Matthew


 * Matthew**

Interview Podcast
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**BIOGRAPHICAL/GEOGRAPHICAL NOTE**
The person I interviewed was Matthew Smith from New Zealand. He was born in Christchurch, New Zealand in 1974. He lived in Christchurch until he was 21, when he immigrated to the U.S. Christchurch is the biggest city in the southern island of New Zealand. The southern island of New Zealand is very mountainous and has a lot of open plains. Along with beaches surrounding the entire island. Matthew loved to go hiking in the mountains that are all over New Zealand. He also loved to go to the beach. New Zealand stays pretty warm all year around. It ranges from 60 degrees to 70 degrees year around. So he could go to the beach whenever he wanted. Also New Zealand has really good surf so it also attracted many surfers. Once Matthew immigrated to the U.S. it was hard for him to leave everything he had known behind. He never thought that it would be as hard as it really was. His family had encouraged him to go to the U.S. because they were strong on getting a good education, which is why Matthew came to the U.S. Matthew had been to the U.S. twice before he decided to move here. Both times when he came it was to Indiana. His father was a professor and had traveled to the U.S. to teach. He brought Matthew along with him. Matthew had liked the U.S. because there were so many opportunities. That’s also one of the reasons Matthew came to the U.S. He also liked that whatever job you wanted to do you could find some classes for it in college. Matthew came to the U.S. mostly because he wanted do something with Human Factors Engineering. New Zealand doesn’t have too many good classes for that college. Once he got his P.H.D. in Human factors Engineering at Write State University he got a job in Indiana doing what he wanted to do.


 * Heat**
 * By Ryan Helton**

A drop of sweat roles down my face. It is burning up in this tiny little room. The air conditioning hasn’t been working all day. There are about fifteen people in this room the size of my kitchen. No one seems happy. You can tell by the looks on their faces that they don’t want to be here. We all just want to get our Green Card and leave. No one likes this place at all, it’s warm, small, and we are all packed in like sardines. There are a lot of different races in here. Some people are from Africa and others are from some place I can’t even point out. As different as we all look we all have the same thing on our minds, which is to get our Green Cards and leave. So many people have been in and out of this office today. A lot of them have been denied their Green Cards for reasons I can’t imagine. Maybe they previously tried to enter the U.S. illegally. Or maybe the U.S. is too full of immigrants so they won’t let anyone enter. For whatever reason they got denied, I hope I’m not **next**. Many people who don’t get their Green Cards leave crying or with a melancholy look on their faces. I can’t imagine waiting in this kind of environment all day long just to be denied a Green Card. As I am sitting in line waiting to go talk to the lady at the desk, a woman next to me is sitting with her two kids and her baby. She is just sitting there waiting patiently with her three young children. I can’t believe she brought her kids here. “It’s really warm in here isn’t it,” I say. “Yes it is,” she said calmly. “Nice day outside though.” “It’s really nice compared to where I came from,” she said quietly. “Where did you come from?” I asked. “Africa, in a town called Rabat. I came here to— ” “Number Thirty-Five,” a woman yelled. Off she went with her three children. Never in a million years would I of brought kids here, especially when it is as scorching hot as it is in here. A few more drops of sweat role down my face. It is getting too hot in here to withstand the heat. I’m almost up, so hopefully I can get out of here soon. There are only about five people in here now. People are starting to leave pretty satisfied even though it has taken all day long. My body starts to get shaky as the last person leaves. I’m **next**. “Number forty,” the woman yelled again. That’s me. I walk up to the window. The woman looks at my papers and starts talking to me. I am so nervous that everything she says is foreign. I’ve got to focus, I say to myself over and over again. Once she is done talking to me she hands me a card. She tells me to go to a different place and to continue on with the steps to get a Green Card. Wow I waited all day for that? That’s irritating. I walk with great stride out into the cool, fresh air. And never once again did I step foot into that office.

