1. Informant name- A. M.
2. Date of Performance- April 24, 2026
3. Age- 37
4. Ethnicity- Dominican and Puerto Rican
5. Career/Occupation- Caregiver
6. Hometown- New York City
7. Informant’s language- English

Story –

Growing up with a Dominican mother they have this thing that if you disrespect our parents the devil comes out . So when I was younger I was very slick out of the mouth. I’ve always been slick at the mouth so one night my mom, your grandmother, was telling me to go to sleep but I was just being spiteful and doing stupid shit. So that whole day, that whole night, I placed a figurine that your grandma used to have on a table in the middle. It was like a flower glass and I placed it on the floor.Your aunt was chasing me when I was terrorizing her and she stepped on it. So I got my ass whopped then I was sent to bed. Mommy kept telling me to go to sleep but I didn’t want to go to sleep. So I pretended I was sleeping and then they turned off all the lights. When I looked to the side all I saw was a shadow. It looked like a demon dancing, really tall, about like 8 feet tall, long nails, a long tail, just like dancing. I just saw the shadow so I closed my eyes and covered myself from head to top and I went to sleep. After that I ain’t seen nothing else.

Context- 

My mother was telling me a story about her childhood where she was scared of the devil because of stories she was told by her immigrant mother.

Their thoughts-

At that moment she really believed it and was really scared. Now she doesn’t know if it was real or not and just regards it as a moment in her childhood. The moment itself was real for her but they explain the action behind it is up in the air.

My thoughts-

I think that because she’s already had this idea in her head that the devil was gonna come out if she had it tricked her brain into seeing something that wasn’t there. At night I know that something’s my Brian tricks me into seeing things that aren’t there and I think that the same thing may have happened to my mom.