M is a 20-year-old black woman. She is currently double majoring in NGO’s and Social Change and Communications at the University of Southern California. M grew up in Boston, MA but currently resides in Los Angeles, CA. M primarily speaks English, but she is also fluent in Spanish.

M: I actually adopt everyone else’s superstitions. Like if someone’s like oh, like… Well there’s actually one.

Me: Ok.

M: So I went to a, like the Natural History Museum in Peabody which is outside of Boston which has like a remodeled traditional Japanese house from like the 1940’s, um, and when you walk through it like the guy always tells you not to step on the threshold because it like brings demons into the house, um, and for for whatever reason I’ve, it’s not that I believe in demons, but I also now refuse to step on thresholds of homes and it really irritates my family because when we are all coming home from the grocery store and we have to get into the house quickly I must step over (the threshold) and they’re like ‘can you not suck?’ But it’s only, it’s like the threshold of like the main door of the house, is like especially bad, but then also the threshold of any door is bad, but that’s also why like most, like sometimes in the old Japanese homes at least there were thresholds like built in to the doorways so like when we have doors now, there’s like, it’s just the floor, but in the traditional Japanese home there’s like a threshold, so like a bump under each door, and basically it’s similar to like “don’t step on a crack, break your mother’s back.”

Me:  So do you do that too then?

M: God no. That would be so hard. But it’s like the same thing, like you bring demons into your mother’s home and it’s bad, like demons are bad. But yeah, I don’t do it (step on thresholds) now.

It’s interesting how something learned during an educational endeavor, and something seemingly irrelevant to the informants life turned into a daily practice for her. Even though she is not connected to the culture that the custom hails from, nor does she believe in the superstition, that stepping on a threshold of a door would allow demons to enter someone’s house,  she adopted the practice anyway. Customs migrate so easily now, especially in the United States which is so culturally diverse as well as with the travel that people do. These practices travel so fast that some people who observe such customs do not even know the reasons and the history for why such traditions exist.