Text:

SG: I’m hispanic, from Nicaragua, and a lot of hispanic people use vaporub to cure like, pretty much anything, and it weirdly works. So, at least my mom, she would get a little bit of vaporub, she would put it on a spoon, and then she would put, like, a flame under the spoon to warm it up. And then she would rub it on our chest, our feet and she would put socks on us, behind our ears… And then that would, honestly, kind of help us–it wasn’t a fool-proof cure, but it would feel better the next day.

Context: SG’s family is from Nicaragua, and she is a college student in Southern California. She mentions her mother using Vick’s Vaporub for most any ailment that she or her family had, and that she says it’s a “hispanic mom thing.”

Analysis: I’ve encountered this remedy before–I think this is a very clear way of showing care to the people you love when they’re feeling under the weather. It makes sense that this tradition be passed down through parent to child, through various families, especially in a marginalized community that might have less income, as vaporub is relatively cheap and readily available.