Abstract

This essay is based on an interview I performed to one of my classmates about their life overall. I was not able to provide notes because I lost my file, however in this essay I decided to focus on the topic of his migration to the United States from Jamaica and his process of starting a new life and trying to adapt to the culture and differences he experienced. I also provided some information about his culture and how being here for a long time has affected his relationship with his mother due to their differences in their points of view. After completing my final paper, I wrote a reflection of my paper where I reflect on the process of my interview and paper development.

11 Years from Now

Kevon Walker is an 18-year-old boy who obtained his first job in sales at 12 at the New York Youth Club to help his mother at home. He lives in the Bronx, works at a gas station, and attends The City College Of New York. He is currently thinking about obtaining a degree in business administration and in the future be able to open a business in order to teach and help people how to manage their money to stop living from check to check. He believes that the first step to accomplish personal goals is to learn about savings, funds, and how to save money for retirement.

Kevon grew up in Jamaica and came to the city in 2010 when he was 7 years old after his father died, even today he still struggles with adapting to his surroundings mostly because of the differences in the living and beliefs between Jamaica and New York. His sister helped him, and their mother get visa to the US, she didn’t want them to stay in Jamaica after the death of their father because of how hard life would get when they could obtain better opportunities and have a fresh start here. The first days exploring the city were surprising and fun due to the tall buildings and screens he was able to see for the first time, as well as some good Jamaican food he was able to have. Although he enjoyed exploring and getting to know the city, he also declared it was a bit challenging to adapt because he needed to start adapting to the ways people dressed and lived here in order to fit in “In Jamaica I never wore Jordans, here I had to start wearing Jordans… you know to fit in the best I could”. Coming in as an immigrant and trying to integrate into what is a New Yorker, he believes that here money is power because you can get anything you want as long as you have money, which is what influences his choice on the career he wants to follow.

Even now that he is well adapted to New York he claims he would go back to Jamaica if he could even though he wouldn’t have the same opportunities, it is more tranquil, and neighbors tend to be more social. In spite the fact that his father was from Britain, he is more connected to his Jamaican side. Every Sunday he is able to enjoy some cultural plates in the morning and for Christmas his mom makes a traditional drink called “Sorrel”. This drink is made with natural ginger, pimento seeds, water, and the most important ingredient, sorrel fruit. It was hard for Kevon to describe the taste, but he describes it as a “sour, strong, particular taste”. His father died 11 years ago from a heart attack that slowly debilitated his body and caused his death. Although he is way more connected to his Jamaican side he said, “I want to explore my British side in order to explore the culture”. While explaining to me the situation of his father and what happened, his voice was very calm, and his attitude towards the questions was open, not avoiding the questions or the conversation at all which made things very comfortable for me to ask some more questions about his personal life. One of the questions that I asked him afterwards was how would he describe himself compared to how his relatives describe him? With his somewhat deep but calm voice he replied, “I describe myself as self-sufficient and hardworking, but my family would describe me as a delinquent.” Thoughtfully, looking away searching for words for me to understand, he explained that his family does not see the small things about him. This comes from the fact that his mom’s cultural perspective has specific standards for men at home that if not followed it seems to be as if they are doing things at their own will, such as not taking out the garbage when she wants him to. Because he has been raised in New York most of his life, he has different goals and point of view of how things should be done compared to his mom.

While struggling to adapt, he has been able to keep up with working in his dream to open a business and help people learn more about money, as well as managing the money he earns by saving half into his retirement account and using the other half as necessary.

Reflection/ Self Grading

When conducting my peer interview, I would say I learned about 2 things about myself while asking my questions and trying to make conversation with my partner. The first thing I learned is that when I ask questions and my peer answered them, I would ask further questions about whatever he said even though it had nothing to do with the interviews purpose. The second thing is that when writing, I want to sometimes include myself in my writing on how we have similarities on ideas/thoughts of a topic and on how I am also connected to stories of immigration within my family. I know it is not bad to make connections or ask followed up questions, however, with this interview and my writing of it, I taught myself how to put myself back a little bit, focus on the person a little more, and be able to come back to the real purpose of my questions in my conversations. Even though we both caught on non-purposeful conversations, I would not change anything in my interview process. Those conversations helped me understand his short answers to my personal questions. When I first spoke with my partner, I did think he was from the “cool boys club” and different from me in a social-knowledgeable way. When I began to ask him my questions, both personal and general, we began to make conversations off topic a bit, and I saw that we are not as different I thought we were. We are both very social, a little of both intro and extroverts, have parents that migrated from the Caribbean, and most surprisingly we both have some kind of culture shock because of how our perspectives outgrew in some ways our parents find it hard to understand.

Grading myself now I do not think that I am being hard on myself, nor I think I should be. When building my essay, I was already very hard on myself while trying to figure out a central story and building the information I acquired around it.