Tag Archives: sorority

Sorority Stroll

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. She is of Mexican and Salvadoran descent. She attends university in Illinois and is part of a Latino founded sorority. I am a part of the same sorority here at USC. The name of our sorority was left out for anonymity purposes.

Text

DO (interviewer) : I think that being a part of a sorority in a way comes with its own sense of community and folklore, wouldn’t you agree?

AG: Yeah totally! I think I see my sorority sisters more than I see my own family *laughs.*

DO: I definitely agree. What do you think are some traditions or rituals or beliefs that we have that come with *name of sorority?*

AG: Hmmm. I don’t know. I feel like there’s a lot that other people not in it can think is specific to us. I know people always have a culty vibe to sorority *laughs*

AG: I think maybe strolling? I know that other non multicultural sororities definitely don’t stroll so I think it’s just POC orgs that stroll the way we do?

DO: Oh yeah! That’s a good example.

AG: And like. We all obviously have the national stroll that we all have to learn as part of our process. But then I think it’s cool that we all have like chapter strolls and stuff like that. You know? Like our chapter stroll is different than yours.

DO: It also can differ from class to class.

AG: Right. Like when I initiated with my class we danced to a certain song and now the new babies know that, that song is a stroll but for their celebration they had a completely different one. So I guess if we’re talking about culture there’s an example of how many little different communities we have even within our little community. If that makes sense.

Analysis

According to Oring, folklore implies some group of people who share something. Here the informant and I used our social groups to demonstrate how similar and different the same community can be when separated by some factor. Though her chapter is in Illinois and mine is in California, both have some essential elements. In terms of dances and performances, every new class has a show where they reveal themselves to their academic community, and during this, we have to perform a “stroll,” which is a dance. Regardless of where they are in the country, every member of our sorority knows the “National Stroll” and can all dance the same exact moves to the same songs. There are other rituals/traditional elements to these showcases that we all follow. However, as mentioned, we all also have our own chapter stroll. My stroll here at USC consists of different moves to another song than her Illinois chapter. As the informant mentioned, each new class that initiates can also have its own stroll that differs from the two already mentioned. These dances allow unity and sisterhood across all state borders and enough uniqueness to stand out and make a name for our chapters individually. Though we are technically the same community with shared folklore, we also have smaller communities with differing folklore within this larger one. This idea can also be applied to other groups, such as ethnic ones.

Sorority Hazing Ritual

TG is a 25 year old graduate student and cultural forensic anthropologist. She grew up in Maryland and currently resides in Tennessee. She was an active member at her university. She was in a sorority herself.

Context: This performance was done during the Spring semester at the university between X sorority and the girl trying to rush.

Transcript (discussed over the phone):

TG: Okay, I have to make this kind of vague because I can get into trouble if I give away the name of the university. There was a student trying to rush X sorority and there was an intense hazing process. Every girl got a difference hazing task when rushing but one girl specifically was not allowed to speak for a week. She had people secretly monitoring her to make sure she does not speak. That is not the worst part though; when she was spoken to, she was only allowed to respond by meowing like a cat. So for example, if someone asked “How are you?” she had to meow back to them. It was crazy.

Collector: Why meowing like a cat?

TG: Honestly, I’m not sure. I think it was more because it was an embarrassing thing to do and if you could do it successfully for the full week then it shows your loyalty to the sorority- maybe even your submissiveness too.

Thoughts/Analysis: There are hazing rituals in almost every fraternity and sorority. I find that the common denominator between them all is that they are supposed to have the potential member display some form of loyalty to the organization. These initiation processes are not kind; they push potential members hard to make sure they are worthy of membership.

For variations of embarrassing hazing rituals, see:

Appel, Stefan. “Sorority Hazing (Kappa Cow).” USC Digital Folklore Archives, May 18, 2021. http://uscfolklorearc.wpenginepowered.com/tag/hazing/.

Sorority Apartments

Nationality: American

Age: 20

Occupation: Cashier

Residence: Camarillo, CA

Performance Date: April 17, 2020

Primary Language: English

MAIN PIECE

Sorority Apartments

“A lot of Sorority girls at CSUCI have fought over who gets to live in a Sorority apartment building like most sorority girls at other schools would fight over living in the Sorority house. To call something a Sorority apartment came from a stupid law in Camarillo from the olden days that prohibits more than ten unrelated women to live in the same house, so sororities have gone around the issue by leasing specific buildings in apartment complexes around the school. That’s how the term came to be!”

BACKGROUND

SM is from Camarillo, California and has grown up in the area since he was born. He says he knows this from his sister who went to CSUCI and was in a sorority that had to do this. He remembers specifically being confused about why her friends would always call it the Sorority apartments cause on TV, people would always talk about sorority houses, but never apartments.

CONTEXT

SM is an old high school friend of mine. I invited him to a Discord server and I watched him play The Witcher. He was open to talk about folklore of the area we grew up in during cutscenes he said he had already watched when he had played the entirety of the game before.

THOUGHTS

Folklore acting as a sort of counteraction against a law is nothing new, but the fact that it has stuck around as long as it has is impressive. The saying of this word must come out of a unique sense of being and is probably not just specific to CSUCI sorority girls, but CSUCI students as a whole. It must be somewhat nice for this folk group to know they get to say something that would seem a bit odd to the average person, but completely relatable and even political to those who knew the issue.

