As I was researching about storytelling and the traditions of storytelling from my heritage, one thing popped out. There is a richness and strength of oral traditions and folklore in Mexican heritage. Knowledge is passed down from the older generation, but not just from the grandparents, or the parents, but also the aunts, uncles, and the older siblings. As Dyanna Durbin Gleaves wrote in The Folklore of Mexico, Mexico has a strong oral tradition, in which knowledge is passed down through generations via storytelling and the use of proverbs.
As I was reading that I started to think of my upbringing. Did we grow up learning proverbs and sayings, hearing stories? The answer to that question is yes, but at first I did not know that I was growing up within an oral tradition. In this “new age” where everything has become modernized, one can easily find many stories or proverbs online, in a library, from other people, and even on TV. There is a television show called Lo Que Dice el Dicho, which is pretty much devoted to the sayings and proverbs that many have grown up listening to – los dichos – and they make skits relating to a particular saying. In a way the Mexican culture is trying to preserve those traditions.
Back to my own upbringing, I have recently realized that I was living and breathing in those traditions and cultures, mixing culture and religion in one pot. My mother would tell me stories, and so many of them were of her childhood adventures, when she came up to the United States, and even scary stories, folktales, and legends. We would sit around the dinner table and conversations would burst out and there would be a story that was being told. When we had family gatherings, stories at bedtime were always a must and many were Bible stories. But the best were those that my mother would tell us when teaching us a lesson.
About the consequences of not listening to mothers, a story like Dancing With the Devil would appear. Or, the story of when my aunt did not listen to my grandmother, went to the beach and saw the famous ghost of La Llorona. And many of those stories end up personalized to include a family member.
I did not know nor understood that I was growing up in a culture and tradition that was strength in its folklore and oral tradition. To my surprise many of those stories I have begun to remember recently. I like to say they have been reawakened after I started taking storytelling. And one day I will be telling them to my offspring. I will continue to maintain that tradition, the tradition of my ancestors.
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