Juan's Summer Vacation
Introduction I met my respondent, Juan Rodriguez, through my husband. My husband is a general manager at a restaurant, and Juan is his assistant manager. My husband asked him if he would be willing to participate in the interview. He agreed to do it, so I arranged to meet with him after his shift, and before his shift at his second job. We talked outside in the patio area of the restaurant where he works. It’s near a busy intersection, but the noise was surprisingly low. It was a little windy, and the tape recorder fell over a few times, so there were some parts that were a little hard to transcribe because of that. The only person there other than Juan and myself was my 3 year-old son. I had bribed him to not interrupt with the promise of a cookie, which worked very well. He also had a few action figures with him which helped keep him busy. I would like to add that there are some parts of Juan’s narrative that lack in detail. For example, the specifics of his border crossing and the death of his brother. I did not probe Juan on any topic that I felt might make him uneasy. Because he works with my husband, I didn’t want to put him in an uncomfortable situation where he felt obligated to answer something he would not have wanted to discuss further otherwise.
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