Tag Archives: spanish

Spanish New Year Tradition: Eating 12 Grapes

Context:
The informant is a 20-year-old guy living in California. His mother’s side of the family is Spanish and his family still practice some Spanish traditions in their American household.

Text:
Informant: Basically, at midnight on New Year’s Eve, when the clock strikes twelve, we will eat 12 grapes. Each of them symbolizes a month in the upcoming year, so it’s important that you eat all 12 of them. It gives you good luck.
Collector: Does it matter whether they are green grapes or purple ones?
Informant: I don’t think so. Although I heard my mom say that you should eat the grapes along with the bell trikes. Well, we don’t get that here in California, so we kind of just eat them one by one.

Analysis:
In Spain, there are a great variety of grapes and grapes are important to their agriculture and wineries. Grapes are most likely a symbol of prosperity. According to the article in Atlas Obscura, the tradition might come from a clever farmer’s marketing strategy to digest a surplus harvest, or from an imitation of French customs acted by the bourgeoisie in Spain. Regardless of the origin, Spanish people see this tradition as a way to avoid bad luck and bring good luck for the upcoming year. This idea of 12 grapes symbolizing 12 months can be seen as homeopathic magic, meaning that the people would have grapes, or other crops, to harvest every month in the upcoming year. Some parts of this tradition are lost in the informant’s family since they emigrated from Spain to the United States; however, they still continue to perform this tradition each year to remember their cultural roots and cultural identity.

El Cucuy

“There’s like a monster called El Cucuy, kinda like the boogeyman, it’s meant to scare children. Basically if you misbehaved El Cucuy would like to come and get you.”

Background: The informant’s parents never used it to scare her as a child, she would sometimes hear it from family members at parties or at dinners. She says it was used more in a joking manner in her family, rather than as a tactic to keep the kids in line.

Analysis: The El Cucuy is mainly viewed as a Spanish myth or legend but it can also be viewed as a superstition as it is able to mysteriously hide under the beds of misbehaving children. El Cucuy is often equated with the Western idea of the boogeyman and has many different variations such as Coco, Coca, Cuca, or Cucuí. Many cultures often have a boogeyman in order to prevent children from misbehaving, though most families don’t take it seriously in today’s society, often using it in a joking manner so as to not completely terrify children.

La Yegua de Moca

Context
LV is my grandmother, who was born in Moca, Puerto Rico. Her father was from Aguadila, Puerto Rico. Her mother was from Moca, Puerto Rico. Moca is a small town that’s 50 miles away from the major cities. It’s known for its landscapes and agriculture. LV lived there until she was 17 years old and now resides in Chicago, Illinois. She only speaks Spanish, but the following is translated into English in literal form.


Text

DO: When you were a little girl, do you remember any stories specific to your town that you loved.

LV: Yes. La Yegua de Moca (The Mare of Moca). It was my favorite. Mother told me it when I was a small girl. 

DO: What do you remember about it?

LV: It was about a girl. The girl was named Ramona and she was in love with a man who worked a finca (slang that translates into property or farm). She was rich and had beautiful things but he was poor. You know how these things go. She wanted to run away, and far. But her dad caught her and she was locked away. To escape and be with her love, to the devil she sold her soul. He turned her into the most beautiful white horse, but of course the devil is a trickster. She had to live forever like that. A white horse. You know how my town is all mountains and green, she had to wander as a horse in those mountains forever. 

DO: Wow. It’s a sad story, why do you like it so much?

LV: I don’t know, to tell you the truth. I like the idea of her being free at least in the way that she was free from her father. 

Analysis

This is a famous myth in Moca sometimes literally just being called “La Moca.” It’s part of the town’s cultural identity and connects with something important to them: agriculture and land. Both characters were tied to a farm in some way, Ramona was the daughter of a wealthy farm owner and her lover was a farm worker. This story shows the cultural beliefs about wealth and social status. Ramona’s father would rather have her locked away than be with someone in a lower class, showing how important status can be to this town. It also demonstrates how important religion is to Puerto Rico’s culture. Ramona sells her soul to the devil and thus is punished for the rest of her life. In Puerto Rican culture, God is everything. Having the character speak to the devil and then be punished for all eternity illustrates what they believe happens when you stray from God. 

No One is So Young…Nor So Old

Nadie es tan joven que no se pueda morir mañana, ni tan viejo que no pueda vivir un día más. (“No one is so young that they cannot die tomorrow, nor so old that they cannot live another day.”)

Context

MD is my roommate’s friend here at USC. She is originally from Miami Beach, Florida and has lived there her whole life. She was raised by Argentinian parents who immigrated to Florida when they were in their teenage years. She describes her parents as both free spirited and herself in the same fashion. 


Text

MD: I think my parents both always had these really poetic and pretty sounding sayings growing up just because of the type of people that they are. If I had to pick one I’d say, “Nadie es tan joven que no se pueda morir mañana, ni tan viejo que no pueda vivir un día más.”

DO (Interviewer): Can you explain more about that?

MD: Well a literal translation of it is “No one is too old that they can’t live another day, nor too young that they cannot die tomorrow.” My mom always says it to me. 

DO: What do you think the significance is to her? Or even what does it mean to you?

MD: My mom is a free spirit, live in the moment type of woman for sure. So I think this is her way of saying two things actually. The first part is saying you’re never too old to go after what you want. Never too old for adventure. The second part is more of a warning I guess. I think a lot of people, especially in our generation, have a “live fast, die young” mentality. To me this phrase is like a balance thing. Go after what you want because it’s never too late, but also remember that what you do can have consequences. 

Analysis

Even though the saying is in Spanish it has more of a lifestyle type of folklore than a cultural one. Societal norms may place certain restrictions or even uphold certain ideals based on age and common perceptions of certain age groups. This phrase can serve as a statement to break these ideas of what age means and go against the grain of what expectations are placed on you based on your age. Western culture has a notion of the youth being reckless and free and the older generations being wise and sometimes even sort of stagnant in their lifestyle. With phrases like these, it’s an encouragement to break these norms. Additionally, this phrase can stand to represent the importance of life itself, encouraging others to enjoy it while it’s here but also live in a way that lets you enjoy it as much as possible. It can also stand to talk about time and how we all have these ideas about it. Some believe they have a set amount of time here and others feel, in a sense, immortal. This phrase works to explore that. 

Joke/Riddle:How do you say pollo in English? And how do you say repollo in English?

Context: D also introduced me to this Spanish joke that they had learned from her childhood friends. D explained that “pollo” is chicken in Spanish, and “repollo” is cabbage in Spanish, so the joke is that people would answer chicken for the first question, and then rechicken for the second question. They told me that the joke would only make sense to people who were bilingual in both English and Spanish since it plays off of the similarities of both Spanish words and their English translations.

Analysis: After D explained the joke to me, I found it quite funny even though they thought it was silly since it was just a stupid joke they played on each other in grade school. It’s interesting how language works with jokes because they sometimes don’t work when translated. This actually reminded me of a joke that I heard from a family friend of mine that only bilingual people who speak both Mandarin and English would understand. You put up four fingers and ask the person what word you are putting up and they will usually respond with “four”. Then you bend your four fingers down and ask them again what word you are putting up and they usually get stumped, so you tell them that it’s “won-der-ful” putting emphasis on the “won” and pronouncing the “ful” similar to four. This is because the “won” sounds a lot like the mandarin word for bend is “弯”, so together it’s roughly translated to “bent four”.