Author Archives: Sarah Aurelio

Midwest Family Food – Familial Folk Speech

Context:

My informant is a 20-year-old student at the University of Southern California. She currently lives in Kansas City, Missouri, but she has also lived on the East Coast. Her mom’s family is Mexican and she spent a large portion of her childhood in Texas living near the border.

Text:

“When I was growing up, whenever my grandma, my mom’s mother, would come to visit from Texas, she would bring a carry-on full of frozen tamales and Mexican cookies from where she lived. These were tamales and cookies from the place my mom used to go when she lived in Texas. We’d call it “The Food Suitcase,” and it was something she always did until she passed away.”

Analysis:

This familial folk speech is used to describe this family ritual of packing a suitcase full of tamales and cookies, a food way or material folklore. This term “The Food Suitcase” became a repeated phrase used in their household to refer to the item. The phrase held emotional and sentimental value to the family.

Sukkot – Jewish Holiday

Context:

My informant is a 20-year-old student at the University of Southern California. She currently lives in Kansas City, Missouri, but she has also lived on the East Coast. She grew up Jewish, attending Yeshiva, Jewish School.

Text:

“Every year at my temple we’d celebrate a holiday called Sukkot. It’s celebrated for a week and is, I believe a type of harvest festival in the Jewish faith. We celebrate by building a sukkah, a type of outdoor hut, and sing certain songs and do activities. We’d also all take turns shaking a luluv and etrog but I’m not sure what they represent.”

I asked, “What are a luluv and etrog?”

She replies that she doesn’t really know what they are. She describes them as a this yellow fruit object and green leaves.

Analysis:

This holiday seems to be a staple in the Jewish faith since it is a repeated festival that happens annually. They celebrate with music and building new creations. From what I learned, I assume that this is a festival holds a lot of meaning in the faith since it is a repeated event, surrounded by community.

School Prank – Setting Clocks Back

Context:

My informant is a 19-year-old student who lives in Philadelphia. There she previously attended an all girls high school where her mom also attended. She talks about a prank that her mom started while she was in school and later became a tradition with later students.

Text:

“When she was there, they had nuns and we had this thing called the mansion, which was like a really old building that the nuns lived in. And she lived walking distance from the school. Like, I could walk to my grandmother’s house, so she would come in and like, after hours and like change the nuns clocks. So they woke up late and like, like school starts like 8 am that she would change it like an hour or two later. So the nuns wouldn’t wake up and they wouldn’t have class and they’d all be at school just doing whatever they wanted.

And then another day, she took frogs from, like, the lab and put them in the pool.”

I asked, “Was this a thing that continued throughout the years?”

She responded, “Yeah, like, she had, like, her younger friends started to, like, adopt the prank on the nuns thing, and then it continued.”

Analysis:

This humorous piece of folklore shows an example of school folklore. These pranks continued through the years with the succeeding classes. This seems to be a version of what other high schools call a senior prank, often conducted in their last year of school to leave their lasting mark. It seems that this prank was not only for the benefit of the class but to leave a legacy for later years.

Philadelphia Childhood Haunted House

Context:

H has an old house in Philadelphia, built during the Battle of Valley Forge. Her house had many rooms and hallways. She is one sibling out of the five in her family, and they would always share their ghost stories with each other.

Text:

“So I’m from outside, and if you guys know like, the Battle Valley Forge was there, like, in one of the wars. So my house is over, like, 250 years old, I’m pretty sure.
So we’ve always, like, I’m one of like five, so we’ve always, like, exchanged ghost stories with our house when we were younger. There are like, two that I really remember.

We have this thing called the Ice House and it’s basically just, like a little place that, we put, like old Christmas decorations, like storage, but it’s separate from our house. And my parents always said we couldn’t go in there because, like, I think it’s just unsafe.
It’s so old. And, like, the floor was, like, not stable. They’d always said we would fall through. 
But, like, one time, me and my brother were like, we want to go in and explore, because, like, I would love it. It was just weird. So we went in and we both swear that, like—first of all, it looked like someone was, like, using the house. 
Like, it didn’t look super old. Like, he says he saw, like, food on the counter. 
And then, like, we both, like, out of, like, in between, like, a cabinet or something, like, swear that we saw, like, a set of eyes, and then we ran out. So, yeah. And it was probably like three days after, like, one of our dogs died.”

Analysis:

This legend that my informant experienced seemed to have been built upon the history of her house. The historical events surrounding the building made a perfect background for her parents to build off of. This memorate of her brother and her exploring the house shows the implementation of the legend. Although their dog dying soon after might be a coincidence it might also just because of the haunted house, who knows.

Chinese New Year – Chun Lian Good Luck

Context:

The informant grew up in a Taiwanese household in the Bay Area. He grew up always celebrating Chinese New Year, a holiday that occurs every February. The holiday celebrates the start of the first day of the Lunar New Year.

Text:

“For Chinese New Year, we have, like, a red sheet of paper with Chinese calligraphy on it called Chun Lian. We stick it on the outside of our door, to ward off like evil and also brings in good luck as well.”

I asked, “Is this something that you’ve always done, like, on Chinese New Year.”

“Yeah, like, we did it always growing up.”

“So you just learned it from my parents?”

“Yes, I learned it from my parents.”

Analysis:

From what I know about Chinese New Year, many of the traditions, foods, and decorations all revolve around bringing in good luck for the new lunar new year and getting rid of all of the bad luck. This tradition does not seem to be any different. The red also seems to be a prominent theme is getting rid of the bad luck, and in tandem with the calligraphy, they are able to ring in the Chinese New Year with prosperity.