Tag Archives: American folklore

American Halloween Parties: A Festival

Nationality: american
Age: 56
Occupation: homemaker
Performance Date: 4/21/20
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

The following is transcribed from a conversation between me (LT) and my mother/informant (ET). 

ET: I went to Catholic school growing up, and we always had All Saints Day off, which is the day after Halloween, so we’d always have big sleepovers on Halloween. You know, since no one was going to school the next day. I’ve always loved Halloween because of that, and of course my birthday is then… and it’s just a sweet holiday. Oh, and the costumes… that’s one of the best parts… But that’s how I really got started throwing Halloween parties. Then of course, I grew up and had kids- holidays are always better with kids… I loved that our house was the hub for all the neighborhood kids and their parents when everyone was done Trick-Or-Treating. I love cooking lots of food, so everyone has something real to eat that’s not candy (laughs). Even now that you guys are older… I think I’ll always throw Halloween parties. I’ve got them down to a science, you know. Like what decorations are the best… and oh! You have to carve the pumpkins the day before so they don’t go bad, but you’re not too busy the day of. 

Background:

My informant is my mother who mainly grew up in Santa Barbara, CA. Her birthday is Halloween, and she used to always tell me she “had special witch powers” because of it. To her, Halloween is the most important holiday. Every year, she begins elaborately decorating our house weeks in advance for her annual costume party that takes place Halloween Night. She doesn’t even mail invitations anymore because everyone in our community knows it’s happening. 

Context: 

I am currently in quarantine at my informant/mother’s house, and this piece was collected while we were eating dinner at the kitchen table.

Thoughts: 

I believe Halloween parties are such big celebrations in America because the holiday is simple, fun, and nostalgic. Having grown up in a home where my parents practiced different religions, I always loved that Halloween was secular, so both my parents would get really excited about it. It’s not religious, it’s American. There’s no moral to Halloween in common practice (unlike All Hallow’s Eve- the pagan holiday that Halloween was based on, which celebrates the rising of the dead). On Halloween, people are just supposed to get dressed up, have fun, and eat lots of candy (or drink lots of booze, depending on your age). The point of any party, but especially a Halloween party, is that it’s unifying. All are invited to have a shared experience. Furthermore, the fact that it is a costume party highlights this idea by letting people be anyone they want to be. You can dress in a way that’s unacceptable any other day of the year, potentially channeling your childhood dreams or wonder that you haven’t expressed in years. 

Yearbooks as Folk Art

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: student
Performance Date: 4/23/20
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

The following is transcribed from a conversation between me (LT) and my informant (MS). 

MS: So, a yearbook is traditionally issued at the end of the school year when you’re in elementary school through high school… and they have pictures of everyone in the school taken throughout the year… and you’ll usually write messages in your friends’ books.

LT: But not all messages are equal (laughs). 

MS: Yeah, like in elementary school, everyone just wrote their names because we didn’t know how to write many things, but generally, in high school, it’s bad to just write “HAGS,” which means have a good summer… you want to write something more heartfelt because people often keep yearbooks and will want to be able to reminisce on memories and stuff in the future, so you need good messages. If someone writes “HAGS,” they probably don’t know you that well. 

Background: 

MS is one of my best friends, and she grew up in Los Angeles. She got her first yearbook when she was six years old, at the end of Kindergarten. She often jokes that she’s a “hoarder” because she keeps a lot of things for their sentimental value, including yearbooks. She actually just read through all of her old yearbooks the night before our interview since she “wasn’t doing anything better during quarantine.” Her favorite thing about yearbooks is reading the messages. She likes to think about who she’s still friends with and who she doesn’t stay in touch with. She also likes the messages that remind her of memories she wouldn’t have thought of on her own. 

Context:

MS and I normally see each other most days at USC, and we’ve been continuing to FaceTime often during this quarantine period. This piece was collected during a “Zoom Happy Hour” with our friend group. 

