Author Archives: Sara Bosl

Remedy – Mexican

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Menudo Mornings

Each holiday my family gets together and drinks too much tequila. According to Mexican tradition, menudo is the best hangover cure. Each holiday it is a different sibling’s turn to make the pot of menudo for the rest of the family.

Julie’s family is of Mexican decent, and many of them only recently came to America.  Since much of her family grew up in Mexico, they like to incorporate Mexican tradition into their American traditions.  Menudo Mornings occur the morning after each major holiday, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, etc. The holiday it’s self is usually celebrated in an American fashion, but Menudo Mornings is Julie’s family’s way of incorporating their Mexican heritage.

Menudo Mornings itself is not a Mexican tradition, but involves many aspects of Mexican culture, and has become a tradition of Julie’s family.  By bringing Mexican culture into American traditions, it is a ways to establish and preserve their identity as Mexican.  The tradition begins with drinking tequila for each holiday.  Many people drink on holidays, but tequila is a Mexican drink, so they are only drinking from their culture.  The second half of the tradition is eating menudo the next morning.  Menudo is a Mexican dish and it is Mexican tradition to eat menudo to cure a hang over.

They involve the whole family in this tradition.  The children who are not hung over because they are too young to drink still get involved the next morning.  The children help whoever has the duty of making the menudo.  They also take part in eating it even though they are not hung over.  This allows every member of the family to take part in the Mexican tradition and establish their identity as a Mexican.

Tradition – San Francisco

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Every Sunday Charlene’s immediate family would go for a Sunday drive.

Charlene grew up in the city of San Francisco.  She had a mother and father and one older sister.  Every Sunday they would all go to church then go for a Sunday drive.  They had this tradition as far back as she can remember and it lasted until she and her sister were in their early teens.   They would go to different places like visiting their father’s office, going to Fisherman’s Warf, or even just driving around the city.

Taking a Sunday drive is a very common tradition, whether it is with family or friends.  Sunday has often been thought of as a day to relax, stemming from the bible when god took the seventh day off.  Driving around can often be a very relaxing activity, especially in a beautiful place like San Francisco. By making the Sunday drive a family activity, Charlene’s family was actually combining two traditions, Sunday driving and family time.  Many families have a specific time when they spend time together and share about their lives.  They would drive around the city and talk, go on adventures, or even visit their father’s office so they could see what was going on first hand.

Driving was an activity it’s self because not many people drove places of even had cars in San Francisco.  Charlene’s family had a car but they often took public transportation, as did most people in the city.  Charlene did not even get her license until she was 18 and moved away because the public transportation was so good in San Francisco.

Taking a Sunday drive is a common tradition and can be very relaxing.  When I first got my license, my friends and I would often just drive around, especially down the coast of California.  This often happened on Sundays because we did not have school.  We would go to church, then get in my car, put the top down, and drive down Pacific Coast Highway, sometimes stopping at the beach.  This became a tradition between my friends and I long before I knew my mother had the same tradition with her family.

The Sunday drive has taken on a negative connotation over the years.  People going for a Sunday drive often take their time.  In today’s world people are often rushing to get places, even on Sundays.  This creates a problem when one person is trying to rush somewhere and the car in front of them is taking their time.  I have even heard my dad say on several occasions, “Oh great, we’re stuck behind a Sunday driver,” implying that the person driving was taking their time.

Omen – San Francisco

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It looks like earthquake weather today.

This is a phrase that Charlene’s grandmother used to say to her some mornings when the weather looked a certain way.  Charlene grew up in the city of San Francisco, as did many f her relatives before her, including her grandmother.  In 1906 there was a huge earthquake in San Francisco, which caused a huge fire that destroyed most of the city.  Charlene’s grandmother was living in San Francisco at the time.  She remembered that the weather was very grey and muggy that day.  So, every time the weather was similar, she would say it looks like earthquake weather today.

Charlene said it would scare her because she knew exactly what that meant.  Since Charlene had grown up in San Francisco she knew all about the earthquake, plus she had heard all of the stories that her grandmother had told her.  The phrase relates to two different identities.  The fact that her grandmother would say it and Charlene knew exactly what she was talking about, identified both a residents of San Francisco.  They were both well aware of the history of the earthquake in the city.  The fact that her grandmother was able sense earthquake weather showed identified her as part of the group of people who had lived through the 1906 earthquake.

When Charlene described the weather she said it was very muggy and foggy.  I have spent a lot of time in San Francisco and it is muggy and foggy most days.  But, Charlene said that it was a very specific type of weather that only people like her grandma could recognize.  It seems quite difficult to distinguish between one foggy day and another, but Charlene said that one of the days that her grandmother said, “it looks like earthquake weather today,” there was an earthquake.

Festival – San Francisco

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May Day Festival

Every May Day there is a festival at Sigmund Stern’s Grove in San Francisco. There were large fields and groves of trees where people would hang out and watch the festivities.  The people involved in the festival were dressed up in fancy dress.  The young girls involved would dance around the may pole.

Charlene grew up in the city of San Francisco.  Every May Day she and her family would go to Sigmund Stern’s Grove to watch the festival.  She was very young when they did this, but she does not remember ever participating in the festivities, only watching them.

May Day is a celebration of the end of winter in the northern hemisphere.  It also represents fertility and new life which is generally synonymous with that time of year.  May Day has different backgrounds and is celebrated differently in different cultures.  Charlene is of English decent, and the May Day festival her family used to attend was most similar to the May Day celebrated in England.  It is interesting that this particular May Day celebration was more of a performance for people to watch rather than a festival for people to become involved in.  It is also interesting that the people who came to watch at the time when Charlene went were not tourists from out of town, but were residents of San Francisco.

The festival is themed around spring and new life.  The fact that this particular festival was held in a grove of trees and large fields coincides well with that concept.  The may pole represents the idea of new life and fertility.  The pole can be considered a phallic symbol.  The only girls who are allowed to dance around it are those who are young and fertile.  Charlene remembered best all of the pretty dresses the girls used to wear.  People usually dress up for any sort of celebration, but also this could represent the girls trying to look their best in order to attract a partner and create new life.

Proverb – German

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You can’t go backwards, you can only go forwards.

Phil said he uses this phrase when something bad has happened or you wish you could change something.  He does not know where he first heard it, but he says it reminds him of his child hood.  Phil is German and grew up in a very “German run” household.  His father was “the man of the house” and very strict.  The basic mentality that he grew up with was you just kept going on no matter what happened, which basically captures the meaning of the proverb.

As Phil said, the meaning of the phrase is basically you have to keep going no matter what.  You cannot change the past, so you two choice are to try to hide from life (which rarely works) or gut it out and move on with your life.  I see this proverb as a positive idea.  To me it gives hope that what’s done is done and you can move on with your life.  Whenever my dad would say it to me when something bad had happen, it would remind me that life does go on.  What I find interesting is that Phil sees the phrase in a more negative light.  When he was a child he was not allowed to hide from his problems ever.  He something went wrong, his father basically told him to deal with it.  For many people this may seem very harsh, but for German culture this is quite normal.  The stereotype of Germans as a tough, cold people can sometimes be very true.

I also find this proverb to be very interesting because it captures a very American view point of life.  Americans have been said to be future directed people.  Americans focus more on what’s to come, new technologies, planning out their lives, than many cultures do.  This proverb captures that mentality in one statement.