Author Archives: Kate Lavelle

Sorority and Fraternity Pinning

Nationality: Vietnamese American & Caucasian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 30, 2013
Primary Language: English

My informant shared with me how her sorority celebrates one of its members getting pinned by her senior boyfriend in a fraternity. First, the fraternity shares with the president of the sorority that a member of their fraternity is intended to pin a sister in the house. When a date for the pinning is set, the sorority informs the house that a sister is getting pinned, but the girls do not get to know who. Any girl in the sorority who has a senior boyfriend is asked to come to the ceremony wearing a red dress and to send the president the names of her two closest friends in the sorority. Then, on the day of the pinning, all members of the sorority are required to wear black dresses except for the girls who are eligible to be pinned. These girls will be in red. The girls in black gather in the sorority house with the lights dimmed and stand in a huge circle. A ritual song is sung while the girls in red join the circle and stand in-between their two closest friends. A candle is passed to the right, starting from the ritual chairwoman, around to every girl in the circle once. On its second time around, after it passes the girl wearing red who is getting pinned, her best friend standing to her right will make to pass it to the next girl, but then actually pass it back to the sister getting pinned. The two closest friends then blow the candle out together. That signifies that it’s that girl, and this is when she first finds out she is getting pinned. After the candle is passed around, all the sisters line up outside of the house where the fraternity and the sister’s boyfriend are waiting. The boyfriend and his best friend as well as the girlfriend and her two closest friends stay standing on the porch so everyone can see them. The sorority president introduces everyone and officially announces that the sister is getting pinned. All of the close friends give toasts to congratulate the couple and the boyfriend talks about his relationship with his girlfriend. Then the fraternity presents him with his pin and he pins it on his girlfriend.

 

These ceremonies are very fun and exciting for both the fraternity and the sorority as pinning is comparable to a pre-engagement promise. The fraternity brother is giving up his active pin and is essentially reduced to pledge status within the house. It’s a little bit old fashioned, but the girls appreciate this public acknowledgement of their relationship. My informant was just involved in a pinning ceremony at her sorority at the University of Southern California, as her best friend was recently pinned.

Summer Solstice, Santa Barbara

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/13
Primary Language: English

Informant: “We have a Summer Solstice parade which is pretty wild too, but that doesn’t have anything to do with Fiesta. That’s a weird parade. I can’t even… It’s literally– the point of it is to be as weird as you physically, possibly can. There are people in, like, snow globes and they have, like, crazy make-up on. And they’re like, there’s, like, pregnant women doing, like, belly dancing.”

Lavelle: “So it’s like all the weird people come out–”

Informant: “Oh! It’s, like, people, it’s just, like, people who are like, ‘I’m usually a normal person, but I want my freak flag to fly.’ I don’t understand it but, Summer Solstice is the weirdest day in Santa Barbara. Like fiesta it’s, like, everyone’s drunk and blah lah lah… but that’s normal…”

Lavelle: “Where does summer solstice happen?:

Informant: “Uh, State Street. It all happens on State Street. It is the most bizarre parade and just… People make these floats that are, like, so strange and you’re just watching it and you’re like, ‘what drugs are you on?’ Like I imagine people would have a great time if they smoked some weed. It’s trippy, dude.

My informant is a native of Santa Barbara, California. He has never been very involved in the Summer Solstice celebration, but is aware of it’s existence. He seems wary of the population it draws into the town.

Riding the Pony

Nationality: White
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/13
Primary Language: English

“One of them, our biggest one, was called ‘Riding the Pony’ and you might’ve, I might’ve told you about this before, or something, or you might… other people do it too. Yeah, it’s a bunch of people standing in a circle and then people will go in the middle, like 5 or 6 people will go in the middle, and then everyone goes: ‘C’mon baby let’s ride that pony. C’mon baby let’s ride that pony.’ And under that, while that’s happening you’ll, the people in the middle, will run around the circle and then they’ll find someone, so it’ll go: ‘C’mon baby let’s ride that pony. C’mon baby let’s ride that pony.’ You go ‘front, front, front’ and then you go, ‘side, side, side’ and ‘back, back, back’ on them and then you say, ‘This is how we do it.’ And you switch and then new people come in and do it so it’s just, like ‘C’mon baby let’s ride that pony. C’mon baby let’s ride that pony. Front, front, front. Side, side, side. Back, back, back.’ Switch. And you do it. And you just do it a million times, um, and it’s really fun ‘cuz when you’re doing the ‘front, front, front’ part, people are, like, grinding up on each other and stuff. And in the back you’re, like, hitting your butts on each other and just pushing each other out of the circle. So that’s a huge, like, energy thing for us that we would do.”

My informant was very involved in the theatre program at his high school, Dos Pueblos High School, in Santa Barbara, CA. This was a game that the casts of shows he performed in would play before a performance. It was a fun thing to do, but also a good warm-up to increase energy before a performance. My informant enjoyed telling this story and he laughed about it a lot.

