Tag Archives: graduation

“Hotchkiss Seniors”

Nationality: Chinese, Manchurian
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Plymouth, Minnesota
Performance Date: April 17th, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese

There are separate things for juniors about to be seniors, and then for seniors about to graduate.

Juniors becoming seniors, we did senior dinner. It’s not super memorable or anything… First, all the girls get really dressed up and we take pictures on senior grass. We all just get assigned tables set up on the senior grass, each table with one faculty member and we all eat dinner… and there’s a couple of student performances, like dances/singing, that kind of thing… It’s happy; it’s basically the formal event where everyone gets stoked to be seniors…

When it’s the night before graduation, the graduating seniors do confessions and senior streaking.

We sit in a bigger room together and have “confessions,” where everyone can just say what they wanna say. We’re in this big room in a circle, and everyone takes a turn presenting whatever it is they wanted to say. It can be a confession, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be anything someone needs to get off their chest before graduating. And everyone sits around and listens, surprisingly respectfully. Then right after the confession is when we do senior streaking…

Senior streaking—so everyone runs around butt naked. It’s very bizarre. Everyone (participants aka seniors, and spectators aka everyone else) just kind of knows it’s gonna happen, but they just pretend like it’s not… And then we get on senior grass—we have a patch of grass that’s just for seniors—and then we take off all our clothes together, at the same time, then we all run in a loop around campus together, like by every dorm… and everybody else in the dorms is watching. And then once we’re done with that loop, we all go back to our respective dorms. And it’s awkward because everyone has seen us naked now… but it’s the night before graduation, so the question of “who cares?” is already implied.

 

How did you come across this folklore: “This is a boarding school tradition, but I don’t know if it’s just Hotchkiss that does it.”

Other information: “I don’t know how people find out about these, but they’re some of those things where your participation is mandatory and somehow you manage to a) find out about it in time, and b) go through with it, maybe because you just have to.”

This is another senior ritual, of which there are probably a virtually infinite amount, that emphasizes the liminal period between seniors and non-seniors, between high school and the “real world.” During this time period, it becomes more acceptable to do things that are otherwise tabooized in society (for example, streaking…), leniency toward seniors increases, and they are able to bond through crossing these societal boundaries.

Graduation Party

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/28/2012
Primary Language: English

Informant Bio: Informant is my friend from high school who also goes to the University of Southern California.  We currently live together and he is a third year electrical engineering major.  His dad is from Concord, Massachusetts and represents a large blend of different cultures.  His mom is from upstate New York and is mostly of Hungarian, Italian and American ancestry.

 

Context: I was interviewing the informant about childhood traditions and rituals that he remembered well.

 

Item: “So, essentially, uh we had some middle school graduation parties but they were definitely less extreme, mostly because we cared less about graduating middle school; it was harder to motivate us.  Um, but, our high school graduations (I grew up with three siblings, I’m the youngest), they were all pretty comparable.  We have a pretty big back yard at home, um, so we would do a lot of outdoor cooking and grilling.  One of them we did a roast with our backyard fire.  We invited a bunch of extended family (I have a lot of that live in Massachusetts).  So we invited grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles and it was usually always pretty low key events.  What typically would happen would be our immediate family and a couple other people would be there for like six or seven hours.  And then there would be more of a steady stream, kind of an open place for people to come give congratulations and thanks.  It was kind of low key because it was never at any point too packed.  Um, so essentially in terms of traditions and things that were always the same, there was always lots of food.  Everything seemed to revolve around food, with a large table that was sort of the centerpiece, the center attraction.  Typically, there was lots of grilling, and, my dad, who’s a pretty good chef would always ‘go big’.  It sort of fell in the holiday category in that regard where like whoever is graduated would get nagged about what they want to eat all the time.  Some of the things we’d always do…strangely enough bocce was always a regular habit.  Um, so big family bocce games, and then, uh, definitely a lot of drinking (laughs) at least amongst the adults.  Like when I was younger not so much since I had older siblings but the adults would always were like drinking to celebrate and make it festive.  Um, also it was more formal in that people would actually dress up and treat it as a big deal.  It was sort of ceremonious in that regard and wasn’t just a thrown together party”.

 

Informant Analysis: “My family’s significance…academics were always stressed in my family.  It was sort of not only stressed, but kind of like ‘you need to do this’.  I feel like, a lot of times, parents, uh it’s more on the negative side so if you’re slacking off in school you get in trouble.  But, my parents are more the opposite in that we were rewarded for doing well.  Back in elementary school, I remember my dad did this thing where if we got a’s on our report cards, he would give us 100 bucks.  Which, when you’re in elementary school is a ridiculous amount of money, so it [the graduation celebration] kind of was like a continuation of sorts where ‘you finished high school so we’re going to celebrate’”.

 

Analysis: My friend Max has had a rich childhood with strong family values and traditions.  The graduation party described above shows just how important academics are to many Americans, especially people in New England.  It is seen as the avenue to success and is treated as such.  Most celebrations heavily involve food, which is no surprise here.

 

The playing of bocce might seem a little curious, but, as the informant notes his family represents a blend of European ancestry.  No doubt some traditions have been carried over, adapted and otherwise blended together.

 

What does seem a little different here is the emphasis on extended family.  Many people in the U.S. have their family spread across the country, but, the informant notes that pretty much all of his extended family lives in Massachusetts.  The regular get-togethers show that they stay in contact and are relatively close and have developed roots in the Northeast area.

