Interviewing Stef - it's a start

When I listen back to the inaugural episode of my brand new shiny podcast, and I realise that for at least the first couple of questions I've been nervously peppering my sentences with 'like', I become disheartened at the thought of most of my prospective audience dismissing me from the get-go because I compulsively use a filler which happens to be primarily associated with the linguistic profile of a teenage girl. Then I remember that not too long ago I was a teenage girl, and it's okay that I sound like one. (The survival of this episode will rely on me repeating this mantra to myself as I listen through to the end.)

A few minutes in and I'm mostly past the nausea of having to listen to my own voice and scrutinise my own idiolect. At this point I can start really focussing on whether I achieved what I wanted to achieve with this episode, and I realise that I had struggled a little with my angle for my interview with Stef. I didn't want it to be one that was too generalised, as if to lump all immigrant experiences together from afar; nor did I want it to be too narrow, one that was over-informed by my own specific perspectives. I realise it because this hesitance does begin to come through in places, when I remind Stef again and again that I'm drawing on my own experiences but don't necessarily expect her to agree with me. Though a little more apologetic than is usually in line with my personal brand (as my sweet, sweet partner will agree), I prefer it over misplaced confidence for now. I enjoy the moments where we bond over our common experiences, but they don't saturate the interview, and I'm glad I didn't pursue them too eagerly. The aim isn't necessarily to relate to my interviewee, but to add to the context of their experiences with my own if - and only if - they're applicable. I'm guessing that repeatedly barking different variations of "Isn't it just the darndest thing when this happens to people like us?" at Stef wouldn't have yielded the nuanced and honest responses we ended up with, so I'm okay with the fact that I sound a little like I'm stepping on eggshells throughout a lot of this episode. How did you find the tone? I'd love to hear your thoughts and opinions (as long as they're kind. I'm still new to this.)

In any case, Stef luckily does disagree with me every now and again, and I realise about half way through the episode that I should have known better; she was never going to humour me.

Her answers often neatly dovetailed into my next questions, and while this was satisfying to me at the time, I think it speaks less to my brilliance and foresight as a budding journalist and more to the fact that I knew my interviewee pretty well and, to an extent, had been predicting her answers while I was writing the questions. How much more rewarding, though, when her response to a question wasn't what I was expecting: that despite the fact that she's very vocal about being an immigrant, she'd never really been the target of racist verbal abuse, because, she believes, of her light skin tone. This led to a discussion about when and to whom we choose to apply the term 'immigrant', eventually concluding that actual nationality doesn't always matter; it's more about who is seen, conceptually, as different, or foreign. She highlighted that her muslim friends, almost all of which were born in the UK, 'get more shit' than she ever does, while her white friend from France is never told to 'go back to her country'; a sinister insight into what it takes to be regarded as British. I wonder what other avenues we would have gone down if I hadn't engineered the direction of the discussion as closely as I had.

Equally interesting was the idea that she 'jokes a lot' about being an immigrant, and that there's a certain irony attached to identifying as such. Admittedly I already knew this about Stef, because I joke with her about it too, all the time. I wish I had pursued this a little more in our interview though, because I'm still not sure I fully understand why it's so easy to joke about. Maybe it's a way to reclaim the term 'immigrant' - so often used to degrade, or to alienate, it instead becomes something which draws minorities together, providing them with a sense of kinship in a space where they're constantly being told they don't belong. Maybe laughing at the jokes made at your expense diminishes their power in some way, in turn empowering you. Or maybe, less optimistically, participating in your own abasement - and the abasement of your country, your race, and your culture - is what's required of you if you are to integrate successfully into your new home.

Halfway through editing this episode and I start really facepalming:

Do you think they're more damaging, those kinds of stereotypes? Do they feel more personal to you? Do you think it’s because being a Latina (specifically) is more tied to your identity than being an immigrant is?

What I wanted to know was why certain 'jokes' about her heritage and culture are more insulting to her than others, but in my eagerness to satisfy my curiosity with an answer, I forget to ever just ask the question. Instead I blurt out my own conceptualisation of the problem, as it unravels in my head in real time, and pose it as a series of potentially interlinked but ultimately separate questions, each one coming out, in one uninterrupted breath, as less inquisitive and more presumptuous than the last. To expect Stef to come out with a definitive, coherent answer after this would be a big ask.

Despite all of this, she eventually does begin to answer the question I meant to ask, implying that it is the generalisation of these hugely diverse groups of people, and the minimisation of them to just one or two attributes, which specifically annoys her about stereotypes. But we never do quite explore why, and it's definitely something I'm hitting myself about now.

I think my family's pretty loud, but that could just be my family, you know? I hate people generalising things in such a big way, and I do have arguments with my friends about it.

Overall I'd say I'm really happy with how this interview turned out. There are moments I winced at when I was writing up the transcript (Why did I say I don't care about Manchester's culture? Bizarre.) but talking to Stef was easy and really fun. There's plenty to unpack, so head over and give it a listen when you get the chance.