Fiesta, Santa Barbara

Nationality: Caucasian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/25/13
Primary Language: English

Informant: “So, Fiesta’s a cool thing in Santa Barbara that it’s, like, this week in August where the entire town just agrees that they just wanna get really drunk and everyone’s like, ‘Yeah, sure.’ Um, I think they have a couple of events that’s meant to celebrate our Spanish history because we were founded by Saint Barbara or… (scoffs)

I think it’s meant to celebrate becoming sort of the town that it is today so, and celebrating our Spanish tradition, so a lot of people will, like, just go to all the bars and get really drunk because that’s how they interpret Fiesta, um, And it’s always really funny because State Street, like, our big street, is just filled with confetti and als— cause, do you know what cascarones are? They’re these– the eggs that they hollow out and then they fill with confetti. So they’re hollowed out confetti eggs and you crack– you are supposed to crack them in your hands, this is a lesson I learned, you crack them in your hand and then you just go like this (he rubs the palm of his hand in a circle on the top of his head) and put it on people’s hair. And there’s confettis everywhere so State Street is just littered in confetti because it falls everywhere, like, Starbucks, ugh– over the summer, so much confetti to sweep up, disaster. It turns into a disaster zone over the summer. But if you crack the eggs without cracking them in your hand first, like you just try to put it on people’s heads, the shells are a lot harder than you think and they’ll just… hurt people. So that’s an important thing. But cascarones are a huge thing. And then we have a lot of flamenco dancing that goes on which is amazing. Um, yeah, it’s, like, some of the biggest flamencoing stuff goes on in Santa Barbara, outside of Spain, um, and, yeah. They have all of this, like, the spirit of the fiesta which goes to one of the young flamenco dancers and there’s this whole culture there that I never even knew about. Um and a lot of traditions about flamencoists and stuff which is really cool, um, but one thing I found really interesting about Fiesta is how mixed it got with the Mexican culture because of, just of, our city has kind of a, uh, em, decently sized Mexican population so there’s always, like, mariachi bands playing and stuff which isn’t at all related to Spain. I mean, like, it’s Latin America versus Spain so, like, there’s a really interesting confused mix of, like, Mexican versus Spanish culture and everyone just kind of accepts it. Which, like, the analyst inside of me is just, like, I wonder what’s significant about that about globalization, about, like, people wearing sombreros and thinking, like, you know this is a Spanish thing versus, like, a Mexican thing so that, that was always, like, something I’ve gotten into as I got older. Because as a kid it was like ‘Confetti, hey!’ and now I’m just, like, what are the implications now of, like, this mixed culture. Um, but for the most part, like, it’s pretty Spanish and we celebrate, like, we have streets called, we have a street called De La Guerra which translates into, like, ‘from the war.’ Uh, and that’s a pretty historic street for us and that turns into kind of like a little market with lots of Spanish food being served and, um, it’s a big, it’s a big just part– it’s a week of party; it’s amazing. So. That’s I guess sort of a tradition… And drunk people knock on lots of people’s doors and ask to use their bathrooms. That’s what my friend hates about Fiesta. Constant music, constant drunk people…”

Lavelle: “Trying to use your bathrooms?”

Informant: “Trying to use your bathrooms.”

Lavelle: “That’s really funny.”

Informant: “Yeah, pretty brazen.”

My informant is a native of Santa Barbara, California and he has been aware of the celebration of Fiesta for many years. He enjoyed it innocently as a child and it’s always been a tradition he looks forward to during the summer. My informant loves Santa Barbara and the traditions the community has. My informant has also begun to question some of the practices that are accepted at Fiesta, the drunken escapades most specifically. Also, my informant is interested in learning more about how Mexican culture was infused into this Spanish tradition.

Birdman

Nationality: Indian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/23/13
Primary Language: English

My informant told me about this game called Birdman while she was sharing about traditions at Scarsdale High School.

“I don’t know if other schools did this, but it was a game that started. And you basically do this, like, birdman (She holds her hands to her face, palms down, with her thumbs and index fingers making circles around her eyes) symbol over your eyes and if you quote in quote Birdman someone, they have to lie down on the ground for three seconds. And this was, like, a pretty harmless thing that started, but it just started to happen everywhere. So if you’d Birdman, like, you could– there were, like, ways to block a birdman and then, like, if you didn’t respond, you’d get blacklisted. There was, like, a comput—there was, like, an online blacklist for, like, who was blacklisted from Birdman. But seniors especially would take this really intensely and so, like, you, if you got Birdmanned, they would stop in the middle of everything and just get down on the floor for 3 seconds. And it was so intense that you could Birdman someone while driving, while they were driving and they would have to stop the car, get out of the car, lie down on the ground, and get back into the car. Um, and even teachers started to play. I think our librarian was, like, notorious for doing it, like, if you Birdmanned him in the library he’d get down on the ground.”

This was a game that my informant participated in during her freshman year of high school. She says it wasn’t something she was particularly interested in, but many of her friends were very into it. She played if she had to. This is a funny memory for my informant. She looks back on this game and can’t believe the students enjoyed it so much.