Tag Archives: symbols

Bomb Threats Written on School Bathroom Walls

Informant Context: The informant is a nineteen-year-old female undergraduate student at the University of Southern California (USC). She attended a public high school in Chicago, Illinois.

Conversation Transcript: 

Collector: “What is something traditional you’ve seen written or drawn on high school bathroom walls?”

Informant: “Initials are pretty common. I’ve seen couples’ initials with a heart drawn around them. Penises are drawn a lot too.”

Collector: “You see them drawn in the girls’ bathrooms?”

Informant: “Not often. I have seen girls write polls on stall doors. This or that questions about general topics. Like coffee or tea. Mascara or blush, for example. Then girls would put tallies under each option to place their vote. Oh! At my high school, people would also leave bomb threats in the bathrooms.”

Collector: “Bomb threats?”

Informant: “Yeah. Kids would write threats on the walls like ‘I’m going to shoot up the school’ or ‘there will be a bomb explosion tomorrow’. Crazy stuff.”

Analysis: It was surprising to hear the informant’s examples escalate during our discussion. I was familiar with her first examples because I had seen similar drawings in bathrooms at my public high school. What shocked me was the informant’s experience seeing terrorist threats written on walls. While I never saw any at my high school, I could imagine this being a popular practice across the United States, as school terrorism has become an epidemic in the country’s recent decades.

Wedding – India

My informant is half Indian and Caucasian. She shared with me some of the rituals and customs that were practiced at her cousin’s wedding:

“For my cousin’s wedding, me and my sister were bridesmaids. It was at the beach last year in April. I wore a hot pink saree (traditional Indian clothing). It’s like a crop top that is all gold embroidery and jewels on it. Honestly I’m obsessed with all the outfits. Like that’s the one thing about Indian culture I’m so obsessed with. Everyone at the wedding wears Indian outfits, so seeing all the colors against the ocean was absolutely beautiful.

 

When my cousin had the wedding she had this thing called a mandap. And what that is, is they have them all decorated and it’s basically just the alter. Like the Indian alter where people get married is always decorated with a bunch of flowers.”

 

Isn’t there something that you guys do with henna tattoos too?

 

“Yes—there’s a ceremony. Everyone does it. Like the most people is all the women in the bride’s side of the family and like also her bridesmaid, so I did it and my mom did it. It’s also a really long ceremony.

 

The Indian ceremonies are really long— when they’re getting married can go on for 2 hours. It’s cause the Indian wedding is very ‘ritualistic’. You know how in Western ceremonies they’re like ok say you’re vows, blah, blah, blah, then you’re done? For Indians, they’ll do things like each of you touch a flower and that symbolizes one thing. Then they’ll put a little dot on them and that symbolizes…it’s just everything the priest does has an underlying meaning. They also bring up people, like my mom will go up there and bless them. Everyone is incorporated in it. It’s crazy because I swear I’ve known these people since I was born, but I don’t know their names because it’s a big extended family. So sometimes we’ll go to weddings and I don’t even know some of these people’s name”

 

Do you think you’ll have an Indian style wedding?

 

“For Indian weddings, a lot goes into it. So for me and my sister, first of all, we don’t even practice any Indian religion. We’re only half—not even full Indian. So to spend all that time and money into something that I’m not really 100% invested in, doesn’t make sense to me. Cause I was raised Christian, I would have a more Western style ceremony. But I still love the culture so it would be fun to still incorporate some Indian aspects into my wedding reception like the outfits.”

 

Weddings are a very sacred ceremony that unites two individuals as one. Because it is such a unique and monumental experience, it is understandable for people to feel pressured into spending an absurd amount of time and money for the occasion. However, there is absolutely no comparison when it comes to Indian weddings. They are by far the most lavish and extravagant events I have ever heard of. It is clear that marriage holds a great deal of importance in Indian culture. It is not just a critical life milestone, but an essential religious practice in Hindu religion. This explains why weddings do not stray, but strongly adhere to ancient customs and traditions. In addition, Indian weddings are not just about bonding the couple. Everyone in the family is incorporated into the ceremony to signify that a bond has also been created between the two families.