Author Archives: Sydney Marquez

Microwaves and Pregnant Women

Nationality: White
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC - off campus housing
Performance Date: 04/28/2013
Primary Language: English

So when my mom was pregnant with me, my grandma was extremely paranoid about my well-being, so she wouldn’t let my mom go near the microwave while it was on. Cause ]my grandma saw on the news that microwave radiation would somehow seep into the womb and would hurt the baby. But I think this was like something she heard in the 60s-70s cause my mom knew nothing was going to happen to me, but my grandma was worried anyway. [My grandma] was and is addicted to the news. Every single superstition she has about anything, she gets from the news.

 

Do you know of anyone else who had that fear of microwave rays hurting babies in the womb?

Actually, maybe not like an explicit story from someone, but I do remember that at some point during my life I heard quite a bit about people’s paranoia surrounding microwaves. So I guess this microwave legend or whatever has been around for sometime. But also, I know that my grandma had an abortion at one point because the doctor told her that the baby was going to be deformed, so I kind of always thought that her microwave slash overall overprotection with babies in the womb must have stemmed from that.

 

My Reaction:

Like cell phones, there are a ton of superstitions and urban legends regarding microwaves. It makes complete sense that someone would suspect that the rays would be harmful to  baby.

El Chupacabra

Nationality: White / Mexican
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Rowland Heights, CA
Performance Date: 05/1/2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

So when I was in 6th grade, I moved to a new school and I had to take this Spanish class and my teacher’s name was Ms. Riley. She was absolutely not Spanish or Mexican or any other Latin nationality at all, and she even told us this. Not that a Spanish teacher has to be Spanish, but this lady was really bizarre and for some reason, the fact that she chose to teach Spanish just really added to her strangeness. So I remember during class, she’d get distracted a lot and would tell us these really, really weird stories, that were apparently all true – but even my 6th grade knew she was full of shit. That or she was just like, a psychopath or something. Like she said this dentist she had would perform surgeries on her and she’d wake up during the procedure and the anesthetic would have run out and he would keep doing the surgery while she was awake and later on she found out that this guy was like actually a criminal that the FBI was hunting and he would go around posing as a dentist and would basically just torture his patients. Just like weird stuff like that. So that kind of like sets you up for all the stories that she told us in class. Just like based off of that, I never, ever believed what she said. So in her class was the first time I ever heard about “el Chupacabra,” which is Spanish and when translated loosely means like, “the goat sucker.” And like, it basically did just that, well, more or less. Like the Chupacabra was supposed to be this like alien/vampire/wolf-looking creature thing that would suck all the blood out of farm animals mostly. And that was about it. And like this is something that people like actually believed in cause I’ve seen tv specials where they interview people who had farms and like would go into their barn to find that one of their animals was drained completely of their blood and they would have two puncture wounds. I mean, it seems like a pretty viable thing, because I’ve heard a ton of stories where people said their animals were drained of their blood, but the way my teacher described the Chupacabra, she kind of ruined any possible belief I could have had in this creature. So like, she told us this story about how she was driving in her car down a road in a forest, and like all of the sudden, she saw this like glowing, neon green creature thing fly in front of her car. And for some strange fuckin’ reason, she decided that It would be a good idea to stop her car and get out and look around for God knows what. So when she got out of her car, she saw that on the side of the road, next to her car were like three crows or some other bird, and all of them were dead and all of them apparently were drained completely of their blood. And then, to apparently corroborate this story, she told us of this time she found this alley cat and decided to take care of it, then one day, she heard this cat have a grissly fight in a tree outside her house. And when she went outside to see what the fight was, she just saw this glowing thing fly out of her tree and away somewhere and then the cat fell to the ground and smelled really bad and then it got sick and died in the next couple of days. Her claim was that for both of these scenarios, the Chupacabra was the flying thing, and ya.

 

So did you ever tell people about the Chupacabra?

Yeah, tons of people, but I never tell them about my teacher’s crazy variation on the myth.

 

Do you believe in Chupacabra, or did you ever believe in it?

No, but sometimes when I’m driving down a dark road, and I’m the only car, I always get paranoid that something is going to fly in front of my car, and in the back of my mind, I think it’s going to be Chupacabra. Like not actually, but you know, the thought is there.

 

My Reaction:

I too have seen the specials on this creature, and while I know it’s not real, I have seen some convincing evidence for something that is sucking the blood from animals.

