Ashanti Nedrick

Professor Furlong

Interview Essay

April 5, 2021

                                             A Dominican Sports Fan

   Being interviewed could seem awkward while most could be perfectly normal to a person based on the kind of questions that are being asked. I think to myself for a brief minute. “Are these questions good enough”? “Will this person feel uncomfortable with answering them or do these kinds of questions lead me to the answers I’m looking for”. But of course, the only way of finding out is by proceeding with the interview. On Wednesday, March 24th, I had to interview a classmate of mine for an essay in my English class. I was kind of worried because the interview would take place on zoom and I thought it was unusual because interviews usually are better in person. His name was Fernando and seemed very intriguing as we greet each other through the camera. It had looked like he was sitting at a dining table with air pods on which made me think that his home is probably nice or maybe even big. There was barely even a trace of noise in the background which gave me the assumption that he may have no siblings or he is home alone.“Whenever you’re ready, just ask your questions and I’ll answer” he says and I instantly look for my list of questions that I had written down before the meeting. Once I found my questions, I took a pause and went on towards my very first question. “Where are you from and what do you consider your ethnicity to be?”  I asked just to get a good vibe on where he’s from or parents from and to get to know a little bit about him. Although, he seemed very interested but also very unsettled by the question as well. He states that the answer to this question all depends on where he is, which I thought was an interesting way of answering the question. “When I’m here, I say I’m from the Dominican Republic but when I’m in the Dominican Republic, I say I’m from America,” he says. I simply nod as he continues to talk about his cousin and how he tells him that he’s not a Dominican if he was born in America which gets him very upset. He simply hates it when people call him something he’s not. He adds that he considers himself Dominican but wants to get his Dominican citizenship to prove his cousin wrong and I thought that was courageous of him.

     “My next question is…What motivates you the most” I then say. I wanted to know if he had a role model or someone he looks up to the most because usually everyone does. He responds with “ it’s a mixture of a couple of things”. He talks about his mom getting hurt a long time ago and how it affected him as a kid. There would be times where his mom wouldn’t get money because she couldn’t work and he would have to help out a lot knowing that she couldn’t do stuff on her own. Seeing her down like that motivated him to be more of a big help for his mom physically and financially as well. He’s known to be more independent and very emotional so seeing his mom in that condition “hits me” as he would explain it. He also mentions his fear of struggling for money or school even. Noticing people who struggle every day scares him mostly and makes him more aware. I think to myself that I too look up to my mom as well. I certainly wouldn’t be in college or have the opportunities that I have today if It wasn’t for her. I honestly thought that was very determined of him that he can take responsibilities like that. The next question becomes “Was there a moment that impacted you the most?”. This question mostly continues about his mom and how it matured him to be more responsible. I then ask “Is there anything you would want to change about yourself?”. He answers “ I wish I could express my emotions better” in which he means that he doesn’t express his feelings more than he usually wants to. He explains that he thinks more with his head than his heart and it can be sometimes hard to relate to people. 

     “Describe yourself in 3 words,” I ask not knowing where I’m going with the questions I am asking him. He paused for a good minute trying to search for words carefully in his head and then began to speak. “Meticulous because I pay attention to little details in a person and I am very aware as I watch the little things about literally anything,” he says. “Passionate because I go hard for the things I like doing and also non-judgemental because I’ve learned to not judge people or stereotype people. I used to do it a lot but it has changed over time” he says as I write down notes while he is speaking.

   I then ask questions that were more towards the theme of this interview paper which is the term “subculture”. I was curious about what he had associated himself with the subculture he chose for this paper. “What subculture would you consider yourself to be a part of and why?” I asked with curiosity. “A sports fan because I keep up with it a lot and it’s something I am passionate about. I don’t really play sports and I am not part of a team but I’m more of a fan of it,” He says. I wanted to know more about him and his subculture so I used a follow up question to allow him to explain more about his everyday life of being a sports fan. “Tell me more about this “subculture” on how it’s connected to your everyday life?” I had asked next. “I keep up with 6 different apps such as NFL, NBA, ESPN, bleacher report, and more to do with soccer, basketball, baseball, and football,” He says. He talks about having a wardrobe filled with different teams that he favors. Fernando used to play mostly basketball pre-covid and is thinking maybe starting his own podcast to express his love for sports more. “How would you recommend someone about this subculture?” I then asked knowing that he had probably answered this question already. “Talk to people and mostly through social media,” he says with passion. He figured that since everyone is hooked on social media, it would be the best place to start like a podcast or even youtube. It had then come down to my final question. “Do you see yourself as a part of this subculture in the future?”  I asked. His answer seemed as I thought of the start of the interview but kind of surprised on how he worded it. “Yes, pretty much until I die” he had said but goes into detail on why. “I got into it because of my dad but I’m more for baseball,’‘ he says with a smile. “My dad would take me to games and that’s kinda how it started and I thought it was gonna be like the real game,” he says and with that, the interview was finished.

    To conclude, I think this interview was a great process that helped me gather information on a person and help me know more about a person in general. To sum up, I thought that Fernando is a very bright but very determined kind of person as I asked him questions about himself and his ideal subculture that he associates himself with. I learned new things about him in which I had to choose questions that would reveal more about himself. Through this interview process, I learned more about the kind of questions that we ask a person, which can be open, close, or even a follow-up question as well. Fernando was an excellent interviewer and we both realized that subcultures are very vague when you first think about them. It can be anything that interests you, something you favor or even something that even motivates you as well. This interview process made me realize that it is all in the questions that u ask that get you the info that you need from a person.