Interview with A Migrant

Interviewing a migrant was an amazing experience for myself.  I interviewed a man named David who was originally from Trinidad, who moved here when he was only the age of 9.  He wasn't very talkative to me, however once he was able to get comfortable to me he became a little more open.  I have known him for about 6 years, but just by talking to him I learned a lot more about from him in this interview then I have in the 6 years that I have known him.  There were a lot of interesting information that I learned from him such as how he used to have family there, but doesn't anymore. Also I learned how he had moved from Trinidad to Jamaica to the United States then finally to Canada and how he was one of the only coloured people in his area at the time.  There was a lot of things that I learned from this interview, and I feel that I understand him a lot better now that I have been able to see his journey and some of the things that he has gone through.

There were a couple problems that arose in getting and creating this interview with him.  He works a lot with World Vision, so he was a little busy, but he was very interested in doing the interview and was able to give me a couple minutes of his time.  When doing the interview there were a couple problems that did arise, one problem was getting him to talk about his past.  Many people don't want to talk about their past especially if something has happened to them, but in this case he explained that there was not a lot for him to talk about, but what he did end up talking about was very good and rich information that intrigued me and gave me a lot of knowledge.  I really enjoyed doing this interview with him because I was able to incorporate my own program into this course by video taping the interview.  He was shy to the camera at first but once we began to talk he started to warm up to the idea of being on camera and really got into the mood of the interview.

Not only is it myself that learned a lot from doing this interview, but I am sure that everyone in my class has learned a lot about the people that they interviewed, whither it was their mother, father, neighbour, or even a friend; by sitting down and talking to them about their past and their journeys to Canada we are able to understand some of the hardships and struggles that people do face to come to this country.  Not only do we realize how some people faced hardships to get to Canada, but I have also realized how blessed and grateful I am to be born here so that I didn't have to go through some of the hardships that people have had to face.  Therefore, this interview not only was a good thing for the person that did the interview, but also by sharing the interviews with our classmates it has helped all of us to gain valuable knowledge for this course and our lives.