Graffiti Wall at Scripps College

Nationality: Swedish
Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, California
Performance Date: 04/23/18
Primary Language: Swedish
Language: English

Background information:

My sister, Jennifer, attends Scripps College and is graduating this year (2018). She is an English major and an Economics minor at the school and is greatly interested in literature, culture, and classic novels. Because Scripps College is a small, private, liberal arts college in the middle of the 5 Claremont Colleges Consortium, she has found that it has been a fantastic school for her to expand and learn about her interests and passion for literature. Due to her immense love for the school, she has been an active member in the college’s social life and learned about countless traditions that Scripps College engages in.

 

Main piece:

Walking around Scripps, my sister Jennifer, notes that one of her favorite locations is the Graffiti Wall located right in between the Toll Residence Hall and the Browning Residence Hall. She told me that this wall was something that she remembered all the way from her first tour of Scripps College as a prospective student. She remembers it so vividly because it is completely filled with past students’ names and she could not wait to be able to write her name on the wall upon graduation. Jennifer told me that seeing other students’ names and the year that they graduated was a huge inspiration to her because she often passed by it on her way to classes at Harvey Mudd College and saw how many women that had been in her place in the past. She said that the Graffiti Wall gave her a wholesome sense of history because she saw names from people that had graduated back in 1931, when the Graffiti Wall was started due to Scripps College’s first graduating class. Therefore, this wall gave her a very warm feeling and made her feel at home at Scripps and also felt like she was contributing to the traditions and history at Scripps College.

 

Personal thoughts:

When my sister told me about the impact that this Graffiti Wall made on her, I was very pleasantly surprised. I attended Scripps College for my freshman year of college and did not have the same connection to the wall, so it was nice to hear that she felt so connected to the school. I believe that since she enjoyed the curriculum at Scripps more than I did, this shaped her pride and desire to be featured on the Graffiti Wall upon her graduation. Now, she will make her mark and get a chance to sign the Graffiti Wall in May of 2018 when she graduates from this beautiful liberal arts college and will forever be a part of the history at Scripps College.

Blåkulla

Nationality: Swedish
Age: 49 and 50
Occupation: N/A and Business Leader
Residence: Palo Alto, California
Performance Date: 04/23/18
Primary Language: Swedish
Language: English

Background information:

My mother and father introduced me to this piece of folklore when I was younger. They were both born in the suburbs of Stockholm, Sweden and have been raised in the city suburbs by parents that were all from the inner city of Stockholm.

 

Main piece:

Literally translated, “Blåkulla” means “blue hill” in Swedish. This piece of folklore is about the location of Blåkulla and witches, and how these two are in relation to one another. Blåkulla is a place in Sweden where all of the witches in Sweden supposedly meet up to celebrate the Sabbath of the witches. To get to Blåkulla, these witches traveled on broomsticks, so in order for the witches to be unable to travel to Blåkulla, people often hide their broomsticks and all of the supplies that can make broomsticks. Essentially, my parents explained that the witches travel to Blåkulla three days prior to Easter, on the Thursday, and therefore, everyone does what they can to stop the witches from going to Blåkulla on this day. In addition to hiding brooms and supplies, Swedes traditionally create fires or make loud noises outside to scare the witches and prevent them from engaging in the witches’ Sabbath at Blåkulla.

 

Personal thoughts:

My family has never been religious so my parents taught me this tradition in regards to it being just that: a tradition and not an event that was celebrated in respect to Christianity and Easter. When I was younger, I was very interested in witchcraft and thought this was a very exciting time of the year, and therefore associated Blåkulla with Easter instead of focusing on Easter in regard to Christianity.

Nisse in Swedish Culture

Nationality: Swedish
Age: 49
Occupation: N/A
Residence: Palo Alto, California
Performance Date: 04/23/18
Primary Language: Swedish
Language: English

Background information:

Like my dad, my mom also had legend characters that she believed in. Whenever Christmas rolled around, she would always talk about the “nisse”, (plural: “nissar”) and said that these tiny little helpers were part of what made Christmas the amazing and cozy event that it is.

 

Main piece:

My mother had very high respect for the “nissar” as she told us from a young age that they helped with the logistics and took care of a lot of work to prepare for Christmas. As such, she made sure to bring them to my sister’s and my attention every Christmas. She did this by saying that the “nissar” had dropped off small gifts in our Christmas stockings randomly throughout the Christmas season. There was no organization or special time that the “nissar” dropped off the gifts into our stockings, but I remember her telling me that the “nissar” would only drop off gifts if we had been respectful to the “nissar” and been friendly overall. Every Christmas, the “nissar” would visit and drop off small gifts in our stockings around three times total: sometimes they would visit more, other times they would visit less, it all depended on the year. As I grew older, I realized that my mom was the one that was putting the gifts in the stockings, but she was always adamant that she was just a messenger of the “nissar” and was helping them out.

