Tag Archives: Latino Culture

Christian Holidays

Text:

Day of the Three Kings

Context: 

Collector: “HR, as a Mexican woman, today you will be talking about a popular holiday celebrated within your Christian family, the Day of the Three Kings.“

Informant: “Yes, El dia de los tres reyes, such a big holiday within Christian Latin America. It’s almost as big as Christmas, and kind of commoderates the same traditions and rituals, essentially the giving of gifts. I love it because ever since I was a little girl, I would always get double the amount of gifts as some of my friends.“

Collector: “Are you aware of its origins and history?“

Informant: “Vaguely, I think it follows three kings who followed the star of Bethlehem to reach Jesus Christ after he was born. They reached him on the twelfth day of Christmas, January sixth, and brought him lots of gifts. It’s very similar to Christmas in that they basically both celebrate Jesus.“

Collector: “What else would your family do besides gift-giving?“

Informant: “Well since the Day of the Three Kings celebrates the life of Jesus, we sort of just celebrated living. We would come together with our extended family and have a huge feast, almost on the same level as Thanksgiving. It really is such a great holiday.”

Analysis:

Although not a Christian myself, I can acknowledge that the bible as a collection, or string, of stories, contains a plethora of folk rituals, superstitions, and celebrations. Its vastness, and rich content, may remind one of the Kalevala, a Finnish collection of thirty-two poems, depicting many magical, supernatural stories originating from Finland. Coming from a Puerto Rican background, I am aware that my mother use to celebrate the Day of Three Kings when she was a little girl in Puerto Rico. It’s a tradition that she, for some reason, did not pass on to me and my siblings, and stopped practicing once she reached America. This would make her a passive bearer of Day of the Three Kings since she doesn’t really discuss it much with us either. Similar to HR, she would rejoice in the holiday anytime it came because it meant double the number of gifts for her also. A noticeable difference I noticed between HR’s recollection of the holiday versus my mother’s, is that my mother’s family would place three mirrors somewhere in the home, all facing the same direction with proximity to each other. This was something used to  acknowledge the benevolence of the three kings, and how we can hopefully all find that same good faith within ourselves, through our reflections.

New Year’s Traditions

Age: 18

Context

AG is my friend from back home in Chicago, Illinois. She was born in Joliet, Illinois and then moved to Chicago when she was five years old. Her mother was born and raised in Joliet and is of Mexican descent. Her father immigrated to California when he was twenty five years old from El Salvador. He then moved to Joliet when he was thirty. 

Text

DO (interviewer):  I know that we often talk about certain superstitions or things that our families do during the holidays. Can you talk to me more about which one or ones you consider to be your favorite? Or one, or ones, that you do the most often?

AG: The one we have the most fun with is probably the suitcase one on New Years. It’s so fun dude. 

DO: Can you talk more about it? 

AG: So, the saying goes. Once midnight hits on New Year’s Eve, so technically I guess it’s New Year’s Day at that point. Anyway. Once it hits you run around with an empty suitcase. Just around your block a few times and this will ensure that you travel a lot in the upcoming year. 

DO: What does this tradition mean to you and what’s your stance on it? Do you believe it works?

AG: Well, growing up we were mad poor. You know this. Even after we moved to the city we didn’t have much money, you know? So it was fun to just run around with my parents and just dream and hope. I’ve traveled a few times throughout my life so I’d say that even if it doesn’t work I’d like to think it does. I’ve never not done it because I wanna travel girl! 

Analysis

The informant and her family have this holiday tradition/ritual every year to bring in lots of traveling. My family also has similar stories of performing this tradition when they were younger, so there are cultural ties to this. However, this empty suitcase travel method is a ritual not tied to a specific cultural community; many cultures have some variation of this lore. Past just performing it because of cultural beliefs, the informant holds a particular superstition about it. She believes that if she doesn’t stick to this tradition, then she will travel less. As she also mentioned, this was a way for her and her family to remain hopeful for future fun during rough times. It is special to the informant for this reason, and she continues to perform it and believes that it helps her travel more. 

