Filipino New Year

Nationality: United States
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Northern California. Currently residing in Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/13/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Tagalog, Spanish

Main Piece:

 

The following was recorded from the Participant. They are marked as BDV. I am marked as DG.

 

BDV: Oh yeah, so my mom has a lot about New Years that were passed down to her by her mom. It’s really weird, um, one of them is that when the clock strikes midnight at the New Year, all your pockets have to be full, um, of coins, and they can’t be like dollar bills it has to be coins because its good luck. And another one that when the clocks strikes midnight, all the lights in your house have to be off. That one doesn’t make as much sense as the coins but…

 

 

Context:

 

The conversation was recorded while sitting outside of a coffee shop at the University of Southern California. The tradition itself was upheld at midnight every year on December 31st. The lights tradition would be held at your home, while the coin tradition could be held anywhere.

 

Background:

 

The student was born and raised in Northern California. She is a sophomore at the University of Southern California. She is the fourth generation to grow up in America, but is Filipino. She speaks several languages, with English being her native language.

 

Analysis:

 

I liked this tradition although I would have liked to have known more about what each tradition is supposed to bring. I would think that having coins means you’ll have a prosperous year ahead of you, but much like the interviewee, I’m unsure of what turning the lights out. I would assume it’s a superstition about luck. Although I have no such traditions in my own life, I’ve heard about other New Year’s traditions being enacted that symbolize luck or good fortune for the upcoming year. Although the New Year is a man-made construct, different cultures still create ideas about what brings luck for the upcoming period, and what heralds in the new year positively.

Noche Buena

Nationality: United States
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Northern California. Currently residing in Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/13/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Tagalog, Spanish

Main Piece:

 

The following was recorded from the Participant. They are marked as BDV. I am marked as DG.

 

BDV: Ok, so instead of, like, doing the whole ‘opening presents on Christmas day morning’ sort of thing, I guess its Pilipino tradition to sort of, um, so you go to mass the night before and it’s called Noche Buena-I don’t know if the mass is but I think the tradition itself is, the entire tradition is-and then you have, before mass you go to dinner as a family and then church, because most Filipino’s are Catholic….um, and after that is when you come home and open presents and it’s like 2:00 AM of the next morning rather than, like, ‘Christmas Day, Christmas Day’. And then, like, all the kids go out into the street and play with their presents in the middle of the night. It’s kind of odd…I’m not sure if anyone, other cultures do it but, yeah.

 

DG: Who did you learn this from, your parents?

 

BDV: Mmhmm, my mom told me. ‘Cause, originally, like, since my dad is third generation, we are pretty Americanized so we usually wait ‘til the next morning, but ever since my dad left my family, and my mom has been reverting back to old culture. So now starting this year we’ve started doing this whole ‘Noche Buena’ thing.

 

Context:

 

The conversation was recorded while sitting outside of a coffee shop at the University of Southern California. The tradition itself was held within a church, and then at home, every Christmas season.

 

Background:

 

The student was born and raised in Northern California. She is a sophomore at the University of Southern California. She is the fourth generation to grow up in America, but is Filipino. She speaks several languages, with English being her native language.

 

Analysis:

 

I found this piece incredibly interesting because it’s similar to one that I’ve heard from my half-Swedish father, where they open the presents on Christmas Eve. However, they don’t go to mass first (at least in his version). The reason it was so interesting was because it showed me the different sorts of oicotypes for this item-different religions and cultures have the same tradition. Additionally, I found it interesting that the family of the interviewee really only started doing this tradition after a split in the family-this shows how folklore ties us back to our roots in a time we might need them.

Aloe Vera

Nationality: United States
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Huntsville, AL. Currently residing in Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/12/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Main Piece:

 

The following was recorded from the Participant. They are marked as AF. I am marked as DG.

 

AF: I know my grandma uses aloe vera on everything, like she grows it outside. But you know, I feel like, um, a lot of Hispanic people do that–they just put aloe vera on everything. Stuff like, well like for things like burns, or acne, or like anything on your skin-not like if you have a fever or something.

 

 

Context:

 

The conversation was recorded while sitting in the lobby of a dorm at the University of Southern California. The story itself was told to the interviewee by his grandmother, as they sat in their living room. He was asking her about folklore in order to feel more in touch with his roots.

 

Background:

 

The student is from Huntsville Alabama, but took a gap year in New York City, NY, before attending the University of Southern California as a School of Cinematic Arts major. They are a sophomore, and come from an Italian Hispanic background.

 

Analysis:

 

This is a homeopathic remedy that I myself have used in the past, so I can allude to the strong belief that it works well. In my case, I had used it for acne, as a more natural face wash. I liked how in the telling he added to the cultural background of the remedy, saying that many Hispanic families use aloe vera often. I also enjoyed seeing how this is a cross-generational tradition that was passed down. Additionally, aloe vera is used often by the majority of people for sunburns, but most people don’t tend to think about the other skin purposes of it, so it was interesting to see the cultural insight to more uses from AF’s perspective.

