Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Dance Traditions

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student (University of Southern California)
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 2, 2017
Primary Language: English

For dance, like, um, when I was with the company, the night before the show, like, we’d always have sleepovers, and we’d always drink three… three strawberry Fantas each, which is really bad for you, ’cause you’re not supposed to drink soda, obviously, the night before, but we did it anyway, it was just like a good luck thing.

 

Thoughts:

This good-luck tradition reverses something that it supposed to be discouraged and taboo and turns it into a ritual for luck. It shows the dancers’ and teenagers’ in general tendency to bend or break rules. Additionally, because my informant is a highly trained and very talented competitive dancer, it could speak to her and her teammates’ confidence that they will be able to perform their best regardless of drinking soda the night before a performance. The context of this tradition within a sleepover works to build a community and bond with the entire team, since they are spending the whole night before a performance (and presumably the entire day of the performance) with each other and participating in the same rule-breaking rituals.

Christmas Eve Traditions

Nationality: Mexico
Age: 19
Occupation: Student (University of Southern California)
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 1, 2017
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

In my family, we… always go to Christmas Eve together. We go to mass together at… seven or eight p.m. We always sit in the… left… front left of the church, um, after we go and see, uh… like, the floats that people make for Christmas, and they’re decorated with, like, Christmas lights and nativity scenes and scenes from the Bible, and there’s, like, kids and adults dressed up, um… with costumes from… Biblical characters, and then after that’s done… um… we go back to my grandma’s house at like ten p.m. Um, and before dinner, we gather around the nativity scene that’s in my grandma’s… uh… like, behind the front door… and we sing to baby Jesus, then we pray, we do a little reflection of the day, then we kinda go around and say things that we’re thankful for that year, um… like, how we were blessed that year. Uh… then we do, like, an Our Father together and hold hands, then we do, like, a closing, um, song. And then before we put baby Jesus in the manger, we give a kiss, and put in the manger, and then we go into the big dining room… where… uh, my grandma’s already, you know, set up the table, and we always have turkey on Christmas Eve with… like, the turkey’s made with red wine… and we have, like, a fruit salad that my grandma makes, it’s homemade, and… uh, sometimes the dessert, uh… like, an original recipe that she has for a… like, a chocolate cake… and after we’re done with dinner, we usually play games or go to sleep if we’re really tired.

 

Background (from interviewer):

My informant is from Morelia, Mexico, and comes from a very conservative Catholic family. She is very close with her family, and returns to Morelia to visit them at least twice a year. She is also deeply religious and is very involved with the Catholic Center at USC.

 

Thoughts:

The repetition and specificity of these rituals show my informant’s and her family’s commitment to routine and her traditional background. They also emphasize her devotion to Catholicism and the religiosity of the holiday, and strengthen her bonds with her hometown and her family, since they do this all together as a family, gather at their grandmother’s home, and eat the same kind of homemade meal every year.

Las Mañanitas

Nationality: Mexico
Age: 48
Occupation: Financial advisor
Residence: Minnesota
Performance Date: April 12, 2017
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Lyrics:

Estas son las mañanitas

Que cantaba el rey David

A las muchachas/los muchachos bonitos

Se las cantamos así

Despierta (nombre), despierta

Mira que ya amaneció

Ya los pajaritos cantan

La luna ya se metió

Translation:

This is the song of the morning

That King David sang

To the good-looking girls/boys

We sing it like this

Wake up (name), wake up

See that it has dawned

Now the little birds are singing

The moon has already set

 

Context: 

(In informant’s words:) “Las Mañanitas” is a Spanish song that we sing in Mexico on birthdays… I don’t know if they also sing it in other, uh… Latin American countries, but… we do it on everybody’s birthday in our family, and our friends in Mexico. And sometimes if we’re with close family, uh, like my parents or cousins or siblings, or in Mexico, there’s another verse that we sometimes… uh, add, which goes:

“Que linda está la mañana

En que vengo a saludarte

Venimos todos con gusto

Y placer a felicitarte

El día en que tú naciste

Nacieron todas las flores

En la pila del bautismo

Cantaron los ruiseñores

Ya viene amaneciendo

Ya la luz del día nos dio

Levántate de mañana

Mira que ya amaneció”

Translation:

“How lovely is the morning

On which I come to greet you

We’re all coming with relish

And pleasure to congratulate you

The day on which you were born

All the flowers were born

On the altar of baptism

Sang the nightingales

Now daybreak is coming

Now the light of day has reached us

Get up in the morning

See that it has dawned”

 

Thoughts:

It is interesting that this traditional birthday song revolves around the motif of morning and dawn to symbolize a new year of life for the birthday person, as well as other symbols of “new life” such as flowers and birds, which are also often used to represent springtime. It also contains images central to Christianity (King David, baptism), which is unsurprising for a song sung in a culture that is (traditionally) steeped in religion. This is, to my knowledge, the most common Spanish birthday song (perhaps now rivaled by a Spanish translation of the common English “Happy Birthday” song), and one that has, without fail, been sung at every single Mexican birthday I have attended, including my own.

