Catherine Yang is from a Korean Roman Catholic background. She was able to locate some very old family pictures, which she shared with us. Most Koreans are not Catholic, so Catholics in Korea were often persecuted, fleeing to the mountains. Catherine also brought in traditional dress and discussed a couple important Korean holidays. Throughout the semester, we also discussed use of the Korean language in public versus private settings.

Emma Robinson talked about her Italian side of the family. A family name of Piscotti somehow became Fisher after Ellis Island. She shared some fun language traditions, a sort of family argot, from her grandfather, who actually wrote them down in an old address book. As we passed the book around the class, she was able to “translate” for us. She also talked about food, like various Italian cookies. Emma works at Manco’s Pizza in Ocean City and shared a lot about their particular argot, which was quite fun and interesting to learn.

Grace Foster is half Greek and talked about some of her family’s Greek traditions, including making baklava. Foster was actually shortened from Fosterius, on the German side. She also talked about her family sayings, like “all you can do is try,” and her experience working in a pulmonary office, where they have their own argot. Grace plans to enter the medical field.

Diandra Torres talked about her Puerto Rican background as well as Puerto Rican history and culture. For her personal field trip, she visited a Puerto Rican restaurant in Hammonton, where she was able to talk to the owners and sample their food. Diandra brought in a delicious flan cake, which she learned to make using her mother’s recipe, just for our little class.

Anthony Roman, who has both Puerto Rican and Guatemalan ancestry, focused on his Guatemalan family background and traditions, including being woken up on birthdays by a mariachi band.

Nadine Hollis-Turner brought in a South African Milk Tart. Nadine also talked about her complex family background and the forced segregation of her family during apartheid in South Africa. On one side of her family, they’re Afrikaans, but on another side they’re Spanish (from Spain) and Asian (they aren’t actually sure from where, possibly China or Japan). This side of the family was considered non-white, which was surprising, since we don’t typically think of South African apartheid in this way. For Nadine’s personal field trip, she visited a Bulgarian cultural school that meets at Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church in EHT, ao we learned a little about Bulgarian culture, too.

Ian Provesano’s presentation was very exciting, too. He discovered several half-siblings he didn’t realize he had via 23 & Me and now has extended his small family circle. He also talked about baseball culture because that is a very large part of his life. Because of the popularity of baseball among Puerto Ricans and other Caribbean cultures, Ian has picked up Spanish, visited Puerto Rico fairly frequently, and has learned many aspects of Puerto Rican culture, which have become part of his own life. Ian isn’t Puerto Rican at all, but is originally from Florida, where he spent considerable time in a tight-knit youth baseball program. Ian will be leaving us for a different college after this semester, where he will play baseball and continue his studies.

Since several students in our class have regular contact with non-English languages, common themes have been the difference between understanding and speaking that language, how that language morphs with English in the United States, the role of that language after immigration and how that has changed over time, how learning English may contribute to the breakup of extended families and communities that were formerly tightly clustered, the role of English-speaking family members as translators, and dialects of the same language.

A benefit of focusing on folklife is that it allows us to learn more about ourselves, our families, and our communities, and in turn share that information with each other.

These examples from Professor Heiland give you just a taste of all the ways these honors students broadened one another’s worldviews!