Fix Final Paper

EVALUATION OF A HEALTH-RELATED WEBSITE 7

Interview Description

Issys Thompson

COM360: Advanced Communications in Society (BHF1550A)

Sarah Bowman

11/09/2015

The person I chose to interview is my grandmother, Pastor Thompson. My grandma was born in Coffeeville, AL she grew up in a house of eleven children with both her parents. My grandmother raised me and people always tell me I have an old soul because I remember all the things she taught me, that she learned from her mother. One thing I learned about my grandma is that she really valued everything that her mother taught her, and she used those values to instill in me. She’s really old school and she doesn’t care that she was born in 1938 and it is now a new way of doing things. My grandmother remembers The Jim Crow laws from being at school and not being able to use the same bubbler as the white kids. How they had separate entrances than the white kids at school as well. The importance of keeping your head up and never look defeated according to her mother. “Always look like you’re worth something, lift your head up be proud of who you are”, she would say. She was raised Pentecostal Christian, which is a very strict denomination. It surprises me how far back her memory goes and have vivid it is, of course as she get’s older she no longer remembers a lot of things. But I do think that she chose to makes sure she remembered certain things. In being around my grandmother all my life I realized that she and her mother are very superstitious, which to me contradicts being a Christian. No sweeping you foot, don’t step over someone lying on the floor, don’t sit you purse on the floor etc. I chose to interview her because she knows first hand what it was like for African Americans in the time where we regarded as nothing.

1. What is one thing that you valued most growing up?

2. Did you ever feel forgotten because you had so many siblings?

3. If you could change one thing about your childhood what would it be?

4. How do you feel about the world now compared to when you lived in Alabama?

5. What concerns you the most about society today?

6. What advice do you want to give to the generations to come?

How far back in time can the person remember? What is his or her first childhood memory? (Consider how it reflects the interview subject's culture or subculture?)

About 1954, visiting her grandmother’s house walking through the woods and being hungry.

What does the person remember of the experience of being an immigrant or a subgroup member in that time?

The bathrooms one said white and one said back, the water fountain, in the restutant she had to order out the back window. Riding in the back of the bus.

Which impressions or experiences from that time are most vivid to him or her today?

Bad customer service people don’t want to treat you like you’re a person.

If he or she immigrated to this country, what was the country of origin like in terms of geography, government, transportation, economic system, and education system? If he or she were raised in this country, what were these aspects of life like during their childhood?

Crowded little house ten children two parents not enough space, it was hard to get food sometimes they didn’t have any. But most of the time her parents harvested their own food. Had to walk everywhere they went or rode hoarse and buggies because their were no buses or cars. In school everyone was in one classroom 1st grade through 6th grade.

What does the person recall of the communication with members of the dominant culture?

If you wanted to talk to a white person they had to go to the back to talk to them. While they were walking home from school whites would throw spit balls out the bus windows.

What barriers to effective communication did he or she encounter?

Some white people were nice and you could talk to them and go to their house.

In the United States today, what is different in his or her life in terms of language, religion, family customs, diet, recreation, and work, as compared to childhood?

Back then they would call her nigger or colored today they don’t do that. White people back then were mostly catholic and African Americans were Baptist and later on they became Church of God In Christ. The churches weren’t as big as they are now, it’s nothing like the churches now.

Back then they would always have Sunday dinner and prayer before dinner.

There was no diet you had to eat what you had, peas and cornbread. Her dad would kill wild food sometimes. Today we can eat whatever we want much more freedom.

No parks like we do now, they would go swimming in the creeks. They’d play ball girls would get together and play hop scotch and jump rope. No pools

Get paid more money there weren’t many job for blacks they had to go to the field and pick cotton. Or grow corn for yourself and some else.

What role did the news media play in the interview subject's life and in either supporting or contesting the intereview subject's views of his or her culture?

Sometimes you’d know what was happening it would be on radio no TV.

How did the media influence his or her individual beliefs and opinions about males and females, masculinity and femininity, and other aspects of gender belief systems and views about race and ethnicity? (Cite specific examples he or she gives you regarding these two specific issues.)

Men and ladies liked each other the same sex was totally forbidden, it was not expectable at all. Like the Bible days they would kill the boys who thought they liked each other if they found out.

Didn’t know anything about the African people they were just colored people as far as she knew. And she knew nothing about the whites, the white and the blacks were totally seperate

If your interview subject spoke a different native language, ask him or her to discuss differences between that language and English. (Consider the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.)

What are some of the most significant differences in day-to-day life in the past versus today?

Feel more comfortable and more relaxed just living, if you want to go to the store you don’t expect anybody to attack you, you can go and do what you got to do.

From this interview, what can you conclude about important values in you interview subject's early life?

Reference Page

Jandt, F.E. (2013). An introduction to intercultural communication: Identities in a global community (7th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964: A Long Struggle for FreedomThe Segregation Era (1900–1939). (n.d.). Retrieved December 29, 2015, from https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/civil-rights-act/segregation-era.html