Smith

=Matthew Smith=

Podcast
media type="custom" key="12457352"

BIOGRAPHICAL/GEOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Biographical Information

//Matthew is an American citizen who has a green card. He comes from a family who travels all around the world. He enjoys sports and likes to play cricket. He met his wife when he first came over and now has two kids.//

Geographical Information

//New Zealand is one of only three countries that has two national Anthems. The main language spoken in New Zealand is English. The most popular sport is cricket. New Zealand is considered to be part of the continent of Australia.//

=Creative Writing=

Final Goodbyes
** Matthew Smith ** ** by Alex Helton **

“ //I have a good job and I have a family here and it’s not like I’m looking to go back.// //I don’t have any regrets//.”

I sit here, on the beach, watching the serene tide get higher and higher as night falls. The sunset has never looked better. My whole life is flashing through my head. I am leaving for America tomorrow. Half of me is excited, the other half is full of discomfort. I will miss all of my friends, even the arrogant ones. I am twenty-one and it is time to go my separate ways and do what I think is right. I have a feeling that I will make plenty of new friends. The nonsense going through my head finally stops as a cricket ball flies by my head into the ocean. “Come on Matthew, you’re not just going to let that ball drift away, are you?” My friend yells. I then look to see how far the ball has drifted. “No, I’ll get it.” I say as I begin my long swim. I leap into the warm ocean water. I feel as if I am a dolphin hurtling towards the sunset. “Come on Matthew, come play your final game of cricket before going to that boring America,” My friend says sarcastically just to give me a hard time. “I’ll be right there,” I say as I am rubbing the salt water out of my burning eyes. I am up to bat for my last time. The ball is pitched and I swing. I hit the ball farther than ever. All of us scream with laughter. After the final batsmen were finished, I packed up all of my items and began to head out. I give each of my friends a big farewell. I collect phone numbers and emails to stay in touch with everyone. I then load up my car with all of my sandy beach toys. As I pull out I smile with comfort as I yell my last goodbyes. When I get home I prepare my self for the biggest journey of my life.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Alex: Ok, what country were you from?

Matthew: New Zealand.

Alex: Ok, and what’s your name?

Matthew: Matthew Smith.

Alex: Has that always been your name?

Matthew: Yeah, yeah I didn’t change it. Family enough, my wife's name was Smith too.

Alex: Is Matthew a name in New Zealand? Is it a common name?

Matthew: Most Americans and new Zealanders have descended from English people, and it’s the same there, so we have most of the same names maybe a little bit more English and a little less variety. You know, you have Spanish and French and stuff.

Alex: How old were you when you immigrated to the USA?

Matthew: I was 21.

Alex: Do you think that life was better in America or in New Zealand?

Matthew: I think it’s not that different.There are a lot of different types of jobs here. Standard living is quite high here because it’s really cheap.

Alex: Did you have a job in your old country?

Matthew: I had not really like a career, you know, because I was-

Alex: You were younger.

Matthew: Yeah, that’s right. So, you know, I was going to college and I did various jobs in my off times and those kinds of things.

Alex: Why did you come to America?

Matthew: I first came to continue my education. I did my PhD at Wright State when I came. So I came here to do that and I found a good job and got married and just stayed.

Alex: What would you do for fun in your old country? What were your hobbies?

Matthew: I like to play cricket. Yeah, with a cricket bat.{laughter} You know, we often played cricket in the back yard. I went to the beach a lot. You know, we lived real close to the beach. Those types of things. You know, there’s always good hiking because there’s mountains. That types of stuff.

Alex: Was the education the same?

Matthew: Its pretty similar. One difference is that here you have a lot of multiple choice questions. Here it didn’t really work quite the same. You know, like here you start out with a hundred and then when you make mistakes you drop down. In New Zealand it’s more of you start with like a zero and work your way up to a a hundred. You know, you have to earn your points. It’s a little different in that sense.

Alex: Food wise, was the food different in New Zealand?

