Tag Archives: Mexican

“An American, a Russian, and a Mexican are in a plane…”

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: College student
Residence: San Francisco, CA
Performance Date: 4/30/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“Uh… an American, a Russian, and a Mexican are in a plane… and umm… the plane is about to crash or something that’s the joke.”
[“Uh huh.”]
“So the… the Russian jumps… jumps out and says ‘for my country!  And… the American jumps out and says ‘for my flag!’ And then… the Mexican jumps out, and says, ‘for my sandalsss!!!!”

My friend is an animation major at the University of Southern California.  She has some Irish relatives and Mexican relatives.

My friend remembers a joke her father told her in Spanish, but since I didn’t understand Spanish she told it to me in English and told the joke as best as she could.  The joke is supposed to make fun of some stereotypes that Mexicans are aware of.  The “sandals” referred to in the joke are “chancla,” which, as my friend described it, are sandals that Mexican women wear.  Chancla are  also associated with the image of angry Mexican mothers with chanclas in their hands, possibly beating children who upset them.

I find it interesting that this motif of introducing nationality as a primary piece of exposition finds its way into Mexican humor.  I remember a joke that begins with “An Irishman, a Japanese, and an American were all in a hot air balloon” that proceeds to operate off of stereotypes as well. It never occurred to me to think that that particular motif would be in other cultures’ jokes. Since my friend heard this from her father, I’m guessing that more often than not this is a joke Mexicans would tell other Mexicans, since they’d understand why “chancla” are so iconic and so humorous in this context.  The stereotyping of the Russian and American also seem to go off of Mexican perceptions of those two nationalities and their fervent nationalism.  Since I heard this joke in English and had to have my friend explain the punchline for me, I believe this joke would be far better for someone who understood Spanish and understood Mexican culture.  “Sandals” still evoke a pretty silly image, but “chancla” have a particular significance for Mexicans.

Dia de los Reyes

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: College student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/24/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My friend is a student at the University of Southern California.  His mother’s side of the family is Mexican, and his father’s side of the family is Serbian.

My friend’s family still celebrates a number of Mexican traditions.  According to my friend, one of the most important holidays in Mexico is Dia de los Reyes, the Day of the Kings.  The day celebrates the three kings who visited Jesus in the manger and gave him three gifts.  The reason behind the holiday is religious – my friend is not religious yet he still celebrates this holiday with his family.

There’s very specific foods that people eat on Dia de los Reyes.  During the day, children receive presents (my friend puts it as “second Christmas on a smaller scale).  In the evening, however, the family eays a big meal.  The main course is not specific, but my friend has often eaten meat like pork and turkey.  The desert of the evening meal is specific – it’s a cake called La Rosca de Reyes.  It’s representative of Jesus’s crown of thorns – it’s a bread ring that is decorated with mainly fruits and sugar.

It’s traditional to also hide baby Jesus figurines within la rosca de reyes.  Whoever gets a piece with a figurine inside of it becomes obliged to organize next year’s celebration.  In religious communities that celebrate it, the figurines are also tied with a tradition of dressing a statue of Jesus.  My friend’s family isn’t religious, so they just expect the person who gets the figurine to organize next year’s Dia de los Reyes.   He says that his family’s celebration of this is not related to the religious event but related to just having a day to bring the family together.

My friend’s account of Dia de los Reyes shows how folklore can be reworked to fit different circumstances.  I think it’s unsurprising that his non-religious family would celebrate a religious holiday if it meant that it gave a chane for a family get-together.  Now that my friend is in college, days like this would probably be more meaningful for the family, as he won’t be around as often.

La Llorona

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: College student
Residence: San Francisco, CA
Performance Date: 4/30/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My friend spent part of her childhood growing up in Mexico, and she would hear this story of La Llorona from other kids.

“La Llorona was a beautiful young woman, as every young woman is in stories, uh… who, like, married this man, and uh… had like beautiful children and… I don’t know, there were like six or something, and…then… he cheated on her, and she got super angry, and killed the kids by drowning them in a river.  And, uh, the legend goes that if you’re a bad child, or if you, like, don’t do something that you’re supposed to do, uh, when you’re a kid, like… the threat of La Llorona is that… um, she’ll come and like, steal you away or something, and there’s like, this legend that she’s still wandering around in riverbeds going like ‘mi secos, mi secos!’”