**Christmas Day**


 * By Ryan Helton**

It’s Christmas Day and my family and I are going to have our traditional Christmas day celebration. We are going to eat our huge meal and then go to the beach and play Cricket. This year Christmas is at my mom’s house and my entire family is going over to her house to celebrate Christmas and eat a huge meal. Once we all arrive at my mom’s house we eat our meal. We are eating chicken, plain sweet potatoes, and potatoes. We are all having a good time and enjoying this delicious meal. Once our meal is over we all relax for a while. Now that I am relaxed enough me and my entire family are on our way to the beach. We are going to the beach to play a game of Cricket. We do this every year and we always have an awesome time. Now that we have arrived at the beach everyone is anxious about our Cricket game. As soon as I get down to the beach and every one has followed we began out Cricket game. We are about half way through our game. My team is losing by a lot of points. I think it is because my uncle Rob is wearing his funny 70’s outfit so I can’t stop laughing. It is very distracting. Each year it gets tighter and tighter which is even more distracting and disturbing. We are about to quite our game now because we are so tired. I am glad because I think I am worn out the most. “Excuse me,” a voice yelled out. “Yeah?” I said. “That woman over there called me because she said that you guys are going to hit her with the ball and she wants you to stop playing,” he said in a very nice voice. “What but it’s a New Zealanders tradition to play Cricket on the beach,” I said. “I know, I know. She seems crazy and stuff. You can continue playing when she leaves,” he said. “Ok thanks,” I said with a grateful voice. Wow I never thought in a million years that a group of New Zealanders would get the Coast Guard called on them for playing Cricket on the Beach. Every one agreed. Once she left we finished our game of Cricket, my team got killed. We all went back to my mom’s house with a Christmas to remember.


 * The Big Game **
 * by Ryan Helton **

Today is the big day. This is the day I’ve been waiting for all year long. The Cricket World Cup is T.V. and I’m going to Wright State to watch it on the big screen. A bunch of Indian students have gotten together and have been planning this for a while now. I wonder if any of them like Cricket as much as I do. Now that I am here at Wright State I need to go find where the game is. I’ve gotten here early so I can get a good seat incase I they are full. I want to get the best experience of the game. Oh there it is in this building. As I walk in I notice about ten other people and a bunch of chairs and snacks along with the big screen of course. Once I get in there I put all my stuff down. Some person is walking over to me that I don’t know. “Hello, are you here for the Cricket World Cup,” he says to me. “Yes is this where it is?” I ask him. “Yep you are in the right place,” he said to me. “Ok that’s good, are you excited to for the big game?” I ask him. “Yes,” he said proudly. “We have lots of snacks if you won’t any and there are lots of seats just pick which ever one you want,” he said with a friendly voice. He walked away from me and now I am going to get some snacks and hang around until the game. There are all types of awesome snacks here. I have to keep coming back for more. My body is getting tense as the game gets closer to starting. You can tell but the looks on every ones face that they are excited for the big game. The game is about to start. I can’t wait, lots of people are showing up now and every one is getting excited. The game has just begun and every one is going wild. New Zealand and Australia are hosting the Cricket World Cup this year. It is really cool since I came from New Zealand and since Australia and New Zealand are rivals. Since New Zealand lost to Pakistan back in the playoffs, I don’t care too much about New Zealand any more since they lost back in the playoffs. Now that it is Half time everyone is out of the Cricket field playing Cricket. It is so funny to watch on the big screen. It is really funny when the police are dragging the drunken people off the field. I wish I was there sitting in the grass watching the actual Cricket game. I guess it is just as fun here in the States. I also miss all the delicious foods that I and my family would eat when we were watching, with the game the warm squishy meat and the cool delicious pie. Now that the game is over am I am heading home I realize how fun it was watching the game on the big screen. It was like I was actually in New Zealand.

**//INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT//**
This is an interview with MATTHEW SMITH. The interview was conducted on December 20, 2010. The interviewer Ryan Helton representing the Dayton Regional STEM School.

Ryan: I’ll start with a simple question. What country did you come from?

Matthew: New Zealand

Ryan: So, why did you come to the U.S?

Matthew: I first came to go to grad school, to graduate school. I was doing a P.H.D. in Human Factors psychology. I think the main thing is in New Zealand there isn’t a big economy. There are just not that many types of jobs. So um… in the United States because it’s so big, there are so many types of work you can do. I first came to get a P.H.D. and then after that there are a lot of job opportunities to look at.

Ryan: Where there any specific jobs you were looking for in the U.S?

Matthew: Ya I wasn’t really sure at that point. I did want to go into Human Factors psychology. So um I thought I wanted to work in the automotive industry. And that’s where I did end up working. I just kind of wanted to get my P.H.D. and see where that went.

Ryan: Ok, so you probably came to the U.S. by choice right?

Matthew: Ya, ya. There’s no necessity about it.

Ryan: Ok, and how old were you when you came to the U.S?

Matthew: Um, I was 21.

Ryan: Ok

Matthew: It was 1995. Uh, maybe 22? Ya 21, 22 somewhere around there. Pretty close to 22.

