Tag Archives: Mexican folklore

Gesture – “Packs a lot of Money”

Nationality: Mexican
Age: 18
Occupation: Student
Residence: San Diego, CA
Performance Date: 2/19/23
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

Text: The above image shows the gesture. It is similar to the shape people make with their fingers to make a gun, but instead of making the pointer finger straight, it is slightly hooked inward. One is also supposed to slightly shake their hand once it is in this position.

Context: One of my roommates whose ethnicity is Mexican shared a universal hand gesture between people in Mexico. She shared that it means “a person packs a lot of money…it’s like they’re wealthy, they have money, they’re rich” and that “because in Mexican culture pointing at someone or using someone’s direct name in an unmanly or rude manner is very disrespectful”. As a result, she said, “[they] use this form of sign to mention people who have money or as a way to speak about them and how they like have a lot of bucks”. She then provided an example of how friends will use this gesture with one another when mentioning wealth. She also talked about how this gesture is “widely used…like the middle finger…growing up [one] sees it and are like oh…it’s widely used in Mexico…anybody will know it even in other Latin cultures…predominantly used in Mexico”. When asked what she thought of it/its importance she said “[she] thinks it’s important in the way that it helps people identify cause [she] feels like there’s a huge wealth gap in Mexico and those who are usually very wealthy always live in the bigger cities…more unaware of other living circumstances of people”. Overall she stated that this gesture is “a way for people to refer to those people…oh they carry big bucks they’re not gonna understand how [they] live or the situation that these lower-income people live”. She discussed how this gesture most likely came about due to the large gap between lower and higher income and the gesture is a way for the lower class to “refer to them without referring to them directly”. That being said the gesture can be used in “a serious manner or a laughing manner”.

Analysis: I think in general it is not polite to point at people when you are talking about them, but I think in America it is more common to just talk quietly rather than use hand gestures with someone else. I think this hand gesture has to do with the fact that the gap between the wealthy and the unwealthy is a lot greater than in the United States. It might be even harder to jump that gap as well, not that it is super easy in the United States. As a result, this hand gesture to reference the vastly wealthy can create a sense of community, like being a part of a group. As mentioned, since the wealthy do not understand the less wealthy’s circumstances, this gesture could pose as a gesture that only the less wealthy understand. Kind of like this gesture is something for just this certain group of people that not even the wealthy people, who have everything, know.

Aloe and Bad Energy

Background: The informant is a 26 year old female who lives in a suburb of Chicago. She was born and raised around the city with her grandparents, mother, and younger brother. Her grandparents, immigrants from Mexico, imparted most of their knowledge to the informant.

Context: The context was, when speaking to the informant over the phone, she mentioned how one plant liquefied, and was asked questions surrounding the meaning of it.

Text:


VA: I was always taught, growing up by my grandparents and mom, that plants soak up the bad energy in a home.

Me: Any particular plants, or is it just any one?

VA: Aloe. If someone with bad intentions or, uh, jealousy comes into your home, the aloe takes the hit for you. So, that’s why sometimes they’ll spontaneously liquify themselves. 

Me: Liquefy?

VA: It’s like, basically the plant completely deflates and is dead. Like, the plant will be perfectly fine, people show up with bad energy, and when they’re gone, the plant is dead.

Me: Is it always aloe?

VA: Sometimes animals take the hit, too. That’s what my mom said happened to my budgies [birds].

Analysis:

Informant: It’s something she deeply believes in, being told many times throughout her life that it was something that would happen upon bad energy. She didn’t seem to question anything about it.

Mine: Plants have long had an association with the supernatural, typically to treat illnesses. In a sense, having bad energy may be considered a supernatural illness and something to be treated, as it is still making the body worsen. Aloe may be the main plant that soaks up bad energy because aloe is commonly used to soften the skin, which draws up the image of breaking through a barrier. It’s like the aloe plant softens the skin, allowing the bad energy to slowly seep out, but in the process, it sucks away all the energy from the plant itself. It’s just like trading one life force for another, with the plant giving life for a human being. The concept of animals also deflating seems a unique touch to their familie’s folklore, or may be something the mother told the child as an excuse for what truly happened to the budgies, creating a scenario where superstition becomes the modern excuse.

El Cucuy is Everywhere

Background: The informant is a 26 year old female who lives in a suburb of Chicago. She was born and raised around the city with her grandparents, mother, and younger brother. Her grandparents, immigrants from Mexico, imparted most of their knowledge to the informant.

Context: The context was watching a horror movie and being reminded of a legend she was constantly told as a child.

Text:

VA: So, in Mexican folklore, there’s El Cucuy. It’s like the boogeyman. Mexicans threaten their children with El Cucuy coming and taking them away.

Me: Oh my. How does El Cucuy come?

VA: El Cucuy is everywhere, everywhere around you.

Me: Would you mom tell you this to scare you?

VA: Well, it was my whole family. My mom, my grandparents, all of them. It was how they scared children into behaving. Oh also, just anyone of Latin American culture like my babysitter from Central America. Basically, if you speak Spanish, chances are you know El Cucuy.

