Monthly Archives: May 2015

The Harlem drag ball scene

JG describes lingo used within the gay community that arised in the 1980s but wasn’t mainstream until more recently:

JG: “A lot of the terms you will see on RuPaul’s Drag Race. One is called “executive realness” which is when the men are supposed to dress in drag that looks like a business woman. So you’d be giving “executive realness” if you look like a business woman in charge. Another one is “throwing shade”. This is when you say something “shady” or bitchy. Like if I said I thought Jenny was a slut then I’d be throwing shade at Jenny. They are terms usually used in the gay community but I think they are spread outwards by shows like RuPaul’s Drag Race where people who have never seen a drag queen in real life can learn their lingo”

Do you know where these words came from?

JG: “They came from the underground drag ball scene in the 1980s. The only reason I know that is from the documentary “Paris is Burning”. Basically the terms have been around for a long time but it was avant guard back then cause the drag scene was more underground. It was big in the downtown gay club scene but didn’t make its way into the mainstream until 20 or 20 years later.”

The Power Song

RS is a member of the group WYSE. WYSE is a student organization on campus that stands for Woman and Youth Supporting Eachother. Each week members of the group go to a local middle school and teach health classes to a small group of 8th grade girls.

RS: “We usually just call it power but basically it’s a song and a game that we play during the breaks. Basically all the girls stand in a circle and we say the chant “P-O-W-E-R we got the power cause we are the women of WYSE”. Then one person goes in the circle and like if I went into the cirle I would say “My name is Reegan” and everyone would else would say “Yeah” and then I say “and I’m next on the list” and they go “yeah” and then I go “and I get my reputation cause I do it like this” and then I do a goofy dance in the middle and everyone repeats “and she does it like this” and repeats the move.

To make it more clear:

Middle Person “My name is —–”

Everyone “Yeah”

Middle Person “And I’m next on the list

Everyone “Yeah”

Middle Person “And I get my reputation cause I do it like this” (dances)

Everyone “She does it like this” (copies dance)

How long does it go on for?

RS: “As long as people keep jumping in the middle. A lot of the girls are pretty shy and take some convincing. It’s a good way to get them not to be so embarrassed. They always want to play but sometimes it takes a while to convince them to go in the middle”

Do you know where it came from?

RS: “I think it was just a basic chant and someone decided to change the words to make it about WYSE. I remember doing a similar one at cheer camp over the summer. Everyone in WYSE knows it though, you just kind of learn it once you go to your school site. They do it and you just kind of have to join in”

Senior Scooter Day

KB is from Denver, Colorado and graduated from high school in 2013.

Could you describe senior scooter day?

KB: “Senior scooter day was during the seniors last week of school. Basically each senior got to bring a razor scooter to school and ride it around all day. In one of my classes a guy made an entire presentation on his razor scooter, it was awesome. It was also super cool because our campus was big, we had 4 separate building so a scooter was really convenient. And everyone would know you were a senior. But then people were getting hurt on their scooters or hitting people or something so they tried to get rid of it. The year before I was a senior people tried to be rebellious and still ride them, but the deans would take them away. Then when I was a senior they said you couldn’t walk at graduation if you were a senior. So senior scooter day is basically gone now, in a couple years they probably won’t remember what it was. I was super pissed we couldn’t do it, but I don’t think anyone tried. I think they gave us a senior party in the quad instead, but senior scooter day was way cooler”

Senior scooter day is interesting because it relates to the liminal period in a person’s life. Senior’s are on the brink of starting a new life after high school so there are all types of rituals to distinguish the seniors from everyone else and also to celebrate the next chapter in their life. I think this ritual is particularly interesting because it is slightly anti-authority. It was discouraged before it was completely banned which I think goes hand in hand with it coming at a liminal period. The activity would only become more appealing because it allowed seniors to feel powerful and above high school.

The Generous Jesuit Ghost

“So I have this friend who goes to Fordham, and I live in the Northeast so I’ve visited plenty of times, and she told me this popular legend around the school. There’s a church on campus since it’s a Jesuit school, and one day some girl saw a priest in the church that she hadn’t seen before. She was looking for tutoring in the field of his expertise, so she befriended him. He tutored her for weeks until the end of the semester, but something wasn’t quite right. At the end of the semester, she went back to thank him for all of his help, but she couldn’t find him. So naturally, she looked up the name of the priest in the school’s records, and found the name and picture of the priest who had helped her. The funny thing is, he had apparently been dead for almost 90 years!”


I got this from one of my friends who is from Providence, RI. Her friend is a freshman at Fordham, and keeps in regular contact with her. According to my friend, the legend circulates among Fordham students, and it’s a local legend that that building is somewhat supernatural. Having gone to a Jesuit high school, I kind of have an insight to this legend. The Jesuit priests at my school loved stories like this, and they always told kind of tongue-in-cheek stories about Jesuits helping people, so I feel like this may have originated with the Jesuits themselves.

Vietnamese Dragon Origin Myth

“The legend goes that Lạc Long Quân, the King of the Dragonkind, lived in and reigned over Vietnam in about 3,000 BCE. Sometime in his life he married Âu Cơ, who was a goddess of birds. Quân fathered 100 children who all hatched at the same time with Âu Cơ. Once they were all born, the King and his wife realized that they could not live together anymore and raise all of the children together, so they split and the King went to the coast with 50 kids and the wife went to the mountains with the other 50. According to the legend, all of the Vietnamese people of today are directly descended from these 100 children, making us all dragon people.”


This legend was collected from one of my friends. He is fully racially Vietnamese, and both of his parents emigrated from Vietnam to the US when they were adults. He said his parents try to keep their Vietnamese traditions alive, mostly through cooking traditions, but also through some stories. This is the only one he really remembers clearly. To him, it’s important because his parents identify strongly with it. They don’t actually believe that they are part dragon, but the myth takes on a more significant metaphorical meaning. I don’t really know enough about Vietnamese culture, but I could imagine that this myth provides the Vietnamese with a sense of unity as well as a divide between the mountainous peoples and the coastal peoples of Vietnam.