Interview with Ana
Date29 October 2025
Mediumborn digital audio file
DimensionsDuration: 43 Minutes, 3 Seconds
ClassificationsInformation Artifacts
Credit LineCommunity History Project Collection
DescriptionAudio file of interview with Ana. She was interviewed by Bethzy Mejia on October 29, 2025 in Middletown, Connecticut.
Ana was interviewed as part of the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History's Community History Project discussing moments of change in her life.
Ana described herself as a mother of two who works in international education and has lived in Connecticut for over a decade. She grew up bilingual in a German immigrant family and moved frequently as a child, which shaped her global perspective. The most significant moment of change in her life was losing her older brother at age eleven, an event she said “changed everything…at a cellular level.” That loss became a catalyst for her lifelong search for meaning and healing through travel and connection with others.
Traveling to places like Ecuador, Honduras, Uganda, and Madagascar allowed her to process grief in cultures that were more open about death and community. “I remember…coming alive,” she said of her early travel experiences. In Uganda, she found comfort and joy living with a host family, realizing that “the wealth they had was very different than what I had understood wealth was.” Over time, Ana’s experiences abroad and later work in Costa Rica, where she used the metaphor of light gaps in forests to describe growth through tragedy, helped her see her grief as a source of strength and empathy. Reflecting back, she said she would tell her younger self to “calm down” and appreciate the present. Ana’s story centers on transformation through loss, travel, and connection, how tragedy shaped her worldview and guided her toward a career dedicated to intercultural understanding and helping others grow through change.
Ana was interviewed as part of the Connecticut Museum of Culture and History's Community History Project discussing moments of change in her life.
Ana described herself as a mother of two who works in international education and has lived in Connecticut for over a decade. She grew up bilingual in a German immigrant family and moved frequently as a child, which shaped her global perspective. The most significant moment of change in her life was losing her older brother at age eleven, an event she said “changed everything…at a cellular level.” That loss became a catalyst for her lifelong search for meaning and healing through travel and connection with others.
Traveling to places like Ecuador, Honduras, Uganda, and Madagascar allowed her to process grief in cultures that were more open about death and community. “I remember…coming alive,” she said of her early travel experiences. In Uganda, she found comfort and joy living with a host family, realizing that “the wealth they had was very different than what I had understood wealth was.” Over time, Ana’s experiences abroad and later work in Costa Rica, where she used the metaphor of light gaps in forests to describe growth through tragedy, helped her see her grief as a source of strength and empathy. Reflecting back, she said she would tell her younger self to “calm down” and appreciate the present. Ana’s story centers on transformation through loss, travel, and connection, how tragedy shaped her worldview and guided her toward a career dedicated to intercultural understanding and helping others grow through change.
Object number2024.79.77
CopyrightIn copyright, Copyright held by Ana
NotesSubject Note: The Connecticut Museum of Culture and History’s Community History Project (CHP) is a public-facing initiative, focused on contemporary collecting, gathering items of the recent past as well as from events happening today. This program developed community historians to identify, document, and preserve their experiences as residents of Connecticut, and to share these experiences during a series of community presentations. The project focused on the theme "Redefining Moments of Change." Conneticans share stories of people or events who have changed their lives or how they have sparked change in the lives of others.Cataloging Note: Digitization and access to this collection is supported by a Congressionally Directed grant through the U.S. Department of Education.
Subject Terms
CTDA Handle: Watch/Listen on the Connecticut Digital Archive
https://hdl.handle.net/11134/4085701
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