Tag Archives: neighborhood

Posada Parade-The Inns: Mexican Festival/Holiday

Text: 

Me: “Do you have any festivals that you participate in?”

CC: “Yes, this is like a mix between a festival and a holiday, it’s called Las Posadas. In my Mexican culture, we celebrate from December 16 through Christmas Eve. Every day, a different household hosts and we usually eat tamales and hot chocolate. This 9 day celebration is seen as a traditional religious celebration that honors the birth of baby Jesus. My family dresses up in costumes that signify Jesus, Mother Mary, and Joseph. We parade around the neighborhood while singing Catholic songs, saying prayers, and basically re-telling the story of how Mary and Joseph were looking for a place to stay.”

Me: “Can you explain the costumes you guys wear?”

CC: “Sure, since there are only three main characters, the younger kids in my family are usually the ones that portray Mary, Jesus, and Joseph. The rest of us dress up as angels or simply just carry a candle as we walk during night time. My grandma actually hand sewed these costumes and they are used every year, I actually don’t know how old these costumes are. As we parade around the neighborhood, it’s a good reminder of what Mary went through and it’s a time where my family and I can appreciate the comfort of a warm home to go to at night.”

Context (informant’s relationship to the piece, where they heard it, how they interpret it):

-CC’s relationship with this festival/holiday stems from her traditional Catholic Mexican household and childhood. Given that this 9 day long festival is celebrated every year, CC has been able to appreciate this practice differently all her life considering it is uniquely performed by her family; as seen within the custom made costumes and the comfort of each household. CC heard about this festival/holiday from her dad’s side of the family, considering they are the only ones that celebrate these daily festivities despite the fact that CC’s mom is also of Mexican descent. CC grew up being exposed to Las Posadas only from her dad’s side of the family as they tend to be more religious and are adamant about continuing the festival/holiday. CC interprets this holiday/festival as a religious experience that can bring one’s community closer together as it’s a reminder of the importance of family, stability, having a roof over your head, and faith during the holiday season.

Analysis(what kind of personal, cultural, or historical values might be expressed) YOUR interpretation:

-The cultural values within Las Posadas stems from a sense of community and lifestyle values that are implemented within a typical Catholic Mexican household. Not to mention, this festival/holiday can also be seen celebrated in Honduras, United States, Mexico, Guatemala, and other Latin American countries. The personal values that are expressed within this 9 day long festival celebration is exemplified by the religious and spiritual beliefs of an individual and within one’s household. Considering this holiday is slowly disappearing as it is not celebrated as much, it takes a strong religious household to carry on this tradition and to evoke the importance of re-telling the story of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. I interpret this festival/holiday as a unique story-telling practice that evokes awareness, community, and faith. I see the concept of Las Posadas as a way to teach the younger generation about the story of the birth of Jesus and as a way to increase spiritual faith within a family. Considering I only celebrate this holiday/festival with my great-grandmother (from my dad’s side of the family), I have learned to appreciate the idea that older, more religious individuals are trying to carry on such a unique festivity that is filled with love, food, family, and valuable life stories. The concept of a potloch can be seen within Las Posadas since it is typical to see each family cater to the community/household by bringing different food items and drinks to enjoy throughout the parade. A similar holiday that can be seen in correlation to Las Posadas is Easter Sunday within American culture. The idea of celebrating the resurrection of Jesus during a storytelling church service indicates the similar qualities of Los Posadas given the religious, community, and spiritual values that are evident within both holidays. 

Children’s Game: Spanking Machine Tag

Main Piece: 

Informant: “Here’s a neighborhood game that I just remembered we used to play. It was very popular in our neighborhood. And I don’t know where it was picked up. You know, I was one of five kids, so we played a lot of games together and so we played a lot of games together, and the neighborhood would play a lot of games together, and we played a lot of tag. So we’d play some pretty typical tags like freeze tag, or just tag, or… I can’t remember the other names.”

Collector: “Like zombie tag. Or the version of it, yeah.”

Informant: “Zombie tag, yeah. So, one that we played pretty frequently- maybe it was pretty common, I’ve never seen anyone else do it -it was spanking machine tag. So, when someone gets frozen by tag, if they can stand with their legs apart like a teepee or like an A-frame and someone else can crawl through their legs before the person who’s it catches them, the person gets free.”

Collector: “Oh, yeah. I’ve played that.”

Informant: “Okay, so maybe it’s—”

Collector: “The word spanking in the title threw me off.”

Informant: “Maybe… Oh, I think we would spank them as they went through, too.”

Background:

This is a game that, as above, my informant would play as a child in Virginia as one of a number of tag variants. From the tone of voice, it was clear that she enjoyed the game. She called it as a neighborhood game, rather than a school game or kid’s game. Playing this game, she said, was localized to a smaller group than children or Virginian children. She had the opinion that this was a weird thing her neighborhood specifically did.

Thoughts:

Having played a version of this myself when I was a child in Utah, I can attest that this game is widely proliferated. The idea behind crawling through the legs rather than simply touching the frozen body is to provide a further challenge for everyone that’s not “it.” Games where there is an “it” figure are characterized by a balance of power. Power is temporarily granted to the “it” figure and it is the title that transfers from child to child, allowing them to try their hand at power. This modification allows more power for the “it” figure in freeze tag, where it’s normally very easy for the larger group to win and the “it” figure doesn’t change as frequently. This specific version is also a good example of children’s counter-authoritative tendency to introduce things like spanking that they’re not supposed to do into their games in order to push the game outside the boundary of approved play.

Hunter’s Point sisters

My cousin Joe, a San Francisco native who is currently directing a feature film that is deeply rooted in the city’s history, told me the following story, which takes place in a San Francisco neighborhood called Hunter’s Point:

“So this happened in Hunter’s Point, the very furthest edge of the city. Before it was a black neighborhood it had been like, Italians and some Chinese like fisheries and there were uh, Italian fishermen out there.
And apparently, right across from uh, where we’re gonna film our movie, there were two victorians and uh, two sisters who lived in each of them. And, they would apparently- the story, it was told to me by one guy who said they had these huge shouting matches that they would come out once a month and they would have these- this huge fight in front of the whole neighborhood and he claimed it was because their periods were timed…and they would have this huge fight and they’d go back into their homes and everything would be fine. But one day they had a fight that was so big, one said ‘I’m gonna burn your house down! I hate you!’ And then she lit her sister’s house on fire, and then her house caught fire ‘cause they were right next to each other and their houses burned to the ground. So it was kind of biblical or something.
But that was told to me because there’s like all these mysterious fires in Hunter’s Point that people have kind of tried to understand why they happen, and the guy that told me this–one of them, two guys told me–one who told me was like a former um, fireman and he said that uh, there were all these mysterious fires in Hunter’s Point and he thinks they’re arson. He thinks they’re uh, landlords trying to burn out their tenants. So anyways that’s somehow linked to this weird story of sisters–Italian sisters. But yeah, I like imagining that ‘cause now it’s a- it’s a burned out lot.”

This story can be classified as a legend, because it may or may not be true, and is supposed to have occurred in a real place. It is also a sort of origin story, because it explains the presence of an otherwise mysterious landmark– in this case a burned out lot–that neighborhood residents are familiar with. Hunter’s Point is, as Joe says, at “the very furthest edge” of San Francisco, and as such is one of the last neighborhoods in the city to begin fall victim to gentrification. The tensions over shifting neighborhood dynamics are such that some residents theorize that corrupt landlords are committing arson to keep up real estate prices, and these tensions may contribute to the popularity of legends describing former neighborhood conflicts.