Tag Archives: Latino Culture

Tamales as an Annual Christmas Tradition – Foodways

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Age – 28

Text: CB – “Every Christmas, my family come together to make tamales in a very specific way. Precise amounts of masa, sauce with potato, cheese, meat, and a green olive. This blend is very important to the tradition as it’s what was grown in the garden when my grandmother was little. They grew up very poor and tamales can keep for a very long time so they would all go over to my big Nana‘s house to make hundreds of tamales for everyone to enjoy throughout the year.”

Interviewer – “That’s really cool, is there a specific method to making them? Is it a whole team effort or is it just a few people?”

CB – “It’s that, a team effort. The whole family turns up and we divide into stations. Team one is unfolding the cornhusks. Team two is putting in the Masa and then every other team puts in a separate ingredient! It’s an assembly line to make that much, taking a whole day. This whole train is actively coordinated by my Nana. It’s a family effort, but her operation.”

Context: This annual holiday ritual around Chistmas food ways was shared by the informant, CB, during a discussion about their family, the holidays, and if any kinds of special events took place every year like clockwork. CB and their family are of Latino origin, with them and their family partaking in this massive production line for tamales each year on Christmas, though the tradition originally came from CB’s Nana and has since been passed down throughout their family.

Analysis: The act of making tamales is a food-based annually calendrical ritual during Christmas, marking its importance in the symbolism of the holiday itself, while also allowing the entire family tree to reflect back on their humble upbringings. CB’s Nana grew up where this ritual was out of necessity to ensure enough food was put on the table, and has since transformed into a craft to commune with their own family members and large extended family, recollecting the history they actively draw from, and as an immense gesture of care, love, and familial belonging as feasts are ritualistic in their own right. Being a force to bring people together, for discussion and intimacy, the art of constructing tamales en masse acts as the foundation or precursor, establishing the connection between each family member, their lineage, and the love they all share for one another, the holiday, and the food they make.

‘La Llorona’

Age: 48


Date of performance: 4/5/25


Language: Spanish


Nationality: Latino/a


Occupation: Caregiver


Primary Language: Spanish


Residence: United States

Text:

“La Llorona” is the name of a sad ghost who roams along riverbanks looking for wandering children at night.

Context:

“She is said to have lost her children in a tragic accident along a riverbank to drowning. Mournful for her children, she took her own life and drowned herself. As a result of this, she wasn’t allowed to cross into the afterlife and remains on earth as a vengeful spirit looking to reunite with her children. She cries out loud, wandering around searching for her children, often mistaking living humans for her deceased children and taking them to riverbank to drown them to reunite in the afterlife.”

Growing up in a small village in El Salvador my informant often listened to this story from some of the older people in their community such as their grandparents, specifically Grandma. They’ve never first hand experienced hearing the wails of a lady in the night, but have continued to hear some of the older generations tell their own personal stories encountering such when they were younger.

My informant interprets the myth of “La Llorona” as a folk story told to children to deter them from wandering out in the village at night through the use of fear. It worked for them as these stories they were told growing up all felt like scary stories and not lessons so they were always scared to go against them and question their validity.


Analysis:

I agree with my informants interpretation of this myth. Commonly, most Hispanic folk stories are meant to teach the younger generation to be careful in the vast fields that surround our home. These pose dangerous environments with wild animals out in the wild in the midst, especially at night. I find that it makes sense for the elders to warn children in a more ‘grounded’ format that’d stick to a children’s mind through fear. Considering the location and environment my informant grew up in, the myth is further amplified by the common misinterpretation of the screams or wails of a big cat to that of a woman’s. A factor, that could’ve served as the foundation of the myth itself.

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.