Methods Practice 1: Interviewing

Methods Practice 1: Interviewing

I was able to interview a student from Mexico this past Friday. I found her simply by looking around campus and asking her where she was from. I had never met her before but she was very friendly and willing to answer any questions that I had. So this interview was semi-structured. I had most of the control over the topics of discussion, but she was also able to freely answer the questions and expound as she liked.
Activity level changes
Some of the points of interest that she brought up were the differences in activities between children when she was small and children today. She feels that kids today are not as active as she was when she was a girl. She says that she remembers always running and running. In her opinion the rumors of increasing obesity among children is true. In addition, she feels that not just children but adults are less active than they were in the past. More people take cars and buses instead of walking. She gave two reasons for this, increased laziness and increased danger. She felt that both were equally to blame.
Comparing US and Mexico
I feel it important to also note that of the activities that she listed having taken part in, the differences that I might note from my childhood is that she walked a lot more as a primary means of transportation and she also noted that they played a lot of soccer. She did not mention bicycles or other types of toys that they played with. I also didn't ask her about them either. But she mentioned being outside a lot and playing games like hide and seek or other games that they would make up. This is something very similar to what I enjoyed as a child as well.
Diet
Another interesting note was the diet she described. She mentioned a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables. She didn't even know that you could get frozen vegetables at the store. She also made it a point to say that Mexicans eat a lot of fried food that can be very fatty. The meals they eat are also usually very fresh even if they are fried. They do not eat often at fast food restaurants. And McDonalds in Mexico has more fresh foods and takes longer to eat there than in the United States- according to her.
She also talks about "treats." She did not eat a lot of junk food and sugar as a girl. For treats she would have a lot of fruit. She eats more candy in the United States as an adult than she did as a girl in Mexico. 
PE in schools
When asked about physical education in schools she mentioned that during the younger years PE mostly focused on fitness testing instead of instruction. In the later years they were taught to play sports like volleyball and also played a lot of soccer. In addition, they were taught how to dance in school. I want to note that she didn't think of this as physical activity. I asked her directly about dancing and the latin culture. She agreed that it was a big part of the culture but that they didn't do it much until they got older. As children they were dance in school and at parties sometimes, but it was mostly for adults.)
Influence of technology
At the end of the interview she made it a point that the advances in technology were the cause of the obesity problems and lack of physical activity among children. She did not have tv growing up and now every household has a tv. She also mentioned the numerous television channels with cartoons and other kid type shows that are available all day long. This is another change from her childhood. She said that when they did watch television it was at a certain time that they could watch cartoons and then after that they had to find other things to do. I asked her as well about video games. She said that she doesn't know many kids who have video games, but she feels that computer games are getting bigger and bigger and more children are spending time doing that.

