Main Piece:

Particpant/interviewee marked as AM below. Interviewer (me) marked with LJ.

AM: So, it was, like a story of…there was a story about a little girl in my grandma’s house. So all of them…so my Tia Brenda, she went to school with a girl that passed away, like the girl was weird, she didn’t talk to anybody. And she didn’t have friends, they bullied her a lot. For some reason, my aunt talked to her. Um so like when she died, by aunt was we my grandma telling her “she’s here. Like she wants to talk to me.” My grandma was like “you’re crazy, what are you talking about?” And then, um, one of my aunts saw the girl. One of my other aunts. She told my grandma “oh no Ma, Brenda’s not lying, I saw the little girl too. She wants to tell Brenda something, but she doesn’t listen.”

They eventually moved out of that house, when my aunt turned 15. They moved to San Bernandino. And then the girl would talk to her again, but like trying to tell her something about my grandma. But my grandma still didn’t believe it. And then they moved again, to like Tahoe. And one day my grandma was home alone at night–the whole night. She said that something woke her up, like something tapped her. Haha.  When she woke up, like nobody was there. And then she finally saw the little girl. And then, so, she believed the little girl was there, but they didn’t know why she was there. They didn’t know why she kept coming.

A couple of years ago, my little cousin, Alondra went to go visit them and the same girl woke her up. Haha. And then like she said “you need to tell your Tia Brenda to stop doing bad things. Like she needs to be a good mom. She’s a bad daughter.” She told my little cousin this. Once they told my mom, they believed her. They told my Tia and she finally believed it, but she didn’t change. I haven’t heard anything about her since then.

Context:

Asked if anyone knew any ghost stories. I recorded this then.

Background:

The participant is a first year student at the University of Southern California. She was raised in South Central, Los Angeles around the university in a Mexican household. She believes in the existence of ghosts and has heard this story from her family, but nothing has happened to her personally.

Analysis:

The participant called this entity a ghost throughout the entire story. However, ghosts, are typically associated with one location. As Professor Tok Thompson said during a lecture “ghosts help us remember horrific acts.” Perhaps it was not a ghost that was following the family or why would the little girl become attached to Tia Brenda and her family?

It is interesting that the little girl’s message told Tia Brenda to be a better person. It might have been the little cousin creating a story, inadvertently, having grown up hearing stories about her aunts and grandmother seeing the ghost of a little girl. It might commemorate the story of this little girl who was ignored and bullied because she was different and then died (cause of death unknown). The story may have evolved to reflect how the family felt about Tia Brenda.

Typically, it was children seeing this girl. When the grandma saw her, she had been sleeping. It could all be a story, or it could be real, but no proof exists.