Interview with My Mom Essay Example

I decided to choose my mom to interview to gather more information on my family history. My family is split between two very different families culturally. My dad’s side of the family is German and Polish. My great grandfather immigrated to the United States sometime after World War two and lived in northeast Ohio for the first of his life. My mother moved from Puerto Rico to Ohio when she was a small child. I never talked to my mom very much about her early life or even the lives of our ancestors. I had many questions to ask her about life in Puerto Rico and about our family still living there. 

It was nearly seven o’clock, incredibly dark, and snowing furiously outside; a perfect time to interview my mother, to ask her all the questions I have about our family, our heritage, and our culture. After asking my mother permission to conduct the interview and explaining my goals for this conversation, we started with an opening question to brighten the atmosphere, “So why would you move from a place with the perfect weather nearly all year around to Ohio’. My mother laughed and said, “I didn’t have a choice”.  I asked further why her parents; Wilson, and Lidia moved to Ohio.  She said, “your grandpa wanted a better life for his family”. Grandpa’s journey to America started at a much younger age.  Before I was even in the picture, dad was drafted into the Vietnam war. He never talked much about it, but there was one story he would always laugh about. It was the time he had to go to Germany. Instead of flying to Germany, he had to take an old boat there and he thought he was going to die at sea the whole time.  I laughed and said that would explain why I never saw grandpa go on a boat before.  We laughed for a while. 

Grandpa Wilsons Journey to Ohio was a journey of experiences. While in the military, he made many friends from the States. Their experiences in the States inspired Grandpa and gave him a new prospective of life outside of Puerto Rico. Colleges in Puerto Rico are very Americanized. Grandpa Learned how to speak and write English while Studying civil engineering. Finally, Grandpa’s wife, Lidia, had an uncle and brother who already made the difficult journey of moving to Cleveland, Ohio. 

 The next burning question about Grandpa Wilson was what he liked to do once he moved to Ohio. All I ever knew about Grandpa Wilson is that he liked to drink alcohol and raise his pet chickens. My mother explained that while in Ohio Grandpa Wilson had many hobbies. His main hobby was rooster fighting. She clarified that rooster fighting in Puerto Rico was a national sport “It wasn’t until recently that cock fighting in Puerto Rico was banned by the supreme court.” My mother then went on to say that Grandpa used to take trips to New York with his friends from Church. In New York they had enormous illegal rooster fights. During one of his trips to New York with his friends he got caught in the middle of a very large sting operation. My mom said “I remember my mom frantically calling everyone she should to help because dad was in jail. She had to beg the pastor from church to bail your grandpa out from jail.”  

As a young child in Ohio, Madeleine, my mother, faced many challenges. Growing up in a Spanish only speaking family Madeleine had to learn English while in school. The other children didn’t understand the hardships of moving to a place with a completely different language and culture. Kids from class would follow her home and throw rocks toward her. “What really helped me growing up was my brother Eli.” Uncle Eli was tough and would not let anyone hurt his family. I redirected our interview to Madeleine’s thoughts on moving back to Puerto Rico. She explained that as a younger child she wanted to move back to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico is a beautiful place. But as I grew up, Cleveland became my home. As we neared the end of our interview my mom asked if I had any more questions because she must be up early in the morning. I told her no and we completed our interview.