 

Personal thoughts:

I really enjoyed this tradition and the legend of the “nisse” because it brought a lot of happiness and excitement to my Christmas experience when I was growing up. I remember talking to my American friends about the “nisse” when I was younger and although none of them could relate to me, they always thought that the “nisse” sounded amazing and very generous, which I regard them as being, as well. Because this was such a heartfelt and warm memory, I will be sure to share this tradition in the future.

Don’t Bring Pork on the Pali Highway

Nationality: Asian-American
Age: 18
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Honolulu, Hawaii
Performance Date: April 12, 2018
Primary Language: English
Language: Cantonese, Vietnamese

“In Hawaii, there’s a big stigma about the Pali Highway. You’re not supposed to carry pork on it from the windward side to the leeward side because it has to do it the belief in the Hawaiian gods The windward side, [my sister] said it was the Kamapua’a, which is the pig god, and then the leeward side is the embodiment of his ex-girlfriend, which is Pele, which is the goddess of fire. If you if you bring poured across the Pali Highway from windward to leeward, you’ll get cursed with bad luck. You’re supposed to bring tea leaves to protect yourself, and that’s why you don’t drive with pork.”

Background Information and Context:

“[I learned about the superstition] through one of my teachers, my Modern History of Hawaii teacher, I believe, because he used to tell different stories and things, so use telling the history of the island and about how we have a really like big mixed culture but also, like, indigenous Hawaiian cultures. So, I would modern Hawaiian culture, at least, is like an amalgamation of a bunch of different things that are mixed into [indigenous Hawaiian culture]. So, different superstitions, too. All of the older aunties and uncles, especially native Hawaiian and aunties and uncles, will be steadfast about superstitions, but I have never met anyone who like really really strict about this one. Still, even if they’re not really really strict about it, like they don’t super believe in it, they won’t do it anyway because it’s just one of those superstition things that you just don’t do.”

Collector’s Notes:

What I find most interesting about this superstition is that, although the informant has never met anyone who truly claimed belief in the superstition, she considers it something you “just don’t do.” This shows the power of cultural expectations and explains why superstitions are so resilient to fading. Moreover, I find the informant’s knowledge of and education about Hawaiian history and culture intriguing because she was neither born in Hawaii nor is she of indigenous Hawaiian descent, showing that the adoption of local traditions does not have to occur from a young age.

If you hear this song, stop what you’re doing, and warm up

Nationality: American
Age: 28
Occupation: Graduate Student, Linguist
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 9, 2018
Primary Language: English
Language: n/a

“Jonathan likes to use the same warm-up song over and over again if he can, and he does these exercises that are always the same for warm-ups because they work. Tendus and other things, exercises where you work your hips while pointing your feet (still seated, he locks the fingers of both hands together, holds his arms in front of him, and moves his feet in an approximation of one of the warm-up exercises) and other actions to really build up muscle memory for the articulations that you need to have in order to do good rhythm dancing – cha cha, rumba, etc. So, whenever I hear, ‘She’s up all night ‘til the sun. We’re up all night for good fun,’ (he sings these lyric) or whatever the actual words of the song are. Get Lucky, I think. Daft Punk. Whenever I hear that on the radio, or in the supermarket, or especially next to Jonathan, I’ll immediately stop what I’m doing, stand up, put things down, and get into my warm up posture (he demonstrates the warm-up posture again), and do the stuff, because that’s the song that I warmed up to a lot a couple of years ago. He thinks it’s pretty funny. It’s ruined the song for me. Actually, it’s made the song great for me. It’s a pretty good song, and it suits the warm ups well.”

Background Information and Context:

Every coach has a different style of teaching and different preferences for warming up (if they even guide their students through warm ups at all, instead of expecting them to warm up before class). What the informant described is a pre-class ritual of sorts that seems distinctive of Jonathan’s rhythm classes. Jonathan is the rhythm coach of the SC Ballroom and Latin Dance Team, which means that he instructs cha cha, rumba, east coast swing, mambo, and bolero. His style of teaching and warm-ups are very different from those of the team’s smooth coach, who teaches waltz, tango, foxtrot, and Viennese waltz. He never skips warm ups, even when running late, and plays the full length of the song at least once, if not twice, until he feels that the students have been properly warmed up before reviewing figures from the previous class. The habit of breaking out into the warm-up routine at seemingly improper times is not unique to this informant, as it is a habit shared by multiple active members of the team.

Collector’s Notes:

Traditions and associations are no less powerful because they only affect a small group of people. It doesn’t matter that nobody else knew what was going on when a handful of team members started twisting their hips and pointing their toes in perfect sync in the middle of a restaurant because it was a sign of their connection, formed through shared knowledge and experience. On a small scale, the warm-up exercises also have their own multiplicity and variation based on when one joined the team. The informant described an association with “Get Lucky,” but my friend Sara and I (who joined the team last year) have the same association with “Moves Like Jagger,” while my friend Queenique (who joined this year) associates the warm-ups with “Feel It Still.”