Author Archives: Sofia Gonzalez

The Window

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 56
Performance Date: April
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

I just remember the window… and you know scared me the most was my grandmother… and she would yell at my mom, “He can get in that window!” and I just remember that window. “He’s little and he’s skinny and he can get in that window Becky, and the doggy door!” She would get on my mom, Grandma Muffin. “He could get through the doggy door Becky, you need to close that every night!” So it was hearing my grandmother say it. My parents were careful not to say it.Victor’s mom was super paranoid, she could not be alone in the house. Well and I remember Victor came to the house because you guys were dating at the time and he put like a lock on the window and I was like “Oh man this is serious, like he’s putting a lock on our window.” Yeah it was scary because he kinda went like to different locations and he would sneak into people’s houses and murder them umm… and they didn’t know I mean it took a while to catch him.

This particular piece of folklore was quite frightening because it referred to a murderer based in my hometown of Los Angeles. My informant discussed the importance of windows:closing them at night, installing locks, or placing bars on them. In her neighborhood where she grew up in Pico Rivera, California, the murderer Richard Ramirez, notoriously nicknamed “The Night Stalker,” would sneak into people’s houses then kidnap and murder them in the 1980’s. She told me while discussing murder stories and urban legends from her city. My informant actually lived through this and recalls the significance that windows had in her neighborhood as a source of protection.

Gravity hill

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 26
Performance Date: April 1, 2017
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

It was a… it was an urban legend of Gravity Hill somewhere in Pasadena, you would driving to a certain location, I forgot what street it was and you would get off, you would put baby powder on all the windows of the car and you would put the car in reverse and supposedly little kids were pushing you up the hill and then you could see the handprint.

My informant was an active practitioner of this legend. He had heard it from some of his high school friends, however their attempt did not work. He told me this urban legend while we were casually talking about other urban legends. His story reminded me of the same story I had heard about a certain hill in Hacienda Heights, California. The other people that were around us at the time also chimed in, saying that they had seen the same thing in a movie. I have heard several versions of this legend. I heard one version where the heater/air conditioner is supposed to fog up the windows instead of baby powder. I also heard that there is supposed to be a dent on the roof of the car, signaling dangling feet from a hung dead body above.

“For another version of this urban legend, see the movie Fingerprints (2006) based off an urban legend from San Antonio, Texas.

Midget Town

Nationality: American
Age: late 30s
Performance Date: April 1, 2017
Primary Language: English

Oh it was always like have you been to midget town? Because it’s like… Yes, it scared the bejeezus out of me. But it was just like this one way street by the river bed and that the houses are smaller so it’s midgets. But it’s a private… it says PRIVATE STREET:NO TRESSPASSING, that if you drive down the street, midgets will come and chase you with pitchforks.  

This Urban legend came to the attention of my informant through her high school friends and peers. She told me this story as a funny thing she and her friends used to do. This was an urban legend around where she grew up in Whittier, California. She was an active practitioner of this urban legend and found that the houses were indeed smaller for little people, but there were no pitchforks. This piece of folklore was interesting to me because this was a real place that was only nicknamed “Midget Town” a name stereotyped for little people.

Brandon’s Satan worship

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 26
Performance Date: April 1, 2017
Primary Language: English

So he started studying like he started reading books about Satanism, he was just… he was just really interested in it and it was like probably about a month that he was really into it like buying books and like reading into it and I was like “You need to stop this, like this is creepy, I don’t like it.” So I was against it but, so during that month some weird things were happening. So there were umm… a bunch of flies that would just come into his… just his room, only his room and they would I don’t know where they would come in from but they were just like everywhere in his room. And then one night we were asleep and in the middle of the night like dead silent his guitar just like knocks over and it woke us up because it like you know it made the guitar noise, that was creepy. And the whole month we both had really creepy dreams, in our dreams it was always something about the room, like something was getting us. It was really creepy.

My informant lived through these strange events. She told me this story after the topic of Satan and devil worshippers came up. I found this story interesting because my informant was telling this story about Brandon, an ex-boyfriend who cheated on her. Hearing these strange things about him made me wonder if this was part of the reason for their break-up or part of her method of rationalizing the break-up, as folklore often does with things we do not understand.

The Devil in the Wall

Nationality: Mexican American
Age: 26
Performance Date: April 1, 2017
Primary Language: English

Okay I was really upset about something maybe it was something that happened in school or dance, I don’t know but I was like crying in my room, it was when we had the bunk beds and I was on your bed crying, crying, crying umm… for like an hour or something and you know how we used to have that umm.. The wall used to have like some sort of texture to it. What is that called? Oh no that was the ceiling but it was the wall. The wall had a crack and I was crying, crying, crying and I looked to my right and I swear, it was the lighting and there was a crack in the wall and it looked like the devil’s face like for sure and I told dad and he, I mean you saw it too right? And it was creepy because I had never seen it before, I had never noticed it before until that moment and then uhh… so he ended up just knocking a hole in it and then like re-plastering it to get rid of the creepy devil face.

My informant experienced this piece of folklore and traumatized her to this day. She informed me about this story as everyone was talking about weird ghost stories or satanic stories over dinner. This piece of folklore scared me when I heard it because the informant was talking about the room I used to sleep in every night and I had no idea about the crack in the wall.