Tag Archives: Holidays

Easter Eggs with Satire

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: St. Louis, Missouri
Performance Date: 4/17/2018
Primary Language: English

Informant Info: The informant is an 18-year-old from St. Louis, Missouri. She is currently a freshman studying Public Policy at USC.

Interview Transcript:

Interviewer: With Easter just passing, did you or your family celebrate it? If so, how?

 

Interviewee: Sooooo…. We are not religious, but we still celebrate Easter. What we do is we dye Easter eggs AND then the Easter bunny would hide them in our yard on Saturday. On Easter, we would wake up and have the good ol’ traditional Easter egg hunt. And since we weren’t religious, my parents would sorta make jokes out of it. My mom grew up Catholic, so sometimes she would we toss in prank items, like Jesus band aids. We would then dinner 2pm, which I always thought was early, but hey… home cooked food!

 

Analysis:

Despite not being religious, the informant’s family still celebrates a typical American Easter, primarily in terms of the Easter Eggs. Across the globe, eggs are extremely important symbols of spring, regrowth, and birth. Once again, family bonding still appears to be the most important factor.

Bud, Rose, Thorn

Nationality: Irish, American
Age: 78
Occupation: Hospice Volunteer
Residence: MA, USA
Performance Date: 4/3/18
Primary Language: English

Bud, Rose, Thorn

This is a tradition that my family always does at dinner time when we have a large group of people over. One of our favorite times to do this is when we have dinner party is and sometimes we even do it on holidays. It is called Bud, Rose, Thorn, where you talk about different aspects of life. For the bow do you talk about something that you’re looking forward to in life, and this can be anything from trying this meal to a new job to meeting someone new. Next we do the Rose which is something that you have experienced recently that was a gray and you enjoyed it. Lastly the thorn Represents the adversity that you overcame her had to deal with a hide shit. It’s a way to get to know people, and also as an icebreaker if it’s a new oil intimidating group of people. Originally my brother heard this from my grandmother who had heard it from some of her friends. It also was a way to pass time and get to know people better. Things like these are especially interesting to analyze because of the unknown things that you can find out about people that you otherwise would not know.

 

Novenas

Nationality: Colombia
Age: 27
Occupation: IT Project Specialist
Residence: California
Performance Date: 4/1/17
Primary Language: English
Language: spanish

Novenas 9 days before Christmas, novenas happen. They are a custom done at home in Columbia in which family gets together and has potluck style meals as well as praying together. The meals usually consist of home grown fruits as well as white meats. The Novenas, are usually more prayer oriented, the potluck tradition just grew as a well-mannered custom. Alex is a Colombian native who immigrated here when he was just a little boy. His family left Columbia in response to all the violence that was emitting from Pablo Escobar’s reign of terror. In order to keep his family traditions alive, his parents constantly told him about the vast events and beauty of his homeland and people. This tradition kind of reminds me of when someone dies, you light a candle for 9 days as well as praying together with family and sharing potluck meals.

Tradition of Gift Giving- Christmas (Cali, Colombia)

Nationality: Colombia
Age: 27
Occupation: IT Project Specialist
Residence: California
Performance Date: 4/1/17
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

During Christmas, it is, really common for people to make a lot of breads and pastries in Columbia to just give to surrounding neighbors. The more popular treats would be empanadas which are a pastry in which the inside is filled with different type of sweet pastes. The sweet pastries are a form of telling your neighbors to enjoy the festivities and have a great time, basically a good omen for the holidays. Alex is a Colombian native who immigrated here when he was just a little boy. His family left Columbia in response to all the violence that was emitting from Pablo Escobar’s reign of terror. In order to keep his family traditions alive, his parents constantly told him about the vast events and beauty of his homeland and people. This seems like a great way to start the holidays with gifts, as how usual Christmas goes in the United States.

Lizard Burial

Nationality: Lebanese
Age: 51
Occupation: Small business owner
Residence: Los Feliz, California
Performance Date: 04/04/17
Primary Language: Arabic
Language: English

My informant as a little boy would perform a ritual. The children of the village used to capture and kill a lizard. Then they would  perform a death ceremony. There was about 20 kids involved. They would bury the lizard and start praying.

“Ya hardon eska werka, mertak amya mabti’shd”, which translates to :

All you lizard, please portray good, because your wife is blind and cannot see at times.

They would have sticks and be beating it against the ground while saying the chant. Afterwards they would go home.There was nothing else to do so they created their own rituals.

My informant is an immigrant from Lebanon. He lived in a small town called Yaroun. Hid family was very poor and lived in a rural area. We shared the folklore over some food in his house.

The interesting part of this piece is the creativity children have. They created there own ritual in to keep from boredom. my informant at first did not want to tell this piece of folklore out of embarrassment but eventually gave in.