Ice Blocking

Nationality: American

Age: 22

Occupation: Student

Residence: Oswego, Illinois; Los Angeles, California

Performance Date: 4/27/2020

Primary Language: English

Main piece:

(The following is transcribed from a conversation between the informant and interviewer.)

Interviewer: Tell me about ice blocking, if you don’t mind.

Informant: Okay, ice blockiiiiiiiiiiing, is a thing at – I don’t know uhh… Okay. At UCLA we have like a – not really like the typical college quad, but we have Jan’s Hill which is like – not even a central part of campus but just like – the most grassy open place you can sit, and it’s just, like a hill near Royce which is like, the iconic building of UCLA. That’s where people like sit in-between classes during the day and have picnics and stuff, but at night, a lot of people in like, clubs or just like as a group of friends will go and do something called “ice blocking” which is… people will go to Ralph’s and get like a big block of ice that’s like… a foot long and six inches tall and wide – and then you go to this hill, you start at the top – and you sit on it, and you just slide down the hill on the ice as far as you can. I don’t know who thought of this first or where it started but the first time I did it was like, as a part of my sorority, and then – once you like, have done ice blocking it just seems so obvious to do it and you just ask people if they’ve done it and their like “What? No!” or they’re like “Obviously” and it’s just like shows whether someone has really gotten the like full UCLA experience or not. Cause then if they haven’t done it you can be like, “Oh then we should go sometime!” I’ve only ever done it twice, once with sorority and once with ADPI [Alpha Delta Pi]. But it’s… Oh those are the same things – once with sorority and once with my apartment’s – when we first all moved in together. So it’s just like something silly to do. And… it seems kind of hard to sit on this block of ice but – you have to sit on it so that it’s long-ways down and not wide and then you can use a towel so your butt doesn’t get so wet, but then in the summer it’s better to not because it’s hot and you want to be cooled down anyway. And then you just – have to put your feet up in a little like, ball position and then you just slide as far as you can but you have to stop before you hit the bushes or else… you’d be pretty screwed. And with my roommates one tried to do it standing up like surfing and they did like – literally somersaults down the whole hill.

Interviewer: …Who was that? (laughing)

Informant: (Laughing) It was [name redacted]!

Interviewer: Oh my god.

Informant: And also [name redacted], I think, maybe.

Interviewer: That’s crazy.

Informant: I don’t know what else to say about it really.

Interviewer: Oh no that’s cool, you can just- is there anything like…

Informant: (sighs) it’s not a competition, really, because you only ever have like – well, i guess – actually I’ve seen-

Interviewer: Is it for like special occasions?

Informant: Yeah. Like for sorority, we did it like, as one of our first bonding activities when we all joined. And then for like, my roommates we did it as the celebration of us all moving in to our new apartment. So a lot of clubs do it as like a bonding activity I feel like.

Interviewer: …Is it allowed?

Informant: It’s not not allowed. No one’s ever been stopped for it. Like people also will have picnics where they drink on that hill and that’s not allowed because it’s a dry campus but they still do that anyway- and often… the two activities will be combined. (laughing)

Interviewer: (laughing)

Background: My informant is Senior in College who grew up in Southern and then Northern Illinois. She comes from a family of middle-class background. She goes to UCLA, and therefore has adopted a mix of midwest and west coast folklore.

Context: The informant is my sister, and she gave me this piece in a more research oriented setting, as she was the first person I collected from and I was determining the best way to go about the process still. She was very loose by this point in our long conversation, and our conversations always include humor.

Thoughts: This is a good example of a piece of folklore (specifically a tradition – maybe even an initiation ritual, though that categorization is a little more of a stretch) that seems absurd from the outside. At least, from my perspective, knowing nothing about the steepness of this hill especially, this activity sounds either rather boring and weird or entirely too dangerous. Apparently though, it is a common activity on any given night at UCLA, and I’m sure if I went there I would be all for it.

University of Alabama Bid Day

Nationality: American

Residence: New Orleans

Performance Date: 4/20/20

Primary Language: English

Main Piece:

Bid day at the University of Alabama is like Christmas, Easter, and every other holiday wrapped into one. Every single PNM, potential new member, is waiting with their Rho Chi, or rush, group in Bryan Denny Stadium, at 2pm they open their bids, find out what sorority they have gotten an offer from. Then by sorority, each PNM runs to their house with utter joy. All of a sorority’s active members are present outside of their house waiting for their new sisters to come home to their house. During bid day family members come down to celebrate this news. Fraternity brothers from the university also come to the sorority row and hand out roses to the new members while they are running home. It is one of the biggest celebrations on campus as thousands of new sisters are running down the row.

Context:

EG is a member of a sorority at the University of Alabama and a sophomore. She has been in her sorority for two years and had experienced both sides of this tradition. She finds it is more exciting as an active as you know more people. This piece was taken during a conversation at our home.

Thoughts:

As a member of a fraternity at USC, I understand some of the excitement of bid day. It is a moment is a freshman’s life where they get to join an organization allows them to be the best version of themselves that they can be. Greek Life at the University of Alabama is known for having the biggest presence on any campus in the nation. At USC, our sorority’s also have their bid day all at once. New members run down the row from the Village Lawn into their new sorority house. As my fraternity’s house is near several sorority houses, I can say that EG’s description of her bid day sounds similar to USC’s, but on a much, much larger scale. I find this celebration to also be a really rewarding time after having to go through a lengthy recruitment period.