La LLorona – A Mexican Legend

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 27
Occupation: Factory Woker
Residence: California
Performance Date: 04/20/19
Primary Language: Spanish

Piece: 

The only thing I grew up with is probably the same thing you grew up with, The legend of La LLorona. The legend states that a woman once drowned her kids in a river and forever hated herself for it. So when she died her soul still mourned the loss of her kids so her ghost roams the streets of Mexico crying for her kids. People say that if you hear her, and she sounds like she’s far away, then it means she’s really close to you. The same goes for the opposite, if you hear her close-by it means she’s really far away.

Background information: The informant is my cousin who grew up in a small village in Mexico. He is about 7 years older than I am.

Context: As described, this is something the informant heard a lot as a kid. Parents would use the legend of La LLorona to frighten their kids so they wouldn’t stay out too late at night.

Personal analysis: I never thought the legend of La LLorona would become such a well known legend. Seeing Disney turn it into a movie really put into perspective how exploitative capitalism can be. I take great joy in hearing legends like this being passed down from family members. But seeing a corporation use it to make money greatly discredits it.

For another version of this legend, see Mexico.mx. (2019). Horror Stories: The Legend of La Llorona. [online] Available at: https://www.mexico.mx/en/articles/horror-stories-the-legend-of-la-llorona [Accessed 26 Apr. 2019].

The God Among Sandwiches

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Arcadia
Primary Language: English

Context:

The following informant is a 20-year-old American male student. The informant and I were in a discussion about “secret menu” items that can be found at various American fast food chains. The informant will be denoted as K and I will be C.

K: So when I was in middle school and sex talk was really proliferating I heard about a fabled sandwich, the god among sandwiches, called the McGangBang. The story goes that if you ask for a McGangBang you will either be thrown out of the store or they will give you a McChicken inside of a McDouble. So a McDouble is bun, patty, cheese, patty, cheese, bun and then you can peel right in between the patty-cheese so the patty, cheese peel and then patty cheese, bun. And right in the center you can plop a McChicken right in the middle.

C: With the bun?

K: With the bun! And you can eat it all in one go and that’s a McGangBang. I’ve never ordered it as a McGangBang but my friend said he had. He said that it had worked at the Hog Mountain Road McDonalds. But I don’t believe him.

C: And how many times have you had a McGangBang.

K: I think I have had it at least fifteen times in my life, maybe more.

Analysis: While I find the name of the sandwich very problematic, I can personally attest that it is very tasty albeit disgusting. Additionally I find the culture of “hidden menu” items at fast food places to be very interesting. It is almost as if the restaurant is some cult and by knowing the secret menu items you can become a member of said cult. A commercialized version a secret menu can be seen with In N’ Out which is famous for their secret menu.

The Old Man and His Horse

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 2-17-19
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

Background Info/Context:

My friend was reaching out to USC students to get them to fill out surveys for a company called Tik Tok. The company wanted to collect data and get feedback from first time users, and they went about this by setting up a competition– the people who are able to get the most, second most, and third most surveys filled out under their name win cash prizes. So after a week of nagging friends and classmates to download the new app, browse through it, and fill out a Google Form set up by the company, my friend later found out that she won third place, receiving $150 as her prize!

I was thrilled for her and insisted that we go out for dinner or a celebratory dessert, but she sternly said that she shouldn’t splurge her new found money, because of a story her dad told her years ago. The story made her feel more optimistic, because it helped her to see situations beyond the myopic level.

 

Piece:

“This old man lives in like, what do you call it… not suburbs… but like the outskirts of China. And then, he owned a horse, but then one day, it just ran away. So he lost it and it was like a big loss right? Cuz horses were so, um, important back then.

So then his neighbors came and said “Oh I’m so sorry to hear about that,” and “If you need any help” and blah blah blah, and then the old man was just like, “How do you know this is a bad thing? I just lost a horse, we don’t know if it’s good, we don’t know if its bad.”

