MEET THE FAMILY,
ALIVE & DEAD
THE ANCESTORS ALLY
IRINIA, 60s
Polish-American. Coming from a long line of working-class blue-collar Chicagoans, she admires Jaques' hustle. An academic and artist who never quite got her flowers. She’s one of the many who never had the opportunity to move up the economic ladder, and at times, the intergenerational traumas of poverty seem like a haunting. Through many flashbacks, we learn about the development of Jaques and Irina’s relationship in Haiti and what led to their eventual split. In the aftermath, there was a period of silence, but over the years, they’ve drifted back together. Although her Creole is broken now after all these years, she still talks to Jaques in Creole when there’s something she doesn’t want someone else to understand.
In her mind, Roseline’s existence was fated. She values connection over money and would miss a work meeting if Roseline wanted to spend time together. She reminisces about her years in Haiti and the community Jacques and she had there. She’s often trying to be the optimist that no one else can muster at times, though sometimes her forcefulness turns people away more than she would admit. Irina is happy that her daughter is following in her footsteps in academia and wants Roseline to secure a future for herself that Irina never had the opportunity to have.
Irina’s arc from wishful thinking to realistic expectations:
While Irina longs for a deeper connection with her loved ones and expects everyone to remember the past as she does, her methods of edifying those around her often come across as competitive, rather than welcoming. Thinking that she knows what’s best, over the season, she ends up driving Roseline away, instead of listening to her daughter. Irina needs to learn to meet people where they’re at if she actually wants the connection that she’s longing for.