Ritual: Graduation- Celebrated at the completion of an educational cycle or program

Background/Informant’s Interpretation: With an older brother and a twin, he has had his fair share of high school graduations. A yearly occurring ritual that symbolizes one graduating into the next steps of life where one is spreading their wings and is leaving home for the first time. Most kids in the US go through this ritual, with the lessons from high school carrying on in your actions and thoughts that occur within college, especially during your freshman year of college. His older brother, witnesses him and his twin crossing the stage was symbolic to him of how he was able to share a non-religious ritual with brothers in an public environment. Getting to meet many people and different experiences, this culminates into a mixed culture across college campuses in the United States, he has experienced as a non-traditional theatre major. At the end of the ritual people may take an untraditional path going into trade school or forgoing school overall. However, at the end of the day, this a ritual that is key i one’s development and one that celebrates past accomplishment laying out steps for what is to come next.

My Interpretation: Personally, I believe that this riytal that is common amongst all yet is easily forgotten due to its yearly appearance. With a brother who recently went through a collegiate and medical school one this rituakl demonstrates a part of someone’s heritage that we often times forget about due to the fact that their are no systematic, religious or ethnic ties to it. Its important to a heritage, due to the fact that the steps it took to get to graduation differs person to person, with arduous steps and sub-processes highlighting how family and culture has pulled through for them. As such, graduation acts as a culmination of all these factors and emphasizes an essential part of heritage in the 21st century.