Write a paper about an interview with an immigrant. This will be an individual who came to the United States from another country when he or she was at least 18 years old.
Your interviewee may be a friend, relative, or acquaintance. Again, this person MUST be an adult who was not born in the U.S.
Do some research on their country of origin.
Your interview should carefully consider (1) migration, (2) integration/assimilation, and (3) membership.
Below are some examples of possible key questions and areas of inquiry.
What country are you originally from? Why did you leave this country?
When did you leave? How old were at that time?
What were the conditions in the country when you left?
How did you prepare for your trip here?
Who came with you when you emigrated? Who did you leave behind? What did you leave behind?
How did you get here? Did you stay somewhere else before arriving here?
Why did you choose the United States? Why not some other country?
Who decided you would come here? Did you want to leave? |
How did others in your home country treat you when they knew you were leaving?
What changes in lifestyle did you make when you came here?
What was your first impression of the United States? Has this initial impression changed over time?
What are some of the differences/similarities you’ve noticed in the cultures here and in your home country?
What were your hopes for yourself (and/or your family) when you came here? Have you realized these hopes?
How were you treated when you first arrived in the United States? How are you treated now?
Were your expectations of America met? Was your idea of America the same as the reality?
If your interviewee is comfortable discussing it, you might also ask questions about their immigration status what was the process of naturalization, and so on.
All of the following three sections (at minimum), titled as below – in this order must be covered in the paper:
1. Introduction,
2. Content, and
3. Conclusion / Analysis
1. The Introduction section will be relatively short, and include basic background/demographic information to orient the reader.
(Remember that your paper is really about your informants experiences, culture and insights into our culture; his or her life history is only the background, or
context).
2. The Content section discusses his or her home culture and his or her impressions of U.S. culture. You are looking for cultural (as opposed to individual) practices,
beliefs, values, outlooks, and so on, to understand or explain. These are usually things that differ from what we are used to here in the U.S. They may give you
insights into both your informants culture, and ours, by contrast. You are interpreting or explaining some of those differences, using concepts from this course.
This is the main body of the paper, and should include detailed anecdotes and very specific information about your interviewees feelings/attitudes/beliefs about
their experiences.
This section should be detailed, fleshed-out, and supported by select exact quotes from your interview subjects.
3. The Conclusion/Sociological Analysis section includes your findings and conclusions.
Try to synthesize or generalize and interpret what you have learned of your informants home culture and American culture. That is, suggest some conclusions
about the immigration experience and its effects on one or both cultures. Support your ideas by summarizing or quoting things your informant said, and explaining
how they point to your conclusions. For example:
Suggest general themes or characteristics of either culture (“Peruvians tend to value such-and-such, which affects many aspects of their lives, such as”)
Note repeating themes or parallels in different stories or aspects of the culture (“A common thread in these stories is that which suggests that”)
Ask yourself Is this part of a larger pattern? What does this imply about the culture? The answer may be an interesting generalization about the
culture.
You may also want to ask yourself, as applicable:
What did you learn about the immigration experience you did not previously know? What surprised you?
What I heard that surprised me was
Something I learned from the oral histories was
One thing I thought was important from the interviews was
This section must include a very concise conclusion, which summarizes your paper and offers any additional commentary or insight.