Mexican student (M)
Interviewer (I)
I: How long have you been in the United States?
M: about 5 years.
I: Did you know English before you came?
M: A little bit. My father, for a little while, was a graduate student here getting his masters. So when I was really little I learned English but then we moved back to Mexico and I was there until I decided to come here to go to school.
I: Well your English is very good. I imagine that it would be very difficult to go to school in a non-native language.
M: Yeah it is. My English isn’t perfect and it’s a lot different here.
I: What are you studying?
- (Information is too identifying and not related to this study. Also, I gave her a brief introduction to the study that I’m doing and we had a little bit of good yet irrelevant small talk.)
I: what kinds of activities did you participate in as a kid?
M: Oh we were always playing. We were always outside. We played games like hide and seek and a lot of futbol. We didn’t have a tv so we were outside all the time.
I: what about dancing? Isn’t that something very integrated into all latino cultures? When do you start learning to dance and how much is it a part of your life?
M: Oh yeah dancing is huge. As little kids we don’t dance very much. There is dancing at parties maybe and other activities but little children don’t dance a lot. But then we learn it in school. They teach us different dances in school. And so then we start to dance more and it’s really fun. Later on though we don’t want to do it because we are embarrassed. We think that people are looking at us and stuff.
I: So is this like a teenager type attitude?
M: Yeah when we are teenagers we don’t want to dance. We think it’s weird or something. But when we get older we really like it. We dance at everything. All parties and holidays. It’s a lot of fun.
I: What about other activities or sports? Do they teach you other sports in school?
M: What do you mean?
I: Well for example, in the United States we have PE classes. . .
M: Oh yeah we have those too in Mexico. In elementary school they give us physical testing you know like jumping jacks or they measure how far we can stretch. Things like that. Then later in Junior High we learn to play a lot of sports. We learn like volleyball and we play lots of futbol. Then we have tournaments and things like that to compete in and it’s a lot of fun.
I: What about at home? What kinds of chores did you do? For instance, did you help your mom cook or work out in the yard with your dad or help him fix things?
M: Yeah – mom would cook. . . I remember my dad would play with us a lot. He was always doing things with us. He would take us to the beach every week. He would also bring the neighbors and we would go to the beach to play. Our house was only like 3 blocks from the ocean and so we would walk there.
I: Did you walk most places? Did you walk to school for instance?
M: Yeah we walked a lot. When I was a little girl I was always running everywhere. I would walk to school when I was really little and then I would take the bus when I got older. But a lot of people walked. They don’t so much anymore. And the kids do not play the same now as they used to.
I: So you think that the things that you did as a kid aren’t the same as what they do now.
M: Yeah the kids don’t play as much as they used to. Not outside. They don’t have the same games. They watch a lot more television. We didn’t even have a tv but now everyone has a tv. And even you don’t see as many people just walking, they are lazier. They take the bus mostly. The public transportation there is really good. Not like here in Provo. But still before people walked a lot more. I guess it’s also kind of dangerous now. More than it was before.
I: So would you say that the people are walking less because of the danger or because they are lazy? Which do you feel is the main cause?
M: I think it’s both honestly. I think that both factors go into it.
I: Okay, well let me ask you about eating and food in Mexico. How many meals do you eat and can you describe them a little bit?
M: Well when we were little we would take lunch to school. A packed lunch. And we have four meals a day, not just three. But the last one is very light. It would usually be something small like bread and some chocolate milk. So it wasn’t really like a meal.
I: Yeah it seems like just a small snack.
M: Yeah it was very light. We would have that and then three other meals. And we ate every day at the same time.
I: What kinds of foods would you eat?
M: My mom would cook it mostly. We ate a lot of fresh vegetables. I didn’t even know that frozen vegetables existed. I thought it was so weird when I came here and saw that you could freeze vegetables. They are not as good. But it is kind of nice because I don’t have a lot of time to cook.
I: So would you take more time to cook and eat when you were in Mexico than you do now?
M: Yeah we would always eat at the house and it was always fresh veggies. We rarely ate fast food. If we ate fast food it was like on the weekend and we thought it was like a special occasion. It wasn’t very common, not like I do now here. And for example, McDonalds is a lot different there. The fast food is different. The McDonalds uses fresh food, fresh fruits and vegetables. And it’s not really fast. If you go there you still have to wait like thirty minutes to get your food because they cook it after you order it. It’s not like here where you get it thirty seconds after you order it.
I: Yeah it’s more like that in France. The food is a lot better too. I don’t think even Americans like the American McDonalds.
M: Yeah in Mexico it is a lot better tasting but it is not as fast as here.
I: What are some differences in your eating habits since you’ve come to the United States?
M: I don’t really eat fruit any more. I used to eat a lot of fruit in Mexico. I would have a lot of mangoes and pineapples and things like that. In Mexico they are a lot better and cheaper. And when I was little I would eat fruit as a treat. To me it was special to eat fruit. We didn’t really eat it with our meals. We ate it more like for dessert. We didn’t have a lot of chocolate or cookies or things like that. I don’t remember eating a lot of that when I was a kid. In fact I think that I eat more of it now than I did when I was little. The candy that we had was even kind of spicy.
I: Oh yeah, I’ve had Mexican candy before and it was like a sucker cover in chili power.
M: Oh yeah we love that. We put chili power on everything and we really like to eat a lot of spicy foods. We would even put it on the fruit and eat fruit with spicy stuff on it.
I: What other kinds of foods did you eat a lot in Mexico?
M: Well, remember we aren’t perfect. We would have fresh fruits and vegetables but we had a lot of fried food as well. We love eating lots of food and deep frying it.
I: I’ve read several articles about an increasing trend of obesity in Mexico, similar to what we are seeing in the United States. What do you think of that? Have you noticed it and what would you suggest is influencing it?
M: Oh yeah well I think that there are a lot of things that go into it. I do feel like the kids are fatter. They don’t run around and play like we used to. I blame technology. You know when I was little we were sometimes able to watch cartoons but they only came on at a certain time. Now kids have tons of channels with cartoons all the time. They can just sit and watch for hours. When we watched tv there was a certain time slot that we could watch them in and we would but then there was nothing else to watch and so we went outside to play.
I: Is it just television or are video games also really big there right now?
M: I don’t see a lot of video games. But I do see a lot of computer games which is essentially the same thing. A lot of kids also play a lot of computer games.
I: Hmm, that is interesting. . . . Okay well thanks so much for letting me talk to you. That is pretty good for not. Good luck.
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