Ryan: So why did you choose the U.S. over any other country?

Matthew: I’d been to the United States twice. I came to Indiana, my father was a professor. And every seven years professors get to teach in other places. And so he taught at Perdue when I was like 10 and then again when I was like 17. So I actually got to spend like a year here twice. I liked it, there’s a lot of opportunities in the United States and the schools are really good. So it’s really that kind of stuff.

Ryan: So you would say that the schools in New Zealand are better that the ones in New Zealand?

Matthew: Ya I think so. There’s a lot more opportunity, there’s a wider range of things. If you’re interested in a certain thing than you know your going to find it in the United States.

Ryan: So do you like living in the U.S, or would you rather got back to New Zealand?

Matthew: There are various things I like about both. In New Zealand my family is there. I mean like my brothers and parents and stuff. Also New Zealand is a fairly beautiful country. Where I came from. In the south island there’s lots of mountains and ocean’s, you’re never half an hour away from the ocean. I’m kind of used to swimming in the ocean whenever I feel like it. It’s also very temperate so it doesn’t snow very much, it doesn’t get really cold, and then it doesn’t get real hot in the summer. It’s those kind of things I really liked. I really liked being able to go to the mountains and every thing being so close. Mountains or ocean being only half and hour away. And there are some really nice things in the states too. Now I’m married and have children and the extended family on their side. I really enjoy my job as well.

Ryan: Is your job what you came to the U.S. for?

Matthew: Ultimately I think so. New Zealander’s, its like this little island with 4 million people so you are always wondering what the rest of the world is like? And strangely a lot of New Zealander’s go over seas and never come back. It’s quite a common thing. So it’s not like I’m the only one, in fact I have a brother up in Canada in Toronto. He’s not coming back either. Just a lot of people do that.

Ryan: So from any information that you herd about the U.S, was it accurate?

Matthew: Ya, ya I think so. I think I got a pretty good idea. There are a lot of opportunities and I was able to get my degree and then get a really good job. I think ultimately that’s what it was, I wanted to do a job that I enjoyed. So I focused on what I liked in school and kept going in that direction and try to see where that went.

Ryan: Did you come to the U.S. alone or like with family or with friends?

Matthew: Alone, it was just me. It was quite difficult leaving everything you ever known behind.

Ryan: Was it difficult to come to the U.S. and get your residency and stuff like that?

Matthew: It was easier given that I married an American, that makes it a lot easier. So getting a green card was no problem. And becoming a citizen was really very easy. We had been married for a while, longer than the requirement. And so when I decided to get my citizenship it was really easy. I just fill out the paper work, send it off, and pay a lot of money. I think it was like 1000 bucks, that was the worse part. During the early parts when I first came here for the green card and everything you had to wait in really long lines. Sometimes you would be waiting in lines for like all day. There would be people who wait like all day just to get turned away. It wasn’t really like that for the citizenship.

Ryan: Did you bring any important items with you From New Zealand?

Matthew: I’m not sure that they are important? These are items from Maori culture, they are the natives, Polynesians. Like Hawaiians. This is one of their carvings. They have various rocks, which have certain meanings for them. This is a necklace here. I gave this to Emily. I think it mint something like good health or something like that. The native people, like that kind of meaning.

Ryan: So what was your old country like compared to the U.S?

Matthew: (thinking) It’s a lot smaller, there’s just not as many people. It’s a lot of wide-open space and sheep. Everywhere you go there would be sheep, there’s a lot of farming. In fact there are 20 sheep for every person, that’s how many sheep there are. There are like 3 million people and 60 million sheep. It was huge. It’s not that different, I mean people talk a little more differently. Things there seem to be a little more informal than they are here. It’s a very kind of informal place. People follow rules very well. I don’t follow rules very well. It’s kind of different in that sense. People are kind of the same wherever you go. We speak English like you speak English here and we were originally colonized by England and there is a lot of similarities.

Ryan: We have major cities like Chicago, New York, and Detroit. Do you have major cities like that in New Zealand?

Matthew: Oakland is the biggest city; it’s about 1 million people. So it’s probably about the size of Cincinnati. I came form Christchurch that is the biggest city; New Zealand has two islands. Oakland is the biggest city up in the north. The south island isn’t very populated. Most of the population is in the north island. I actually came from the South Island. The biggest city in the south island is called Christchurch. It was kind of a small city, maybe like 100,000 people.

