell like belts and wallets. While I was sewing, my uncle was saying how my grandma would like…I don’t know how to say it in English, bordado and like blankets and stuff like that. So that was interesting because I knew she sewed, but I didn’t know what she sewed specifically or what kind of machine she used. I heard him talking about that as well. Saying that she would use the old machines with the old pedals and everything. It’s interesting because I never really asked my dad about her or his family. So it was nice to see them opening up to me and telling me all this stuff that I didn’t know before. I want to keep learning on the machine because it was really fun, and seeing how interested my uncles were and they were all happy...and my dad as well…cause he was so excited to get back on the sewing machine. He was like, Oh I’m gonna do this again.