Monthly Archives: April 2018

Alyena Koehler 18: Adam and Eve

“The reason why men have one missing rib is because god created Adam first and he made Eve from his rib.”

Context: Alyena told me this story at the University of Southern California. She is a student at Santa Monica Community College. She was born and raised in Agoura Hills California, and is not religious. She heard this story from her family and from her peers all her life.

Analysis: Alyena heard this story even though she did not grow up in a religious home. The fact that she still knows this information from word of mouth is a testament to our highly religious American society. This is also an indicator of how patriarchal American society is, that a woman stems from a man’s rib. This was probably partially the intent behind this mythology: to depict women as inferior to men.

Alyena Koehler 18: Tobacco

“The Native Americans have sacred tobacco that they used to bless their fire with and when the Americans came they used it for smoking to dis them. Now the Americans are dying because the spirits are spiting then with cancer.”

Context: Alyena told me this story at the University of Southern California. She is a student at Santa Monica Community College. She was born and raised in Agoura Hills California, and is not religious. She heard this story at a Native American sound bath one week prior to the recording of this folklore.

Analysis: For Native Americans to be telling stories of how their colonizers are dying with cancer is telling about their sentiments towards what happened to them. The Native Americans were brutally colonized and still never received the justice they deserve for their mistreatment. For them, a story like this serves a little bit of justice for what these people did to them.

Ben Elimelech 18: Tiny people story

“There’s a story my father used to tell me about these tiny dwarf people that would come out when people were not looking. Whenever anything was missing or misplaced around the house, he would say it was the tiny people who moved it. They were always causing mischief and would hear you when you came to disappear really fast. They had a peaceful community though and we were always trying to catch them to see if we could see them.”

Context: Ben is my brother, and he told me this story at home. He heard these stories growing up and throughout his childhood. My father heard the story from his parents, and it is passed on from generation to generation. My father is from israel originally. These stories represent an element of childhood that is comforting to remember. It recalls the connection of a father and son, which is what the story means to ben.

Analysis: This story was probably used to explain all of the misplaced items that exist around a house. This type of havoc is often unexplainable, which would prompt people to create a story centered around it.

Hila Moverman 42: Shakshuka

“Shakshuka is a middle eastern food that consists of two eggs cracked over some sort of tomato sauce. It can be spicy but it doesn’t have to be. Typically, it is served in the pan and is supposed to be eaten with bread.”
Context: Hila Moverman was born and raised in Israel, and moved to the United States when she was 19.
Analysis: Food often unites a culture and makes one feel as if they are connected to a group of people because they eat similar foods. For Hila, she feels that this food connects her to her homeland and reminds her of memories of her mother cooking this food.

La Llorona

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 20
Occupation: student
Residence: los ángeles, ca
Performance Date: April 22, 2018
Primary Language: English
Language: spanish

Folklore:

This story is well known throughout general Mexico and is titled La Llorona which translates to the weeping women and is a ghost story. The story focuses on an indigenous women who marries a Spaniard and has three children. However the husband leaves the woman and marries a wealthy Spanish woman. In the indigenous women’s anger she kills her three children. Right after she kills them she regrets killing her children, so she drowns herself. In the end her soul cannot move on so she roams lakes and rivers at night calling out “mis hijos” which translates to my children.

Background and Context:

This story was told to me in a casual setting in middle of the evening on a weekend. The informant is a Sophomore at USC and is Mexican American but grew up in Southern California. She was told this story by her mother in her teenage years. My informant also told me it is a ghost story and it is believed that anyone who hears the wailing woman is destined for bad luck, it is also told to children so they won’t wander outside at night.

Final Thoughts:

This was not the first time for me to be hearing this story so I believe this story is very popular and has many different variations. I also agree with the notion that this story is used to prevent children from wandering out at night, it would be effective because it would scare the children in fear of receiving bad luck by hearing the wailing women. I do not believe in ghost but I  do believe ghosts are a possibility so this story would deter me from going out at night as a child.