Ryan: Do you miss anything from New Zealand?

Matthew: I kind of miss a lot. I miss my hometown. I miss some of the sports we played. I like football a lot. But we played cricket, that’s what I was going to show you was my cricket bat. It’s kind of like baseball but a bit different. You don’t go around diamonds; it’s not like a diamond. It’s like you run back and forth. One bats man can score like 100 runs, just one batter. It’s a bit different like that. I enjoyed cricket and enjoyed watching it. I also miss the ocean and the mountains.

Ryan: Are the oceans there like any in the U.S?

Matthew: One thing about New Zealand in particular is its got mountains kind of rising up pretty close to the ocean. In a lot of places you can see mountains rising out of the ocean. The ocean I guess is pretty similar, there’s quite a bit of surf so its not like Florida it would be more like the west coast like California but wormer. The California Ocean is really cold. I don’t know if you have tried to swim in it, I have. It was ruff and cold.

Ryan: Wait 21 right when you came to the U.S?

Matthew: Yes, I think it was 21? Yes, yes that’s right, 21.1995?

Ryan: I want to go back to the sports for a second. Were any sports you played in New Zealand similar to the U.S?

Matthew: The biggest sport in New Zealand is rugby. It’s kind of like football, I don’t know if you’re familiar with rugby? No forward passing which to me is the best thing about football. Honestly I’m not a big rugby fan I much rather American football. I’m probably the only New Zealander alive who would say that. New Zealanders love rugby in general. Cricket like I said is kind of like baseball. In fact baseball was developed from cricket. They changed it to kind of speed it up because cricket takes a really long time to play. The original version of it can take like five days. And even then it’s not enough time so they run out of time and just quit and no one won because they didn’t have enough time to finish it. That part of the game I didn’t like very much. In cricket they created new versions to speed it up to make it a little more interesting. There are other versions I like better.

Ryan: What part of America did you come to when you arrived in America?

Matthew: I came to Dayton to go to Wright State. I got my P.H.D. at Write State. After that I moved to Indiana for 10 years because that’s where my job was. I recently came back.

Ryan: Was Wright State’s college anything like colleges over in New Zealand?

Matthew: Ya, it’s similar in some ways. It’s a community school kind of like where I was. Most people in the school I went to in New Zealand where from Christchurch. So it was similar in that sense. Wright State had a program in what I was interested in which was Human Factors. They had a department kind of dedicated to what I was interested in which wasn’t in New Zealand.

Ryan: Do you like America’s government better than New Zealand’s or what do you think about that?

Matthew: I think they are pretty similar. New Zealand seems to be more liberal. The freedom’s that the United States talks about is pretty similar. We never did get freedom from England. So the Queen is actually still in charge of New Zealand. Although it’s kind of figurative role now like she doesn’t do anything, she stays out of it. And if she ever tried to take control it’s like New Zealand would drop out of the common wealth. I think the government is pretty good there. It’s like the same here.

Ryan: Here in America it is a big thing to join the Air force, Navy, or Marines. Is it like that over in New Zealand?

Matthew: I think New Zealand military is pretty weak. There’s no doubt in my mind that Ohio could clean it up in a day if we were to go to war. Actually Delaware could probably take New Zealand. We don’t even have F16’s. The planes are too expensive, I think we have something from 30 years ago. The military isn’t very big in New Zealand.

Ryan: So when you came to the U.S. was your family excited for you or did they want you to stay?

Matthew: I think they were excited for me, they thought it made since for me to get my P.H.D. And my parents encouraged me to do it, they valued education. I mean it’s kind of sad to leave everything you love behind. And I didn’t anticipate it to be as difficult as it was. To be kind of uprooted and not to know a single person in the city. I should of realized it would have been a difficult thing. It’s not an easy thing to do.

Ryan: Do you have any brothers or sisters that live anywhere besides New Zealand?

Matthew: I have a brother up in Toronto. So that’s kind of nice you get to visit him. Ya he went to Canada. Besides that everybody lives in New Zealand.

Ryan: Do you go to visit your family a lot in New Zealand or do they come to the U.S?

Matthew: It’s really expensive. They tend to come to the United States regularly enough that I don’t have to. I think I’ve gone back 3 times since I’ve been here? I’ve been here since 1995. I’ll probably go back in a couple years. It’s tough when you have kids. It’s a heck of a lot of a flight. First you have to get to Los Angles; from Los Angles it’s like 12 hours of plain. It’s rough and expensive. You have to really want to do it.

