Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Promposals

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Rockville Centre, New York
Performance Date: 4/27/15
Primary Language: English

Informant: The informant in question is a half-Jewish, half-Italian boy from Rockville Centre, New York. He currently is twenty years old and studying screenwriting at USC.

Transcription:

So umm my best friend in the world is this girl named Carrie. She’s a lovely girl and we are the classic love-each-other-to-death-but-will-never-date. And we do, the girl means the world to me and I believe I mean the world to her and we have so much fun but we would murder each other. And we agreed we would be prom dates. My high school is famous for big promposals, not like the internet promposals but everyone does one. And uh this guy we were friends with did this five minute video on the announcements, basically professing his love, using every adjective. I think he sat with a thesaurus and just did a five minute video on her. And I remember Carrie turned to me and said “if anyone did that to me, I would murder him”. So instead of replicating the video, I sat for three weeks in an editing lab and I cut out every time this guy had said the girl’s name and replaced it with “Carrie”, so that it was the exact same video. And I spent weeks, weeks editing this video down and I had her convinced I was gonna ask someone else and she was worried. But she didn’t know I had spent so much time on it, because you know you’ve got to get the audio just right and “Carrie” was a syllable longer than the other girl’s name so it wasn’t exactly right. And I got it on the announcement and she was ready to murder me. I’ve never seen murder in a girl’s face like that. But we went. It was really fun. I’m really proud of that. I remember her clearly saying “if anyone did this to me, I’d murder them” and I used the exact same video. I’m such an ass. I guess that’s the lesson, just be an ass, they’ll still go.
So where did you get this idea to do a big dramatic one?
It was a big deal at our high school, everyone did one. I guess I got the idea the year before. I was asked by a girl to go to her senior prom as friends. And umm, my mom told me I would be a “mensch” if I did it, which is literally “a nice Jewish boy” in Yiddish. And the girl was on the softball team. And I stood outside softball practice waiting with a sign that said “PROM?” and some flowers. Everybody did it, but my mom had planted it in my head that I needed to do it.

Analysis:

This particular story reflects a particular individual’s memorate of a more general folk practice unique to the modern American high school. Much like a wedding proposal, a prom invitation (or “promposal”) is considered a monumental event and as such, a young male doing one is expected to put a degree of care and showmanship into it. To some extent, the “promposal” serves as a mating ritual like any other, something a virile youth does to attract a worthy mate or in this case, prove their status to a chosen mate.

In a very immediate showing of the digital age’s transformation of folk practices, the individual in the story makes his “promposal” by directly modifying one made by another. By editing the other boy’s video, the individual in the story creates a layer of ironic distance between himself and such outward displays of affection. He also directly antagonizes the very person he’s asking, a showing of the close familiarity of him and his prom date.

Passover Seder

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Rockville Centre, New York
Performance Date: 4/27/15
Primary Language: English

Informant: The informant in question is a half-Jewish, half-Italian boy from Rockville Centre, New York. He currently is twenty years old and studying screenwriting at USC.

Transcription:

So I guess I’m what you would call ethnically Jewish. Judaism is as much a race as it is a religion. But my grandfather’s parents were socialists in Russia and they were chased out by the pogroms and they weren’t religious, so he was never bar mitzvahed but he wanted us to know that it was important that we were ethnically Jewish. Umm, so we always did seders. So we could cut them down so we could eat sooner. But we could do the seders and the great thing-
What are seders?
Seders are like the prayers before meals, like Passover has a seder and there are specific rituals connected to them and we all tell stories. And part of the reason I think a lot of Jews wind up in the entertainment industry is that we’re brought up telling stories. You have to read the seder stories and it goes from youngest to oldest so from a young age, you have to read the stories. And I remember I was at my uncle’s house and I couldn’t have been more than nine and eventually the other kids just gave up reading and they let me read the whole seder and I told the story of the locust and I did different voices for all of the characters and I was improvising – I mean, I was changing the Bible, which is probably cruel. But uh, I remember that I had the table rip-roaring at Seder and I was thinking “this is such a great thing” and my family was always totally up for that. And once you set the tone all the adults were up for that and they wanted to top your performance and it was always such a fun thing. Jewish holidays in particular can get really sad because they all deal with the struggle and everything that our people has always gone through but my family had a way of making it about being happy that everyone was together. And I think that’s the moral of religion as a whole: be happy with what you have and the gifts that you’ve been given. If you’re sitting at those tables with your family and everyone’s laughing and you’ve got good food and everyone’s laughing, you might as well be happy, whether you believe in God or not. Those were the best times. When your family is just really happy to all be together.

