The purpose for our component of the assignment was to provide a certain level of pathos, to the focal point of the organization – the refugee. Primarily, I wanted to do what we could to portray the interviewed subject as “normal” as possible so the audience would be able to make a personal connection. I wanted to use our interviews to bridge the gap in understanding between the common misconceptions of what a refugee is, and the reality of what they are – people just like us, trying to escape the less fortunate circumstances into which they were born.
With the goal in mind, we asked ourselves, “How do we connect the refugee and the “American” citizen?” If we could use our questions to tell the individual story of the struggles this person faced in conjunction with their “normality”, it could pull on the heartstrings of potential volunteers and donors. However, Kathy vetoed the majority of these questions. She did not want to create an emotional ordeal for the person(s) being interviewed.
What I find unfortunate is that the questions we were forced to ask, in isolation, served not to bridge the gap between misconception and reality, but widen it. Being forced to ask what their favorite thing about America is, without being able to ask what they liked about their home country I feel subconsciously perpetuates the “foreign” persona; especially since the answer to that question may be so radically different than from someone who has lived here their entire life. Additionally, while we were allowed to ask about the individual’s education and work experience, we were not allowed to ask for any more details than offered – resulting in a cold, and dry profile.
In reflection, I feel that we failed in what we set out to do. However, I do think that we succeeded in achieving what NICE wanted.