Tag Archives: Mexican

Cielito Lindo

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Claremont, California
Performance Date: February 2007
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

SourceURL:file://localhost/Volumes/HP%20V125W/SP%2007%20FL&PC%20COLLECTS/Scheffler/1.%20Spanish%20Folksong.doc

“Cielito Lindo”

Ay, ay ay ay
Cantar no llores
Porque Cantando se alegran,
Cielito lindo,
Los corazones

Translation:

Ay, ay ay ay
Sing and don’t cry
Because singing, my Beautiful Heaven,
Gladdens the heart

 

My informant first learned this song as a child, when his father would sing it to him as a lullaby.   His father is Mexican and his mother is Caucasian, and he was traditionally raised in the American sense, learning English and not Spanish.  In fact, the only Spanish he knows is this Mexican folksong, and he is not able to translate it.  He sings this song when he’s bored, to break an awkward silence, and just to be obnoxious.  In fact, he once removed the last three lines with “Please leave a mess-age/and I’ll get back to you/as soon as I ca-an” and used the song as his phone’s voicemail message.

While it may seem pointless to recite the folksong considering he does not even know what the lyrics stand for, my informant believes the song is his only link to that part of his heritage, and when he sings it, he feels closer to his dad and that part of his family tree.  He believes that it used by others for the very same reason, to connect with the history of their ancestors.

When translated, the song is about how singing will protect your heart from sorrow.  In Mexican tradition, Cielito Lindo represents a lovely stranger.

Joke – Racist – African American/Mexican

Nationality: American
Age: 50
Occupation: Construction
Residence: Austin, Texas
Performance Date: April 2011
Primary Language: English

Joke – Racist – African American/Mexican

“What kind of baby do you get when a black person and a Mexican person have a baby? A baby that’s too lazy to steal.”

The informant made it very clear that he is “not racist” as he told me this joke, as people often do when telling jokes framed around racial stereotypes and conflict. He also made it very clear, before telling me the joke, that it is “really racist.” The informant is fifty years old and from Texas, and has lived there all of his life. He claims that jokes such as this are still used among close friends, but that “it’s just funny, we’re not racists.” He also claims to have “black friends,” as if that serves as some sort of justification or proof that he is not racist. He claims that jokes such as these stem from the racism that existed in the south during his childhood. The informant told me how he remembers when schools were desegregated in the south, and how “the blacks were brought over in busses” to his school. He stated, “they didn’t want to be there as much as we didn’t want them there.” He claims that much of the conflict was two sided, a kind of mutual racism. Furthermore, he claims that the inclusion of a Mexican individual in this joke probably stems from immigration from Mexico to the United States, often to border states such as California and Texas.
I agree that these jokes stem from a generation that experienced extreme racial conflict, but the fact that they are still used implies that they are still considered humorous. The fact that people still find these jokes humorous hints at the state of racism today, and shows that although it is much less prominent than in previous generations, subtle racism does still exist. The addition of a Mexican individual in this joke exemplifies the discomfort that many people feel toward Mexican immigrants, but the fact that they are portrayed as thieves in this joke conveys the stereotype that many Latinos are criminals. Furthermore, the idea of black people being inherently lazy seems to stem from Affirmative Action. Many people, who are usually white, are against affirmative action and other social programs, and believe it makes people who benefit from these things lazy. On some level, this joke serves as a racist critique of society in the context of immigration and social programs that are intended for minorities.

Chili Peppers, Folk Medicine – Mexican

Nationality: Mexican American/ Slovenian American
Age: 20
Occupation: Student - Neuroscience
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 18 April 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“I used to get sick at lot, like in high school with like, ah, chest congestion and all that lovely stuff. ‘Cause it’s, I guess, cold in the East Coast. So, uh, and I, and my parents would tell me, ‘oh, you should just eat chili peppers’ like red chili peppers ’cause their spicy.’ And you know my mother would always say, ‘So you father’s mother’ – so I guess my grandmother, ah, ‘she never never used to get sick ’cause she would always eat chili peppers.’ You know, and she said, “you know that’s the good thing about Mexican people they would eat all these chili peppers so they would never get colds and stuff like that.’ So, I don’t know why my mother would say that because my mother’s not Mexican, my Dad is. So he would say the same thing but my mother, being my mother, would really try to push that. I think she heard that from my Dad and just took off from it.”

The informant is from Arlington, VA. She said that she thought the concept of eating chili peppers to keep away a cold or to fight a cold made sense. The chili peppers likely kill the germs (i.e. a cold) and clean out the system. Though she has never tried it, she said it might work.

I think her analysis of why her Slovenian mother and not her father repeated this bit of folklore was telling. It seemed her mother may have had a more maternal instinct for trying to make sure her children were healthy and so grasped at this as a chance to do just that. She also may have seen this bit of folklore as a way to control something that was more than likely a great deal out of her control – that her daughter seemed to have a predisposition to getting colds in a cold climate. It may have relieved her that there was some way to help her daughter out there. I think it is also telling that Andrea has never tried this – that says to me that her Mom may have been trying to relieve some anxiety rather than truly cutting up some chili’s and putting them on a plate for her daughter. The informant’s conclusion that it makes sense that it would work may come from her theoretical biology knowledge as learned from her Neuroscience major.

Chili Peppers

Blason Populaire Joke

Nationality: Caucasian with Irish and Italian ancestry
Age: 29
Occupation: English Student
Residence: Tujunga, Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: April 19, 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Conversational Spanish

The informant learned this joke, which falls under the category of blason populaire, from one of his friends in junior high school. He says that he has also heard it from other active bearers as a “black joke”:

“How do you stop a Mexican from drowning? The answer is, of course, take your foot off his head.”

The informant says that when he performs this joke it is usually in a group of friends who consider vulgar jokes acceptable and that he varies the ethnicity to match the group’s prejudices. He also admits that sometimes he tells the joke when he’s “around people who are racist” and he doesn’t “want to make any waves.”

He considers it to be a “pretty bad joke” but says it’s “easy to use for a cheap laugh, as an icebreaker.”

The informant grew up in Tujunga, which according to the LA Times’s 2009 “Mapping LA” project has a black population of only 1.8%. It is therefore not surprising that he would have heard the “black joke” cognate, since the members of the audience to the joke would have been unlikely to be black or have black acquaintances on whose behalf to be offended. However, it is perhaps more surprising that his friend told it to him as a Mexican joke, since according to the same project, 14.7% of Tujunga’s residents have Mexican ancestry. It may be that the joke was more acceptable to tell because some members of the active bearer’s audience had Mexican ancestry and were willing to laugh at themselves, or perhaps the informant’s friend had Mexican ancestry himself.

Source: Ardalani, Sarah, et al. “Tujunga.” Los Angeles Times. 2009. Tribune Newspaper. 25 April 2011 <http://projects.latimes.com/mapping-la/neighborhoods/neighborhood/tujunga/#ethnicity>.