Personal Narrative: An Inter-Ethnic Interview

When I was growing up, I’ve always thought I could be independent on myself, rather than my parents. This impulsive thought showed reason why I was one of the millions of naive people out there. To be honest, I didn’t really understand the world because I always thought of it to be some sort of joke. I took it for a joke and never heeded my parents’ warning about colleges and education. When 7th grade came around the corner, I started to heed their advice and started to take education, seriously. I maintained all A’s, however, my parents’ told me that the way I acted can really change the outcome. I never knew that academics wasn’t the only thingy colleges cared about. As a kid, I always thought the smartest prevail in the world.

For the oral history project, I interviewed my grandmother. Her full name is Imelda Laborce, while she is known as “Meldy” to most family members. She was born in a small town called Calapacuan in the Zambales region of the Philippines. She was born in 1955 and is 61 years old. Like me, she was born in the Philippines but eventually moved to America sometime in her life. I believed she was a good candidate because I knew she was one of the earliest members of my family to travel to America. Hence, she must have good stories and have a rich background. I also never really knew anything about her past, so I just thought it would be interesting in general to learn about it. She currently lives in Union, New Jersey and works in a hospital as a nurse.

What is culture? Culture is the idea of what is wrong or right, the concept of what is acceptable within our society. Culture serves us as a guide, taking us to the "right way" and helping us to make sense of things that surrounds us. There are many different cultures around the world. A lot of them are similar in specific ways and others are just completely different, this difference explains why we think that people from different backgrounds are "weird".

I was born and raised in the small but growing city of Perris, CA. This isn’t the best city out there but it tends to grow on you, and you begin to truly love it for what it is. The people, however, not so much. The community can vary from which part of the city you’re in. That’s because there’s diversity here in Perris. I’m a product of this diversity, being half Mexican and half African American. My parents fell in love after high school and later on began a family. I am the youngest of five. I have two older brothers, an older sister, and an older cousin who lives with us. The order is boy, girl, boy, boy, girl with my cousin being included in there too. We all live in the same house with my parents and are quite close with each other. They all seem to have raised me growing up due to the fact that my parents were busy trying to provide for us. This was a challenge by itself, resulting in lots of house moving and my father being unemployed for six years after losing his job. I never complained about moving because I knew that my parents were doing their absolute best and were working with all that they had and then some. This unquestionably made me adaptable to new environments and gave me a

The person I interviewed was my mother, Holly Parker, her job currently is working at a pizza shop known as Little Caesar's, Holly was born in 1976 on January 27th. Holly’s parent's names are George and Carol McGee, and one of her siblings is named Nathan. Holly has lived in Ohio but is mostly in Bowling Green, she has moved to Sandusky once then moved back to Bowling Green. A school Holly attended was Crim Elementary School. Holly is 5 feet tall (Yes, literally), has brown hair, hazel eyes, and usually wears a yellow or pink hoodie (unless it’s in the summertime, then she will wear a T-Shirt.).

I chose my friend, Rheanna Lynn Esparza, as my interviewee for my cultural interview. While I was interviewing Rheanna, I used the same questions I answered about myself during my cultural diorama presentation. During the interview, I was able to grasp a better understanding of Rheannas culture while allowing her to develop a better understanding of her own culture and family history.

On March 14, 2015, Olivia and I met at a very popular Houston restaurant name Max 's Wine Dive for brunch where we conducted an interview of her life. I have known Olivia my entire life, she is a close family friend who has watched me grow into the young woman I am today. Olivia is a 62 year old retired middle African American woman who is married with five children where she currently lives in La Porte, Texas. She received her Master 's in Sociology from the University of Houston-Clear Lake. She has worked in the field of education for over 30 years and has experienced many challenges. When she was approached by me to conduct the interview, I clearly informed her it is for a class assignment, and by her being an educator, she did not

For the interview, my subject was Virginia McFadden. She is a 79 years old woman and a retired teacher. She is married to Kevin McFadden. I chose Mrs. McFadden because I see her every week at church. I didn’t know much about her before the interview. The interview was an opportunity to do so.

According to the 2010 U.S census, the percentage of multiracial American children has increased almost 50%, to 4.2 million, in the last ten years. It’s interesting to think of myself as one of those statistics. While my mom and her side of the family is American, my dad and his side of the family is Puerto Rican, my brother and I ending up being half white, half Hispanic. The cultural differences of the two sides of my family are significant, whether it be food, past times, or communication/interaction, they differ.

The individual I choose for my interview is an eighty-five year old, Hispanic female and goes by the initials of E.C. I arrived at my client’s residence, which was an apartment building, and the first thing I noticed was that there is no wheelchair access available. I was let in the building and I went up three flights of stairs to get up to the apartment because there was no elevator available. My client’s daughter, V.C, greeted me at the door and she was very warm hearted and welcoming. Once I stepped inside the apartment I noticed the hot temperature, the cluster of furniture and the loving family that had visited for the day. This two bedroom, one bathroom apartment had a family of five, E.C included, living here. Two out of the three were

1. Question: Share some of the background of your interviewee (or couple). What was this person’s/couple’s story?

I had the pleasure of interviewing her about her hobbies, family, and her goals for the future.

The second person I interviewed was Rosa. Rose just moved into the neighborhood about three months ago. She is 25-year-old and her ethnic background is black. Rose also lives on Richardson avenue. The way she describes where she lives is there is good people, and you have bad people that do not live there. Rosa has just one child, a little girl. I ask her does she see any crime, and she said yes. She said that she is a little bit scared because she wakes up at six to get her daughter ready for school. She goes up the little hill and she see two prostitutes there. I ask her to describe what were the prostitutes wearing she said they had on a bright shirt, with a short skit, and fishnet stockings. She said that it bothers her because her little

I found my interviewee at my church. My church is pretty diverse we have a small percentage of different ethnic groups. There were, many different individuals that I could have chosen to interview, but I chose Mrs. Bola. Mrs. Bola was born in Lagos, Nigeria. Lagos is the state, Nigeria is the country she is the last born in her family, and she has a sister and three brothers. Both of her parents are also from Nigeria. Mrs. Bola said her country is divided into three major parts. I choose her because I know she is a dynamic, powerful woman and being that I have never had a full, meaningful conversation with her just brief one’s I felt this was my opportunity to do so. I told her about my assignment and I asked her would she mind if I interview

My interviews were conducted over the phone with two women whom I could not imagine my life without. My first interview was with my childhood best friend, now 19-years-old, whom I met at eight-years-old after I moved to Haines from Fairbanks, Alaska. To this day, we have remained best friends. Due to that, our interview required an extent of additional effort to conduct it seriously. However, we managed to cover everything in 10 minutes. My second interview was with my father’s ex-girlfriend, now 61-years-old, who I have the utmost appreciation for. She has only been in my life since 2014, but considering she was a large part of my 18th birthday, senior prom, and high school graduation, I could never not consider her a member of my family. She was more direct in her responses, so our interview lasted only 5 minutes.