El Cucuy

Nationality: White / Mexican
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Rowland Heights, CA
Performance Date: 05/1/2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

So in Mexican culture, there’s this thing called “El Cucuy,” (pronounced, koo-koo-ee) which is basically like the boogeyman. Like when you’re a kid, and you’re being bad, it’s something that parents will tell you about to make you behave. Like if you’re not eating your dinner, or you were told to clean your room and you aren’t, you’re mom might say like “you better eat your dinner or clean your room or el Cucuy is going to eat you.” And it works. That shit was the scariest! I was so afraid that he was actually going to eat me. Literally like every single time they pulled the “cucuy” card on me I did whatever they wanted me to do.

 

And where does the Cucuy live?

Uh, I knew some other kids whose parents told them about “el cucuy” too and for them, he lived under the bed like the boogeyman, but the way my Nina told it to me was that he hid in the closet and he only came out if I was misbehaving.

 

Did this ever make you afraid of going into your closet?

Only if I was doing something I knew I wasn’t supposed, otherwise it was just a closet, cause they told me that [el cucuy] would only come out if I was being bad or wasn’t listening to my mom or something.

 

And this is a Mexican thing?

Well, ya like any Latin country really. I don’t know who like actually made it up, or started the el cucuy thing, but it’s definitely spread throughout Latin culture.

 

When did you stop believing in El Cucuy?

I mean, I don’t know the particular date or year or whatever, but just at that like age you get to when you start thinking you’re too cool for things. And nothing triggered my disbelief in him, but you just figure it out at some point, you know?

 

My Reaction:

I have a bunch of friends who come from Mexican families, so I’m very familiar with the cucuy. Parents do things like this all the time. They threaten kids with a creature so that they will do what their told, however, cucuy is particularly scary because he is supposedly something that will eat children.

May Day

Nationality: Jewish
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC - off campus housing
Performance Date: 05/1/2012
Primary Language: English

So May 1st is May Day and what you do is you pick flowers, preferably out of someone else’s yard and then you leave them on someone’s front door and you ring the doorbell and then you run away. And when they open the door, they have flowers there and it’s really cute!

 

So you pick someone else’s flowers and put them on a different person’s porch?

Yeah, cause that’d be fucked up to pick their own flowers.

 

Who taught you this?

I don’t know, I think it was my friend, Janelle, from 3rd grade and we’ve done it every May 1st since.

 

Do you know where she’s from or where she got it from?

Seattle.

 

And her family’s just always done it?

Yeah.

 

Have you told other people about this and do it with other people?

Yeah. I’ve done it like a lot. I haven’t done it in the last like five years, but I kind of really want to do it this May 1st.

 

What does this accomplish?

I don’t know. It like brightens their day and it’s like the beginning of spring. I mean, I guess it’s not the beginning of spring.

 

My Reaction:

I have never heard of this tradition before and I really wonder where it derives from. I am familiar with the term, “May Day.” But I know it as something completely different.

The Back of My Hand Itches

Nationality: African American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: USC - on campus housing
Performance Date: 04/28/2013
Primary Language: English

I remember, my mom didn’t tell me this when I was younger, so it’s kind of weird how I know it now. She told me this when I was kind of like a teenager so you know, I was able to question bullshit. But what she told me is that if the back of your hand itches, that means you are about to come into some money. And she said she got that from her mom. And it was just a thing that was passed down within the family. So I don’t know. I heard this when I was a teenager, so I really didn’t believe it. But every time after that, my mom would be like, “my hand itches, I’m about to come into some money, Joshan” –err, she wouldn’t call me Joshan, she would just call me Josh. I’m like, “oh, okay…” Like I thought it was complete bullshit.

 

Would it happen where her (your mom’s) hand would itch, and money would come from somewhere?

Yeah. I think it was just like, it got to the point where it was too many coincidences, like it just kept happening. And since it kept happening, my mom kept believing in it. Every time the back of her hand itches, she’s about to come into some money.

And do you not believe in it?

No, I don’t.

 

Has there ever been a time where your hand’s itched and you came into money after that?

No, but there’s been times where the back of my hand does itch, and I’m like, “oh shit, probably.” It never happened, though. I can’t recall.

 

My Reaction:

I feel like I’ve heard something like this before. There are a ton of superstitions regarding the bodily sensations you get. I’ve heard people say that if your ears are ringing, then that means that someone is talking about you. Just stuff like that I hear all the time. There’s no validity to any of it, but I just think that people like causes and effects for the things that happen to them.