Cultural Interview

Who knew that by getting assign to interview someone who you don’t know that is also a classmate, that we were eventually to find out more about them. There were some parts where I believe we both struggle but other than that it was a great experience and did help me get out of my comfort zone. We did ask each other some questions, but at a point we struggled to ask more question about each other because the questions we would come up with would just give us more similarities on each other, but it wasn't hard to listen at the same time as asking question or thinking about more questions. The other reason that made us struggle was that typically i'm not the person to just start a conversation with someone who I don’t know. Therefore, the stumbling
part, was when we were find more similarities between us than differences. The place we was Intercultural Communication class when the professor had put us together for this assignment. Then we talk for a good 35 minutes to 45 minutes, but I at first felt uncomfortable because I didn’t know her or talked at all in this class. I even felt at some point in the conversation that it got awkward because we could come up with anymore questions for each other so we would either stay quiet and think on question and even asked the professor from some help with the questions. I also think she might of felt a bit uncomfortable too at first because she seem shy as well then I think she was fine I don't think she felt awkward in any parts of our conversation.
To begin with, we introduce ourselves and her name is Cindy is 19 years old, graduating at Coachella Valley High School is also a Mexican American who live here in the coachella valley most of her time here. Her first language begin spanish, she is the oldest out of three siblings two sisters and one brother which mean she has to set an example for her younger siblings since she is first in her family to attend college and graduate from high school. Then I asked her were her parents were from and she responded with “they are from Sinaloa Mexico,” then I asked “really what part” she then said Bequillitos which is not to far from where my parents are from. I told her what a small world she said why I told her my parents are from a ranch couple miles away from where her parents are from. Therefore, later on that we talked more I noticed that we had many similarities in common. For example, we both had the same taste in music we listen to same genre latin music we enjoy listening to banda. We both are some very shy persons who don’t talk to much or at all, not even at family events and don't forget that we have the same taste in mexican cultural foods such as tamales etc. In other words one of our differences in cultural wise that we found out, is the way we celebrate the holidays she get together with her family most of the holidays and birthdays and for the holidays her family and herself gather at her grandparent's house and plays board games or card games and do more activities. In our family that what was different because my whole family doesn’t get together at anyone home it's usually just my parents working and my brother and I going to my aunt's house.The other few difference is her interest in certain hobbies she likes to go for runs or play volleyball with her family or watches soccer on the television with family and if she not doing any of those she says she in her room doing her own thing or on her phone etc. Our cultural interest in what she is attending school is different but close she is majoring in biology.
For the most of the part, I have learned many thing from doing this assignment and interview which was it good to get to know new people because you know what their culture is and there subcultures we aren’t the same our culture is made by many different subcultures that are put together and make each one of us who we are.
What's going to stay with me is asking people question to get to know them because you get to know what they are into or who they are. It's important to to know different cultural traditions not just our own because if you know other culture you would be able to understand certain things and situation in their perspective. The thing that surprised me while communicating with our partner was that we didn't know each other and we had some similarities and were able to communicate because we could understand each other on our difference once we knew about. This did give me a better perspective on my partner's culture and challenges in college in the matters that how hard they try and why they are so into school there situation on how important school is to them. My experience with the interview has taught me that I need to be out there more and communicate with more people to get out of my comfort zone, have been able to create more friendship with different people in college. To understand more about others cultural tradition, and being to understand their hard work, the struggles they have to go through to able to continue school or their career life.
These were a few things on how our conversation went we had many similarities and differences, but our goal was to find the difference in each other. To be able to understand each other situation on why they have those tradition and how they celebrate through the holidays. We also might of had some awkward and uncomfortable situation. Also, was a great learning experience that will stick with me from here and on through my college years and my adulthood
life.