Egg Limpia

Nationality: Colombian American
Age: 19

Context
SD is my close friend here at USC. Her parents are both from Columbia and immigrated to the US. Her mother is from Cartagena, Colombia, and immigrated to Newark, New Jersey, when she was sixteen. Her father is from Salento, Colombia, and immigrated to Clifton, New Jersey, when he was twenty. They all now reside in Orlando, Florida.

Here you see an example of an egg cleanse that the informant preformed on me while we were together.

Text

DO (interviewer): As a Colombian-American, are there are religious traditions or rituals that your family has?

SD: Egg limpiezas I think are considered a ritual that we have. It’s like a spiritual thing, so I’d say yeah that. 

DO: Can you explain more about what that means and what exactly the ritual entails?

SD: So you’ll need an egg, sometimes multiple but I’ll explain that later, a cup with water, salt, a toilet, and rubbing alcohol. So first off, you need the egg to be warm so some people leave their eggs out but I think that’s mad gross so, I just hold mine in my hand until it feels room temperature or at least until it isn’t cold. Then you pour rubbing alcohol over it. I think this is to clean it, but honestly I don’t know why we do this, I just know it’s important. Then, you rub the egg all over your body, even under your feet. I think this part depends from person to person because I’ve heard some people do different things. You either say like “I remove all negative energy from my body” or you say positive affirmations. I think either works. Then once you do this around your whole body. You fill the cup with water and break the egg open in the water. Then you read the results. 

DO: What do you mean by results? 

SD: Whatever you see in the water/egg mixture thing means something. If you see spikes that means that you gossip a lot or others gossip about you a lot and this is blocking your blessings. If the egg looks cloudy or dull this means that you have certain physical blocks. So this can mean lots of headaches, hard time focusing,always tired, body pain, stuff like that. If there’s strings going from the yolk to the surface then this means that there’s certain people in your life that you need to cut ties with and these strings represent these ties. And bubbles are “the bad energy” (did air quotes) leaving your body and spirit. So you want lots of bubbles. Bubbles means it’s working. I think there’s more but I don’t really know them off the top of my head. 

DO: You mentioned that there is sometimes a need for multiple eggs, when would these other eggs come in?

SD: So if your results are bad, meaning there’s a lot of anything other than bubbles, then there could still be bad energy trapped in you. So my dad usually says that you should do egg cleanses until there’s only bubbles in your cup. 

DO: And do you put these in the same cup? Or another way to ask that I guess is are there multiple eggs in one cup?

SD: Oh, no! Once you do one reading you dispose of the egg and stuff and then do another one. 

DO: And how do you do this? 

SD: You throw it in the toilet. Well first, you sprinkle salt into the cup and the salt traps the bad energy into the cup and ensures that it won’t come back for a while. And never EVER look into the cup from the top down view. When doing the readings make sure that you’re only looking through the side of the cup. If you look at the cup from top down then you’re inviting back in the negative energy that you just took out, so it would defeat the purpose. Then just flush it down the toilet and you’re good. 

DO: Do you feel as if these cleansings work for you? Have you had success with them? What about your family?

SD: It’s actually pretty funny I guess, because my family is super religious and that’s an important part of our culture. But I think that egg cleansing are technically witchcraft. But I love doing them when I feel something is off and my family does too. I genuinely do feel better after I do it. 

Analysis

This ritual can be looked at from numerous different perspectives. Technically it can be seen as a medical type of folklore, but not for your physical body but instead for your spirit. It also ties into a discussion about religion and religious lore. The informant’s family practices Catholicism, but this ritual is considered to be black magic by many. This ritual shows just how personal folklore can be since this family holds some practices from Catholicism and some from witchcraft. Although they may deny the validity of other witchcraft rituals, they fully believe in the one they perform. 

New Year’s Traditions

Nationality: Colombian American
Age: 19

Context 

SD is my close friend here at USC. Her parents are both from Columbia and immigrated to the US. Her mother is from Cartagena, Colombia, and immigrated to Newark, New Jersey, when she was sixteen. Her father is from Salento, Colombia, and immigrated to Clifton, New Jersey, when he was twenty. They all now reside in Orlando, Florida. 

Text

DO (interviewer): I’m interested to know if your family has any New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day traditions that you practice to ring in the new year?

SD: I think we have a couple different ones in my family. The first one has to do with grapes. With eating grapes. Basically, you get a bunch of grapes New Year’s Eve early in the morning. Then you wait until it’s ten minutes before the New Year comes. So 11:50. Then you start eating grapes. 

