Category Archives: Customs

Customs, conventions, and traditions of a group

Taking off your shoes–Hawaiian custom

Nationality: Korean-American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Honolulu, Hawaii
Performance Date: April 17, 2012
Primary Language: English

Informant: Although it’s just an Asian thing in general, to take off your shoes before you enter a house, everyone in Hawaii does that. It’s second nature. Even Caucasian people who have been living in Hawaii for a long time, or for their whole lives. They’ll automatically take off their shoes before they come in the house.

Me: Does anyone not do it?

Informant: No, no. You just… do it. It’s just a thing we’ve always done. That’s why, when I moved to northern California in seventh grade, I was so shocked. I thought everyone did that. I thought it was just a universal thing. I didn’t realize it was just us. I was so shocked when my friend came into my house with her shoes on. I said “oh my gosh, what are you doing!?” and she asked what I was talking about. We were both so confused. And I told her to take her shoes off and she asked me why.

Me: Do you know why? Is it to be polite, or is it related to superstition?

Informant: I don’t know about superstition… Yeah, it’s politeness. It’s just how we are. We don’t want to make our house dirty. Have you ever gone into an Asian person’s house and had it be dirty? No! It’s always clean. (laughing) So I guess that went from being part of Asian culture to being in Hawaiian culture.

 

At other points during our interview, my informant talked about the large number of Asian immigrants in Hawaii. These immigrants maintaining the custom of taking off their shoes before entering a house makes sense; these traditions were held onto to counteract against losing what they considered to be their former, or maybe even “true,” cultural identity. What is interesting is that it spread to non-immigrants as well. While my informant did not know why this was, it suggests that there is respect among Hawaiians for these immigrants. They not only respect the custom enough to practice it in Asian immigrant homes, but also to adapt the custom in their own homes. It could also speak to the proximity of immigrants and non-immigrants. Non-immigrants may be in such close quarters with Asian immigrants that they are constant observers to these customs, eventually causing them to absorb them as their own. In general, it suggests that native Hawaiians have a welcoming attitude toward immigrants and immigrant culture.

Helmet Up, Logo Out–Football Gesture at Loyola Academy

Nationality: Italian-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Park Ridge, Illinois
Performance Date: April 19, 2012
Primary Language: English

“I was on the Loyola Academy—that was my high school—football team, the Ramblers. At the end of the national anthem, we would always raise our helmets with the Loyola Academy logo out. We would turn our helmets so they were pointing at the American flag. We would also do it at the end of the game. Even when we weren’t in the group, before the game, we would raise our helmets on the sidelines. That was our mantra. That was a tradition that was passed down from previous players. I think it came down originally from one of the original head coaches. He was there for thirty or so years, and after he passed away of a heart attack, it was something that the kids kept going. The coaches go along with it and do it, but it’s really more something the kids keep up.”

 

As my informant said, this started as a gesture created by the coach for use at the end of the national anthem. After his death, the players adopted it and kept it going as a tribute to him. It has since evolved to become player-driven. Rather than being taught by a coach, it is the players who have already been on the team for a while and are familiar with the team’s customs to pass this gesture on to the new players. Its use has expanded–rather than only being used at the end of the national anthem, it is now also performed at the end of the game and even at various spontaneous, unplanned points during the game. Rather than being a tribute to the former coach, it is now a way for the team to bond. It fosters a unity between them, as they are the only people at a game performing the gesture. When one player uses it, all the others follow suit. It also allows the players to demonstrate their unity to both their fans and the other team, suggesting that they will be more successful on the field because they are working together.

Dorm Raid

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Denver, Colorado
Performance Date: April 22, 2012
Primary Language: English

“Dorm raid happened once a year at Idyllwild Arts Academy. The dorms are all locked at 10 pm every night. If you’re caught outside, you could be expelled. But there’s one night a year where we do dorm raid. The prefects (essentially the resident advisors for each hallway of dorm rooms at Idyllwild) determine the day and covertly spread it around. All the students come together at 10 pm. When the dorm parent (professor who lives in residence) locks the door, the prefects alert us and we just run out of the dorms and call people at the exact same minute. Sirens go off all over campus. You head into the fields and the woods, wherever. The professors chase after the students and have fun with it. If you get tracked down by a dorm parent, you technically have to go back to the dorm, but you don’t really have to. You just have to be back by 1:30 am. That happened around the end of the year, fourth quarter. Just when everyone is getting ready to tear out their hair. It was such a great way to unite us. You bond a lot. Fix friendships that might have gotten strained by all the stress. Having that night to do what you want to do when you’re studying and stressed out is such a release. It really helps you get your focus back the next day to do the work you need to do.”