 

Annotations:

For another version of the song (as well as videos of various performances) see:

“Las Mananitas.” Mexican Birthday Song, Explore Hispanic Culture, www.explore-hispanic-culture.com/las-mananitas.html.

Mordida

Nationality: Mexico
Age: 48
Residence: Minnesota
Performance Date: April 12, 2017
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

A tradition is… what we call… “la mordida,” or “the bite” in Mexico. And basically, it’s when somebody has a birthday, and they get their birthday cake, and after singing “Happy Birthday” to the person, everybody shouts, “Mordida! Mordida!” which means “the bite.” Or, “Take a bite! Take a bite!” And so the person has to take a bite out of the cake without using his hands, just directly with his mouth, and when he takes a bite, usually people will push… their whole… will push their head into the cake so their whole face ends up with cake.

 

Context:

It’s just a funny, festive… it’s good-natured humor… you know, let people know that they are being celebrated and that they’re special somehow and they get, uh, cake on their face. Uh… and it’s just funny because everybody has a different reaction, and everybody ends up with a different face after they take the bite and get the cake in the face. And… I enjoy it, it’s fun for me, and I enjoy it because I think it makes a lot of people laugh… it makes the kids laugh… it makes everybody kind of enjoy, have a good time… uh… be good-natured, be relaxed, and… just kind of go with, uh, go along with the joke and… kind of, uh… just have fun while they’re celebrating the birthday.

 

Background:

I learned it when I was a kid. Actually, I got surprised by… I learned it because they did it to me, and I wasn’t expecting it, that’s how I learned it. And they did it to me at a restaurant, and I just didn’t expect it… the first time that I did it, so… uh… I was a little surprised, but I, uh, laughed, and it was funny, and… all my family laughed as well, and then, uh, of course, I couldn’t wait until it was the next person’s birthday so then I could it to them. So… that’s how I learned it, and then I… we kept on that tradition… um… with our family and with all our cousins and all our friends, and, uh… I haven’t stopped doing it since I was a kid.

 

Thoughts:

This tradition points to an emphasis on humor and lightheartedly poking fun at the birthday person– sort of a way of bringing them back down on their special day, but not in a malicious way. It’s a way for everyone to be in accordance about what must happen and come together to, in a way, gang up on the birthday person, while including that person in the joke.

The Running of the Teachers

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student (University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire)
Residence: Minnesota, Wisconsin
Performance Date: April 2, 2017
Primary Language: English

(In informant’s description of the tradition, “you” refers to the interviewer. Informant’s actions are in italicized parentheses.)

Well, me and you started the whole “running of the teachers” thing… where, like, right before parent-teacher conferences, we’d just sit outside the Writing Center and watch all the teachers go down to, like, the gym or the cafeteria, wheeling their little spinny chairs down the hall. And, yeah, just every time there were conferences after school, we’d be there, like, yelling words of encouragement to the teachers and, like, making tunnels for them and stuff. And then by the spring conferences junior year, it spread so the teachers knew about it, right? Like, your history teacher came up to us and asked us about it, so that was cool. And then senior year, all the teachers knew about it, like, one of the new English teachers asked us if we were going to do the running of the teachers the day of the fall conferences. Yeah, and then that year we, like, expanded it to also making care packages for some of the English teachers… with, like, tissues and hand sanitizer and candy and personalized water bottles… (laughs) yeah, they really appreciated that. ’Cause before, like junior year, we just, like, stalked one of the teachers to her table and made her signs and stuff… and she was kind of mad, but, no, she laughed. But, yeah, senior year, we, like, made them care packages and we finally got to wheel down one of the teachers in a spinny chair, and that was awesome. And then your, like, AP Euro teacher or something, right, she was really sad that we wouldn’t be there to do running of the teachers this year? Yeah, so I guess we started, like, a thing that spread to all the teachers.

 

Background (from interviewer):

My informant is a good friend from high school, and a fellow “English nerd.” She was very close with many teachers, particularly English teachers and those who ran the Writing Center. She is a talented writer, and is now an English Education major at her university. She and I used to regularly stay after school and work in the Writing Center, which allowed us to bond with many of the teachers and witness (and later take part in) their preparations for parent-teacher conferences.

 

Thoughts:

This tradition indicates my informant’s (and my) bond with our teachers and desire for them to like us. My informant, especially, as an aspiring teacher and fellow “teacher’s pet,” found it important to show her appreciation for her teachers, and liked to form friendships with them. This is evident in the friendliness and care that out tradition showed for our teachers, and in the casual conversations in which they would let us know that they knew (and looked forward to) our tradition.