And then, um, a few weeks later, the horse came back with a bunch of other wild horses that it made friends with. So basically, the old man gained like I don’t know, 15 other horses, after losing one. So then, the neighbor comes over again and then says like “Oh congratulations! You have like so many more horses! This whole thing got spun 180 degrees!” And then the old man again, was like “How do you know this is a good thing? Just cuz I got more horses.”

And then one day, he was riding one of the wild horses, and it sort of acted out, and he broke his leg. And so, the neighbor again said “Oh, um, so sorry to hear you broke your leg.” And the old man goes, “Oh! Why are you sorry? How do you know this is a bad thing?”

Time goes by, and the emperor is recruiting for more people in the military, and getting able bodied people to join the military. And guess what! The old man is not able bodied anymore, and he couldn’t go to war, and he just like stayed at home. And I guess that was seen as a good thing, since he doesn’t have to sacrifice himself for his country.”

The lesson my dad was trying to tell me through this story is that whatever happens, I shouldn’t be immediately affected or put down by something bad, and if something good happens, I should always be cautious about it. So I don’t want to get ahead of myself and spend the money I won.”

 

Thoughts:

The story structure is somewhat similar to those in America, in the fact that there is a 3-time repetition in the narrative, but then there is a plot twist that plays off of it. I think that the man’s skepticism to everything that happened in his life is somewhat pessimistic, because he isn’t able to live in the moment, or accept things the way they are.

Because the old man in this story has the same reluctant attitude throughout the story, it shows that this proverb can be used in multiple scenarios. It could be used as a way to console people who are going through a hard time, or be used to warn people to not get ahead of themselves. Either way, patience and prudence seem to be the overarching themes in this proverb.

 

Kaprielian Hall Ghost

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Primary Language: English

Context:

The following informant is a 20-year-old American male student. I had a conversation with the said informant about campus ghost stories. The informant is an engineering student at the University of Southern California. The informant will be denoted as J and I will be C.

J: So when I was in 152, Physic 152. I had to go take my lab down in Kaprielian Hall. I heard this story from my TA whose verified it because he had felt the same phenomenon. So a lot of the labs are really late and the TAs will work late so when you’re walking in the hall by the machine shop you can hear the machines on and people making sounds and talking to each other. It is still really faint you can still hear it, but then when you walk over there everything is off and all the lights are off and you can’t see anything and all the sound is gone. So my TA was telling me about how he had been working late one night and all the people left from his lab, so it happened to him the week before. And started hearing these noises because we were like in the other side by where you pick up the materials. And then started hearing these thing like whirring and like thunk-a-thunk-a-thunking. And he walked over there and all the lights were off so he had to leave real fast and that’s the story of the Kaprielian Hall ghost.

Analysis: This reminds me of some of the other haunting/ghost stories that I have heard. The part that is particularly interesting is how the TA inserts himself into the legend to make it feel more real.

Mexican Phrase: “Descacharon con manos en la masa”

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 53
Occupation: Nanny
Residence: North Hollywood
Performance Date: 13 April 2019
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: English

Text

Informant: You know what masa is? You know that, that doe that my mom uses to make the sopes?

Interviewer: Oh yeah.

Informant: That’s called masa.

Interviewer: Oh yeah, yeah. I know masa.

Informant: So, if you are doing something mischievous, people will say to you “descacharon con manos en la masa.” “They catch you with your hands in the dough.” That means they catch you doing something.

 

Context– The informant is a middle-aged Mexican immigrant who grew up in Mexico City and then immigrated to Los Angeles in her teenage years. She has many family members still in Mexico City, so she learned many of these legends from those family members both while growing up and during her frequent visits and phone conversations.

 

Analysis– This metaphor is very similar to the American one about catching a kid with his hands in the cookie jar. Both of these metaphors mean the same thing but have different culture connections. Because chocolate chip cookies and cookie jars are popular cultural imagery of the United States, the use of such imagery would not have the same affect in Mexico. The use of masa is logical as masa is used to make a variety of Mexican dishes. Because masa is so widely use, kids sneaking tastes of it while their mother was not looking would be very common. Therefore, the use of masa in this saying is appropriate.