Experiment 1_ Memory and Identity Work

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School

University of California, Davis *

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Course

MISC

Subject

Arts Humanities

Date

Oct 30, 2023

Type

pdf

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Uploaded by ProfIbex3765

Experiment 1: Memory and Identity Work Almost every couple of years in December around the same time my family travels to Indo, California to stay with my aunts and uncles on my Fathers side. Almost everyone from that side of the family comes down to celebrate our early christmas as well as participate in our family tradition. Our tradition happens to be making tamales from the whole family. The parents wake up earlier than everyone else to get a start on things, when the kids wake up we wait a little bit until we are told to start working. One thing we always do right before we start tamales we have lunch and evey year it is a bag of corn tortilla chips and melted nacho cheese in a crock pot with homemade salsa to put on top.Every year it taste the exact same like nothing ever changed and it is the only thing that is served till the tamales are done. Around 12pm or 1pm is when we really start, we all line up assembly style along the long table with our assigned roles and we get to making. Some of us are in charge of the masa and spreading, some are in charge of finding the best husks from the tamales, and some are assigned the fillings. The line of fillings include pork, lots of shredded cheese, carrots and jalapeno mix, jicama, and sometimes raisins from the sweet tamales. It takes us hours to finish all of the tamales because we make so much masa. The whole day is filled with cooking and amazing smells. My dad and uncles take care of the steaming and grill, the cooking of the tamales. Around 9pm is when they are all finally finished, in the end it is about 12 batches. The batches consist of pork, chicken, cheese and jalapeno, and sometimes sweet tamales but those are mostly for my grandma. I barely ever get to see my family on my dads side of the family so whenever we can make it down for christmas time and getting involved with the making of tamales is always a really nice time. Since it happens every so often I really cherish the time we have there. Since I know a lot of us are growing up and possibly won't be able to make it to these types of events in the future it is really important I get to go now and see everyone before we all start to separate. The connection between the food and the memory I have of traveling and making tamales with my family is that I feel as though it connects me to family and our heritage, my identity. My dads side of the family is more in tuned and practices a lot of hispanic culture and so when I am there I feel as though I am learning more about myself, connecting with a different side. Even Though both sides of my family are mexican, hispanic my dads side lives a different way, and when I am there I learn lots more, the ethnicities and the culture. I am able to take it all in. It is a big social event for my family, we all get to catch up and talk, learn about what we have done for the last couple of years or what we have done in however long it has been since we last met. I get to see family I haven't seen in a long time because of this tradition we have and I love when I am able to make it and spend time with my loved ones.

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