Zheantezsa Guizar
HCOM 100
Prof. Robertson
23 September, 2015
Intercultural Interview Every culture has a huge impact on a person’s development in their ways of communicating. We are also influenced by the standards held within that culture and whether you are part of more than one culture. As a Mexican American, I had the chance to interview my friend Matthew Lazaga, a Filipino American with a great personality and background. Our interview was based around how his culture has influenced his own behavior and the ways he communicates with his friends and family. Throughout the course of the conversation, I found that we have quite a lot of similarities and differences in our ways of communicating with our relatives because of our cultures.…show more content… Co-cultures are groups of people who share commonalities within a culture but have very distinct characteristics. This was yet another intriguing part of the interview because he went into depth of each one and how it has influenced his relationships with others. The first one he stated was the Male group. He explained to me that as a feminist, he sees the privileges that males get in our society. Pointing out to me to that he is and acts more feminine than most males, we both understood that it is not normally how they are considered to act. As a female, this made me realize that we are expected to behave in a certain way, and that’s influenced my communication in a sense that I am more shy to talk to people and shy to be myself in a public setting. He further explained to me how he felt the pressure of having to be masculine and not sensitive, and how he made certain decisions to portray these standards of the male outlook. “I played soccer when I was younger, but I never had any interest to watch soccer or other sports on TV, like most guys are considered too.” It was an interesting topic to discuss because not everyday do you see how it affects the way we communicate with each other in the long…show more content… We discussed his culture before in terms of its influence in the way he communicates with other people. Now, he further described as being Filipino the expectations he was given, including the standard that he is supposed to be intellectually smart. This expectation is not held in all Mexican families, but in mine it was so I understood what we he was talking about. It shaped me into becoming very open mined, but pressured in how I present and talk to other people. I have also heard this stereotype before and it brought the discussions of the various stereotypes both our cultures had. For example, Mexicans are expected to love tacos and wear a poncho, while Filipinos are expected to be friendly and to be loud. He did admit that the way he communicates is always in a friendly manner and can be loud from time to time. A difference and similarity from my culture is that we are not always fond of being loud, but during festivities we are not afraid of being noisy. Overall, he does embrace his culture and he is a religious young man with a great outlook on