Matt Clough

EDU 280

Karen Chester

4/21/2020

For my interview presentation I decided to interview my long time friend,

Ryan Powell. He grew up in Edmonton, Alberta in Canada with his Mother and

Father. He moved here when he was 10, so he has some trouble remembering

the culture there. But from what he does remember he says that it is fairly similar

to the culture here in regards to there being very many different cultures there. It

is heavily influenced by British and French cultures. From what he had heard of

the U.S. before moving here, he believed that Americans were crazy patriots and

incredibly rude. Especially because of the misconstrued aspect that all

Canadians are nicer than Americans made him think that Americans must not be

nice. When he was 10, his parents divorced and Ryan moved with his mother to

Wauconda, Illinois where they had family and a job waiting. Ryan was very sad

to be leaving his home and his only friends to go live in an unfamiliar new place.

He said that it was hard at first, but he quickly made new friends at school that he

calls family today. He also found that while some of the rumors he heard about

American culture is true, some of it isn’t. He found that Americans aren’t always
rude. In fact, he said that he’s met more kind people here than in Canada. He’s

adjusted well to the United States and calls this place home. His family is Irish

and celebrates some Irish holidays, his favorite is St. Patrick's Day. Ryan says

that he doesn’t have many regrets about moving, since it wasn’t his choice in the

first place, but he does regret not keeping up with his old childhood friends and

wishes he had a better relationship with his father. Though he does still keep up

with some Canadian traditions. Ryan loves hockey, as apparently all Canadians

do, it is the one thing his father and him bond over. Ryan has said that it was a

bit easier for him to move into the country since Candian and American culture

feels so similar to him. But he can see how it can be really stressful for people of

more foreign cultures to fit in. His advice to those is to find and make great

friends and people who can accept who they are and where they come from,

while ignoring the people who can’t. I have been friends with Ryan for a long

time, and I can’t imagine not knowing him.

P.S. Unfortunately due to the circumstances, I wasn’t able to find someone that

moved from a more diverse location. I hope that Ryan is interesting enough for

this project, I think he is!