Information on the Informant: The informant, Charlie Maloney, is currently a sophomore at USC studying engineering. He is 2o years old and is from Northern California. He attended De la Salle high school in Concord, California which is an all boys christian school. While there, he played rugby and was actively involved in activities on campus. Additionally, he is apart of a fraternity on campus. After attending an all boys school and being a part of a fraternity, Charlie really values the idea of brotherhood.

Informant: “When I was a senior at De la Salle, it was customary that all of us seniors sat at the same spot any time for lunch or a break. My friend group was filled with athletes and it was pretty clear that we were respected by a lot of people within the school. On a few occasions, we found that there were younger kids sitting in our spot. They would always move when we told them simply because they knew that we were older than them and that we sat there every day. However, on one occasion, they refused to move and we started yelling at them. The dean of men (a very authoritative and scary figure) came over and actually started yelling at the sophomores to get out of our spot as opposed to yelling at us for getting mad at the younger kids. Obviously they moved and we got our spot back.”

Analysis: This particular folklore of claiming a piece of land or spot because of seniority hits home for me simply because I also attended an all boys school and faced the same issue on some occasions. In a typical brotherhood it is customary that those who are older or have had more experience within the brotherhood get priority over things. In this case it was a table for lunch at a high school.