Graduation at Phillips Academy Andover

Nationality: Indian
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/23/13
Primary Language: English

Informant: “At Andover, graduation is a big thing because, so tradition-wise it always, you lead the gradu—blue key heads, which I’ll explain in a sec, lead and, they lead and, uh, end the graduation procession and, uh, the graduation procession follows bagpipers so we have a full band of bagpipers and this is apparently like school tradition since 1778 that a full team of Scottish bagpipers starts off graduation and I hated it. And then we all—“

Lavelle: Did they wear kilts?

Informant: “What? Yeah, they were wearing full Scottish dress and they played the bagpipes. And so then we follow them and then, um, blue key heads, so then, oh and then for ours– so we go throughout the whole graduation ceremony and then what happens is our graduation, instead of people being called up, we all stand in a circle. So the entire grade, and we have like 330 people, you have 330 people standing in a circle and when they call out your name for your diploma, your diploma’s handed down the circle. So it’s passed down through each of your friends’ hands until it reaches you. Um, which was really cool because  a) it went really fast because you didn’t have to wait for people to go by, so that was great, it went really quickly. Second, and then it was cool because, like, all your friends were passing it to you and then, like, everyone could celebrate as you got your diploma and you were all standing in this circle. And then when you all got your diploma you all stood in the circle for, like, a couple minutes and, like, appreciated that you were standing with your class for the last time. Um, and then the blue key heads run in the middle and learn– er, lead everybody in a round of, like, school cheers and then we break the circle.”

 

My informant was a graduate of Phillips Academy Andover with the class of 2011. This is an important memory for my informant as she greatly enjoyed her high school experience and looks back on her years at Andover fondly.

High school graduation is an important rite of passage for all adolescents and every high school has its own traditions that its students enjoy. High school graduation is often the last time students will be together with their class and can be a bittersweet experience. This is just one example of a unique graduation ceremony.

For more information about Andover graduation:

http://www.andover.edu/StudentLife/Commencement/Pages/default.aspx

Chinese Changzhou Combs

Nationality: Chinese
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: April 22, 2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Chinese, some French

Interview Extraction:

Informant: “There’s this special brush, or comb I guess is more accurate, that girls get when they graduate high school, or any sort of graduation beyond that, although I think is mostly for high school. But the comb is supposed to be meaningful and it’s made out of this special wood, and you’re not supposed to like, get any water on it.

Me: “Do you ever use it?”

Informant: “I do. And yeah, the wood’s supposed to be good for hair and you can stroke your hair with it however many times and it makes it healthier, I think.

Me: “Who gave it to you?”

Informant: “My mom’s cousin. She said she got one from her mom, and it’s all about womanhood and all that blah blah blah.”

Me: “Who typically gives the comb?”

Informant: “Family, relatives, mothers usually I guess.”

Me: “Do you think you’ll get one when you graduate college too?”

Informant: “Oh, no.”

 Analysis:

It’s interesting that the comb is given to girls at graduation, and my informant stressed the fact that this is an upper education graduation gift. Yet at the same time, she mentioned how it was relevant to womanhood, and indeed it can seem like an appropriate gift to a girl who is transitioning into becoming a woman. Traditionally, I would have assumed that this process would be celebrated earlier, but since it is education-based, this custom would evidently be a more modern one, even if the item itself is older.

My informant also remarked that it’s typically a high school graduation gift, indicating again that it is part of the shift from living with one’s parents and being a girl to living elsewhere in the world and becoming an adult.

My informant didn’t know the name of the special wood used, but her gift is presumably aChangzhoucomb, which can be made out of mahogany, jujube wood, heather, and boxwood.Changzhoucombs have been in production for over 2000 years and have been traditionally used only by royalty, making them a popular and valuable award or present to anyone who may deserve it. Additionally, though the combs can be good for the hair, they seem to be mostly decorative in purpose. They are hand-painted and can often be very intricate, emphasizing the importance of beauty in a young woman.

I’m not sure how popular throughout Chinese culture it may be to give these combs as graduation presents, but no doubt they will be in use for a long, long time, bestowed as various gifts for any occasions.

Tree Planting Tradition

Nationality: American
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Tacoma, Washington
Performance Date: April 2012
Primary Language: English

Tree Planting

Tradition

 

My informant told me of a end-of-year tradition at her school:

“Tree planting is a tradition on campus. At the end of every year, the graduating Class plants a tree on campus.  There are some restrictions on us, but for the most part we get to choose the tree. As we live, it continues to grow and be there. One of the important parts is the spade. The ritual involves the spade, which used to be used to dig the hole. Now that the hole is usually made (since the spade is old and special), every member of the Senior Class shovels a bit of dirt to fill in the hole. The Senior Class president is the last person of the Class to put in dirt to fill in the whole, and the rising Senior Class president receives the spade from her and places the final bit of dirt into the hole. Later, people fill it in properly, but the ceremony ends with the next Senior Class president.”

 

My informant said, “I really like this ceremony because it provides closure to the Seniors and it connects them to the schools history, since most of the trees on campus are planted by previous classes.”

 

This act is a moment in a liminal space that aids the Seniors in transitioning identities from students to alumnae. Establishing their identities as alumnae by joining their tree with the others, this also helps the graduating Seniors maintain their presence on campus. Through the tree, the alumnae are connected to the school, even when they are not present. Especially because each student plays a role in planting the tree, every one put effort into it and, thus, their spirits remain at school while they are away.