La Llorona

Nationality: United States
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Huntsville, AL. Currently residing in Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/12/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Main Piece:

 

The following was recorded from the Participant. They are marked as AF. I am marked as DG.

 

AF: Um, well La Llorona is just this folktale, um, about this woman who…was jilted basically…uh and then, uh, well actually no she wasn’t jilted, her husband died… or something like that, uh, so she…hmm. Well ok, she was murdered. Ok, there are different versions of the story basically. So, um, in some of them she was jilted and killed herself and in some of them she was murdered and stuff like that, and basically she came back and was this, like, spirit who wandered amongst the streets at night… And if you’re, like, a lost kid at night, she’ll steal you away and maybe eat you…I don’t know…but definitely steal you away. Oh, and like an important thing is La Llorona cries, she’s this crying spirit, and you’ll hear her. Um, and yeah. I think maybe she, like, killed her kids.

 

DG: Who told you this?

 

AF: Oh, uh, my grandma actually, because I was asking her about folk stuff a couple years ago. She told me this story, um, yeah.

 

 

Context:

 

The conversation was recorded while sitting in the lobby of a dorm at the University of Southern California. The story itself was told to the interviewee by his grandmother, as they sat in their living room. He was asking her about folklore in order to feel more in touch with his roots.

 

Background:

 

The student is from Huntsville Alabama, but took a gap year in New York City, NY, before attending the University of Southern California as a School of Cinematic Arts major. They are a sophomore, and come from an Italian Hispanic background.

 

Analysis:

 

I had heard about this folklore story in one of my classes, so it was interesting to hear it from someone. This was true especially so since although I did learn one version, it was already easily jumbled up for me too, and I had learned it fairly recently. This shows how easy it can be for folklore to become changed, as the teller may forget, have pieces jumbled, or slightly change them. This also alludes to how the audience will keep the teller in check, if the teller goes too far from the version they know. This is what helps folklore remain folklore. In my case, I was a passive listener, so the folklore remained jumbled in the retelling for this archive post.

 

Pullman Hotel Tennis Ghost

Nationality: United States
Occupation: University Professor
Residence: Chicago, IL. Currently residing in Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/12/2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Main Piece:

 

The following was recorded from the Participant. They are marked as TM. I am marked as DG.

 

TM: When I was working, um, at Pullman Hotel, and it’s in the uh Pullman neighborhood in Chicago, and it’s the hotel that housed people that used to visit the Pullman Palace Car Company and made railroad cars-really fancy ones. And so, uh, they had a factory in that neighborhood, and then they had a tower of houses…And so it was built in 1880, and it’s no longer used as a hotel, um, partly because there’s no way to get out if you’re on the top floor. Yeah, um, and I…was kind of manning the front desk for tourists to come in and walk around the old hotel and these three women walked in and one was kind of a little bit, you know, younger–not 20s but maybe 30s, and, um, then there were two women maybe a little bit older and they had like fanny packs on, you know, and kind of tourist looking… And, um, the younger one had on like a tennis skirt or something. It looked like she played tennis or something, um, it looked a little dated but not really so I talked to them…Um, it was mostly–it was the two older women who were talking to me, I guessed the other was their kid, and, um, it used to be a restaurant at the hotel-and it was fancy-which isn’t there anymore. Um, so they all kind of went off and the two of them went to do the tour where, um, you have your piece of paper and you walk around and take the tour on your own, and the other went off to the bathroom. And then the woman comes walking around the corner from the bathroom, kind of reaching into her pocket to, you know, maybe hand me a piece of paper, and then she just just disappeared. Just completely gone! She had a tennis skirt on, it was kind of 80s. It was kind of funny 80s, I thought it was kind of dated, but then I was like she’s kind of close to my age so like. I have no idea what that was about.

 

Apparently the hotel was supposed to be haunted and many people have had ghost experiences there.

 

 

Context:

 

The conversation was recorded while sitting in a hallway outside of a classroom on a university campus. The context of where the interviewee saw the ghost was in the front desk area of the old Pullman Hotel. Apparently, the hotel is a well-known haunted site, and most who have worked there have had sightings.

 

Background:

 

The interviewee is a professor at the University of Southern California. They are also a practicing archeologist. Originally from Chicago, IL, they now live in Los Angeles, CA, with their husband. The interviewee worked in Finance before pursuing a teaching degree.

 

Analysis:

 

I think this story held a lot of weight because I’ve had my fair share of ghost stories. I’ve also worked long hours in a retail setting, and know that feeling you get towards the end where you’re starting to imagine things. I think that made this story even better, because I could easily imagine the feeling of “Did I just see that??” Beyond that, many others have apparently seen ghosts at the Pullman Hotel, adding legitimacy to the legend. It also made me wonder what was on the paper–was it a message that the apparition was trying to tell TM, or was it just a recording ghost that does the same act in the same place forever?