Matthew: Yeah, a little bit. We had fish and chips and a lot more of the English type foods. Like we had meat pies and you know, like ground beef and pastry type things. All of those types of things. There are a lot of things that we have that you don’t have here. You know, like we don’t have hot dogs or any of those types of American foods.

Alex: What did you usually wear on an average day?

Matthew: Well it was pretty temperate. We had the really cold weather clothes here, but it’s pretty informal. Not that different from here, you know. Just jeans and a tee shirt, and shorts.

Alex: What was the main religion of your country?

Matthew: It’s mostly Christian like it is here. Probably there’s more atheist here I would say. It’s not that different.

Alex: You said that your favorite sport was cricket? Can you describe it? Like how do you play cricket?

Matthew: I wouldn’t say it a lot like football, it’s like baseball. Baseball is developed from cricket actually. A couple of big differences are that one is that you play it in the middle of the field. You’re kind of centered so that you can hit it in any direction. Like there’s no fouls. And the other difference is that batters go out very often. So a single batter could score over a hundred runs and the whole team could score 200 or 300. You know, it could take them a whole day to get them out. In fact some of the games lasted for five days. And so they had to invent this fast pace version that only takes like 8 hours. Yeah so it’s exciting. And fast pace.

Alex: You said that it was cold there. Was it hard to adjust to the change in the climate?

Matthew: No, No it’s not that cold. It’s temperate. It doesn’t get that cold. And it doesn’t get that hot. Where I grew up it wouldn’t often make it to the eighty’s. Yeah, it was in the 70’s. It almost never snowed and it wouldn’t freeze very much. It might get just under freezing. About 30 in the middle of the night, but then it would come back up to like 40 the in the morning. So it was pretty temperate. So it’s tough to get used to the extreme heat and the humidity here and then the cold. Being stuck inside for a few months. It’s just not something that I am used to.

Alex: What were the languages spoken? You know, the main languages.

Matthew: English is definitely the main one. It's more of an English type English of course. Also there’s Mary’s language. Not many people speak it. There’s Polynesians, Hawaiians, and you know those types of people who wear brass skirts and stuff. And they have a language which New Zealand tries to maintain, but really no one speaks it. It’s not like half the people speak it or anything. I wouldn’t say anything. It’s all really English though.

Alex: Was the music different?

Matthew: It’s similar. I’d say that we had half of the music from England and half of it was from the United States. Here we listen to music from England. It’s more of the European influence than around here maybe.

Alex: Could you describe the immigration process? What did you have to go through?

Matthew: I first came over when I was a student visa because I was going to school here. That enabled me to just pretty much work at the university and all that stuff. Then when I got my job I Applied for a green card. I really wanted a job. A lot of times we’ll sponsor someone. We have to pay a lot of money and it is a big hassle. I married an American so it was a lot easier for me. It’s more of a stream line process. That was much easier. So I got a green card and then. After that when you live in America for five years, you can apply for citizenship. And so that was that. It wasn’t too difficult. The Green card process was a lot more for sure. The citizen part was pretty much skimming a lot of money and they’ll give it to yeah. It was a lot of money. Like a thousand dollars or something. There was a lot to do because I had lived here for five years. I married and American. So I am still married to her.

Alex: So it was a pretty easy process?

Matthew: It was, but the only thing was that it was a Hassel sometimes because you have to wait in lines. It’s hard to wait in a line. I mean some people waited in line all day. The line was so long that some times people would bring clothes. So that wasn’t fun. You know, just that type of thing. Just waiting in line and waiting to hear. You know they pretty much took control of everything so that they knew were your applications were in the process. You’d wait for month. It wasn’t a fun process. It wasn’t to bad. During the green card process my wife had to come in with me. She had to answer questions about our wedding and stuff. We had to take wedding photos. They didn’t want to know that you were just getting married to become an American. As soon as my wife started complaining about my family, she kind of knew that we were a lagedament.

Alex: So did you change your influence on life when you got here?

Matthew: I don’t think that much. I mean it’s had its moment. Like it’s easy to tell what’s getting older. That’s why I’m living in this state. I mean I’ve lived half of my life in New Zealand and I’ve lived half my life here. I’m older now. You know I had a job and I was here and so it’s hard for me to tell the difference in things.

