Write a Cultural Interview

Your goal is to paint a portrait of the person with words. You are using the information from the interview to tell a story. In a narrative essay, you will want a mixture of paraphrasing the information along with direct quotes. If you ask open-ended questions, along with follow-up questions, you will most likely find that you have more information than the page restriction will allow you. Your job as a writer is to find a connection among the answers and organize your paper around this connection. Storytelling is a valuable skill and more and more organizations are relying on storytelling to help run and market their business. (For inspiration, here is a link to the Dwayne Johnson Interview in GQ: [login to view URL]) Your introduction can begin with a quote or an anecdote or even a description of how you felt before beginning the interview. You will also want to include basic background information of who you are interviewing, how their culture differs from your own and how you came about choosing them as your subject. When you ask questions, be aware of the verbal and nonverbal codes of your subject and use these to supplement your quotes. How does the person talk? Do they use their hands a lot? Is their emotional state evident? Ask follow up questions. Some questions to think about asking: Where is your family from? Are you an American citizen, if yes, what generation of American citizen are? Why did your first family members come to America? If not an American citizen, what is your nationality and how did you come to be in America? Where did you grow up? And how did you grow up? (Ask about the neighborhood, the school, the activities people did after school, work opportunities, type of housing, transportation, socioeconomics.) What generation are you from? Do you think you share any of the traits associated with your generation? What was your family like? What was the power structure? Who raised you? Did family come first? Who is considered family? Is your subject a parent? Are they raising their children the same as they were raised? Similarities? Differences? Even if they do not have children, is there anything in their culture they would want to pass on to the next generation? Why? Think about the taxonomies – individualism/collectivism, power distance, masculinity/femininity... Ask questions around these, such as- How do you define success? Is success viewed differently according to gender? How do you view time? Long term? Short term? How important is it to be on time? What does effective communication mean for you? Are there distinct words/ways of speaking that reflect your culture? Direct/Indirect? Formal/Informal? Was there ever a time when you communication failed? Why do you think that is? Have you ever felt stereotyped? Experienced prejudice/racism? How did this shape your outlook? What are some memorable moments from your life? Why are these moments important? What traditions/holidays are important? How do you celebrate them? What beliefs and values are important? How do you reflect these values and beliefs?