My friend didn’t believe in La Llorona as she grew up.  Her friends often did, however, and would cite the danger of being caught by La Llorona as reasons to not cause mischief.  I think there’s a different effect when kids tell the stories their parents tell.  I often think of stories such as this as cautionary tales created by parents to warn children to be on good behavior.  For my friend, hearing that other children believed in it made her think the stories were rather silly.  My friend points out that “La Llorona was a beautiful woman, as every young woman is in stories”… I think that she notices there’s a motif in which someone/something beautiful becomes spoiled.  And this ruination of somebody causes them to somehow haunt this world.  I do agree with her; I think La Llorona is not the only ghost story that involves ghosts somehow beginning beautiful and ending as abominations after their actions.  The ghost of La Llorona also hangs around riverbeds, which makes me believe that her existence as a ghost comes as a form of punishment for drowning her children.  It’s interesting that the story that my friend knows of does not really emphasize on the husband.  Instead of a tale of infidelity, La Llorona ends up as a ghost story about a homicidal mother that intends to scare children into compliance.  On the other hand, there might be something more about the husband in other versions – other than the elements my friend finds kind of silly or fascinating, she doesn’t remember too much of a specific narrative.

Amor de lejos es amor de pendejos

Nationality: American
Age: 18
Occupation: College student
Residence: San Francisco, CA
Performance Date: 4/30/2013
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My friend first heard this from her father.  The translation is “To love from afar is love for idiots.”

My friend initially interpreted this proverb as a criticism on being unable to act on emotions for another person.  To “love from afar,” as in, to love without actually confessing it to the person, is love for idiots.”  She’s learned, however, that the proverb is more often used in context of long-distance relationships.  So being geographically far from your significant other and choosing to continue to love them is foolish.  My friend doesn’t have a particular significance attached to this proverb, but she did think that it was rather interesting.

I agree with my friend’s understanding of the proverb, though I wonder if other people beyond her do think of the proverb in the same sense that she originally thought of it (with “love from afar” being similar to “love within the mind”).  I find it interesting that  this proverb discourages love if it’s from a distance.  It suggests that there is a belief that a relationship is only wise or legitimate if it’s grounded in physical reality.  I’m not entirely sure why that would be the case, but perhaps love was often presumed to be associated with marriage.  So a real relationship should be properly consummated, either through sex, marriage, or person-to-person interaction.

This proverb has also seemed to regain some significance with the advent of the internet.  Maybe the idea of a “long-distance relationship” through webcamming is still considered unwise by most people in this community.  If that’s the case, then this Mexican proverb affirms that the idea of physicality is essential to romantic relationships (as a college student in the United States, I hear comments about the futility of long-distance relationships often, and a proverb like this seems particularly fitting for that situation), and that this way of thinking is important to multiple cultures.

Dia de Los Tres Reyes Magos

Nationality: Korean
Age: 23
Occupation: Marketing
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: March 24, 2013
Primary Language: Spanish
Language: Korean, English

“Día de Los Tres Reyes Magos is a huge holiday in Mexico celebrating the day the three kings visited Jesus with their gifts. It’s celebrated on January 6th and is basically the peak of the Christmas season. Because, in Mexico, the celebration extends to days like the Día de Los Tres Reyes Magos, Christmas season goes on forever. Children get gifts on this day, because the Three Kings came to Jesus bearing gifts for Him. This is also the day when people eat Rosca de Reyes. Rosca de Reyes is a dessert bread in the shape of a big oval and has bits of fruit on it. The people that make it hide a little statue of baby Jesus inside the bread somewhere. I think that this is to symbolize having to hide Jesus in a barn so King Herod couldn’t find him. Anyway, so the statue is hidden and the cake is cut up so everyone gets a piece. The person who finds the figurine in their piece is blessed, but they also have to throw a party for Día de la Candelaria, on February 2nd. So some people like finding the statue because it is a good sign, but others don’t because they don’t want to throw a party.”

Unlike the United States in which Christmas is the main holiday and the day that everyone looks forward to, my informant told me the the Día de Los Tres Reyes Magos if often the bigger holiday in Mexio. She remembered thinking that being a Mexican kid is awesome since they celebrate Christmas and receive gifts then, and about a week later they celebrate Reyes Magos so they get gifts again. Her family did not celebrate this second holiday as much, but kept with the tradition of Christmas as the one big holiday during the winter season, so she would often feel jealous of her friends on this day. She said she usually tried to go over to one of her friends’ houses to take part in the festivities that way.

I did not know that the day when the three wise kings arrived bringing gifts, was celebrated. To me it does make sense that this day would often be used for gift exchanges rather than Christmas, since if Christmas is about the birth of Jesus, it should be celebrating the beginning of his life, and not be about presents. I suppose it is part of showing gratitude and giving to others, as Jesus did, but since the wise kings actually gave gifts to the baby Jesus, it seems logical that part of the tradition for this holiday is gift giving. I find it interesting how different countries celebrate the same holiday, but put a twist on the holiday that is uniquely theirs. I think I would have enjoyed celebrating this holiday as well, as I look forward to the Christmas season, and this extends that season.