Tag Archives: spanish

Passing the salt

Background: Informant is a 19 year old student. Their parents both grew up in Venezuela. Their mom’s side is Spanish and Italian and their dad’s is Spanish and Israeli. Informant is from Texas and Miami and now resides in Los Angeles. They identify as Latin American and Jewish.

Informant: So, ever since I was little, at the dinner table my dad has this superstition. And his whole family has this superstition that you cant pass salt directly. You have to place the salt shaker down on the table and the other person has to pick it up. If not, it’s bad luck. It’s like, a curse. Like if you pass the salt directly it’s a curse. I don’t know why, I don’t know what it’s about but my dad has always been like that. If he’s like, pass the salt and I try to hand it to him he’s like “no put it down on the table,” like he won’t accept it. At all. And when I go to my aunt’s house for a high holiday or something it’s the same thing. It’s like, in his family, so now we all do it obviously. And also if someone spills the salt, you get the salt and throw it over their shoulder because that’s also bad luck. 

Reflection: This story is a great example of superstitions in people’s culture. The informants dad enforces this superstition and it’s completely backed up by his family as they all believe in it together. I thought it was interesting how the informant described how this superstition was highly specific to their family, but this is actually a very common superstition that many have. It shows how people’s folklore becomes very personal to them even when it’s so universal. 

sana sana colita de rana si no sana hoy sanara mañana

Background: Informant is a 19 year old student. Their parents both grew up in Venezuela. Their mom’s side is Spanish and Italian and their dad’s is Spanish and Israeli. Informant is from Texas and Miami and now resides in Los Angeles. They identify as Latin American and Jewish.

Informant: So in most Latin countries when a child or someone has a wound or a tummy ache, either an older person or a loved one touches that spot or massages that spot and says, “sana sana colita de rana si no sana hoy sanara mañana.” And that means, like the literal translation is “heal heal frogs tail and if it doesn’t heal today then it should heal tomorrow.”

Me: So, do you remember the first time this was used? Or is it kind of ever-present? 

Informant: Just growing up all the time whenever I was sick or had a tummy ache or if I hit myself when I was younger. I remember the first time that someone did it to me it was my grandma and like, as I was growing up my parents started doing it more as a joke. But it’s still like, if I’m having cramps or whatever my mom is like, “sana sana colita de rana si no sana hoy sanara mañana.” So it’s almost like a superstitious thing like you say it and it heals you or more like a comfort thing. 

Reflection: I loved hearing this story from my friend. It was so sweet to hear this saying come out of their mouth, as you could hear the child in them and the comfort it gave them growing up. It’s so sweet to see the ways different cultures make sense of pain and help kids go through hard things. I felt I could really relate to this experience as I think it’s universal to a certain extent.

Mexican Lullaby- Goodnight song

Informant Information 
Nationality: Hispanic American 
Occupation: Teacher
Residence: Nevada
Date of Performance/Collection: Apr 4, 2022
Primary Language: English 

Background
My informant is a family member coworker of Mexican descent. Every night, she sings a good night song to her children, a song that was passed down to her. This is the song performed by her daughter.

Performance 
Spanish- Duérmase mi niño, duérmase me ya. Porque ahí viene el coyote y te comerá. 

English- Go to sleep little boy, go to sleep right now. Because the coyote is coming and he’ll eat you up.

Audio Recording

Thoughts
I don’t know Spanish so when I first heard the song, I thought it was just a sweet lullaby that tells your kids like “sweet dreams” or something like that. Finding out the song was about a coyote coming to eat you if you don’t is really funny. I found a different variation of the song. There is a version that instead of the coyote coming to eat you, an angel is going to rock you to sleep. 

Don Pepito

Content: 

Original: Don Pepito el bandolero, se cayó dentro un sombrero, el sombrero era de paja, se cayó dentro una caja. La caja era de cartón, se cayó dentro un cajón. El cajón era de pino, se cayó dentro un pepino. El pepino maduró, Don Pepito se salvó.

Translation: 

Don Pepito the bandit, a hat fell onto him, the hat was made of straw, a box fell into it. The box was made of cardboard, it fell into a drawer. The drawer was made of pine, a cucumber fell into it. The cucumber ripened, Don Pepito was saved.

Background: The informant, S, was born in Colombia and raised in suburban North Carolina by Colombian parents.

Context: This tongue-twister was told to me at a hangout among friends.

Analysis: I was drawn to this example of folklore because I don’t remember the last time I heard a tongue-twister in English. S said that her father and uncles often make the recitation of the tongue-twister into a competition at family events. As a result, it becomes a part of a game.

Spanish Names

Nationality: United States of America
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 04/25/2021
Primary Language: English

What is Spanish Names?

“This game is full of cultural appropriation but here we go: You can only play it with a new person, and you say ‘hey, let’s play Spanish names,’ and someone is in charge and they assign everyone a Spanish name. And the new person, you name them ‘Arted,’ and the other people, you name ‘Maria’ or ‘Rosa’ and stuff like that. And then you go around and you say “Eif” and then your name, so the person names Arted says ‘Eif Arted’ which is like ‘I farted.’ And then you go around and say it louder and louder and faster and faster until the poor new kid is yelling ‘I farted.’ (laughs) It’s totally not real Spanish.”

Where did you play it?

“(laughs) Hebrew School! At our very PC synagogue.”

Context:

My informant is my twin sister. She is Jewish, attended Los Angeles public school, and is currently a USC student. She attended Hebrew school from third grade through high school. This information was collected during a family zoom call where we were checking in with each other.

Analysis:

Spanish Names is a game where there is an obvious in-group and out-group. There are those who have played the game before and understand the joke, and then there is the one person who has never played and is unknowingly going to end up as the butt of the joke. It plays into young children’s senses of bathroom humor through fart jokes, plus it humiliates a new person through a made-up Spanish word places between stereotypical Spanish names. The entire game is a set up to embarrass a single person, which brings a lot of joy to those who are in the know throughout the entire game.