Intercultural Interview

Intercultural Interview Paper

In my place of employment, I am surrounded by different cultures, ethnicity, religion and sexual orientation. We have a very diverse workforce and a very diverse customer base. For me, it was a difficult transition from my otherwise shelter existance. I grew up in Haslett, which I am sure you know is a prodominatly white, middle to upper class community with very little diversity. I was never exposed to people who were different from me. The closest we ever got to different, were the kids who dressed “funny” or wore their hair crazy to stand out but in all reality, we were all the same. I was always raised to be accepting of others, even if they were different so when I got out of High School and in to the “real world” I was eager to learn and be exposed to new people. It wasn’t that easy though. There were and still are many communication barriers that I have to break through with people from other cultures and backgrounds. I was exited about doing this assignment because it gives me a chance to do that. My first major challenge was choosing someone to interview. I finally decided to interview a co-worker named Chad.

Chad is a 20-something homo-sexual male with a very interesting story to tell. I chose Chad because of homo-sexuality has always been the one thing that has made me uncomfortable or I guess for a lack of a better term “freaked me out” so I decided to face it head on and interview Chad about his lifestyle. Chad’s life had been far from easy. His choice of lifestyle, or has he would say “the way he was born” has made him the black sheep among

parts of his family, friends and co-workers. I asked Chad when did he first realize he was gay. He told me that he has always known. He said “ It’s like when you are in middle school and you get your first crush, for most guys it was on a girl but for me it was on another boy. I remember it like it was yesterday. It was sixth grade and we had broken up into groups for a science project, after a few days of working with same people, I developed a sort of attraction to the only other boy in our group. I tried to talk myself out if, because clearly I was confused and clearly I had no idea what was going on but the butterflies in my stomach became more intense every time I saw him. At that point I knew I was different. Chad struggled with the idea that he might be gay. He tried for years to convince himself he was straight. He tried dating girls