Intercultural Interview Research Paper

For more than 300 years, immigrants from every corner of the globe have settled in America, creating the most diverse and heterogeneous nation on Earth. Though immigrants have given much to the country, their process of changing from their homeland to the new land has never been easy. To immigrate does not only mean to come and live in a country after leaving your own country, but it also means to deal with many new and unfamiliar situations, social backgrounds, cultures, and mainly with the acquisition and master of a new language. This often causes mixed emotions, frustration, awkward feelings, and other conflicts. In Richard Rodriguez’s essay “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, the author

The intercultural challenges I am currently facing is my CQ knowledge. I am having challenges because I cannot find common ground when working with a variety of cultures. For example, I work as a customer service representative in a call center and I’m around a variety of cultures. I find it very hard to understand everyone’s triggers, their dislikes, and likes, and why they behave or act a certain way with different situations. I try to ask questions to grasp an understanding of their behaviors, and still find it quite challenging to reach common ground. I try to be very open-minded, however, it always causes me to become frustrated.

Do you think Serge’s skills were assessed adequately? Do you think he was correctly identified as learning disabled? Why or Why not?

Growing up as an Asian American, I often struggle to identify my own cultural identity. Being the first generation of both my mother and father’s side of the family, I more than often get confused between American and Asian culture when applying them to society or at home. While being raised at home, I am largely influenced by culture and traditions from Asian parents and relatives. However, when I go to school or someplace else, I am heavily judged for practicing part of my Asian culture because it is entirely different than western or American. With that being noted, I began to learn and adapt to the western culture in hopes of fitting with society as well of trying to keep my Asian culture intact. As can be seen, this situation I dealt with is the same problem the whole Asian American community faces. Mainly focusing on younger generations like me for example, the Asian American community struggles to adapt to the western culture because they were raised with an Asian influence. Wishing to fit in society and be part of the social norms, the Asian Americans community faces issues that identify their cultural identity.

In Richard Rodriguez's essay , “ Aria: A Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood ” he writes about how he struggled as a child who only spoke Spanish language but lives in a society where the “public” language is English . He believes that speaking proper English will somehow help him fit into society and find his “true” identity. Throughout the essay he contrast the Spanish language identity and English language identity. As a young boy, Rodriguez finds consolation and safety in his home where they only speak Spanish. He feels that he only has a true identity when he is at home surrounded by those who speak the same language as him . On the contrary , he becomes trapped and disoriented when not being able to speak / understand the English language . He feels as if he is not part of “their world” and has no identity in society. By comparing and contrasting Spanish language identity and English language identity . Rodriguez's essay is an example that speaking different languages should not make anyone choose an identity . In fact being able to speak and understand multiple languages in his case Spanish and English makes the language a part of his identity, but with two different sides .

For first generation immigrants in North America, acceptance into the mainstream society requires them to “learn or improve their English language skills and adapt to its cultural practices” (Liu 1). Liu believes second generation immigrants are better equipped to accomplish this because they are either “born in the host country or migrated at a young age” (1). When Nao’s family moved to Sunnyvale, Nao learned English quickly and internalized American values and norms. Nao was young and had “no memory of Japan from when [she] was a baby” (43), which explains her rapid adjustment to America. Unlike her parents, Nao never had a

As the immigrant population currently projected to overtake latinxs and hispanics as largest group of residents in the United States of America, Asian Americans have shown their will to survive in a way that many groups have not, and that is by banding together in order to achieve the life they deserve. Taking the overgeneralization of pan-ethnicity and using it as a device for increased numbers and support for the causes of a group of people who otherwise may not have much to do with each other, is a testament to how vulnerable they must have felt as well as how successful they have managed to be many aspects of progress. What I have gained from this course is the understanding that at the root of ethnic studies and the Asian American community is the “for us, by us” sentiment that contributed to the blurred lines between the different part of their communities as social, political and cultural, structures, collectives and groups which came out of an obligation and necessity to protect those immigrants and their future generations from a country which has always pushed European superiority in all aspects of society.

S. R. is a 31-year old soft spoken Filipino female. Her primary language is English. Her family dialect of Tagalog is understood, but not spoken fluently. Tagalog is the national language in the Philippine society, and English is the second official language. (McBride, 2001) Presently she resides in Pearland Texas with her husband and 20 month old daughter. Born and raised in Webster Texas she is of Filipino ancestry, and considers herself “Asian American” (personal communication, August 20, 2010). Her father and mother were born in the Philippines. They

Additional considerations may arise when the child’s ethnic identity is being developed by parents who come from two different cultures [or different from their biological family]. The child then has to face integrating these two cultures... The child’s struggle to adjust, and desire, to belong… can place them at odds with being different from their family members. (p.

According to the Fishman model a second generation child of an immigrant should be bilingual, however in this case, Ana was treated as a third generation while her older sibling was treated as as second generation child (Feliciano Lec.1/18/16). For this reason Ana wasnt able to learn her parent native tongue. Her parents ascend to assimilation reflected itself on Ana and is shown through her progression to upward assimilation. The more a family attaches their identity to one culture the stronger their childrens identity towards a single culture will

Maria Gonzalez is a twenty-one year old psychology major here at Middlesex County College (MCC). She was born in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic and moved from there ten years ago at age 11. Majority of her family comes from D.R while many of them are still there today. Maria has noticed a change between herself and her family members when she visits her country due to the fact she has been in America almost a decade and has experienced different things.

Many Asian Americans and Asian Canadians wanted to forget their identities that made them different by making compromises with their Asian heritages. Embarrassed of their differences, many people from this group compromised with their identity by refusing to speak their native language (Takaki 104). While they did this to try to fit in with

As a product of immigration, I was shaped by the unique benefits and challenges of spending my developmental years in multiple cultures. I was born in the rural province of Nueva Ecija, Philippines but spent most of my early childhood years in the country’s capital city of Manila. When I was six years old, my family moved to Singapore for several years before settling down in Guam by my ninth birthday, when my father contracted a job with an international hotel franchise. Learning to navigate the cultural discrepancies in my life soon became a norm, one that shaped my values and priorities. Through trial and error, I developed skills to adapt and succeed across cultural boundaries as I encountered new people ceaselessly through my

In his article “Distilling My Korean American Identity,” he explores the process of self-discovery of identity from his teenage years to his college life, and with the help from his significant other. Being Asians in the United States, Gonzalo and Patrick S. both have had to confront the major issue of identity conflicts in different ways. These were due to the assimilation stress, generational gap and racial discrimination that happened within their family and school lives.

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.