October 22nd, 2014
I based my cultural interview on an Iranian family that I’ve known for many years; I’ll refer to them in an alias name as the Gabr family. They are a very close nit family whom live nearby in a middle class neighbor. I mainly interviewed the mother of this family whom I’ll refer to as Eklass Gabr. Eklass is a highly educated and respected teacher in the community. She was born in Jerusalem; to her father whom was a business man and her mother whom was a stay at home mom. Eklass is from a larger extended family, 7 uncles and 5 aunts. Growing up in the Middle East is vastly different than growing up in the United States, and that was expressed numerous times during our family interview. Eklass Gabr’s family consists of her mother, father, 2 sisters and 5 brothers. According to Eklass woman in the Middle East go to school until they have achieved a High School diploma. Women do not attend college, and if they do it is a rarity. When a female is outside of the home they must be accompanied by a male, for example, father, brother or husband. It is the male’s responsibility to keep a close eye on the female’s members of the family when they are outside of the home. Females and males go to different schools. Children go to school five and half days a week. Eklass started learning English in fifth grade. In the United States woman are seeking education after High School, and we do not need escorts outside our homes. In fact the majority of children born in the United States are born to unmarried working mothers. “In 2006, nearly 13 million unmarried American parents lived with their children. Among them, more than 80% were unmarried mothers” (www.unmarried.org, Web, 22, October). Eklass moved here to America with her immediate family when she was 12; and although woman seem almost subservient to men in the middle east; Eklass describes her father as extremely protective of her, but he was a wise man whom wanted her to