Maria and I eat lunch together almost every day in the cafeteria where we work. I asked her a few weeks ago if she would be interested in doing an interview with me about her culture. She thought it was a funny request at first and demonstrated this by laughing at me. After joking about it for a few minutes and convincing her that I was serious, she agreed.
Maria and I meet at the Starbucks close to the mall last Saturday and we began the interview. I started off with the first section of questions from the syllabus. I asked Maria "How do assumptions about cultural "norms" impact your interviewee's behavior on a day-to-day basis"? Maria replied that she didn't notice the expectations of Mexican norms from other cultures but rather more from her family and other Mexicans. She said "my family expects me to be a certain way, so I feel like I'm living two different lives sometimes".
I continued by asking her the challenges that she confront by being outside the norm of her culture. Maria replied that, again, the challenges came from her peers and family rather than other cultures. She said her family is more old school Mexican and that some of her family cannot speak English, so it's as if she has to be a certain person while at home and another when out in the world. Maria said "I have a hard time relating to some of my family, they don't want me to