Author Archives: Arooshi Barua

Cinnabons at Macalaster

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: St. Paul, MN
Performance Date: 3/17/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Bengali

Informant Description/ Context of performance: Over our spring break, one of my friends told me about a tradition they hold in a music group she’s part of at school. The music group is called AME, which stands for African Music Ensemble. They have concerts a couple times throughout the semester, and after each concert there is an after party filled with various drinking games and traditions. The professor who runs the group is called Sowah.

Original Script:

Interviewee: In Ensemble during our after parties we make Cinnabons… while we are hammered out of our minds. And ALL the people who take singing lessons with Sowah sing a song that has a word in it that sounds like “Cinnabon” and then we feed pieces of the Cinnabons to everyone. But the rule is that you can’t feed yourself, you MUST feed someone else a piece.

Me: Do you know when that tradition started? Or like how it started?

Interviewee: It was started by this person named Natalie like 6 or 7 years ago, and people enjoyed it so we just kept it going. I’m not 100% sure as to like why it started though.

Me: Got it, did she just randomly make it up or was there some reasoning behind it?

Interviewee: Yeah okay so the reason it was Cinnabons was because the song has a word in it that sounds similar to Cinnabon, like if a person who doesn’t know anything about AME or any of the African songs at all and head this song, they’d be like “why are they talking about Cinnabons?” And then at the very end of the song, we go MMMMMMmmmmmm. So it’s like MMmmm its so yummy at the Cinnabons.

Conclusion: One thing I’m always curious about is how these traditions came about. How did someone just decide to set these rules that would soon to go on to become tradition for many years to come? There was no clear answer in this case, but it was interesting to observe a culture like a music group in a small liberal arts school in Minnesota.

 

Yiddish Superstition

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Seattle, WA
Performance Date: 3/19/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Polish

Informant Description/ Context of performance: My friend’s grandma told her this superstition growing up.

Original Script:

Interviewee: My grandma told me if I want to remember something by morning I should write it on a piece of paper and put it under my pillow, and it’ll soak into my brain while I’m sleeping.

Me: Did she just make that up or did someone tell her that?

Interviewee: Honestly, not sure… I know she used to do it though, and my brother and I still do it all the time. We’re like so old-fashioned hahaha- we don’t even use our phones for reminders. It’s like on a paper under our pillow!

Conclusion: In a world that’s becoming increasingly dependent on technology, I found this superstition to be refreshingly old school. I could not tell if this was specific to Yiddish culture, but nobody else I interviewed carry this same idea. I think it’s something that was made up as a joke in Yiddish culture and got passed down between generations.

Hum Honge Kaamyab

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Saratoga, CA
Performance Date: 3/23/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Hindi

Informant Description: My friend is an Indian American; her parents immigrated here, but she was born and brought up here. Her primary connection to her Indian heritage and family history is through her grandparents.

Interviewee: Umm stories so my grandparents were in the partition of India and they all were Hindus who lived in Pakistan and then had to flee during the partition and so my grandma was the 5th out of 10 but the oldest girl so she was responsible for like taking care of a ton of the younger kids.

Me: So did she tell you this story all the time growing up?

Interviewee: Yeah. She used to say hum honge kaamyab which means we can overcome anything and it’s also a song that’s to the tune of “We Shall Overcome” and she used to sing it to me all the time when I was a kid.

Me: Do you remember the song?

Interviewee: I just remember the main chorus which was just “Hum Honge Kaamyab” repeated.

Conclusion (written by Interviewer): I had heard “We Shall Overcome” a lot throughout my childhood. To the best of my knowledge, it was quite an old song but became relevant to pop culture again during the Civil Rights Movement. Through this story, I see history repeat itself. When there was intense political and social stability during the partition, this song made its way to India and Pakistan. This song has spread and been translated in many languages, including Arabic and Hebrew. For the English, Arabic, and Hebrew version, see the following link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBgkWd5GG_M