Sociology West Indians in America - Interview of Haitian Immigrant
Michael Dawkins
Sociology
West Indians in America
Short paper #3
After
a long day of school and work, I slowly walked down the narrow one way street
from my car which led to the apartment where I live. I entered the house and
walked upstairs to the apartment on the second floor. I opened the door and got
settled in. I went in my sister’s room to use her computer. While I was showing
my mother how to do certain functions in Microsoft Excel, I received a call
from Nathalie. I had asked Nathalie if I can interview her for this paper and
she agreed. I remembered that Nathalie mentioned that she was from Haiti ,
so I thought she would be an excellent person for this interview.
I
asked Nathalie about her the Haitians customs and traditions that her family engages
at home. Nathalie informed me that Haitian music is played during cooking and
“…on Saturday mornings, when there is nothing to do …”. She said that Creole is
the spoken language in her home; she also added that “…Creole is the language
of the country.”. A popular Haitian delicacy that is served in her home is
named Conch (Lambi in Creole)
which consist of a “huge” snail (from the sea) that is served alongside fried
plantain, roasted pork and cabbage. She said Conch is similar to Escargot, which is a French dish.
I
researched Escargot and Conch on Google.com and Wikipedia.org and I saw the
actual dish and snail, I also read that Conch is a very popular dish in the
Caribbean and in Florida
Nathalie
explained that there were no particular Haitian garments, she said “…growing up,
my sister wore African head wraps and my brother wore Le Tigre…” which meant
that the Haitian clothing was African and French influenced. Nathalie stated
that religion in Haiti
is mostly Catholic however there are many cultural, African religions such as Voodon.
She also discussed her migration to the United States ; she said that it was
difficult to learn the language when she came to the U.S. . Since she was young
when she arrived in the U.S. ,
she did not have a Haitian accent.
The
reason why I asked Nathalie if she had an accent is because I recall my
mother’s recollection of her difficulties in school because people made fun of
her because she had a Jamaican accent. I could infer that several West Indian
migrants experienced some form of ridicule because of their language or the way
that they talked.
Interviewing
Nathalie was interesting because I received a more in depth view of Haitian
culture and it made me aware of several similarities and differences between
West Indian groups. For instance, I noticed that her family plays Haitian music
during leisure time which I could equate to my Guyanese friends’ family who
also listen to their culture music during cooking and leisure. One of the
differences would be that her family speaks Creole, language and dialect varies
from country to country depending on who the colonizer was. Nathalie was very informative;
she gave descriptive replies to all the questions I asked. I was taking a
little bit too long when I was thinking of the questions to ask Nathalie (while
I was speaking to her) and I could sense she was anxious because she had to do
her own interview. I thanked her allowing me the time to interview her.
Comments
Post a Comment