Tag Archives: family

“Light of a Loved One”

Context: During the discussion, a student explained the procedural aspects of her Bat Mitzvah–a Jewish coming-of-age celebration marking the transition into adulthood.

Text:

“There’s a part of it where–I don’t know if there’s a specific name for it, I just kind of call it the candle ceremony–you get to the process of lighting 13 candles, and it’s supposed to represent people close to you. With every candle, you’re supposed to invite up a person or multiple people that mean something to you. You invite each person up, and you give, kind of like a little anecdote of, like, why you’re inviting them up.

So I had my different friends, my parents, my grandparents, my cousins, and people I grew up with. They come up and each lights the candle with you.”

Analysis:

I have never heard the details of Bat Mitzvahs and found this particular part of the ceremony heart-warming. The practice itself is very precious and important to many of my Jewish friends as well, and it reminds me of similar occasions, such as weddings. My classmate explained that this is part of the ceremony and that there’s a party that follows — very similar to weddings, where they officially get married before the reception. I think that these rituals marking phases in people’s lives are really interesting, and it’s really interesting to see how families come together to celebrate these milestones at certain age points.

Pine Straw Necklaces

Age: 22

Context: My friend told me how her aunt taught her how to make necklaces out of pine straws.

Text:

“My aunt taught me how to make necklaces out of the pine straws from a pine tree. And then you just kind of loop it and then you make a loop kind of chain neecklace. It’s really cool.”

Analysis:

This was a very sweet interaction between family practices intertwined with nature. Although I’m not sure where her aunt learned to make the necklaces herself, I do find it interesting that she must have learned to make one as a child. Although this was a practice purely for aesthetic and fun, it’s sweet how sometimes even small things/gestures stick with us as children. Something as simple as tree straws being twisted into temporary jewelry stayed with my friend for years, showing its impact.

Grandma’s Knitting Hobby

Context: While my friend and I were having coffee, I asked her about something that had been passed down from her family. She mentioned that although she wasn’t taught directly taught from her grandmother, she did pick up the hobby on her own.

Text:

“All of my hobbies and interests have come from family members that I never met–that died before I met them. Like, when I was younger, probably six or seven or so. I got really into sewing. I adored it, and my mom cannot sew for her life ever. But she pulled out her mom’s old, like sewing kid.

And that’s what I used growing up, too. It was really funny. So I used all of her little, all of her patterns, all of her notebooks.”

Analysis:

Although this is not a quilt, it reminded me of Witzling’s claim that creations hold pieces of ourselves. My friend and her grandmother didn’t create anything together, but she was still able to find a hobby that was attached to her. The generational gap between them didn’t separate their taste and skill in art, which I can’t help but wonder is a genetic tie if they had never met. As an alternative, I wonder whether seeing her grandmother’s art and knitting patterns might have sparked her interest as a kid, before it became something more as she grew up.

Nigerian first paycheck

Age: 20s Location: Chicago, IL, Background: Nigerian-American

Context: Participants (initals DA) is from a Nigerian-American household. She grew up in Dubai and now lives in a Chicago suburb. She has many siblings and is very close to her family.

Text: DA states that in Nigerian culture, the first paycheck a teen/young adult makes must go back to their parents or an adult figure. She says it’s a way of “showing appreciation and gratitude to those who raised you”. Participant mentions that everyone in her family does this. However, for her personal first paycheck she went and spent it at McDonald’s. DA says that her mother especially was not happy about it.

Analysis:

Here, a teens first paycheck serves as an offering, marking perhaps a transition from the adolescence to adulthood. A first paycheck is a time where one steps into the world of independence and financial freedom from their parents. By surrendering this first check, it’s a symbolic gesture of gratitude and the sacrifices that the family has made to get the individual to this point in their life. When the participant breaks this tradition, she, without realizing the depth of meaning behind this gesture, breaks a social contract. This moment can be a “paying back” of the life-debt to the parents so that the child can begin their own life with a clean start. This is obvious in the participant’s mothers angry reaction, which likely wasn’t over the loss of a couple dollars, but of, in her eyes, her child’s failure to acknowledge the transition point.

Diaz de los Muertos and One’s Ancestral History

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Age: 28

Text: CB – “Known well as Diaz de los Muertos or day of the dead, its a very important holiday in the Hispanic calendar. It has a lot of crossover with the Americanized Halloween, but it’s distinctive differences go far beyond the costumes and candies. The point is to remember our dearly departed. During it, we bring out all the old photos from my grandmother’s family and my grandfather’s family, my mother side (Nana, and Tata respectfully). Specifically what we do is help my Nana and Tata arrange all their family photos on the banister and dining room table so that they may join us for one last meal. We offer our prayers to them and little candies of their favorite and light candles in their honor. As the photos come out, my grandparents and my aunts and uncles will begin telling stories about these people Somehow, we’ve heard 1000 times and never interrupt. Others are new to us and add another source of identity to where we came from.”

Interviewer – “What is the most memorable story you’ve heard about your ancestors?”

CB – “My big Nana (great-grandmother) was a loving, but firm woman. All her children learned to dodge at a very young age, for she was proficient with wooden chanclas. One time my mother snuck out at night to go see a movie when she got back they had closed and locked her window This wasn’t that unusual. Typically they would just spend the night on the roof at this time, however she went to big Nana‘s house, knocked on the door and gave her a sob story about my grandfather locking her out. This caused my great grandmother to storm over to their house (my Nana’s family lived very close to each other) and hammer on the door. When my mother’s father opened it, he was immediately hitting his head with a wooden chanclas. She chased him around the property for about an hour while my mom darted to her room and laughed from her window.”

Context: Diaz de los Muertos is an annual Hispanic holiday to celebrate the dead of one’s family. Typically it involves large gatherings, bringing together members of extended family to celebrate and share stories about those who have passed. In the case of CB and their family, some stories pop up and stay the same each year, and each year each family member listens on with respect and fondness. Besides, the candy, feasts, and decorations this holiday is additionally anointed with, at the heart of it rests the tales of those gone to show that they are and never will be forgotten. CB has been told this story about his mother sneaking out a number of times, year after year, and it never gets old.

Analysis: Being both an annually calendrical holiday, there is an air of spiritualism, belief, but also prolonged familial ritual for Diaz de los Muertos for CB and their family, as is with most families who celebrate it traditionally. The art and act of gathering around to tell stories about those who have passed to allow their spirits to not fade into obscurity is a prime example of continued tradition and using a holiday as the medium to come together to do the sharing. This family-based festival, where food is offered and made, candy is eaten, stories are exchanged, and to take pride on those who have passed is a wide mixture of many folk group mediums, from foodways, to folk belief, to folk speech and narratives, and finally this annual holiday which encompasses it all. Diaz de los Muertos is a rich example of folk culture for the Hispanic community, and continues to shine on for each family regardless of how they celebrate it.