Me: What does he do to children?

VA: He eats children once they’re taken. Basically, if you don’t behave, you’re getting eaten. 

Analysis:

Informant: Her voice was extremely solemn when speaking about El Cucuy, likely still remnants of how childrenhood fears can continue to affect someone. Even at 26, she didn’t want to take any chances.

Mine: The boogeyman is a very common theme across cultures as a way to scare children into behaving. While it may not be scary to everyone, it seemed to hit something deeper for the informant. She told the story more calmly than her other ones, not making any humorous jokes, or pausing often. While it likely is still childhood fears sticking with her to some extent, it may also be because the informant has a younger brother and would have to tell him the story as well. In this case, the informant has been both the receiver of the tradition and has passed on the tradition. It brings up the interesting placement of the older sibling, in that they may become active bearers of their traditions much earlier than the younger siblings. 

Rubbing the Evil Eye Away

Background: The informant is a 26 year old female who lives in a suburb of Chicago. She was born and raised around the city with her grandparents, mother, and younger brother. Her grandparents, immigrants from Mexico, imparted most of their knowledge to the informant.

Context: The context was in a phone call, and the informant was asked if she knew any traditions surrounding Mexican folklore. She barely took a moment to think before she was recounting a very common experience happening to her as a child.

Text:

VA: When I was younger, the most common thing I can think of, is getting rubbed down by an egg would soak up the evil eye.

Me: Any specific type of egg?

VA: Not that I know of. We always just used chicken eggs.

Me: So, it would basically just be your family would rub the egg on you? Who would be the egg-rubber?

VA: Someone wise would usually do it. I’m not sure what qualities someone has to be the, uh, egg-rubber. I remember that my grandfather did it for us [informant and her brother].

Me: Is there anything else you would do?

VA: Yeah, after you rub it down on someone and soak up the evil eye… Afterwards, you crack the egg into a glass of water. So, the bad stuff can’t get out. It’s called oomancy.

Analysis:

Informant: The egg and the evil eye are a staple from her childhood. They still believe in the concept and it ties her back to her grandfather, who would always rub her with the egg.

Mine: I’ve never heard about the tradition with the egg, but it is apparently prevalent in Latin American cultures. It ties back into the elder being the wisest and the carrier of most of the traditions of a particular group. In the case of the informant, her grandfather would always be the one to perform the tradition, and in the process, he was imparting the knowledge he knew onto her and her younger sibling. I would suspect an egg is used to seep out the evil eye because an egg is commonly associated with purity, and by touching a dark thing with a pure thing, it will cancel each other out. Also, the egg has a hard shell and, as such, if the evil is taken within, the hard shell functions as a prison, and keeps the spirit within, until it is able to be cracked in the cup. I would think the wate functions similar to holy water and burns out the evil spirit.

La Llorona

Leave a reply

Main Text

CE: “Essentialy El Paso kinda runs along this main river that borders Mexico and the United States, El Rio Grande. So there’s this really famous, um, old tale, kinda like a legend that exists, it’s called La Llorona. Um, it’s basically about…”

Interviewer: “And will you translate La Llorona please?”

CE: “Yes. La Llorona is like ‘the crier’ it’s a woman who just sobs and cries and, um. The story was an old woman who lives by the river and she, um, used to have a really nice farm and this beautiful garden and then a really tragic accident in the Rio Grande, she lost her son. He got washed up because he was playing to close to the water when it was high tide and so he ended up passing away and dying and so now every night if you go by the river, late at night, and the water is high you’ll hear her sobbing and crying for her son to return her. So, it’s all in Spanish, so she goes like *breathes* ‘Ay mi hijo’ just like really sad kind of like wallowing and depression, it’s a very sad story. Essentially just to encourage kids not to play by the water late at night or else they’ll get taken up by this, like, scary woman who’s, again, called La Llorona.”

Background

CE is a 21 year old Mexican/Colombian American from El Paso, Tx and is a third year student at USC studying urban planning. She first heard the story from her grandmother and mother growing up in El Paso, and said the tale was especially prevalent in her household because her home was so close to the Texas/Mexico border. It was used as an incentive not to travel too close to the border, which since her childhood has been a more dangerous region of her town.

Context

This story was told in CE’s household, and in other’s she says usually by a maternal figure to younger more impressionable children in order to keep them from straying too far away from the house and towards the river, and coinciding national border. The story only works as a deterrent if the children believe in and are afraid of La Llorona.

Interviewer Analysis

La Llorona follows a larger folkloric trend of children’s stories designed to protect them by preying on their fear of the unknown, or upon instilling that fear. By using a story like La Llorona or Hansel and Gretel, parents are able to use a terrifying fictional character to protect their children from perhaps less terrifying real-world threats such as wild animals or losing their way. Children are naturally curious and may not understand the dangers of the world, but will certainly be scared of a vicious monster that steals children and lives in the river. This story is told with good intentions by Latina parents and grandparents alike and is effective at achieving its goal, but this interviewer wonders if building a world view on fear of the unknown has detrimental consequences in the long run.