12 grapes

Nationality: United States
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Bronx, NY
Performance Date: 04/03/2021
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

BACKGROUND: My informant, IC, was born in the US. His entire family is from Ecuador and is bilingual (English and Spanish). IC and I were having a conversation about our families and party customs among immigrants and he brought up this custom that his family uses for good luck.

CONTEXT: This piece is from a conversation with my friend. We originally started talking about our families and the different family parties we’ve been to and that eventually morphed into IC explaining a custom his family has on New Year’s.

IC: For new years, there’s 12 grapes that are meant to represent the 12 months in a year. Right before the new year, when it’s like 11:59, you eat all the grapes. Basically, after each grape you eat, you have to like, make a wish. Oh and — oo! Wait… (long pause) I’m literally stupid as sh-t, I just remembered um, during the new year too, like once it hits 12, you need to throw rice around your whole house. It’s supposed to be so that the next year you have food.

THOUGHTS: This custom is interesting to me because I feel like it is much more in line with the idea of the new year being a time of celebrating change and preparing for the future. In American culture, it is customary to give someone a kiss at midnight for good luck. The 12 grapes however are almost like 12 different resolutions, preparing the person for what they want in the coming year.

The frog, the rice cake, and the veteran

Nationality: United States
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: Exeter, NH
Performance Date: 04/03/2021
Primary Language: English

BACKGROUND: My informant, MP, was born in the US. Her family is from DC and have lived there for as long as she can remember. MP was a bit of a class clown at my former school so I asked her if she has any interesting jokes she would like to tell me. According to MP, this is her favorite joke that she inherited from her older brother.

CONTEXT: This piece is from a conversation with my friend to exchange jokes.

Me: So this is a two-part joke?

MP: It’s gonna be a long one yeah. So once upon a time there was a rice cake. A rice cake and a frog are looking off of a pier and the rice cake, looking into the water, saw its reflection and said: “I am the prettiest rice cake in all the lands.” The frog was fed up with the rice cake and responded “If you say that one more time, I’m going to push you in the water.” The rice cakes was like “okay.” So the pier is quiet for a bit. No one really says anything. Then eventually the rice cake looks back into the pond and is like, “I am the prettiest rice cake and all the land.” So the frog pushes him into the water. 

Okay so here’s the second part. So I guess once there was a man and a woman and they were like high school sweethearts. Um, and they’re really in love. And then suddenly like a war happens, like, yeah, one of the American Wars and he gets drafted for the Navy and she’s really sad. And he’s like, “Don’t worry, I’m going to give you this ring now. And I promise, like once I get back, we’re going to get married. Just like, think about this ring whenever you miss me. Or look at it or whatever. And we’ll get married when I get back from the war.” Um, and he’s like,”Yeah, once we come back, I’ll meet you at the dock and we’ll get married. So what happens? He doesn’t die. Right? Yeah. So he doesn’t die. He comes back to the town. Um, but unfortunately the town built a completely identical dock to the other one, but it’s on the other side of the town. And so since the woman’s been living there the entire time, she goes to the right dock and he goes to the new one, completely confused. And the woman thought he must’ve died in the war and she find a different husband moves on. But he’s so heartbroken and he’s like, “You know what? I’m going to dedicate my life to this pier because she didn’t pull through for me. I’m going to pull through for myself.” So then all the kids knew him in the town. He’s known as like the dude who works at the dock and who fishes every day. Years and years and years and years go by, 50 years pass. And one day he goes out, sits on the dock to go fishing, then reels in the rice cake.

Me: What? What’s the punchline?

MP: He reels in the rice cake. That’s the end of the joke.

THOUGHTS: At first I felt very swindled by the joke. MP purposely added a lot of pauses and gesturing to drag on the joke for over 4 minutes. By the time I got to the end, I was salivating to know how a frog and a rice cake would connect to a girl and a veteran. Also considering that MP was a fairly funny person, I expected the joke to come to a very cathartic conclusion. The fact that it ended so abruptly and randomly made me angry, realizing that my reaction to the uselessness of the joke was the joke itself. The punchline is that there is no punchline, almost elevating the joke beyond what it would’ve been if there actually was a joke. It’s basically an anti-joke, built on the irony of its dissatisfaction.

For another example of a long-winded anti-joke, see: Brunvand, Jan Harold. “A Classification for Shaggy Dog Stories.” The Journal of American Folklore, vol. 76, no. 299, 1963, pp. 42–68. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/538078.

