Title.
Inside Mexico
Have you ever imagined what it would be like to live in another country? Would it change the way you live? We interviewed a woman from a different county to understand the way she lived and how she lived in a different country. Her name is Liliana Mendoza, she grew up in Mexico and she currently lives in the United States. We interviewed her in her classroom in International Studies Academy where she teaches a Spanish class at ISA. We asked her a series of questions regarding issues in Mexico including health care, education, and ethnic groups. We are very fortunate that she agreed to us interviewing her.
Everybody expresses their ethnicity differently, and sometimes it is hard to see what different ethnic group’s people are from. I was curious about how Mexico expresses their individual ethnic groups from everyone else. She replied “They all have the same skin color, what they do different is the way they dress, and the colors they wear.” Different ethnic groups present and wear different colors to separate them. When she told me that, it reminded me of how people who live in San Francisco affiliate themselves with colors and groups, and it helped me understand their loyalty of their ethnicity.
We then asked about healthcare and the conditions of the hospital and the way they care for their citizens in Mexico. When I asked her if people in Mexico were infected with a disease how well they would be taken care of and if it would be as good as the treatment in America. She paused and sighed, then looked at me and said, “I don’t think so. Unfortunately, we don’t have big hospitals for everybody, we have hospitals for poor people or public hospitals but they don’t have the right equipment.” The hospitals do not have quality medicine for the poor people. This came as a shock to me. It is not like that here, but if it was more than half of the people I know would probably be very ill.
So this had me wondering, if the hospitals are so poor, would this affect the schools financial state. He asked if education was fair to all of the people in Mexico. She told us “Everybody is allowed to go to school, we have a lot of public schools, we have two different shifts, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. We have less hours and we do half but in public schools there are not a lot of equipment. The schools provide books for children, but basically parents are the ones in charge to buy all the supplies.” The school barely had enough money for basic supplies. This surprised me because here it is not like that at all. It is not fair for someone not to achieve an education because they are not able to purchase supplies. Even though students don’t have supplies they are still respectful to their teachers. My interview partner asked if the student’s behavior was the same in Mexico and San Francisco. She answered appalled. “Class is completely different but students are the some similar but people in Mexico are more respectful to a teacher. They are never going to tell a teacher the “F” word to their face. Students in San Francisco are very rude to their teachers while children in Mexico have the common courtesy of not talking back to an adult. This shows that the children in San Francisco are taking advantage of their education because basically they are given a great opportunity to be able to attend school and they are still so disrespectful to there teacher and the children in Mexico don’t have the opportunities that we have because of financial issues.
Our benefits continue even in collage. I asked what are the outcomes to going to college, and even getting a degree in Mexico. She told me “It is worse in Mexico after you graduate from the university; it’s really really hard to get a job. We have some architecture, lawyers and they are working as a taxi drivers. Not many opportunities.” College isn’t very effective in Mexico. This came to me as disbelief because that would never happen here because we have great job opportunities here. Many people left Mexico because there are not many job occupations and it may be hard to survive. I wondered why people who came to this country adapted to a job that paid minimum wage when in Mexico they had a collage degree. So a question was asked that if you come to America can you still have the same job as in Mexico. “I think you can do that but some degrees and careers are different, and your district asks you for more papers that we don’t have in Mexico so I think it’s different.” United states require paperwork that collages in Mexico do not provide. Here the standards are a lot higher.
I have never done an interview before, but yes I enjoyed doing it because I learned a lot about Mexico that I have never knew or ever thought about before. I have a better understanding about the issues over there. I learned how to engage in a educational conversation that was going to be based on a big project. The hospitals and healthcare in Mexico is going to stick with me because it is bad over there. I would have asked if you could get sick from the medicine. I am very fortunate to have interviewed Ms Mendoza.