Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

The Fort of Christmas Cheer

Nationality: Irish, Scottish, French, German
Age: 19
Occupation: Student at USC
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 03.02.2016
Primary Language: English

Original Script: “When I was younger, after Christmas…probably about two or three days after Christmas, me, my dad, my sister, and my brother, would collect Christmas trees for a Christmas tree fort. We would wait till people started to leave Christmas trees out in their drive ways, and we would go and drive around our neighborhood in our big car, with rope, and tie the Christmas trees to the back of our car, and make a couple rounds, so we were dragging the trees. We would have over 20 trees, sometimes more, and he would create a perimeter in our backyard of rope and lean the trees against the rope and then put them on their sides to make an infrastructure of different rooms and hallways, and he would stack the trees on top of each other so their would be a roof. Me, my brother, and sister and would crawl into the rooms and trim the trees to make the rooms bigger. We would sometimes spy on the neighbors through the fort, with binoculars. And when they came over we would throw berries at them. It was huge, basically we would declare war on neighbors, sometimes we would let other kids play in it. When it was time to throw the trees out, we would put them outside our house—it basically covered up the whole driveway.”

Background Information about the Piece by the informant: Jessica Patrick grew up in a predominantly Irish household. Celebrating Christmas every year with her family. Now that the kids are older–her and her brother in college and her younger sister a junior in high school—they do not do the tradition as much as they use to do it when they were little. While everyone in the household did celebrate Christmas—it was usually the father, Jessica, and her siblings that did the fort building.

Context of the Performance: Past Christmas traditions celebrated in Dallas, Texas with all the children in Jessica’s family.

Thoughts about the piece: After interviewing Jessica, I found it interesting how I have never heard/seen anything from this tradition before. While it is not necessarily a representation of heritage, it is a mode of activity that represents the past and has interesting motifs about the past—which is also considered tradition. For example, the building of a fort (a house) made out of entirely logs, the kids helping the father build the house, even the kids acting that the fort was their home—even though they had a perfectly acceptable house—with a heater—was all representations of the past. It also represents that of a celebration in a narrative format: the tree hunting being the ritual, the playing in the house being the main event, and the taking apart of the fort and putting the trees in the front yard would be the closing ceremony. Furthermore, I believe this event represents a classic “American Dream”(commonly known as the Horatio Alger myth) building a home for oneself, a dream, out of nothing. This tradition can also be correlated to group identity, especially with the practicing of the ritual and the exclusion to other groups: “sometimes we would let other kids play in it.”

Collision of Catholicism and Judaism

Nationality: Polish, Bulgarian, and German
Age: 52
Occupation: Security Engineer
Residence: Milford, PA
Performance Date: 02.17.2016
Primary Language: English

Original Script: “Well…I always knew that I wanted to raise my children Jewish, but I also did not want to take away their heritage of their father from them as well….so every year, we would celebrate the eight days of Hanukah and Christmas. It was funny…I remember when my children would go to synagogue after the winter break and my kids would tell the other kids about how they celebrated both Christmas and Hanukah that year…and you know kids, they always want presents. So they thought Jay and Ab got twice as many presents every year…but oh boy that was far from the case. We would open one gift every night for Hanukah, usually the presidents were items that would go with another Christmas one…as to give a hint what their presents were…If Hanukah fell on Christmas then we would wrap the kids presents in Hanukah wrapping paper and put them under the Christmas tree…then instead of celebrating the last few nights of Hanukah they would just open all the presents…It was really fun. The house was always decorated in Christmas and Hanukah decorations it was awesome of my children. It is funny, when my children were little they would say we are Jewish and Catholic, when I tried to explain to them that that is not possible…that they were Jewish but celebrated catholic traditions, they would continue to say it. Hahaha, they even sometimes still do even if they are older!”

Background Information about the Piece by the informant: While Cheryl is now divorced from her husband is now remarried, her new husband is also Catholic and the tradition of the collision of Christmas and Hanukah still remain the same. Cheryl grew up in a predominately Jewish household in Skokie, Illinois and grew up in a very conservative Jewish family—celebrating all of the Jewish high holidays such as: Yom Kippur, Shabbat, and Passover—as well as attending Synagogue every Sunday. However, Cheryl had gotten married to a Catholic man in her late twenties, which enabled her as well as her husband (who she is now divorced to) to raise their children in a home that celebrated both Hanukah and Christmas. Mark, Cheryl’s ex-husband, grew up in a very Catholic household, attending church every Sunday as well as always attending midnight mass for Christmas. However, even though he stopped attending midnight mass when his children were born, he still instilled the catholic traditions of Christmas in the household.

Context of the Performance: Celebrating Christmas and Hanukah together

Thoughts about the piece: This was a very interesting piece of folklore that I had collected, simply because it brought two very prominent traditions—Christmas and Hanukah—together. It is a very modern take on conservative religious holidays in the combining of two completely separate religions. It is almost as if the two children were the mediators—the peacekeepers, if you—of the two traditions. Where the wintertime specifically was when the two holidays collided.

It is also interesting to note that even though Cheryl had stated that the children celebrated both holidays, sometimes at the same time, they were distinguishable from each other. For example, the wrapping up of the specific Hanukah gifts in Hanukah wrapping paper and the decorations around the house being both Christmas and Hanukah. This comparison brings up the question why there were not specific decorations for multiple wintertime holidays instead of the decorations being segregated into one category (i.e. Hanukah and Christmas). However, it is still an interesting notation of the collision of the two holidays, especially when Cheryl stated that if Hanukah fell on Christmas they would just open up all their remaining Hanukah gifts on Christmas and not celebrate the rest of the eight nights of Hanukah. Furthermore, when Cheryl had stated that most of the kids in the synagogue idea of Christmas and Hanukah celebrating together was foreign to them, it made me think why it was so much more common now in days (many of my friends celebrate both Christmas and Hanukah).