 

Dorm Raid is a way of giving the students a break in a stressful time of the year. For one night, the normal rules about curfew and student-teacher interactions are ignored. The students are permitted to break the rules without fear of punishment. Not only does this help to bond the students together, as they avoid a common “enemy” while they run around the campus, but it also bonds them with the teachers. At that point of the year, when the teachers are assigning a lot of work, students most likely do not feel very happy toward them. Having a night where the teachers allow them to break the rules and even engage with them playfully by pretending to chase the students down, gives the students a more positive experience with the teachers. This lets them bond with and forgive the teachers, and later approach work assigned by those teachers more favorably.

Senior Ditch Day

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Gilroy, California
Performance Date: April 19, 2012
Primary Language: English

“Senior Ditch Day at Gilroy High School is a day when seniors at the end of the year all ditch school on the same day. All the seniors would know that it was going to happen every year, so they would figure out a date that would work and spread the word around by word of mouth. We would try to make sure it was after prom and Advanced Placement tests, because a lot of the students were AP students. And it had to be after prom because we didn’t want them to take away our prom privileges. So, we’d do something rebellious after. A lot of the teachers knew. They would try to prevent it. Or give little speeches about why we shouldn’t ditch. Some teachers, if they were cool with it, wouldn’t assign as much work on that day, but some teachers would assign a quiz that day to get back at the kids who were ditching. A lot of kids would go to the same place. We went to the beach, everyone together. Half the teachers didn’t assign work, because it was just this unspoken thing that half the kids weren’t going to be there. A lot of the parents know it’s happening. Some of them are cool with it. Some aren’t. It really depends on the parents. Some kids got their parents to write them sick letters. Other kids forged their letters. But I mean, when kids are seniors… it’s the end of the year. You feel like you’re at the top of the class. You reached that point of prestige that you were trying to reach for four years. It’s kind of us deciding that we deserve a break. It’s kind of a fun thing to do. And it brings the class together. It brings us together as seniors. There’s prom first of all, and then there’s AP tests, and we’d do it after so we didn’t have to be worried and stressing about our tests. It’s kind of a national thing, an American thing. I guess. Lots of high schools in America do it. You see it in movies, people talk about it a lot of the time. It’s like how prom and football are staples of high school. It’s Senior Ditch Day, one of those traditions.”

 

I believe my informant was largely correct in her analysis of the importance of Senior Ditch Day. After finishing their tests and prom, the students feel like they have completed high school, although they still have to attend classes and learn. They are almost in a liminal period–though technically still students, they feel as though they are only waiting for graduation to make that official. Senior Ditch Day allows them to demonstrate this. By not going to school, they are saying that they do not need school anymore. Although some students try to avoid being too defiant (getting excused from the day of classes rather than accepting the punishment of having skipped a day of school), it does not seem to be a deterrent if they are not able to provide an excuse for their absence. Neither avoiding punishment nor blatantly breaking the rules is the goal. The students are focused on the bonding experience of being together and not being at school, rather than trying to openly defy teachers and administrators. Though presented as rule-breaking, the focus of and enjoyment caused by Senior Ditch Day does not seem to actually be on breaking the rules, but on the ability of the students to make the decision for themselves that school, for that day, is optional. They are, in some way, proving their coming adulthood by demonstrating the ability to make decisions for themselves that are normally made by adults.

 

Incidences of Senior Ditch Day can also be seen referenced in the following article in the Tampa Bay Times:  http://www.sptimes.com/2006/04/14/Citytimes/Life_s_a_beach_for_ma.shtml.

Kuya and Ate

Nationality: Filipino-American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Gilroy, California
Performance Date: April 19, 2012
Primary Language: English

“A lot of Filipino culture is centered around respect for family, especially those people who are older than you in your family. There’s the word for older brother, you call him ‘kuya’ and for an older sister, you call her ‘ate.’ But it’s actually, it’s a form of respect to call them that. And if you have older cousins, it’s a sign of endearment to call them kuya or ate, just to show that they’re close to you. And to show that you look up to them. When I visited my family in the Philippines, I remember one of my little cousins… she was four or five, and she would come up to me and call me ‘Ate Bekah! Ate Bekah!’ It was really cool hearing that because it’s a term of endearment, so it shows that even though I had just met her… using that term is a term of respect. It really shows that that family member looks up to you and respects you as an older person. It felt awkward for me to use at first, because we don’t use it with my family back in America, but it’s a big form of respect in the Philippines. I had heard of the titles in passing, but I didn’t really know them until I went over there. I heard it with my cousins and people encouraging me to call my older cousins ate or kuya.”

 

As my informant said, the importance and continuation of this folklore in Filipino culture comes from the great respect they have for family and their elders. In addition to the surface level of conferring the title upon relatives as a sign of respect, continuing to use these titles in this way allows the younger generations to show their respect for the Filipino culture and traditions of the older generations. By keeping up customs that are held so dearly by the older generations, the younger generations acknowledge how important these customs are to the older generations in how they perceive of their culture. Continuing to use these customs is, in a way, a promise to the older generations that these traditions will be kept going even after those generations are gone. That promise commits the younger generations to respect their elders in the long-term in a way that goes beyond the simple use of the words kuya or ate.