Category Archives: Material

Rosca de Reyes/Wreath of the Kings

Context: The Rosca de Reyes/Wreath of the Kings is a sweet bread commonly made/consumed during January 6th, the Day of the Three Kings

“Every year on January 6th, many who are Catholic celebrate the Day of the Three Kings following Christmas. Because of this, we have a yearly tradition where we eat la Rosca de Reyes (Wreath of the Kings), in which it is a sweet bread that’s super good. You usually eat it with either hot chocolate or champurrado. However, the tradition also comes with a fun game. Inside of the bread are a few little white babies that represent Jesus when he was born. If your slice of bread happens to have a little baby Jesus, you usually have to make tamales the month afterwards. I don’t know if it’s the same for everyone though, I think some people make different foods.”

Analysis: La Rosca de Reyes seems to be a common tradition in many Mexican-Catholic Communities where many continue to celebrate the birth of Jesus after Christmas. The Biblical story of the Three Kings explains how the Three Wise Men traveled to see the birth of Jesus in order to deliver him gifts. Because of this, many celebrate this day with different foods, one of the foods being The Wreath of the Kings.

Hobama

HF: “I wanted to talk about the most iconic ship around…especially since it’s been resurfacing online through TikTok. Harry Styles x Barack Obama, aka ‘Hobama’. This ship has been around ever since I can remember, I don’t even know how I learned about it, but suddenly I just knew. This was way before TikTok, I probably heard on Twitter and Tumblr since most memes like this originated there. It was during the One Direction era when it started so probably around 2014-2015 was the start.”

Interviewer: What kind of memes was it? Did people actually see them hang out as One Direction meeting the President or something?

HF: “Hahahah, no no, that would’ve been amazing for the fandom though, I’m sure. They were photoshopped images, some goodish, some really poorly mad but they were equally as funny. I’m pretty sure there were even Wattpad/Tumblr short fanfics on them, too. The fandom took the bit and just ran with it.”

Interviewer: “Omg wow, that’s so funny. You mentioned earlier it’s resurfacing, could you please expand on that?”

HF: “Yeah, for sure. So there’s always the occasional edit from time to time, like since 2014, the fandom has kept this running, so out of the blue, you’ll find a great edit or photo. But recently, I’ve been seeing them in what everyone’s been posting about the new Tomodachi Life game.”

Interviewer: “Tomodachi Life?”

HF: “Nintendo released a game this year called Tomodachi Life, where you can make custom Mii’s, and it’s kinda like Sims, where you watch them live life and help them move the stories along. People are genuinely so creative and have been posting videos of their games and the Mii’s they’ve created, and how they interact. Oh, and the characters can fall in love with each other! You can’t make them, though – you can try and have them hang out until they do, but it’s all worth their coding like of the personalities you picked for them match. So, to my point, people have been making Mii’s of Harry Styles and Barack Obama, and they’ve been falling in love. So basically their love is universal haha….This fandom brought people together. Having a shared joke like this all over created a community, and I’m so happy to see it continue now.”

Context: This was a story told to me by my cousin. She is 25 now and was a prime target audience for One Direction, being a teenage girl during their peak years. On a phone call, we were talking about Tomodachi Life and the different characters people are making, and she mentioned Harry and Obama. I knew some of the lore, but knowing she was older and deep in this info during the prime of it all, I knew I had to ask her to elaborate for the archive.

Analysis: This shows how internet fandoms can take a completely random joke and keep it alive for years just because it’s funny and weird. It started on Twitter and Tumblr and has moved to every social media platform since then. Becoming a prominent part of the new viral videos of Tomodachi Life on TikTok proves how diverse its platforms are and how it will jump and continue anywhere. This fandom ship has had so much potential to break up, considering Obama has not been president, and One Direction has broken up for a while, but the ship is still prominent and not going anywhere anytime soon. Fans will always find new ways to keep them going. The strength of ships and fandoms is a force that should not be reckoned with.

