Monthly Archives: May 2011

Snowball Fight Tradition/Initiation

Nationality: Jewish
Age: 23
Occupation: Intern
Residence: New York City, NY
Performance Date: 2001
Primary Language: English

Harley recalls a folklore initiation performance that happened every year at his high school, Suffield Academy. He learned it from the upperclassmen when he was an underclassman, and it happens after the first significant snowfall of the winter. He says, “It was called First Snow. Every year, when there was a first snow, big enough for a snow fight, we’d try to fucking demolish the younger kids. We’d literally pile-drive them into the ice. We were mean. Thank god Sophomore year we were in a small dorm of 8 people, and most of us had brothers that were older than us, so we got to fight our friends pretty much. There was never any disrespect about any of it, it was just what had to happen. You knew it so you’d just go out and take it. It was just hazing to the max, we just did it because we knew when we were old enough we could do it, too.” This seems to be a pretty classic east-coast school tradition, the snowball fight, as is the senior/freshman hierarchy.

Harley says, “I think it helped form who I am. Because my high school formed me into who I am, this is one of those traditions that is like a major memory of high school.  I wouldn’t say it changed me, it was just the whole experience [that did].” I totally agree. I think the likelihood of the actual snowball fight having anything to do with how he was shaped as a person is slim. However, the idea behind the tradition, that you have to take some punches and earn your way towards being an authority figure, is a good life lesson that’s completely applicable in the real world.

Annotated: First snowfall ceremonies can be seen as documented in WorldsStrangest.com, in an article about the 10 Strangest College Traditions.

“The Quick 10 – 10 Strange College Traditions.” worldsstrangest.com. N.p., 29/OCT/2010. Web. 27 Apr 2011. <http://www.worldsstrangest.com/mental-floss/the-quick-10-10-strange-college-traditions/>.

Christmas Eve Clam Chowder Holiday Meal

Nationality: Caucasian American
Age: 22
Occupation: Intern
Residence: Silverlake, CA
Performance Date: 1992
Primary Language: English

Ellen recalls a family holiday tradition that she learned from her grandmother. This tradition is one that has been in her family for generations, but her earliest memory of this tradition is around age four, while growing up in Lafayette, CA.

She says, “My grandmother would always make clam chowder on Christmas Eve because her family was originally from Wisconsin. They were British Americans. And the clam chowder was both a reflection of the region and the clams that could be found off the east coast of the United States, and also you had it o Christmas Eve because it was a modest meal, and Christmas Eve was supposed to be a night of piety and some restraint. It was a precursor to the Christmas roast and extravagant meal for that day. My mother continues the tradition today by always making clam chowder on Christmas Eve.” When I asked her what she thought about this tradition, she said quite surely, “I will do it with my children.”

Familial holidays like Christmas tend to bring the family together from all parts of the world, and traditions during these holidays help to maintain a sense of familial identity. I believe the Fehr Clam Chowder tradition serves to help maintain a sense of identity as well as a sense of morality year to year.

Mexican Evil Eye Protection Superstition

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 75
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Buda, TX
Performance Date: 1944
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

My grandmother remembers learning a protection superstition from her mother when she was 8 years old, growing up in Matamoros, Tamaulipas, Mexico. This superstition related to the Evil Eye and its negative effects. She says, “I saw it, even in my family, with my little brother, Frank. He was sitting outside on a blanket, he was like a year and a month. And he was playing there and this man that lived next door came by and said, ‘Oh how cute,’ and started talking to the baby. That night he was burning with fever, so my mother told me, ‘Go get the neighbor, because he probably gave him the evil eye.’ So I went and I got him, and he came over, and my little brother was laying down in bed, and he started praying, and he used to smoke I remember, and he would inhale the smoke from the cigarette and make a little cross with the smoke on his head, on his feet, all over his body. Just crosses over his body with the smoke. And he left. After awhile, Frank was ok. He didn’t have any more fever. And I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I saw it! He got well! It’s probably hard to understand, but it’s the evil eye, they call it.”

Esperanza told the story with little nervous laughs, as if she knew what she was saying sounded funny, but also was so real to her that she had to believe it. When she was asked what she thought about what she saw, she said, “It’s hard to believe, but I saw it that he was burning in fever, he was sick, and then I caught the man, and he prayed, and he was ok after awhile! He was fine! Some people use an egg. They get an egg and make crosses all over the body with a whole egg. Just pray and make crosses on the forehead all over and all that. They crack the egg and put it in water and say, “see? Here’s the Eye. It’s no longer in you” because the yolk would be in the water. I’ve seen all these things and I don’t think they do it anymore but I don’t know… I was young, you know, I used to watch all that, and I don’t know, they jut said someone gave them the Evil Eye and that’s how they cleaned their bodies.”

I think that being exposed to a superstition so young instills a sense of belief in the person who witnesses it, especially if the superstition is adhered to stringently.  My grandmother, many years later during this interview, seemed to begin to doubt the accuracy of what she saw, and the effectiveness of it – yet she never said she no longer believes in the superstition.