Lajabless

Nationality: United States
Age: 20
Occupation: Student/Digital Artist
Residence: Queens, NY
Performance Date: 04/11/2021
Primary Language: English

BACKGROUND: My informant, OR, was born in the US. Her parents are both immigrants from Grenada. OR is always joking about Carribeans being a very superstitious people and this piece is just one story out of the many that OR told me about her family’s beliefs. OR had previously told me about soucouyants and this story is in a similar vein, depicting a seductive, villainous female/creature character.

CONTEXT: This piece is from a conversation with my friend to discuss the role of superstition in Caribbean culture. 

OR: There’s also, um, Lajabless, which, I don’t even know how this is f-cking spelled. I think it comes from the French, like La Diablesse, like a female devil. She’s got — usually in like depiction the of her she’s got like this wide flopping, brim hat. One of her feet is normal, but I think the other one is like a goat hoof or a horse hoof or like a… 

Me: She’s got a hoof.

OR: (laughs) Yeah she’s got a hoof. And the story is like, it’s mostly like an old wives’ text. The story is like some drunk asshole goes at night and sees this lady with her floppy brim hat and her skirt (which is covering her hoof) and flirts with her. Then Lajabless reveals her face under the hat and it’s like a skull face. (laughs) The — the guy’s like so freaked out. He like falls off of a cliff dies.

THOUGHTS: I think that a lot of cultures have a story of a female “seductress” leading to a man’s downfall. In biblical lore, Lilith is often portrayed as a sexual temptress. However, as the story goes, Lilith was only cast out of Eden because of her desire to be equal to Adam. I think a similar thread happens in this story. As OR tells it, Lajabless was minding her own business when a drunk and leery man makes an advance on her. It is interesting to me how women in legends are often painted as more villainous than they are when they are able to stand up to or retaliate against their male counterparts.

Whistling at night

Nationality: United States
Age: 20
Occupation: Student/Digital Artist
Residence: Queens, NY
Performance Date: 04/11/2021
Primary Language: English

BACKGROUND: My informant, OR, was born in the US. Her parents are both immigrants from Grenada. OR often talks about how superstitious her Caribbean family is and this piece is one example out of our long conversation about how her family’s beliefs dominate how they behave. 

CONTEXT: This piece is from a conversation with my friend to discuss the role of superstition in Caribbean culture.

OR: This one, I don’t really know if there’s a story to this or something but we aren’t supposed to whistle at night.

Me: Or…?

OR: Or I guess a ghost will get mad? Or an evil spirit? Like, this one I don’t know all the details but my mom told me not to do this either.

THOUGHTS: This is interesting to me because throughout my collection I spoke to a few other people who brought up the “don’t whistle at night” belief but with different meanings. In OR’s case, whistling at night disturbs restless spirits whereas when I talked to my friend from Ecuador, whistling at night meant signaling for an evil spirit to follow you home. This seems to be the resounding belief in many cultures, that whistling at night attracts evil.

Sweeping Over Feet

Nationality: United States
Age: 20
Occupation: Student/Digital Artist
Residence: Queens, NY
Performance Date: 04/11/2021
Primary Language: English

BACKGROUND: My informant, OR, was born in the US. Her parents are both immigrants from Grenada. OR often talks about how superstitious her Caribbean family is and this piece is one example out of our long conversation about how her family’s beliefs dominate how they behave. 

CONTEXT: This piece is from a conversation with my friend to discuss the role of superstition in Caribbean culture. 

OR: This other one actually happened the other day. I was sweeping the floor of um, the living room and my mom was sitting on the couch and I accidentally swept over her feet. Like, my family believes that if you sweep over someone’s feet then they’ll never get married. So my mom got really mad at me and said that she’ll never marry —

Me: (laughs) Isn’t your mom married? Like what happened to your dad?

OR: I guess if something happened to my dad (laughs) I guess she would have no plan b.

THOUGHTS: The thing that is the most interesting to me about this superstition is the fact that despite being exempt from the superstition, OR’s mom still abided by it. With nothing to fear from the superstition, having already been married, it gives off the impression that OR’s mom is superstitious just to be superstitious. Or rather that superstition is so ingrained in Caribbean culture that the preservation of its importance is more significant than the meaning itself.