All Saints Day

Background: The informant is my roommate and a fellow student at USC. She grew up in Southern California and attended a private Catholic school until she began high school.

Informant: I don’t know if this is a thing like…anywhere else, but at least at my school you’d dress up as a different saint on this day…it was called All Saints Day. Like it was Halloween but with saints instead of like monsters or whatever and we’d go to mass and we’d just all march around and you’d kind of get into character as your saint like you could be Mother Teresa or something.

Me: Was this a tradition at your school…like did teachers tell you to do it?

Informant: Yeah it was like an official day…I think it was just cute because it was like tiny kids dressed as these like adult saints but I don’t know if it was religiously significant.

Context: This was told to me during a recorded in-person interview. Upon further research, the informant later told me that it was in fact celebrated by many Christians outside of her school, and it was meant to signify that anyone who trusts in God is themselves a saint.