Mexican culture is colorful and rich, enriched with pride and heritage. Family values and strong moral constitution have sustained the culture for hundreds of years. I have had the pleasure to interact and consort with the Mexican culture most of my life in the business that I'm in. Dedication and hard work are the stables that bound the stigma of the Mexican culture. Being that I truly honor the culture I have chosen a friend of mine that I work with to perform my interview upon. My interviewee is Maria Dimas; she was born in Cancun Mexico but has lived most of her life in the United States.
For the intercultural interview, I decided to interview my friend Medelyn, a 19 year old female of Honduran and Mexican descent. During the interview, I focused on her Honduran culture, as she was born in Honduras, I asked her a multitude of various questions ranging from formalities in her culture to gender roles to classism in her culture.. The interview lasted about twenty minutes, I asked her about fifteen questions, and after she answered each question there would be a small discussion about her answer. When interviewing Medelyn, it was important to rid myself of any ethnocentrism, assumed cultural similarity or differences, stereotyping, and anything that could create a bias and compromise the interview.
I can only imagine what it would be like to be a student who is culturally different from their peers at school and not even the teachers or administrators know how to properly act around students of different cultural backgrounds. I personally would not be fond of being in an environment that made me feel uncomfortable or negative in any way. While interviewing my friend Stephanie, I learned what it was like to go to a school that was predominantly people of her race and then have to transfer to a school that was predominantly white. We discussed our school related experiences throughout kindergarten and high school. The main focus of our differences was our race and how our experiences were affected by it. Stephanie shared about the experiences
My cultural interview was with a coworker, 28 years of age and of Hispanic descent. While conducting the interview I learned a lot about the Hispanic culture. Many Hispanics like to be called Latino (a). Some do not like to be referred to as Mexican when they are from other countries other than Mexico. Hispanics also use slang within their culture just like African Americans. Within the culture the male is the dominant figure in the household. All the decisions that affect the family go through the father. If there is no father in the house, the oldest son fulfills that role. The older son may drop out of school so that they may assist the mother at the house in the absence of the father. Many Hispanics
As I entered the home to conduct my interview, I was immediately greeted by very soft spoken female. She’s a 42 yrs old African American female, who’s married with two children. She migrated from the south 30 years ago along with her mother and sister. She’s currently working for the Department of Education as a substitute teacher with aspiration of becoming a child psychologist. The subject was eager to be interviewed. She thought it would be great to sure her views and perspectives of her culture. Culture is defined by Webster’s Dictionary as , the total of the inherited ideas, beliefs, values, and knowledge, which constitute the shared bases of social action. To me culture is rich and fascinating filled with family, traditions, memories, and many dialects.
Culture is defined as the boundary between different people from different ends of the earth. For my project I had to interview another person from a different culture. This was difficult for me because I had no idea where to start because I didn’t know what made my culture specific to me. I found my interview subject relatively fast and I sat down and asked the questions. I found my subject from my boss I interviewed my bosses boyfriends sister and we went at it.
As my cultural other, I interviewed EMG, she is 26 years old and the au pair for my nephew and niece. She lives in their home since she moved from her hometown Cartagena in southeast Spain. She will be leaving this May to return to Spain, for her sister’s high school graduation, after about 18 months with the family. In the time she has been here, I have seen and interacted with her at family gatherings, usually holidays and birthdays. I have not personally created a bond or relationship with EMG, but I think she is a sweet girl. EMG has become friends with my daughter; they have gone to New York City for New Year’s Eve and Pennsylvania for a Taylor Swift concert.
The cultural interview is to invite someone different culture than themselves and to prepare questions to talk about the differences and similarities between the two participants. The person I chose to interview is my boyfriend David. The reason why I chose to interview him because of his status he is an immigrant in this country. I would like to know the consequences of being illegal immigrant and what's the reason behind he came to this country. I told him I was going to interview him but he didn’t know I was going to ask him questions about his status which was for me was a bit frightening because I know many people don’t like talking about their status and now more because of our president. David came to my house on November 1st around 5 o’clock while waiting for him I made a cup of coffee to take to the park. Once he came to my house we walk to my neighborhood park to do the interview. We sat down at a bench and he thought I was going to ask him basic questions tell me about yourself but never knew they were going to be deeply personal questions.
I just had a conversation with Dr. Mark Gooden over in the college of education. Dr. Gooden is the person I reached out to regarding the cultural competency training for the updates. I will talk to Mike and Alexandra about what I learned. I think it will be a good addition to the week, but I need to try to make it work with the schedule – he needs a minimum of about three hours, but I think we can fit it in. Dr. Gooden’s research is actually in this area and he does this training across the state and nationally for school districts, principals, and other businesses. He’s willing to do it as part of his “service to UT” but he did ask if, in lieu of a payment he would typically charge for this kind of training, if we would be willing
Andre Ebbinkhuysen is the subject of my culture interview. I chose him because I was interested in learning more about the South African culture and its history. We met at McDonalds on South College Road on Friday, June 10th at 11:00 am and interviewed for about an hour. I felt very comfortable interviewing him, as we share a secondary group at Cape Fear Community College, sitting right next to each other in our Sociology class. I feel I know him better than a stranger I would have tried to approach for this interview.
People live very different lives. Culture is a major importance in everyone lives. Everyone has customs that they follow, and somethings are more bizarre than others. But it may be bizarre in one persons ' eyes, and be completely normal to another. Having the ability to understand one 's culture and heritage can really help you have a better understanding of where they come from. In the medical it is very important to understand where an individual is coming regarding culture. From understanding their language, to understanding what they are against in the world of medicine is a difference between life and death for some of these individuals.
I had the pleasure of interviewing one of our church parisinors, Ms. Maria. Ms. Maria is 75 years old Hispanic woman who has been a widow for the past three years. Ms. Maria was basically a stay at home Mom when her children were young and when she did work she worked as an assembly line worker. Her wages were low and her pension that she currently receives is not enough to meet her monthly needs. Her husband was the main bread winner prior to him dieing of a massive heart attack at the age of 78 while he was at work. Her husband was a cook in a resturanrt and had decied to continue to work until some of their loans were paid off. Since his death, Ms. Maria has been depressed, anxious and struggling to make ends meet and has recently been diagnosed with hypertension. Her three children live out of state a don’t get to visit often.
My cultural informant was a friend who I have known for about six and a half years, Lisa. Lisa’s sister, Liya, and I became close friends during my freshman year of college. Liya, two other girls, and I became roommates from sophomore year through senior year. Lisa is a year younger than me, so I met her during my sophomore year. Liya and Lisa were international students from Ethiopia, so they often spent holidays and breaks with my family and I. The three of us became close during our college years, and I had the opportunity to visit them in Ethiopia in the summer of 2015. Liya is currently living in Ethiopia; therefore, I am not able to speak with her as frequently as Lisa; however, modern technology does
fter the interview I conclude that there are many things about beliefs and cultures I don’t know
To learn from another that is not like you, that is from another country, gives you the opportunity to acquire knowledge that opens your eyes and lets you better understand the world around you. That can definitely be said after conducting my interview for the Cross-Cultural Interaction Report. I had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing Blanchefort Djimsa, a Food Science major, who is from the country of Chad which is located in Central Africa. Blanchefort is from the city of Moundou, the third largest city, which is in the South of Chad. Here on scholarship, he is attending Oklahoma State University to further his education. Blanchefort told me about his country and gave me a different perspective about Chad.