Analysis:

This particular ritual serves both as a family bonding ritual and an expression of religious faith. In most cases, the Seders serve as a reminder of the individual’s context within Judaism as a whole and a reminder of the struggles that have plagued members of that faith for eons. However, the speaker makes a clear definition of Judaism not only as a set of religious beliefs but as a cultural heritage, passed on regardless of the individual’s personal religious leanings.

The variation of this practice is also shown. While certain aspects of the seders (the telling of stories, the progression from youngest to oldest, the occasion of Passover) remain constant, other aspects can be changed, such as how in the given account, the single storyteller took over for his siblings and for the other children present or how direct quotes from religious scripture are paraphrased for comedic effect or how the overall message of the seders changes from that of recognition of past suffering to thankfulness for current happiness.

Football Culture

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Austin, Texas
Performance Date: 4/27/15
Primary Language: English

Informant: The interviewee in question here is a 20 year old girl studying business at USC. She hails from Austin, Texas.

Transcription:

So my family is a football family. I come from two long lines of people who went to UT (University of Texas) which is a big football school. My brother and I were born and my parents were big Houston Oilers fans, which are now the Tennessee Titans, but we don’t talk about that. The Oilers left Houston because their owner is a piece of shit and left. So for ten or twelve years, there was no football in Houston. Some people cheered for the Titans, some couldn’t. Then in 2002, it was the inaugural season of the Houston Texans. Football was back in Houston, we got the expansion team, people were so excited. Saying that in only a few years, we’d be winning the Super Bowl. That’s how well our draft went, etc. Ever since 2002 when I lived in Houston and to this day, my parents have had season tickets to the Houston Texans because my parents knew what it was like to not have football so we’re gonna make sure we go to every game we can. So growing up, we’d always have the same seats and I would get my mini Papa John’s pizza from the stadium and we’d watch the game and it was a family tradition, every single weekend and we’d tailgate with our family friends and I was introduced to this whole football culture. Then I became the bigger football fan as I got older, went to every game, and even when I go home now, we’ll still go. And my family stays connected a lot like that, texting each other about the game or what’s happening with the team. It’s great.
Tell me more about football culture.
Well before every game you tailgate. And tailgating is the best, everyone gets together, super excited. And the people who are “of age” drink and everyone’s in good spirits and it’s not even about the football. It’s about being together with your friends. You’re all on the same side, against or for something. All on the same page. And everyone hangs out, tosses around a football, talks, and walks over. And the game is more of that. It’s a whole day of socializing really, with a sports game in the center. And if it goes well, everyone’s super happy and if things don’t go well, everyone’s sad, but at least you’re sad together and you wait till next week and you talk about it and keep track of it and the injuries and the matchups and the rivalries and it’s great.

Analysis: America as a whole loves the sport of football and no region of the country loves it quite so much as the South. The game itself however is not the reason for it. The reason is for the ritualization that surrounds football, turning it from a simple win-or-lose game to a massive social occasion and cultural event. It can bond people with very little else in common. Meet a fan of the same team and you can instantly connect with them. Meet a fan of the other team and you can trash talk. Either way, a conversation has started where none existed before. And among people who are quite close already (like the family in this account) football can serve as a check-in and connection point, an excuse to talk or to celebrate.

The Horribles Parade

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Beverly Hills, Massachusetts
Performance Date: 4/28/15
Primary Language: English

Informant: The informant here is an Irish Catholic girl from Beverly, Massachusetts, a small town made out of the original Salem settlement and as such a traditionally superstitious area.

Transcription:

So where I’m from, the 4th of July is a big deal. People don’t handle it well. Like one year someone stole a police car and crashed it in the ocean and dragged it out and put it on a flatbed and had it in the parade the next day. And there’s this tradition they pick someone from our rival town the next over and get them belligerently drunk and then put them on a flatbed and they wake up and they’re being driven through town in the parade. I saw it for nineteen years, well maybe not every year, but at least ten times in my life. Just drunken assholes duct taped to a chair. It’s called the Horribles Parade, because the whole point of it is to make fun of people – drunk driving incidents, legal troubles, arrests in general, celebrities, old people. The old people love it though. They’re like the grandmasters of the parade. It’s like a huge roast over a couple miles. My grandfather’s doing it this year. He gets to get loaded and sit in a truck. It’s really fun and my grandfather grew up there and my mom grew up there and the whole 4th of July is really ritualistic. There’s races and sandcastle contests and a scavenger hunt, it’s like a whole week event, not just one day.

