I am a student born to parents who belonged to different cultures and communities. My father is an Irish and my mother is of Mexican descent, so ideally speaking I should be having substantial knowledge of both the communities. However, this is not so and I lack any knowledge and first hand information regarding the Mexican cultures and traditions. Therefore, I decided to interview Jesus Paz, who is a Mexican and grandfather of my friend Sarah. I had never conducted any interview with a stranger and Jesus Paz was no less than a stranger to me. However, I provided myself with the consolation that I had some connection, although in an indirect way with my friend’s grandfather.
Jesus Paz is an immigrant from the town of Jalisco Mexico who migrated to the United States of America in the year 2000. He has fond memories of his childhood and development in the Mexican culture and was a farm worker for the most part of his life. He and his family worked on a ranch for a living which was owned by a man of Caucasian race.
What alarmed me during the interview is that Kaz knows nothing about his owner in spite of working with him nearly all his life! Another startling point was that although kaz spent most of his life in poverty, he never felt that he was poor because everyone he knew was also poor. This reflects the state of Mexicans with majority of the people being poor and leading a hand to mouth existence, and being employed as manual laborers. Hailing from a wealthy family, I found it very strange that people would not feel that they are poor because their entire community and friends are poor too.
When I questioned Jesus regarding the acculturation to the new dominant culture of the United States, Jesus related his story to me. Jesus had moved to the U.S. with his son, Jolio. Jolio had received a scholarship to UCI at the age of 18 years and had to move to Irvine to attend college and pursue further education. Currently Jolio is a successful business man who runs an air-conditioning service, and is the father of my friend Sarah. While interviewing Jesus I realized that he is a simple down-to-earth man who does not believe in flaunting his possessions.
He also lays great importance on family and familial relationships and wonders why people would want to worry about anything else except the family. Jesus also has many cousins in Santa Ana and fondly remembers them. He spends maximum of his time helping his cousin with the construction of his new home and also helping his son at his business. Even though he is old, Jesus does not believe in retiring and slowing down in life since his father had told him that if a man slows down in life, he dies. Jesus considers these words of wisdom from his father and practices them to the fullest.
The structure of the family is of crucial importance to Jesus which is the reason why he migrated to America. When his son pressed on Jesus to migrate to the U.S., he had to give in, especially after the death of his wife Maria, who died of heart failure and whom he had promised that he would live with his son. Jesus states that had his wife been alive and had she not taken a promise from him, he wouldn’t have considered moving to the U.S. This reflects the bond Jesus has with his native land and how much he misses it. This also reflects the fact that Jesus would prefer to lead a life of poverty than settle as a rich man’s father in the U.S.
When asked about his experiences with assimilation and acculturation, Jesus explains of the language barrier between himself and the other people living in his locality. He also holds on to the roots of his culture and when he sees this foreign culture, he laments at the plight of the people. When I enquired how people seek medical help in their community, Jesus affirmed that medical help for any other illness besides physical pain was considered to be a sign of weakness and that he would never think about that under any circumstances. He states that his son had offered to him to get psychological help after the death of his wife, to which he had refused and asserted that he would never do that.
When I questioned Jesus how professional counseling was regarded in their culture, he said that it is considered as a joke. He reasoned that people don’t have the money for such things and that it is considered to be a sign of weakness in their culture. Gauging by Jesus’s interview, he seems to be an extremely family oriented man with rigid cultural values and traditions. It is apparent that due to poverty, counseling services are not considered among people of the Mexican community. The Mexicans consider counseling to be a sign of weakness rather than help seeking behavior. To the Mexicans, family and relatives are the first priority and they do not assimilate with people from other cultures and communities owing to language barriers and other cultural barriers with regard to behavior.