Social Science Question
Students will be required to interview someone who has been an international immigrant at some point in their lives. The purpose of the interview should be to learn more about the immigrant’s feelings and lived experience.
As a first suggestion, consider interviewing someone you know: Think first about your parents, grandparents or other relatives who have had an immigration experience. Next, think about others you might know from personal experience (a neighbor who lived down the street where you grew up, or someone from church, or a teacher/professor, etc., or possibly a friend, roommate, classmate, etc.)
You can interview a total stranger, and any students with difficulty finding a subject to interview may work with the professor to find someone in the local community willing to participate. However, please be sensitive to the fact that immigrants may be uncertain about whether they can trust telling a complete stranger about their experiences and feelings (often with good reason).
There are three deliverables associated with this assignment:
Each student must work with the professor to develop a plan for the interview, including an anticipated general theme and a specific list of questions. The interview must be scheduled, and the interviewee must be given a sense of the nature and purposes of the interview (including a clear disclosure agreement: what happens after the interview?).
Each student must write a creative piece describing the experience. Several formats are possible. For example, a likely essay format might compare and contrast what the student expected to learn from the experience, and how reality differed from that expectation.
At the end of the semester, students will be asked to give a brief oral report to the class about their experience, removing any identifying information about the individual interviewed, and focusing on the single most interesting thing learned in the experience.
