Tag Archives: history

Passover/Seder – Holiday

Nationality: Israeli-American
Age: 17
Occupation: High School Student
Residence: Bellevue, Washington
Language: English

Text:

The celebration of Passover starts with the Seder which is a big community event where a bunch of people get invited over. It is a very long event where there is structured text with a melody that retells the story of Jewish people being enslaved in Egypt. The entire dinner is choreographed, the text tells you when to drink, refill your wine, when to drink, when to lift the matza, etc. There are symbolic foods, such as a hard boiled egg which symbolizes the way Jewish people went from being soft to being hard due to pressure. There is a part where a glass of wine is meant to be left outside for someone from the story. At the end, there is a lot of singing after everyone has drunk four glasses of wine.

Context:

The informant was raised Orthodox Jewish and grew up engaging with their family’s Passover and Seder traditions. They say they enjoy it but the kosher matza that is used tastes bad. There is also a moment where the youngest child (which they are) has to stand on a chair and sing, which they also dislike. The informant says that the reason that the glass is left outside is because historically, people who were antisemitic would leave bodies outside the homes of Jewish families because they believed Jewish people drank blood. By opening the door in the middle, the group can check if someone had left a body outside. The informant mentioned that their grandmothers would argue about which melody was correct because each family had a different tune for the words.

Analysis:

This holiday is a community event, meant to bring people together. The purpose is to remember the past and commemorate the strength and perseverance of the Jewish people. Remembering the past of a culture is a way of remembering who the people are. In the case of Passover and slavery, remembering the past is a way of preventing it from happening again. As the Seder dinner is a historical retelling of the events, the purpose is to commemorate the people who came before while celebrating the survival of the people now.

Since the event happens at sundown (the start of the Jewish day), it is centered around food. The story itself incorporates the food into the process, connecting it to events or people. This entwines what people are eating with the story they are telling, allowing them to still eat during the event.

The modern addition of checking outside the house for a body is a result of antisemitism. Before, people wouldn’t have to worry about checking outside so that wasn’t part of the story. As it became necessary though, it became part of the celebration as the glass of wine was left specifically for a character in the historical story. The needs of the people were incorporated into the traditions of the ritual so well that if someone doesn’t know the context of opening the door, they might not realize it came from antisemitism.

The melodic element of the retelling comes from how Hebrew is spoken from the Torah which is in a singing-like manner. This is extended to the Hebrew spoken during this event because it is also a religious text. Melody allows for a text to be better remembered. By connecting words to a melody, it allows people to remember what to say for the whole three hour event better which would have otherwise been practically impossible. The informant’s own family had two different melodies that were used and they argued over which was correct. These melodies can become part of family identity and religious identity. This makes it hard for people to use a different melody because of how important their version is to them. Changing it would feel wrong and incorrect.

Purim – Holiday/Traditions

Nationality: Israeli-American
Age: 17
Occupation: High School Student
Residence: Bellevue, Washington
Language: English

Text:

The basis of the celebration for Purim is about a historical event. The Persian monarchy cast an order to kill all the Jewish people but the king’s Jewish wife was able to convince him to send another order for Jewish people to defend themselves. The Jewish people won so the holiday is a celebration of winning and not dying. The celebration for the Informant’s family is to create puppets of the characters in the story and then act it out for the parents. In general, the holiday is a chance to dress up, sometimes as characters in the story but in more modern celebrations, people are able to dress up as whatever they want. People also make gift baskets to give to friends and neighbors. People are encouraged to drink a lot, party, and have fun.

Context:

The informant is from an Orthodox Jewish family and engaged in this holiday while growing up. They learned about it from their parents and the community around them. The informant said they enjoy the party aspect and they liked having two Halloweens as a kid. When they were younger, they also dressed up, at first as characters from the story but eventually they did other things like being a cat. They mentioned that since this is basically the only Jewish holiday that is about Jewish people winning rather than remembering tragedy, they’ve always enjoyed it.

Analysis:

The holiday is meant to be a celebration with drinking and partying. Allowing people to celebrate through fun costumes both historically and in modern times gets them into the story of the celebration even more. Historically, the Jewish people would have celebrated winning the fight and surviving. By dressing up as the characters who would have been celebrating, Jewish people are able to tie themselves back to that period and the emotions that would have been felt at the time.

Although historically, people would only dress up as characters from the story, this has changed to be a more broad costume party in modern times. This might have been influenced by Halloween as the two holidays spread throughout cultures towards each other. The informant even mentioned how they were always excited to have two Halloween celebrations.

This holiday is also a community event where people come together to celebrate the victory of the past. Along with the celebration, people give gifts to each other to continue the social connections they have. Giving gifts is present in many Jewish traditions and this one is no different. Gifting something is a way of telling someone you care about them, that you are thinking about them, and that you want them to have something from you.

The informant mentioned that when they were younger, the kids of the family were expected to perform the story through a puppet show. This is a fun way of teaching children the story of the holiday while also making it fun for them to engage with it. As this holiday is one of the few that commemorates a victory, the parents would want to tell children the full story with all the details.

Behind Chinese New Year

AGE: 20

DATE OF PERFORMANCE: 04/01/2025

LANGUAGE: English 

NATIONALITY: Taiwanese-American 

OCCUPATION: Student 

PRIMARY LANGUAGE: English 

RESIDENCE: San Jose, CA

Interviewer: Are there any distinct folktales or myths that you grew up hearing about?

MS: “One was about this lady on the moon, and another was the story of Chinese New Year and the reasons for the different traditions.”

Interviewer: Can you expand a little bit more on the second story?

