Cultural Immersion Project: Interview Paper Assignment

Cultural Immersion Project: Interview Paper Assignment
Part I: Interview with a Representative of UnidosUS

1. What is the purpose/mission statement of UnidosUS?
   Interviewee: As the country’s largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization, our
   purpose and mission are two-fold. This includes contributing to a stronger America by raising
   the voice of Latinos and advancing our community’s concerns, and creating a world where
   nothing stands in the way of Latinos realizing their fullest potential. We accomplish these by
   empowering Latinos to define and achieve their own American Dream. We empower them
   through our research, policy analysis, federal and state advocacy work, and our community-
   based program works countrywide. Most of our community program work is done by our 300
   or so affiliates spread across the country and serving millions of Latinos.
2. What services are offered to the target population?
   Interviewee: Our services to the Latino community include services in the areas of housing,
   health, education, workforce, the economy, immigration, and civic engagement, and are
   provided mostly by our affiliates. For example, in the area of immigration, we help
   immigrants become citizens. Since our founding in 1968, we have helped 1.4 million
   immigrants acquire citizenship. In the area of housing, since 1997, our Homeownership
   Network has helped over 33,000 families acquire their first home. The Network has helped
   another 90,000 families avoid foreclosure. In the area of workforce, thanks to our advocacy,
   some 2 million Latino homecare workers now enjoy minimum wage and overtime
   protections.

3. How are members of the population made aware of available services?
   Interviewee: Members of the Latino community learn about our services mainly through our
   close to 300 Affiliates, community-based organizations that are in direct contact with the
   Latino population around the country. Because of their proximity to members of the Latino
   population, their knowledge of the policy issues and practical concerns that affect their
   respective constituencies is unparalleled. Meanwhile, each Affiliate and its constituency
   represent a close-knit community in which information travels quite effectively through
   word-of-mouth. These are the reasons UnidosUS has delegated to its Affiliates the bulk of
   our program work and the delivery of our various services. As of February 2022, we had 282
   Affiliates spread across six regions: California, Texas, Southeast, Northeast, Midwest, and
   Far West. Of these, California and Texas are the most important regions, with each
   representing a single state: California and Texas, respectively. California has 63 Affiliates
   (the largest number), while Texas has 28. These figures reflect the importance of the two
   states as the main points of entry for Latino immigrants.
4. What are the areas of greatest need not only for the organization but also within the
   population?
   Interviewee: Owing to the growing population of Latino population in the country and for us
   to be able to serve our clientele effectively, our greatest need is more financial resources.
   Over the last decade, the Latino share of the country’s population has grown from 16% to
   18%. Latinos and Hispanics now constitute the country’s second-largest racial group. This
   trend, coupled with our clientele’s growing needs, especially those of immigrants, and the
   fact that the organization operates nationally, has led to a situation where the organization’s
   resources are overstretched. For our target population, the greatest need, we believe, is racial
   equity. Racial inequity means that, relative to whites, Latinos are disadvantaged in several

areas. For instance, just before the Covid-19 pandemic, close to 19% of Latinos had no form
of health insurance, compared to 6.3% of whites. With the pandemic, the situation has likely
worsened.

5. What are some of the more significant challenges for this population that is served?
   What are some steps that have been taken to address these challenges, if any?
   Interviewee: Racial equity aside, the most significant challenge facing Latinos in the US is
   the lack of full economic participation. Full economic participation is an important matter
   because it has ripple effects in that it affects other aspects of Latino households. For example,
   unrealized full economic potential means that Latino children may not experience the best
   educational outcomes possible. However, it is worth noting that while Latinos as a whole is
   economically disadvantaged relative to white Americans, foreign-born Latinos are more
   disadvantaged than their US-born counterparts. Though one of the country’s most
   entrepreneurial ethnic groups, Latinos still face several barriers to full economic
   participation. In the realm of business, these barriers include challenges in accessing bank
   financing, limited access to professional advice, and little to no online presence.
   To help overcome these challenges and other economic challenges facing Latinos, UnidosUS
   and its Affiliates are implementing a number of workforce development programs aimed at
   closing the wage up, imparting digital skills, and increasing racial equity in hiring. One of
   those programs is Latinos in Business which trains current and aspiring Latino business
   owners in digital literacy.

6. What is the importance of social justice within the organization and for the cultural
   group that is served?
   Interviewee: Our work can be summed up as the pursuit of social justice for Latinos. In
   particular, our pursuit of racial equity is tantamount to social justice because we are fighting
   for fairness across racial and ethnic divides in the various areas we work in: housing, health,
   education, workforce and the economy, immigration, and civic engagement. For our clientele,
   social justice and racial equity are important insofar as they help in closing the gaps that exist
   in various facets of Latino and white lives. For example, by working to promote racial equity
   in hiring, we believe we will help the 153k gap in the wealth of Latino and white households.
   For your information, in 2019, the average Latino household had a wealth of about $36,000
   compared to $189,000 for white households.

