I was very excited to see the response from Professor Isabelle Lausent-Herrera, written in all caps, pop up in my inbox. She had suggested we meet the following Monday at a café I had been to in San Isidro, and really liked. I couldn’t wait, and tried my best to read some of her recent published work and prepared some questions written in Spanish. Despite the availability of articles written by her in English, it seemed that they were translated. Isabelle spoke French, Spanish and a little Mandarin, but very little English. Isabelle Lausent-Herrera is a professor originally from France, who has done a lot of research about people of Asian descent working and living in Latin America and the Caribbean and has written quite a bit about Chinese and Japanese immigration to Peru as well as contemporary Chinese-Peruvian and Japanese-Peruvian life. I was so happy she was interested in my project and was willing to meet with me. She had written a book about Chinese temples in Peru, which I had recently purchased. Her curly, graying hair, and friendly glasses greeted me when I arrived San Antonio Pastelería. She had snagged a table outside, but in the shade. We both pulled out notebooks. It seemed were both note takers. I was touched that she was interested in taking notes on me, a 22 year-old American kid. I was nervous about talking with someone I admired a lot in Spanish for an extended period of time. And before I knew it, we had sat at the same table for three hours chatting. I had gone through a passion fruit juice and bowl of ice cream – she had finished a tea, a sandwich, and then a juice. I told her about myself. She was particularly interested in my own upbringing and mixed background and talked about people she had met over the years of mixed Asian background. I gave a brief overview of my host family and the Buddhist temple we go to in Cieneguilla. Their lives were of both personal and academic interest to her. I hope to have her visit the temple at some point before I go back to the States. She asked what Wendy’s sons’ names were and I said the oldest is named Kevin. She chuckled, and I couldn’t help but chuckle, too. “Of course he’s named Kevin,” she said, sketching a little family-ish tree, which diagramed how I got in touch with Wendy’s family. Many people of many ethnicities are named Kevin – perhaps just from our own personal experience, we both know quite a few Chinese Kevins. She told me about the joys and challenges of interviewing people in Lima’s Chinatown, as well as an emerging Asian enclave on Avenida Aviación and the diversity within the Chinese community. She speaks a little Mandarin, but does not speak any other dialects, which are quite commonly found in Lima, like Cantonese, and a few Fujianese dialects. She talked about how she has found recent immigrants’ lives in Lima are largely separate from Chinese Peruvians who have been in Peru for generations. She spoke about her role as researcher, her curiosities and the friends she has made through the years. A couple days later, she sent me a really generous email with contact info of some of her friends who she thought would be interested in meeting me. I was quite touched by Isabelle’s generosity as well as the incredible generosity of others I have gotten to know over the last few months. So many people have opened their doors, responded to emails and been patient with my Spanish, all the while being helpful and introducing me to others. It has made me think about how I would respond to an email from a stranger from another country, earnestly written in my native language not his or hers. I think a cynical part of me would be a little weary, but I am cautiously optimistic that another part of me would hit reply anyway.