Thoughts:

In American culture, we often stress the importance of being “cool in high school.” Media often promotes the idea that an American teen’s self worth can be measured in how many friends they have. Yearbooks are a physical way we can quanitize that. I remember reading through my mom’s old yearbooks as a child, and I was so impressed by how many people had signed it. When I was in high school, I would actually get stressed and feel pressured to make sure every blank page in my book was covered with signatures. Now, as a college student, I don’t even know where most of my yearbooks are. In MS’s case, it’s nice to reminisce about the memories with dear, old friends. However, she doesn’t particularly care about the messages written by people she wasn’t close to. Yearbooks symbolize the things that felt so important as a teenager that don’t particularly matter later in life. Inherently, yearbooks are a really sweet tradition that should be treated more authentically. 

Friendship Bracelets as Folk Art

Nationality: American
Age: 23
Occupation: financial analyst
Performance Date: 4/21/20
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

The following is transcribed from a conversation between me (LT) and my informant (AT). 

AT: When I think friendship bracelets, I think of taking strands of embroidery floss, and you knot or braid them in these different patterns, and then when they’re like fully woven, you give them to your friends. The whole idea is you and your friends either make matching ones and swap them, or you can make different ones for each other. Part of the fun in that is picking the colors or patterns you think they’d like. 

LT: But either way you have to make them, and they have to be for the other person, right? 

AT: Yeah, you’re not supposed to make them for yourself… I mean maybe you can? Everyone I know always made them for other people… and honestly I’m sure you can buy them off Etsy or something, but the whole fun in it is the actual process of making them. 

Background:

AT is a 23-year-old female from Los Angeles. She first learned how to make friendship bracelets at a summer camp when she was six years old. Her favorite thing about making friendship bracelets growing up was exchanging them: “I loved how excited my friends would get when I gave them theirs, and I’d always feel really special when they’d give me mine… it was a way we could physically prove to each other that we liked each other I guess.” 

Context: 

AT is one of my relatives with whom I’m quarantining. This piece was collected in our living room as we were sitting on the couch. 

Thoughts:

American female friendships are often depicted in the media as being “catty” or fake, but I think that friendship bracelets show how pure they can be in real life. Having gone to an all girls high school, some of my strongest, most loyal relationships are the ones I have with my female friends. In the context of friendship bracelets, girls take it upon themselves at such a young age to learn special patterns and spend time making them for their friends. I still cherish having that experience with mine. When we all wore the same friendship bracelets, it felt like we were all wearing the same jersey, and we were on the same team. These bracelets are generally made by little girls who might not be eloquent enough to express their emotions accurately, and friendship bracelets are a beautiful way to nonverbally show your friends how much you care, knowing that they’ll understand and likely reciprocate. 

Meaning Behind The Proverb “Hope For The Best, Prepare For The Worst”

Nationality: American
Age: 67
Occupation: retired physician
Performance Date: 4/22/20
Primary Language: English

Main Piece: 

Original Proverb: “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.” 

Meaning as told by my informant: 

“It’s honestly pretty self explanatory. It’s good to be an optimist… you should always root for what you want and have faith. However, you can’t be naive about it. You should always have some kind of plan B or safety net if things don’t go as planned. The idea of this line is that you have to balance those two things. Offence and defense. Feet on the ground, head in the clouds… dream big, but be okay if things don’t work out.” 

Background:

My informant is my father, who is a retired doctor. Although he was a surgeon, his work mainly consisted of him doing expert witness work in legal cases. He first heard this proverb while preparing for a case, and he still primarily associates the saying with attorneys. However, he believes it applies to all contexts of life. While he’s a big fan of proverbs and jokes in general, this one is likely his favorite. As his child, I can vouch that he says this all the time. 

Context: 

While I’m not in quarantine with my informant/father, I do call him every day, and this piece was collected during a routine call. 

Thoughts: 

To me, this proverb will always be my father’s best advice. Having been involved in the performing arts since a young age, I have countless distinct memories of my father reciting this proverb to me as he picked me up from auditions. He said it before I opened every college admission letter. No matter what I was doing, I could always count on him telling me to “hope for the best, prepare for the worst.” I don’t think of it as being optimistic or skeptical, it’s just real. One of the things I love about this proverb is that it can apply to not just any situation, but any culture. I briefly Googled this proverb after my interview, and found that there really is no origin to it. There are countless articles with countless nationalities. I think this saying speaks to the human experience in general: we’re all just trying to live life the best we can. We want to see the beauty in the world, but not be hurt by life’s struggles. It’s theater’s drama and comedy, or Chinese mythology’s Yin and Yang. We are all trying to find a balance. 