I followed up with Cheryl after this question came to mind, I had found that many of her Jewish friends that she grew up with, are now married to Catholic or Christian men who celebrate Christmas, the traditions of that she described in the interview are, in fact, conducted the same way. To me, this seems like a transformation, or even evolutionism, of the separate entities of religion and the separate groups that follow with the specific religion. In this case, this cohabitation of Christmas and Hanukah create another group of people that celebrate both—it is a collision of folk groups into one folk group.

Vietnamese Ancestral Ceremonies

Nationality: Vietnamese
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: June, 2012
Primary Language: Vietnamese
Language: English

For as long as I can remember, on one special day of the month, every month, for the past ten plus years, my parents have paid tribute to their ancestors through ritualized ceremonies involving different Vietnamese dishes, incense, and an assortment of fruits. A vital part of Vietnamese culture is ancestor veneration, the act of paying respect to one’s passed relatives through food offerings and other ceremonies. It has been customary for Vietnamese people to honor the passing of a relative in order to show respect for the individual. Birthdays were seldom celebrated in Vietnamese culture before the influence of western culture.

I remember my mom waking up before anyone else just to prepare the food for the offerings. She would cook a plate of Banh bao (pork buns), Banh bot loc (Vietnamese ravioli), and even che ba mau (Vietnamese sweet bean dessert). I would help her place the plates of food onto the altar and then light up six to seven sticks of incense. We would normally wait until it was night time or when the incense sticks finished burning before removing the food from the altar. It was permitted to eat the food offerings when the ceremony was finished.

Vietnamese people have strong beliefs in community and family values. They believe that one should always love their family and never forget their culture. Just because a family member passes away does not mean that they are entirely gone. Their spirit should never be forgotten. Their name and life should still be celebrated as if they’re still earthbound.

Bandeja Paisa

Nationality: Columbian
Age: 18
Primary Language: Spanish

The informant, S, is 18 years old and from Miami, Florida, but he grew up in Cartagena, Colombia (Northern, Columbia). His mom is from Barranquilla, Columbia (Northern Columbia), while his dad is from Cartagena, Columbia. He considers himself a Latino Columbian and is majoring in Civil Engineering Building Science.

S- “Ok so my Colombian culture has a lot of folklore, um primarily food. One of the main dishes is called Bandeja Paisa. It’s uh in my opinion a very good dish.”

What does it consist of?

S-“It consists of usually white rice and egg on top the rice. You have your steak and then you have an arepa, which is like a flour and corn thing. And usually we have chicharron (pork rinds) on the side and the dish usually also has patacones, which are also known as tostones (fried plantain slices)”

When do usually eat it?

S-“Anytime usually when you go out to a Columbian restaurant this is your go to dish”

Does your family make it?

S-“Yea my mom makes it all the time, but we go out to eat it from like the different Columbian restaurants from Miami, where I’m from”

Would you say each family has its own different recipe or it’s the same everywhere you go?

S-“Just like any recipe it can be tweaked here and there. Like for example the steak can be either carne asada (steak) or carne molida (ground beef), so it’s two different kinds of steak. And some people don’t like having the arepa on the side. It depends on the time when you have it. For example if you’re having it for brunch then you’d have the arepa and if you’re eating it more towards dinner then you wouldn’t have the arepa present on the dish”

Are there any other sides that go with it?

S-“Um yea I actually forgot to mention they usually have frijoles (beans) or lentejas (lentil) on the side so you can put it with your rice”

Analysis- The dish consists of many of the local and plentiful types of food that are present in the area and in the country. It is also evidence of the impact different cultures have left there over time, mainly from the conquistadors from Spain, France, and Britain. The name also is part of the country as it consists of the area it originated from (Paisa) and its appearance of a bandeja (large pot or bowl). While there may not be one official authentic bandeja paisa, due to the fact that it can be tweaked and no one can for sure know which is the original recipe, the people don’t seem to mind this, for they even go out their ways to try it at different places.bandeja Paisa

Cura-Lo-Todo tincture

Nationality: Mexico
Age: 30
Occupation: Nurse
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 26 April 2016
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Araceli Del Rio

 

“I’ve got a bottle of cura-lo-todo my family keeps under our cabinets. Which means cure-all, or “cures everything”. My parents used to soak cotton swabs in it and stick it in our ears when we used to have earaches. So it’s pure cane rubbing alcohol, the Mexican kind, and alcamfor, rue, and marijuana. It’s a liquid- you can soak it in something and then leave that on an area that’s in pain, like a tincture. It helps with arthritis. And alcanfor is a derivative of the camphor laurel.”

 

Origins: Mexico

Context: This is a folk remedy that is used in the family to treat a variety of illnesses and pains.

Analysis: Family remedies, and folk remedies, have been used long before and long after formal science-based medicine came about. This is a tincture that uses fairly typical ingredients that are used for folk healing- rubbing alcohol and marijuana, and also rue and alcamfor for their spiritual associations and scent. The use of marijuana in the household by a family is interesting, and departs from the traditional association of it as an illegal, recreational drug. Here, Araceli’s family truly believes that it is a strong healing agent to be used for arthritis and other aches.