Ryan: Does New Zealand celebrate Christmas or Halloween?

Matthew: Not Halloween. Christmas, we do the Christian holidays. It’s mostly Christian like it is here. We have Christmas and Easter. We don’t have Martin Luther King day or anything like that. Halloween was new to me when I came here. Seemed like a lot of fun for the kids. We didn’t really do that; we didn’t do anything like that. It’s kind of unique.

Ryan: In America we celebrate Thanksgiving as the day we arrived in America.

Matthew: We don’t do that either, it’s a shame. I like Thanksgiving; it’s a good holiday. The big difference is in New Zealand the seasons are backwards because it’s in the southern hemisphere. So Christmas is like in the middle of summer. It’s a bit different. Early summer at least.

Ryan: I noticed that when I was looking at New Zealand on the map that it is pretty close to Antarctica and Australia, does it get real cold or hot down there?

Matthew: No it’s temperate. It’s not real hot but not real cold. Christchurch is pretty far down south but because of the Pacific Ocean it stays warm. It almost never snowed. The one time I remember it snowing no one knew what to do. The were crashing everywhere, you would go outside and see cars crashing into one another because they didn’t know how to drive in it. Up north it’s almost tropical. It doesn’t get extremely hot but it rains a lot. It stays 60 to 70 year around. It doesn’t change that much.

Ryan: Everything we buy says made In China, does New Zealand have any major companies like that?

Matthew: No not really no. Everything there is made from China. The big industry is farming, so at the grocery store you see a lot of apples. It’s got a really big kind of fruit industry. Also a lot of movies, the movie industry has become bigger and bigger. They filmed Lord of the Rings there and a lot of movies they film there.

Ryan: Like in America people like to go see movies do people like to do that there?

Matthew: Pretty similar. It’s not that different because we speak the same language and all came from English people. Here you have a lot of different cultural influence and there it is probably a lot more close to England. It’s a much newer country I mean your several hundred years old and here we are like barley 100 years old. You still see some English influence there. We also get a lot of American Television. You can actually see a lot of American T.V. shows.

Ryan: America has lots of immigrants coming in from around the world all the time does New Zealand get lots of immigrants?

Matthew: A lot from Asia, especially. It’s close to Asia, it’s just North. So you see a lot of immigrants from Asia.

Ryan: So New Zealand seem to be pretty close to Australia, do you guys do a lot with Australia?

Matthew: Ya we play a lot of sports with them. They always beat us unfortunately. They are quite a lot bigger and are big in sports. Australia for its size is remarkably good at sports; they win a lot of gold metals. For their population it’s pretty good. Here most of the focus is one city play another city, in New Zealand it’s more about New Zealand playing another country. Australia and New Zealand are quite similar in some ways. New Zealand doesn’t like to be confused for Australia and Australia doesn’t like to be confused for New Zealand. I think that we aren’t that different. They used to be conflicts and that’s not true for New Zealand.

Ryan: Do you have problems with people trying to come into New Zealand illegally?

Matthew: I don’t think to the same extent, to a much smaller degree. I don’t think to the same extent.

Ryan: Well that’s all the questions I have for you.

Matthew: It was good talking to you.

**//ANALYSIS//**
In history class we learned that immigrating to the U.S. is very difficult. You have to go through many places along the way and fill out a lot of paper work. When Matthew immigrated to the U.S, he had to do exactly that. He had to go to specific places and fill out loads of paper work. He also had to pay lots of money to the government for coming to the U.S. In history class we also learned that immigrants don’t get treated to well when they come to the U.S. Matthew felt like an outsider when he came to the U.S. He didn’t know anybody. Matthew also told me that he came to the U.S. to get a better life, which we also learned in History class that many immigrants do. In History class we learned that many immigrants come to the U.S. because of something wrong with their country. Matthew came to the U.S. to get a better education because New Zealand didn’t offer any good classes for school. Matthew also talked about how in New Zealand they are very similar to the U.S. In History class we learned that countries that people came from were either very similar to the U.S. or very different to the U.S. In history class we learned about many different stories about immigrants who came to the U.S. Matthew came to the U.S. for the same reason most of them did, to seek a better life. And in some movies we watched about immigration the people who were coming to the U.S. had family members who were encouraging the immigrant to come to the U.S. Matthew’s family encouraged him to come to the U.S. too. We also learned that most immigrants’ came with only a little bit of things. Matthew didn’t only bring a little bit of thing’s, he brought whatever he needed to.