The First American President Was Actually Black

Nationality: American
Age: 20
Occupation: College Student
Residence: Charleston, South Carolina
Performance Date: 4/5/20
Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

Subject: I was talking to this one guy because my grandfather wanted me to talk to him. He was involved in the Orangeburg Massacre that happened in South Carolina state in the 60’s or whatever. And then he brought back into my memory this thing- he mentioned it because he believed it… But he starts out by saying, “I always knew Abraham Lincoln was black.” And then that segwayed into him saying something that I heard as a kid, which is that the first president of America was black and wasn’t George Washington… and that you can find him on the back of a twenty dollar bill. 

Interviewer: And can you?

Subject: I mean the idea is that… it’s fucking black and white on green paper, so people are like, “You see this man right here? That’s a black man.” And it’s like yeah! Because in the 1700’s all the slave owners, and an economy built on slavery… they definitely would have elected and let a black man run the country. 

Interviewer: And could just reiterate who told you this idea?

Subject: This is folklore I have heard from various black people. It came back to my memory because I was talking to someone my Grandfather knows. But yeah… it’s just this belief that there is actually a long lost black president who was the first president before George Washington. And the only reason why we don’t know is because they erased it from our history books. You know the really simple phrase. “It’s not in the history books. They rewrote history.” That shit. Which does happen but not in this case. None of the logic follows through. What specifically gripped me about the second time around when I was talking to this guy… He basically was the catalyst for the South Carolina State Massacre. It started as a bowling alley that was segregated. He was the guy that broke the color line there. He was like, “Fuck this shit I want to go bowling.” So we’re talking… and I didn’t know this before talking to him. We talked at length about the massacre and why he wanted to talk about it. But for him to later say in the conversation, “I’ve learned more on the internet in the past five years than I have in the past sixty years.” This guy has a bachelor’s degree in chemistry! This is a smart man. He’s seen racism because that involved people dying. He understands how that looks in real time and how it operates in South Carolina. And yet… he somehow through the internet… he somehow believes that Abraham Lincoln was black. Even though we have pictures of him. And also believes there was a first black president. Which is antithetical to how racism works in America for that to ever be a possibility. In this person’s mind, how does that work? How do you separate those two and how do they overlap. Because I’m sure that’s a massive part of your life! 

Interviewer: I feel like I’ve heard that theory before… that the first president of America was actually black.

Subject: I’m not quite sure how popular it is. I think it could be pretty popular. But no one talks about it because it’s not believable! I heard it from various black men. They say, “Yeah the first president was black. Look at the back of your twenty dollar bill. They erased it from the history books. They don’t want you to know it.” It’s like, how do square that? It’s weird.

Context: The subject is a 20-year-old African American male in his sophomore year at Columbia University studying creative writing. The subject and I were best friends in high school, and we are both currently quarantined in our homes in Charleston. I asked the subject if he would like to meet up for a six-feet-apart walk one evening, and asked him if he had heard any folklore he could share with me, and he told me this fascinating folk belief regarding American history.

Interpretation: I have heard this folk legend before, and the theorized first black president of America was supposedly a man named John Hanson. Though the subject said he could be found on the back of $20 bill, many sources make the claim it is on the back of the $2 bill. On the back of the $2 bill, there is the image of the Second Continental Congress, and supposedly there is a man seated in the back who was believed to be Hanson, the first black president. As the subject alludes, it is a controversial belief. On one hand, I could see it is a legend that in away seeks to reclaim black history where so much of it has been erased and destroyed. On the other hand, the subject noted his frustration with it, in that it might subsequently, unintentionally undermine or downplay the racist foundation of which America was built. I see this legend as being very nuanced. The subject saying that the person who told him this folklore was a very educated, intelligent man makes me think that there is a romantic and poetic element to the legend more than a logical or factual one.