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This article, extracted from a larger study, is attentive to the national folk culture of African-American communities--especially rumor and legend--in a number of city centers. The study begins with Washington, D.C., as a representative model to examine the role of complexion-related lore in black neighborhoods, organizations, and institutions, and then extends outward to other urban areas. Complexion lore, the article argues, functioned as a sophisticated negotiation of racism, wherein black residents complicated American urban principles of inclusion and exclusion by integrating color notions into institutional oral history. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Not all sub-fields in folklore leave the same type of scholarly footprints as evidence of their impact. For the area of folklore and education, the majority of scholarly media produced by the field is found in what is classified as grey literature. Examining the broad range of scholarly materials produced in folklore and education fills in a portrait of a robust field meagerly represented in the Journal of American Folklore. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aurelio Espinosa (1880-1958) studied folklore in the American Southwest and Spain. Espinosa was one of the first academic folklorists to work with American materials and the first scholar to write about Mexican American culture. This paper is an attempt to re-insert this forgotten figure into the history of folklore studies. At the same time, drawing on new archival sources, this study will show that Espinosa's active support of Franco in Spain contributed to his theory of cultural transmission in the American Southwest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Widespread contemporary legends assumed to be “everywhere”pose distinct methodological challenges to documenting living traditions in context. Welfare legends, for example, have persisted in the United States since before the 1960s, yet no vernacular texts exist in scholarly publication. This paper examines the vernacular tradition o f welfare legends in face-to-face and online contexts in order to advocate for specific methodological strategies for collecting and analyzing widespread contemporary legends; to examine the boundaries, core claims, performance contexts, and uses of welfare legends in vernacular discourse; and ultimately to suggest a more inclusive approach to the study of contemporary legends [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper chronicles the game preferences of American children during the twentieth century, documenting the results from four studies between 1898 and 1998. These studies are used to compare the popularity of particular activities (e.g., hopscotch, baseball) and types of activities (e.g., board games, games of individual skill) by gender over a one-hundred -year period. With this longitudinal, multi-study comparison, it is revealed that the game preferences of boys and girls have become markedly more similar. This pattern of increased play preference convergence throughout the twentieth century suggests an erosion of gender-determined institutionalized norms related to games. The dominance of electronic games and organized sport in the most recent of the four surveys not only reflects the technological advances of American society; it also indicates an increased desire for games that demand greater skill and promote role specialization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the group-building potential of forwarded e-mails through a visual analysis of negative images about President Barack Obama. We argue that these e-mails are a form of political digital folklore that may contribute to constructing participants' individual and group identities. Images amplify the impact and believability of the messages, especially when linked to familiar cultural references and experiences and may lead to increased political polarization and hostility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Américo Paredes's contributions to folklore featured the recognition of power relations in his methodology and the analysis of the construction of symbolic forms for political purposes, all of this well in advance of the introduction of these concepts into academic discourse. Specifically, he analyzed the North American cowboy and the shaping of that figure into a hero in response to "a craving for a strong national identity." Building on that argument, I examine a struggle between businessmen and rodeo cowboys over the production of professional rodeo performances, a struggle that echoed similar power relations between large capital and workers in the United States at that time (the 1920s and 1930s). The cowboy contestation took the form of strikes against specific rodeos. Using data from Hoofs and Horns (a publication of the period), the paper explores this national performance conflict as a difference in perception over the meaning of the cowboy, whether a sign available for capital to exploit or a performer deserving a living wage in return for his performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, I examine the vernacular, parodic response to one example of fake news, the "Bowling Green Massacre." Much of this was posted on the internet, including photo-based memes, tweets, songs, and faux survivor interviews. Although such internet folklore is often seen as unrelated to place, in this case, there were many place-based references, and the response in Bowling Green, Kentucky, also included community celebrations. These responses form a complex web of counter-narratives that claim agency in the face of "fake" narratives emanating from the Trump administration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article details the origins of American folklore studies by examining how "the folk" were repeatedly equated to Black Americans and how folklore was used as a measure of African Americans' post-emancipation "progress." Attending to discussions of Black representation in the late nineteenth century, I explore how (1) African Americans were positioned as the folk and (2) how African Americans (re)positioned themselves in discourses of "Blackness" and "folkness." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A personal narrative is presented which explores the author's experience of dealing with stereotypes as an African American high school student.

This article seeks to reinvigorate folklorists' engagement with historic preservation in the United States. It provides an overview of major historic preservation legislation and organizations, summarizes past benchmarks, and highlights selected case studies that successfully integrate folklore with historic preservation. A folklore lens focuses on both tangible and intangible cultural resources, shaping projects and policies that promote a more inclusive view of history, a richer sense of place, and a more sustainable future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an obituary for Brian Sutton-Smith, one of the leading scholars of play studies in the U.S.

