Author Archives: Nathanael Rodriguez

Bourbon Street Tradition

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Full-Time College Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

I interviewed MW who is from New Orleans. Although born in Ohio, his family moved to New Orleans when he was 4 years old, and has lived there since.

M talked about Bourbon Street and the spirituality in New Orleans. He works at a bar on Bourbon Street and he always has to be careful. Along the street there are vendors that may tell you they can tell you your future if you tap his elbow. M emphasized that you’re never supposed to tap elbows as this induces destiny swapping. He doesn’t know the exact reason why it has to be the elbow, but he says it stems from voodoo, and that these vendors are out to get you if they sense you have “good” energy.

The folk belief that you can swap destinies is very apparent here. We see the role of the trickster at play in this situation. The power of the vendor on Bourbon Street is something that’s respected or feared. Even his everyday behavior seems to be shaped by this idea as he is cautious about running into people like that vendor. The fact that he also doesn’t know why the elbow is important indicates that he is following oral tradition without knowing where it comes from. He believes it and passes it on, something very natural in folklore.

Mardi Gras

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Full-Time College Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

I interviewed MW who is from New Orleans. Although born in Ohio, his family moved to New Orleans when he was 4 years old. This means that he was raised there.

M talked to me about his experience with Mardi Gras and growing up in New Orleans. Every year, his family makes a big deal about going to Mardi Gras. They plan weeks ahead by buying beads and decorations for themselves. He explains that his family primarily focuses on getting green and purple beads as that’s what his dad did for his first Mardi Gras. They don’t do elaborate costumes but do have a spot that they like to go to. This year he took his girlfriend, and his parents allowed him to go out by himself instead of staying with them.

His family seems to have a routine. They focus on the beads and not the costume portion of Mardi Gras. I think this is important to note as they have personalized Mardi Gras in a way that doesn’t prioritize what they wear. It’s also important to note that they seem to have a sacred spot where their family continuously goes. This is an example of tradition in their family. His girlfriend going also peeked my interest because when I asked him about being alone in previous years he said this is his first Mardi Gras without staying with his family. I think this symbolizes a coming of age, where now that he has a girlfriend and is more independent, his parents are allowing him to go out and explore on his own. This public ritual holds such a personalized meaning, and I’m sure it’s the same for all the families that participate in Mardi Gras.

Christmas Tree on Halloween

Nationality: Mexican/American
Age: 18
Occupation: Full-Time College Student
Residence: Berkeley, CA
Language: English

I interviewed SH and she told me about putting up the Christmas Tree on Halloween.

My family doesn’t celebrate halloween. It is seen as a pagan holiday, and coming from a Christian household, it is a taboo, but more specifically deemed satanic. This created a period of time where my classmates would be engrossed in the spirit of halloween, and I would be left out. In order to substitute this time period, on halloween every year, my family put up the Christmas tree. It was a time of bonding within my family and was very common amongst our Christian community. Our community would host events on this day since the kids of the community wouldn’t be allowed to go trick-or-treat. We would invite our friends and family to commemorate the coming of Christmas.

The taboo with halloween is a description of a folk belief. The switching of a dark holiday in this household inverses to the lightheartedness of putting up the Christmas tree. This change in ritual replaces the seemingly pagan holiday with a more Christian one. The church uses this time period for communal bonding and resistance to mainstream practices.

Haunted House

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: Full-Time University Student (Graduating)
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

I interviewed JJ on her haunted house in Mexico.

J’s Grandma has a house in Mexico. In their family, they say the upstairs bedroom is haunted, and nobody stays in it. One summer her cousin went to stay at their Grandma’s house for the summer. She was forced to share the room with her two brothers, and was sleeping next to Emilio. She was on her phone at night while they lay in bed to sleep, and she felt a tapping on her shoulder. She initially ignored the tapping, believing it was her brother, Emilio. Subsequently after, she decides to see what it was and she sees that it’s a hand, and that her brother is sleeping. She feels the hand grab her and pin her down. Ever since then she has refused to sleep in that room again.

This is a taboo space that seemed to have a physical manifestation of a ghost with the hand-grabbing. The origin of where it came from is unknown to her, meaning that it has been passed on through oral tradition. Even her parents have known of the room as being haunted, and she believes they link it to the revolution in Mexico. She couldn’t provide further context, but my guess is that the room possibly holds unresolved trauma. Perhaps stemming from the revolution and one of their family members was the subject of an early demise in that room.

Burning House

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Full-Time College Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Language: English

I met with PM to discuss his ghost story.

Everyone thought my house that I lived in from ages 7-13 was haunted. Everyone in my family had their own encounter with the ghost. You know when it feels like someone is watching you? We all got that feeling something when no one was around, especially at night. My mom has a story where she was sleeping and woke up unexpected and felt like a presence standing over her. Super creepy stuff. I had my own encounters where I felt a presence watching or hovering over me when I was sleeping. My sister had it the worst though. From what I remember the ghost encounters were worse on the third floor where her room was. Things would break unexpectedly, she felt like someone was watching her a lot of the time, windows would open on their own, and the floorboards would creak up there when no one was there. Fast forward to my house burning down out of nowhere. Coincidentally, the fire started on the third floor and no one really knows how. They thought it could have been an electrically fire but who’s to say the ghost wasn’t involved. Later on, when we were looking at the pictures of our destroyed house my grandma actually thought she saw it or something eerie in one of the photos.

This is a first-person account of P’s house burning down. It’s almost as if the farther you went into the house, the more haunted it became. This is definitely a ghost story or legend, where shared experiences and personal encounters are physical manifestations of the ghost. Not only that, but the fact that the fire originated in the most “active” area of the house—and that, in a photo of the remains, Pearson’s grandma claimed to see something eerie—aligns closely with common folklore motifs. These elements are frequently seen in other ghost stories and legends.