Mexican Folk Religion

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 75
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Buda, TX
Performance Date: 1944
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

My grandmother remembers old folk religious practices performed during the Lental season. She was a young girl growing up in the Catholic Church in Gomez Palacio, Durango, Mexico, about 8 years old, when she remembers a folk religious practice.

“During Lent, since I was little, my Mother used to send me to church. I was very small, and I would be scared, because they make it look so real, you know, the Passion of Christ, you know? There was a group of women all dressed in black, in the church, and they would be singing, but they sound like they were crying. And then, um, I would go into the church, and it sounds so scary to me, and then there were soldiers, you know, dressed like Roman Soldiers. They made everything look so real.

During Lent we were very dedicated to what really was Holy Week. Because I remember, that when I was little and I would be afraid to hear the ladies singing, and the big statues, you know, like the saints, and I look at them and felt like they were looking at me. I don’t know, I would be afraid because I was really little and I would go by myself because I was the oldest of the kids and the other ones were younger and I just lived a couple of blocks from the church so I would just walk there. My mother would say go to church, it’s Holy Week, go to church. We say Sabada Gloria, it’s the Saturday before Lent, we would take little buckets with water with rose petals in the water, and the priest would bless the water and we would take it home, and sprinkle it in the house to bless the house.”

Esperanza says, “I do believe about that a lot. Because I had mine blessed, my house. To me, it’s very important to take all the bad spirits, or bad karma, away. Only good, and I do believe, maybe, because I have a lot of faith. I do believe that god is with me, that by being blessed, he’s welcome and he’s been in this house.” Water as purification and for blessing is a very prevalent theme in Christianity, especially Catholicism, so it makes sense that my very religious grandmother would have partaken in this folk religious performance.

Mexican Lenten Meals

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 75
Occupation: Retired
Residence: Buda, TX
Performance Date: 1944
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

My grandmother remembers folk Lenten meals prepared for her by her mother while growing up in Gomez Palacio, Durango, Mexico.  She believes she was about 7 when she had her first memory of these Lenten foods, extremely important to her as a young Catholic girl in Mexico.

She recalls, “We were supposed to eat only certain food during Lent, like no meat on Friday. My mother used to make like 7 seven different types of dishes on Fridays.

Fish and shrimp were some of them.

The shrimp was like shrimp croquettes, because it was dried shrimp, into like a powder, and they make croquettes like that with the egg, I remember they used to make it like that, with the powdered shrimp.

She used to, we used to, uh, eat something that I guess in English is like, “bread pudding,” [capirotada], but my mother made it homemade and she used to put a lot of different things in it. Like peanuts, and, um, pecans and brown sugar. I guess the English version is slightly different but it was so good. And actually the brown sugar wasn’t like the sugar we buy here. It’s comes like little cones of brown sugar, piloncillo.

And also she made like 7 different dishes, so there were a lot of different things. She would slice a zucchini, and then she hang the slices on a string to dry up, in the kitchen. And after they were dried, she bread them, sugar and egg them, and then fry them. Those were called orejones.

And um, a greens, like watercress, it’s like spinach, you know, you boil them and then put a little onion and tomato, acelgas. Something like…. Well, they don’t make it here.

Pipian, it was a paste, they grind everything on a – you know the mocahete that I gave your mom like a rock? This was like a long one, it has three legs and a big long hand like a rolling pin – and she would grind everything in there. So everything was homemade, you didn’t buy anything. It was kind of sweet, like chocolate, and dried red peppers, and um – but they were not hot – and pumpkin seeds, she would toast them and then grind them, too. And I think peanuts also. And it was so good, I haven’t tasted it since I was little.”

When she spoke about the foods of her childhood prepared for her by her mother (who died when she was very young), my grandmother spoke with happy nostalgia. When I asked her, however, if she continued making those foods for her children, I was surprised by her answer. She said, “I didn’t really do the dishes for the kids because they don’t like half of them. But after I had my kids, I would fix some of them, like, the bread pudding. And the cactus, nobody really liked it but Aaron Jr., he still likes it, I’ll still fix it, he’ll eat it. They don’t know what pipian is or any of the other stuff because they never fix it when they were little. They don’t have the ingredients here that they did in Mexico when I was growing up. I came to the United States when I was 14 years old, so I remember the time when I was little and my Mother was living then. But I never fixed everything after I got married.” I believe the combination of Grandma moving from Mexico to the United States, as well as the trauma of her mother dying so young and having the be the head of the family lead her to abandon an old tradition that, otherwise, she might have continued in Mexico with her family. As far as the foods prepared, they are mostly indigenous to Mexico; some of the ingredients can’t be found in America and make these recipes impossible to make. My grandmother moved to America and tried to assimilate as quickly and easily as possible, perhaps she didn’t find it important to continue such an authentically Mexican meal tradition in a new home.