DO: Is there something specific that you do or say when eating the grapes? And what significance do the grapes have for your family’s New Year? 

SD: Yes! So. Each grape is the equivalent of one wish. So for each grape that you eat you’ll have one wish granted. So you just have to close your eyes and make a wish and really believe that the wish is gonna come true, then eat the grape and it’s done. 

DO: Nice. I like that. Are there any other traditions that you especially like? 

SD: I wouldn’t say that I like this one per say, but my sisters do. This one just says that you wear a specific color of underwear to sleep on New Year’s Eve and when you wake up on New Year’s Day the process to getting you that thing starts. *pauses* 


SD: Wait, that sounds confusing, let me reword that. Essentially, let’s say that you want to manifest love into your life. You’ll wear red underwear. And so on for all the colors. The colors go like this: yellow is money, green I think is more time outside or in nature, pink is friendship, white is peace, and blue is health. So you wear whatever color underwear to bed right. Then you wake up the next morning and lets keep with the red example. So you wake up the next morning and the universe or God or whatever you believe in is now making the path to get you a nice relationship.

DO: You mentioned that your sisters like this one a lot. How do you feel about it?

SD: I think I’m more of a grapes type of person. Honestly, I’ve been doing that one since I was a kid so I think to me it still has that spark of childhood magic to me. But the underwear thing seems like a scam to me. But who knows. 

Analysis

After speaking more with the informant, she said these beliefs came from her parent’s Colombian roots. In my family, we also share a similar tradition both with the grapes and the colored underwear, so I believe that this holiday tradition does have ties to Latinx folklore. The grapes can also be considered children’s folklore in this informant’s case. She mentioned how when she was younger, she started off performing these “rituals” so even if they may not actually grant her wishes, she chooses to continue to do so. This shows the importance of children’s folklore and the types of impressions that it leaves on us as we continue to grow. Sometimes things that we consider “magic” as children continue to be a connection to that feeling as we age. 

Calladita Luzes Mas Bonita

Main Piece: 

“Calladita luzes mas bonita.”

Transliteration:

“Quieter you shine much prettier.”

Translation: 

“You shine brighter when you’re quiet.”

Background: 

My informant is one of my friends who lives in Miami, Florida, and is of Cuban and Iranian heritage. Her grandmother would often take care of her and her cousins when they were little, and the above piece is a phrase she would say to them when they were behaving poorly or talking back to her. This is also a phrase that’s recognized across Latinx cultures as a form of expressing disapproval, and criticizing one for talking too much. My informant also noted that it was usually the girls who would be on the receiving end of this expression, and not her boy cousins. 

Context: 

This piece came up when my friend and I were talking about the various ways that we would be disciplined and criticized by our grandmothers and elders in the Latinx community. My friend brought this phrase to attention as one of her memories, and I immediately recognized it because I’d heard a similar version of it when I was younger.  

Thoughts: 

This phrase seems to have been a staple of my childhood, part of which was spent in Mexico when I was young. My teacher in fourth grade would tell us the variation phrase, “calladitos se ven mas bonitos,” which translates to: “you [all] look prettier when you’re quiet.” Like my informant said, this phrase was used to criticize kids who were being rude or talking too much, but in my experience, it could also be applied to older people as well. The general message also serves as a warning to remind people to think about how their public image may be affected by their constant chatter. Like many proverbs, this tended to come from the mouths of our elders or anyone who seemed to carry a wave of authority, but that perception could have come as a result of them delivering the proverb. Additionally, it’s important to examine them because they can be representative of what kinds of behavior are accepted and valued in a culture— in this case, learning to hold your tongue. 

Regardless, I do agree with my informant’s observation that girls were more likely to be chastised for speaking too much rather than boys, and as she later added, it “Speaks to, for better or worse, the culture around propriety— not only in Cuban culture, but like Hispanic cultures.” From a young age, girls are conditioned from a young age to speak quietly and not to express more than their share of words. Introverted qualities are praised, whereas boys are given the liberty to talk as much as they want— maybe not constantly, as my fourth grade teacher scolded us, but extroverted behavior was encouraged, even expected for them.