“When I go visit my dad at the grave, I always tell my cousins to not step on other people’s graves or else the spirits will haunt them. But I mostly tell my cousins this because they never listen and step on anything.”

Vanessa Marquez is another co-worker of mine. She is a married 27 year old. She was born in Mexico and came to the United States as a child. These folk stories were shared to me during break at work in a casual setting.

With this specific folk story, Vanessa actually kind of made it up in order to get her child cousins to listen. Spirits will not necessarily haunt these children, but because they do not listen if they are told to not step on the graves, she had to scare them somehow and this was what she came up with.

When I heard this, I did not know if I should include it in my project because it wasn’t necessarily something she’s heard before, or something she grew up with since she made it up, but I decided to include it because it is still a folklore that she started. Because these children hear about this, they will now listen and possibly pass it onto their younger cousins or children in the future.