Phase 1, Post 9: SSI Interview Preparation

I have always been passionate about the role language plays in a person's life.  In my family, I was the first person to be born in the United States, and my parents made sure I was raised "All-American."  As they learned about American culture, I was raised in it.  I wasn't taught to cook adobo or speak Cebuano or stay in touch with my heritage.  My parents would always speak to me in Cebuano, but always expected me to reply in English.  I grew up with the ability to understand what my parents told me, but without the ability to make them understand everything I told them.  Much of my life was underscored by this jarring disconnect.

Eventually, I was able to work my way into broken but understandable Cebuano, but even still I find language to be one of the most interesting and abstract ideas I have put thought into.  My senior English project in high school addressed language barriers, and I wanted to bring back a lot of the powerful sentiments I was able to draw from my peers.

While I recognize these interviewees are friends of mine from the past, I strongly affirm they are the most optimal people to interview for my project, as NLP (a data science) has not yet be subjected to much ethical review.


The first person I contacted was Logan Prock.  His father's side of the family was Hawaiian, which he felt dictated much of his early life and upbringing.

The next person I contact was Jared Taylor, who helped me a lot with the project.  He was passionate about language barriers since at a young age he was taught by his grandfather "not to speak black."

Finally, I contacted one of the interviewees from my original language barriers project, Anushka Ladha.

I also wanted my older brother to briefly speak to his experience with our parents, in order to compare it to and contextualize my own.

I made attempts to speak with coworkers of my father, but found no one working directly with NLP.  As for those working with relevant focuses of data science, I ultimately received no response.

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