Part II: Interview with an Individual Latina
Interview prompt 1: Tell me a bit about yourself and your background.
Interviewee: I am a 58-year-old Mexican-American and a journalist by profession. My
family moved to the US in 1964 when I was only a few months old. I am the fourth- and last-
born. My mother’s unexpected pregnancy and my subsequent birth played a big role in my
family’s decision to move to the US. With three kids, my dad might have managed to scrap
together a living in Mexico, but with my arrival?
Of course, I had no way of knowing all this at the time. But looking back with the benefit of
hindsight, my family moved here at a historical time when the country was once more
redefining the way it relates to immigrants. President John F. Kennedy had just been
assassinated a few months earlier, but roughly a year or so after moving here, my family
would be one of the first beneficiaries of the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, for
which JKF had paved the way. Himself the grandson of Irish Catholic immigrants, JKF was

more accommodative of immigrants than his predecessors. Besides his deep ties to his own
Irish Catholic descent, JKF was keen on identifying with the other and the outsider. The
Immigration and Nationality Act repealed the quota system that had been used since the
1920s. Coincidentally, at the time, the US was keen on attracting skilled workers – folks like
my dad, brilliant professionals and experts in their fields, who could help the country
maintain its competitiveness in business, science, and technology.
Born in 1932, my dad had grown up in the then small town of Tampico together with his two
sisters, his mom, and my grandpa, who owned a ranch with horses and cows outside of town.
Tampico was an oil and port town, smelly, dusty, and hot. And even though the university
had no air-conditioning, my dad still spent most of his time in the dull libraries studying
medical books on the inner ear and surgery.
Interview prompt 2: What would you describe as some of your key cultural events?
Some examples of key cultural events include interactions with the majority culture,
experiences of racism/discrimination, positive experiences with the majority and other
cultures, holiday/religious celebrations, or festivals.
Interviewee: Overall, growing up, I had positive experiences with the majority and other
cultures. I remember the day mom walked into the principal’s office with me, her fourth
Spanish-speaking. My older sister and brothers were attending the school already. The
principal, the vice-principal, and the secretary were all excited to see me. “You didn’t tell us
you have another kid!” they squealed. “Welcome to our school! We now have four Mexicans
with us. How exciting!”
No one else looked like me. But the fact that my classmates came from diverse backgrounds
made me feel safe somehow. There were white and black kids, plus a boy called Tahir and a
girl named Takeuchi.

As I grew older, however, I increasingly felt discriminated against on the basis of my race.
Starting from my teenage years, I cannot recall a year that passed without at least one
incident of discrimination. In terms of the how and where I have experienced discrimination,
the majority of incidents have been in public places like a store, public transportation, or a
restroom. Other settings in which I have experienced discrimination include at school, in the
workplace, from my residential neighbors, or during interactions with law enforcement.
Sometimes I have felt that the discrimination directed at me has been a significant barrier to
accessing services. For example, I stopped counting the number of times I felt I was denied
access to rental housing on the basis of my race. More important than access to services.
However, there were times I felt that discrimination was adversely affecting my
psychological, spiritual, physical, and economic well-being, especially when I was younger.

3. My emotional reaction to my interviewee’s key cultural events
   Listening to my interviewee narrate her key cultural events, I could not help but feel
   that, somehow, she was luckier than the average foreign-born Latino coming to the US today.
   I felt that her family’s assimilation into the US ways of life was fairly smooth. I think I felt
   the way I did and attributed her and her family’s experiences to several factors. First, her
   family moved to the US at a time when the country’s attitude toward immigrants was fairly
   positive. Immigrants, especially professionals, were viewed more like welcome assets rather
   than unwelcome guests (Hirschman, 2014). I believe that today, overall, Americans’ attitude
   toward immigrants is more hostile than it was a few decades back. Secondly, I attributed my
   interviewee’s overall positive experiences to the fact that, by most measures, hers was a
   middle-class immigrant family.

4. New knowledge acquired through the individual interview
   My interview with the representative of UnidosUS created a fairly grim picture of a
   very disadvantaged group that needs help to survive in an unfriendly host country. Granted,
   the US may be much less friendly to immigrants today than it was in the 1960s (Budiman,
   2020). However, what I learned from my interview with the Mexican-American journalist is
   that the situation may not be as dire for all immigrants. I also learned that, far from being a
   homogeneous group, Latinos coming to the US is a very diverse group and that their
   experiences here will differ depending on their backgrounds. As stated previously, my
   interviewee’s family was middle-class at the time of moving to the US. Her father was a
   professional, and even back in Mexico, they lived a fairly comfortable life, except that the
   father felt that he had better chances of realizing his ambitions in the US than in Mexico. A
   poor Mexican family moving to the US would certainly have very different experiences.
5. Elements of Gracism applied to Latinos
   Based on my interactions with members of the Latino population, the main elements
   of Gracism I see operating are lifting, covering, and restitution (Anderson, 2010). In terms of
   lifting, there is a need to lift up and deliver social justice for those disadvantaged Latinos who
   have fallen victim to hostile immigration policies and practices. As they are lifted up through
   social justice, there is a need to pour out mercy and cover the most vulnerable through
   sacrificial acts of love. Finally, sharing means that there is a need for restitution to be made
   for those who have suffered the consequences of racial discrimination and inequity. Indeed,
   based on my interview with and impressions of the UnidosUS representative, the work of the
   organization embodies all these elements. Based on my experiences with Latinos through this
   immersion exercise, as a Gracist, some of the specific ways I can engage with this population
   include extending empathy and making that extra effort to understand what a Latinx person