Sparkling Cider


Text: “A family traditional of mine is that the sparkling apple cider to me is such a special thing because I used to only drink it during like holidays and stuff and like family get-togethers. I would drink it at Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, and Easter. Basically anytime that there was like a holiday dinner. I didn’t drink sparkling apple cider unless it’s a holiday or something. Even still today I only have it at special occasions, but now I’m an adult I can choose when is special. Like my friends and I we did a little gingerbread house night and I brought it. I brought a bottle just cause I was like this is a special event to me, so I’m gonna bring this. But my grandma used to get us these little glasses that we would use for kids so that we had our own fancy glass instead of giving us a wine glass. My dad would do the same thing for us at New Years, so when the ball drops and it starts the new year we all drink the champagne, even though it’s sparkling cider, but it made us feel like we were drinking champagne.”

Context: AL’s parents and grandparents would by them and their sibling sparkling cider for every holiday. It would be in fancy glasses and made the kids feel like they were drinking champaign. Despite being an adult now and being legally able to drink champaign, AL still sees sparkling cider as a fancy drink. They now get it themselves for whatever they deam a special event – whether with family or with friends.

Analysis: This beverage became a tradition that was not just fun, but made kids seem a part of adult culture, such as making them have similar looking drinks on New Years like champagne, and made kids feel included. This tradition became so beloved after being repatead a plethora of holidays for years that it became a huge part into positive and important celebrations that now AL has transported the beverage to have it at multiple fun events that they deem important. Therefore expanding the tradition. This can show that tradition can be expanded from repition and positve beliefs around the topic.

Christmas Saran Wrap Game

Text: “At Christmas, we did a saran wrap game. Where it’s just like you get a pretty big bowl and add presents into the bowl. Once their in the bowl you wrap it in saran wrap in multiple layers. Then you time everyone, and you have to unravel the saran wrap, like really quickly, so that you can get gifts. Which you want to do because you want because you wanna get the big gift in the middle, but then there’s a bunch of other tiny things like candies and stuff around it, and that was always really fun.”

Context: When discussing Christmas traditions with AL, they described a holiday tradition their whole family would participate in. Grabbing a big bowl with an array of presents, some small like little toys and candy, but with the addition of a bigger wrapped present in the center of the bowl. The bowls for each family member were wrapped multiple times in saran wrap. Everyone then is timed to see who can unwrap their bowl the fastest. They are additionally motivated to get to the center of the bowl so they can get to the big present.

Analysis: This tradition shows how families can turn something simple like gift-giving into a game that everyone gets excited about. The saran wrap game adds competition and urgency, since everyone is racing against time to unwrap their bowl and reach the bigger prize in the center. At the same time, the smaller items like candy keep it fun along the way. Because everyone is doing it together and reacting in the moment, it creates a lot of laughter and energy, which makes the experience more memorable than just opening presents one by one. It highlights how adding a playful challenge can make holidays feel more interactive and bring people closer through shared excitement.

Fortune Cookies and Their Origins

Age: Adult man
Performance Date: 04/20/2026

Speaker: “I was told by a friend here that fortune cookies actually did not originally come from Chinese restaurants. He said they originally came from Japanese restaurants. During World War II, as you know, a lot of Japanese Americans were put into internment camps and had to leave behind their businesses.

Because of that, many of their restaurants and businesses were left behind, and the Chinese community had the opportunity to take over some of those Asian restaurants. Along with that, they also adopted the fortune cookie from Japanese restaurants.

So now, when you go to a Chinese restaurant and get a fortune cookie at the end of the meal, people think of it as something Chinese. But according to what I heard, it actually started in Japanese restaurants first, and then Chinese restaurants continued the tradition after that.

Fortune cookies are those small folded cookies that usually have a little slip of paper inside. The paper might have a short message, a prediction, or some kind of lucky saying. They are very common in Chinese restaurants in the United States now, especially after a meal, but they were not originally from the Chinese community.

That is basically what I know about it.”

Context: This conversation took place during an informal discussion about food traditions and common items associated with Chinese restaurants in the United States. The speaker explained that he had heard from a friend that fortune cookies were not originally Chinese, but Japanese. He connected this history to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, when many Japanese-owned businesses were abandoned or taken over. In his understanding, Chinese restaurants later adopted the fortune cookie, which eventually became strongly associated with Chinese American dining culture.

Analysis: This tale reflects a common folk explanation for the origins of the fortune cookie in the United States. It distinguished a origin clearly and it shows how food traditions can shift between communities and become symbols of a different culture over time. In this case, the fortune cookie has become widely recognized as part of the Chinese restaurant experience in America, even though its origins may be more complex.