MS: “I was told that there was this dragon that would come and haunt this village. And every year the people of the town would evacuate the village, until one year this grandma was too old to walk up the mountain and evacuate. So she lit firecrackers and put red all over everyone’s door…to make it look like blood, I guess…and she successfully scared away the dragon. And when everyone came back down, they noticed she was still alive, and so that’s where the tradition began.”

PERSONAL INTERPRETATION:

I think it’s safe to say that most people in America (and definitely countries where Lunar New Year is celebrated) know what Chinese New Year is and the typical decorations and celebrations that take place. And even though every year growing up I had attended my high school’s Chinese New Year festival, I never really quite knew why everything was the way that it was. It’s incredibly interesting to learn where certain traditions, especially one as big as this, come from. I would love to hear a little bit more about this said dragon and maybe dive deeper into this tradition’s history, but this explanation shows (to me at least) that there were definitely real fears that occurred back then, that via word of mouth, traveled and transformed into what this tradition is today.

Salem Witches

‘ As an anthropologist, I spent decades interviewing people in the Mayan highlands, throughout central America and Mexico, and the Andes all about their folklore, ghost stories, and witch stories… but I want to tell you the one that I grew up with in New England, a piece of folklore so important to me it changed the way I live. When we were kids, the histories and the stories of the Salem Witch Trials are something that everybody was taught. We were told these stories from our first grammar school class. I grew up during a period in the 70s where there was a whole revitalization of interest in witches. Because of the feminist movement, there was a retelling of who these women were. It is said that in 1692, the craze started… it went for a full year. Anyone who was considered an outcast or spoke out, were all accused of being witches. Here, in these little towns of New England, people were paranoid beyond belief. They were having heavy winters, people were starving, they were jealous of each other… there was so much religious belief that the devil was constantly surrounding them… he’s in the goats… he’s in your neighbor… he’s everywhere. So, in the late 1600s, this group of girls sitting around the fire, with a Caribbean woman named Tituba and the girls asked her to tell them a story to pass the time. Her story was about the devil, and the devil turning girls into witches. This got in the little girls’ heads, and before long, all of them start to have these visions of witches… that people are having paralytic attacks, epileptic attacks, visions and hallucinations, sleepwalking… They say this was all because of the witches. During this brutal Winter, the town of Salem used a book written by a British King called “How to Tell a Witch”, and they used this book to identify the ‘witches’. Over 200 people had been accused as witches. So, when I was growing up, I grew up with pictures of the Devil with puritanical etchings, pictures of the devil riding goats in the churches… These things were in my brain as real things that really happened. I was taught that the history is in my house, my clothes, the furniture, everywhere. Somehow, I am connected to them. So, I grew up with this belief that witches were our friends… that witches were these falsely accused woman… not falsely accused because witches don’t exist… we believed they did, and that they were killed because they were smart woman who spoke out and killed for that. Many of us identified as witches growing up… I did. So many of us growing up during this time thought we were witches and led a life to resemble the tales we heard of our ancestors.” – JB

JB has a personal connection to the tales of the Salem Witch Trials, specifically to the tales that were revitalized during the 70s. JB grew up very close to Salem Town, in which the trials happened. They were passed down to her throughout her childhood in places like school, or from friends and their parents. She felt so strongly about these tales and memmorates that she began to live a life similar to that of a witch. She believed she was one, she decided that her and her friends were the “new witches” and with that she prayed to the trees, the rivers, and to something much older than any religion she knew. JB recalls that the story she tells now, the tales she passes down to her own family are intertwined with those of the Salem Witches.

To me, this piece of JB’s life was very interesting, as I also grew up learning about the Salem Witch Trials, but not during a time where these stories were regenerated and strengthened. I learned about it more in the historical sense, what my teachers believed to be factual events during this time period. I was not told any tales or legends of these times. JB’s recounting of her experience shows how much historical folklore can be passed down through generations and continue to take effect on those who hear them, as it did to her and her peers. Additionally, the cultural beliefs of these legends have continued to adapt and be passed down to many audiences across the world. The adaptation can even be seen in JB’s interpretation of the legends, as in the 70s, the theme had changed to show the power of the women, rather than the ‘sin’ many past tales condemned them to have. It can also be assumed that these tales in the late 1800s and early 1900s were performed for audiences, as much folklore is. This folklore also took hold in shaping many communities throughout the last centuries, growing over time and bringing people together, fostering a sense of connection to such historical events.

Atlantis

My informant for this collection talked about the famous lost city of Atlantis. Said to be a fabled island city which vanished beneath the waves in a catastrophic event, Atlantis is a myth which has been told and retold for centuries. Its exact location remains unknown and has remained a topic of speculation for some time. Atlantis was a civilization which was known for its advanced technology. Despite its achievements as a progressive civilization, Atlantis eventually fell and its downfall remains one of the greatest mysteries in history. Atlantis still impacts our world today as an inspiration for numerous filmmakers, novelists, and video game creators. 

Although the abstract my informant recounted was brief, the connection they have with Atlantis stems from a deep appreciation of the myth. To my informant, the story of Atlantis has captured the imagination of people around the world, including Americans, who continue to speculate about its existence and significance.

The lost city of Atlantis has its fair share of cultural symbolism, captivating the imagination of countless works in literature, art, and pop culture. This myth originated from the ancient Greek philosopher Plato, who mentioned it in his dialogues “Timaeus” and “Critias” in the year 360 BCE. The recounts of the city were that of a powerful advanced civilization which met its demise in a single day of cataclysmic destruction. The story of Atlantis acts as a symbol for humanity balancing greatness with the consequences of moral decay. I believe that this story serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of excessiveness on the fragile human experience.