may be experiencing or may have experienced in their pursuit of the American Dream the
client’s perspective (Newhouse, 2005). I would do that by deliberately reaching out to
Latinos in my sphere of influence: at work, at school, and in my neighborhood.

Part III: Summary Section
Comparing and contrasting what I learned in Parts I & II
Both parts are similar in at least two senses. First, both parts of the immersion
assignment revealed to me that the American Dream, whether or not referred to expressly, is
a major reason Latinos leave their home countries for the US. The UnidosUS representative
disclosed that their mission is to help Latinos define, pursue and achieve their ideas of the
American Dream. Coming to the individual interview, my interviewee revealed that the main
reason her family moved here was in pursuit of greener pastures. Secondly, both parts
revealed that in the US, one of the obstacles Latinos must overcome in their pursuit of the
American Dream is racial inequity and discrimination.
A major difference between the two parts is that not all Latinos coming to the US
need hand-holding by organizations like UnidosUS. The facts that, to date, UnidosUS has
helped more than 1.4 million Latino immigrants acquire citizens and over 33,000 families
acquire their first homes suggests that a majority of immigrants do need help to settle down.
On the other hand, my interviewee’s family did not need such help because it was an
educated, middle-class family. Another difference revealed through both parts was that,
compared to their poorer counterparts, children from middle-class immigrant families may
start experiencing racial inequity much later in life, say in the labor market.

The most surprising lesson learned
The most surprising thing I learned is that not all immigrant families are
disadvantaged and needy. This came as a surprise because, based on my interview with the
representative of UnidosUS, I got the impression that the overwhelming majority of Latinos
in the country are disadvantaged and struggling to cope. It is understandable for the
organization’s representative to create this type of picture because non-profit organizations
like UnidosUS tend to work with some of the most vulnerable members of society. On the
other hand, there is likely to be less interaction between them and well-to-do families like that
of the journalist I interviewed.
What has changed for me as a result of this immersion experience
Thanks to this immersion experience, now I have a better understanding of the Latino
population in the US and the challenges it experiences. For instance, I did not know that
Latinos and Hispanics are not only the second-largest ethnic group of the country’s
population but also the fastest-growing growth that is fueled both by the group’s natural
population increase and continuing immigration, even the latter may have been recently
weakened by less favorable immigration policies. In terms of the challenges facing the group,
I learned that racial inequity is the most formidable as it affects virtually all areas of Latino
families. For instance, racial inequity means that Latinos are unable to participate fully in the
country’s economy and realize their full economic potential.
However, I have also come to understand that it is not all doom and gloom for the
Latino population. The population also has some positive attributes to it. For example,
Latinos are known to be among the most enterprising racial group in the country, even if their
full entrepreneurial potential is hampered by a myriad of barriers. Unable to access decent

employment opportunities due to several factors like racial discrimination, self-employment
has always tended to be a natural alternative for this population.
Insights gained
The main insight gained from this immersion experience is that far from being a
homogenous group, Latinos in the US are a very diverse lot. Among other things, they differ
in their socio-economic backgrounds, something that ultimately plays a role in their
experiences in the US. On the one hand, are middle-class families that left their home
countries in pursuit of greener pastures here. Such was the case of the Mexican-American
journalist I interviewed in the second part of the immersion experience. On the other hand are
poor immigrants for whom entering the US is their only home to escape the poverty in their
home countries. Such are the people UnidosUS, and its Affiliates tend to.
I will apply these insights and the new knowledge to my work in the future by striving
to understand my clients individually. This will be important because each client will have
different needs depending on their circumstances. For instance, for poor immigrants, their
most pressing needs are likely to be shelter and employment. A well-of client, on the other
hand, maybe interested in finding a racially diverse environment in which to continue the
music classes they had started in their home country. Also, understanding my clients as
individuals will help me become a more empathetic practitioner.

References

Anderson, D. A. (2010). Gracism: The Art of Inclusion. IVP Books: Westmont.
Budiman, A. (2020, August 20). Key findings about US immigrants. Retrieved from Pew
Research Center: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/08/20/key-findings-
about-u-s-immigrants/
Hirschman, C. (2014). Immigration to the United States: Recent Trends and Future Prospects.
Malays Journal of Economic Studies, 51(1), 69-85.
Newhouse, L. (2005). Russian Jewish Families. In M. McGoldrick, J. Giordano, & N. Garcia-
Preto, Ethnicity and Family Therapy (pp. 701-710). New York: The Guilford Press.