Tag Archives: Political

Politics

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 65
Occupation: Business Owner
Residence: Fullerton, Ca
Performance Date: 4/21/2012
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

“Alright, so an airplane is about to crash and there are four people on board, George W. Bush, Hillary Clinton, and a school girl that had won a contest to meet the president, and the pilot. There are only 3 parachutes. The pilots says screw you all I wanna live and jumps out so that only leaves two left. Hillary says “I’m gonna run this county some day so I need to live!” and jumps out. George Bush Says to the girl “I’ve lived a long life and I’ve done all the things I’d set out to do, but you have your whole life ahead of you. You take the last one, little girl.” The little girl shakes her head and says “No, it’s okay. We can both go. The smartest lady in the world just jumped out with my backpack!””

This joke, told to me by a republican, is a clear crack at the democratic party and one of many originating from when George. W. Bush was in office. However, this one is different because it actually paints him in a flattering light. His willingness to sacrifice himself for the child and Hilary Clinton’s clear disregard for anyone’s saftey but her own speaks volumes towards what the republicans are trying to present their natures to be.

I found it slightly odd that my informant, who is a Mexican American and was raised poor is a proud republican, but he assured me that it all had to do with his own thoughts on governmental policy towards small businesses, one of which he had come to own through his own hard work and ingenuity. He is an avid watcher of political shows and always follows each campaign closely to see how it will affect his family, and by extension, his business.

Proverb – Finnish

Nationality: Finnish American
Age: 25
Occupation: Insurance Broker
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 23 April 2011
Primary Language: English
Language: Finnish

“Hetkinen sano Putkinen.”

“Wait says Putkinen.”

“Pukinen says, let’s wait a little bit.”

The informant is a 25-year-old insurance broker who grew up in Ohio and the Los Angeles region. His father is Finnish and his mother is a third generation Swedish American.

Putkinen was a politician “who was always slowing down the process”. It’s a saying to “just tell someone to wait” it’s like Putkinen says that we just need to keep waiting and not doing anything. He said it’s, “light-heartedly poking fun at this past governor guy”. One would use this proverb when a couple people were going to go somewhere and one of them wa like, “I’m not ready to go yet” they would say “Hetkinen sano Putkinen.” Like relax. The informant says he rarely ever says that it’s mainly his dad who says that, who moved to the United States from Finland when he was in college. The informant was born in the United States.

I think it makes sense that a Finnish American man who was born in the states wouldn’t have as much connection to this saying as his father would, who lived in Finland and has more of a personal connection to Finnish politics. It also makes sense that the informant wouldn’t want to allude to a politician that people in the United States likely wouldn’t know anything about, Americans would likely wonder why we should care that Putkinen says wait.

Putkinen