Analysis: Generally, holidays exist to celebrate the positives in life. However, on some occasions, the opposite impulse – the denigration of the negative – also crops up. The coinciding of such an event with the 4th of July makes logical sense – a celebration of freedom would be best expressed by taking advantage of such freedoms. Thus the Horribles parade. The particular tradition of taping a drunken out-of-towner to a parade float serves as a celebration of local pride on a holiday dedicated to national pride. Thus, the community celebrates any and all forms of collective identity, whether on the micro on the macro level while also creating an entertaining and hilarious celebration.

Peruvian Ceremony

Nationality: Peruvain
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Lima, Peru
Performance Date: April 28, 2015
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

The informant is a 21 year old girl raised in Lima, Peru. She moved to the states 3 years ago for college. Her first language was Spanish, and she learned English in the classroom. She never spoke it outside the classroom before coming to America.  She had a more stories about Peruvian culture than I realized was possible. This specific

Informant: Peru is very diverse. It has 3 different regions. It has the highland, the coast and the jungle. It is also very diverse in terms of its different economic statuses. There is a big difference between the very very poor and the very very wealthy, which is unique… not only to Peru… but to a lot of South American countries. There is a lot of tradition.

Me: Can you pick one thing to go in-depth into?

Informant: In the jungle, particually, there is a lot of tradition in using homeopathic medicine. It is like medicine from natural resources. Back in the day, when the Inca empire existed, the Incas gave a lot of value to the sun as their god. And also the motherland as their god. So there are still these traditions going on even now, in smaller, of course, less urban areas. For example, in the jungle we have what are called shamans. We also have them in the highlands, but they are really common in the jungle. They are basically… natural doctors… that heal. But they also do a very ceremonialhealing process in which they sing a song in their native dialect. Theydress up in very traditional clothing and also use natural plants for the healing process. So everything is completely natural. Everything is based on plants and different scents that they use to heal you. There is also this tradition, that I have actually done, in which people believe in plants having a supernatural power in which they can read your future. So when I went to Couzco, I went to this small little town in which there was a woman who claimed she could read the future through Coca leaves. She would literally throw them around sing in Quechua which is the natural dialect of the Incas. And would read your future.

Me: Was she right?

Informant: Yeah, she said that a big change was coming. And it was going to change me a lot and for the better and that I was not going to want to come back. I was going to leave to a place and not come back. And I was going to be really happy and find my passion. I never mentioned that I was moving to a new country. She said it all herself. The whole ceremony occurred in this small room. She had little stands and images of the virgin Mary, as well as a lot of coca leaves and a lot of traditional plants from the highlands. Everything was in Quechua. But she told me my future in Spanish because I don’t know Quechua. It was a very traditional.

Me: So you do believe that this all works?

Informant: I mean, I do believe that it may have some supernatural power. Coca leaves, especially in the highlands, coca leaves are just the most valuable thing in the world. Back in the day, when the Incas had to work in the highlands, they would eat coca leaves because they have high caloric power and would give them energy. It is also really good in tea. It helps with altitude sickness too. Everything in Peru, coca leaves.

At this point the informant began talking about a different ceremony using coca leaves.

My analysis: I found the informant’s account of these events as fascinating.  The way she was so passionate about all the different Peruvian cultures and traditions and could not seem to say enough about any of them was a different experience compared to some of the other people I spoke to. I am personally not sold on the supposedly psychic woman.  I felt as though her predications were similar to horoscopes in that they were overgeneralized. It would be impossible not to find something relatable in that description.  That being said though, 3 years later and the informant is still looking back on what the psychic told her and comparing how similar her life is to the prediction. There is clearly still a huge respect for and abidance by tradition and ritual in Peru.  I gather this is because of its rich history.  The connection to the land definitely comes from previous cultures, as well as the dependance that the people have on the land. When something plays such a large role in so many people’s lives, it is not surprising that it becomes sacred and revered.