Class Interview

About two weeks ago during our English class we got the chance to interview one of our classmates. As soon as Mrs. Crooker announced that we were going to be interviewing someone, I immediately looked at my co-worker Rosanaid and thought to myself “well this should be a piece of cake, since I already know a lot about her”. Suddenly Mrs. Crooker stated that she had picked our partners. I was devastated and nervous at the same time just of the thought of speaking to someone else about my life. She gave all of us a number and told us to meet up with someone else that had the same number. I looked around class and listened carefully to see if anyone called out my number. Shortly I was sitting at the same table as my partner. She was a very small intelligent looking girl. Her sweet look helped me with my fear of talking a stranger about my life. We began by introducing ourselves she told me her name was Veronica Aguilar, and that she was only 18 years old. She then began to tell me about her background. She started off by telling me that as a child she lived in a trailer park here in Oxnard. Her trailer park reminded her so much of Mexico and that was one of the things she loved the most about her neighborhood. Also, she loved that everyone in her neighborhood knew each other and the fact that everyone was so friendly was a plus. When Veronica was in the tenth grade her family and she moved to some apartments. She was so sad to leave her friends and nobody was friendly in her new neighborhood.

Years later she graduated from High School and began to work at a factory. Her position at the factory involved a lot of hard labor. She was working for a floral design company and she was forced to make around 100 floral designs in an eight hour shift. She then realized that she didn’t want to be stuck in that factory for the rest of her life and making eight dollars an hour was not cutting it. She then quit her job and with the support of her family began attending Oxnard College full time.

Today she is taking three courses at Oxnard College and is currently unemployed. She attends college one Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights. She enjoys having the mornings off to catch up on homework. She has an older cousin that she admires, “She’s my role model,” she said. “She was the first one in the family to attend college. Today she is a teacher and has her own classroom. I want to be a teacher and one day have my own classroom as well.” She also stated to me that she’s a role model to her younger sister. “When I do homework, she does homework” she stated. Her goals are to get a higher education than her parents. She’s proud of being one of the first people in her family to go to college, since not many people from her culture that continue their education. What she likes about college the most is that it’s not as hard as some people make it seem.