Alex: What was the first thing that you saw when you came here?

Matthew: It’s been so long.

Alex: Something that stunned you?

Matthew: [long pause] That’s a tough one. I’m trying to think. I’m not used to seeing snow every where. A large amount of snow on everything. You know that was pretty different. Way up and the mountains you would see snow, but not like in cities and neighborhoods. It was different. I’m just trying to think. Maybe coming to Wright state. Seeing planes flying around the whole time. You know the military. There are a lot of planes which are real cool. Just all of that stuff.

Alex: Is your family here? Or are they back in New Zealand?

Matthew: There pretty spread out. New Zealand is a small country. Its kind of isolated. Were surrounded by ocean. Your very aware that it’s a big wide, world out there and that there’s not that many different places that you can travel to. There’s three main cities in New Zealand. Here you can go to so many different places. You can go to Las Vegas which is very different. You could go to New York City. You know there are so many places to go. In New Zealand you know you have three city’s. And there’s such a big world. So people tend to travel over seas a lot. You know, a lot of people move. It’s kind of a custom. When you get done with your college, you go and have an overseas experience. So a lot of people, like my family, move all around. My brother went to Ireland. My mom went to Italy. My sister was in Germany. So there kind of spread all over the place. Most of them are in New Zealand now. Yeah, they are very well traveled.

Alex: Is there anything that from your old country that you wish that America had?

Matthew: I defiantly miss cricket. I miss that sport, but I like America football. You know, I’m some fan of football. I guess that I miss living next to the beach. Also being by the mountains. Here in the Midwest you’re not that close to mountains and not that close to the ocean. I used to go to the beach just about every day because I lived by the beach. I kind of miss that a little bit. Those are probably the main things. Yeah I also miss my family. You know it’s really expensive to go back.

Alex: Would you say that it was hard to fit in? Did you change yourself or not?

Matthew: [long pause]No too much. The culture isn’t that different. I guess when I’m here I don’t see many people from different countries. So people are kind of interested in foreigners and stuff. So there for it wasn’t that difficult. I guess Wright State being a commutative school. Most people aren’t on the campus and all of that stuff. So it was a habit to meet people. Also make friends. The biggest and hardest thing was moving away from every body that I ever knew. Just starting fresh. Yeah, that was really tough. You know, coming here and getting off the plane I didn’t k now a single person. I came from a big family. That was the tough part. It wasn’t necessarily fitting in. It was not knowing anyone.

Alex: Do you visit New Zealand frequently?

Matthew: Not much. I did at first. When I first came over I came back ounce a year. But, now I have kids. You know, its so expensive. It takes so long to get used to the time zones. I feel like if I go there then I will go for a few weeks. I’m away from my family for two weeks. I am also spending a thousand dollars and it just doesn’t feel very fair to leave without the kids. I am not spending lots of money. So, you know, I don’t go too often. I maybe go ounce every like seven years now.

Alex: Do you feel that it was a good decision to come to America?

Matthew: I think so. I certainly wouldn’t change it. It wasn’t everything here. I’m not sure that I would advise someone to do it. You know, you leave your family and it’s not about making mistakes. It’s just about, You know, do you want to leave your family and be away from then forever. That’s the thing. I’m not sure that this is what I would advise people to do. I have a good job and I have a family here and it’s not like I’m looking to go back. I don’t have any regrets.

Alex: Okay, That’s pretty much it. Thank you for your time.

Matthew: Okay, yeah, no problem.

ANALYSIS
Matthew is from New Zealand and immigrated to the USA in the early 90’s. He went into good detail about what he had to go through to become an American citizen. In history I learned that most of the immigrants went to Ellis Island when they first came over. Back then they would inspect every single person to see if they have any diseases or are sick at all. If they were sick then they would be sent back to their original country immediately. Matthew agrees with me that the immigration process has certainly changed since then. He told me that they mostly just check them for any weapons of any kind. They may check them for diseases, but they won’t deport them immediately back to their home country. They will usually help the person to get better.