"Stolen valor" confrontations calling out "fake vets" have generated a popular genre of viral video, a highly concentrated and visible expression of contemporary anxieties over the commodification of identity online. The boom in first-person stories, particularly traumatic ones, has oversaturated the attention economy of the internet, creating a market for fakes that real veterans can't criticize without challenging the authenticity of their own stories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The February 2, 2017, false assertion by one of American President Donald Trump's advisors of a terrorist tragedy in Bowling Green, Kentucky, has been characterized as a moment of significance that constituted a break in the "fake news clouds." This article uses the vernacular response to the "Bowling Green Massacre" to understand the quick and decisive identification of bad faith communication and the strategic nature of resistance to hegemonic control over "fact" and "reality" in the wake of the Trump presidency. I explore the role of intertextuality, localization, and incongruity in the vernacular response to both a massacre that never happened and the overall phenomenon of fake news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay interrogates the ways that African Guyanese use proverbs in kweh-kweh ritual settings to assert ancestral authority; address taboo subjects, and impart matrimonial advice to soon-to-be-married couples. By examining proverb use in kweh-kweh contexts in Guyana and New York City, I address the complications that result from transnational migration and demonstrate how proverb comprehension and performance affect whether someone is regarded as a “real” (native or “authentic”) Guyanese or a “foreigner.” [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Having conceptually accepted Asian Americans as being groups integral to the "folk groups" in American history, culture, and society, and thus their folklores being integral to American public life and folkloristics, we now need to study these distinctive folklores with relevant theories and methods. By looking at the folklore practices of the diverse Chinese American group, this article proposes some perspectives and concepts, with an emphasis on folkloric identity, in the hope that they will be useful in analyzing and interpreting diasporic folklore and identity in general. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The author reflects on being a young African American woman in the 21st century. She points out that African women are the most degraded, dehumanized and disrespected people in the U.S. She mentions that African women are overlooked in the health care system and by African men in the community. She cites the significance of the Say Her Name campaign that features Black women who were victimized by the police and experienced abuse.

This essay examines last meal requests by those facing execution. After surveying food and beverage selections, I explore how culinary choices are marked by ethnicity, region, class, and gender, as well as inflected by memories, the longing for certain sensory experiences, and the intent to make a moral, political, or philosophical statement. I also consider which last suppers and comments have inspired movies, TV shows, musical compositions, and advertising; why the public desires information about the food requested by those facing death; how the condemned's meals have become politicized, feeding arguments by both those for and those against the death penalty; what the origin of the last meal ritual is; and why the custom is perpetuated. Possessing varied meanings for different participants in the drama of execution, the ceremonial last meal is one of the most powerful symbolic elements within a larger phenomenon laden with rituals and symbols. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the 1970s, secular Day of the Dead celebrations were initiated in the United States as a way to communicate messages of Chicano identity. As the US Latino community became more ethnically diverse in the 1980s and 1990s, new Latino populations participated in these public festivities, creating pan-Latino celebrations. At the same time, non-Latinos began to embrace Day of the Dead as an alternative way to remember the departed. The observance of the holiday in new ways and by new groups of people has sparked negotiations around ownership and meaning, illustrating that hybridity and authenticity are complexly related rather than oppositional concepts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article argues that Pinkster should be understood as an Atlantic Creole festival in a Dutch-American context, rather than a Dutch-African festival in an American context. It claims that the syncretic character of Pinkster did not originate in North America and that, before arriving on the American East Coast, the essence of what came to be known as Pinkster already existed as a culturally hybrid Luso-African celebration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This tribute to Zora Neale Hurston is meant to re-introduce Hurston's work to folklorists and Hurston enthusiasts who already know her and some of her work, yet who may not have thought much about her more recently. I have gained new regard, respect, and passion for what Hurston brought to ethnographic research, to the art of writing about folklore and Southern black life. She modeled the creative impulse in many different and overlapping genres, while always serving as a model for staying true to one's own personal politics in the midst of tremendous racism, sexism, classism, and academic elitism and disciplinary conservatism. Our appreciation for Hurston keeps her alive in our imaginations, and the folklore we share about her and her life is a testament to our continued interest in both her personal and professional life. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A review essay highlights the history of a capella singing in the U.S., considered to be first established at Yale University in 1909. Reviews are presented for sound recordings including the LP (long play) albums "The Whiffenpoofs of 1958," performed by the Yale University Whiffenpoofs, and "Vintage," performed by the University of Pennsylvania Counterparts, as well as the cassette album "Foster Street," performed by the Tufts University Beelzebubs. The use of a capella by rock musicians Billy Joel and James Taylor, and reggae singer Bobby McFerrin, is also considered.

This essay examines children's folklore scholarship from the late nineteenth century to the present, tracing key concepts from the Gilded Age to the contemporary era. These concepts reflect significant social, cultural, political, and scientific changes. From the "savage child" to the "secret-keeping child," the "magic-making child," the "cerebral child," the "taboo-breaking child," the "monstrous child," and others, scholarly representations of young people have close connections to the eras in which they developed. Nineteenth-century children's folklore scholarship relied on evolutionism; now evolutionary biology provides a basis for children's folklore research, so we have re-entered familiar territory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 2000, the goal of my teaching of lgbo cultural heritage in the United States has been to resuscitate suppressed lgbo community traditions and neglected traditional knowledge among educated parents so that they can pass their lgbo culture on to their American-born children. It is for this reason that I have chosen to be called, and have come to be known in Igbo American communities as TICHA, which stands for the Teaching of Igbo Cultural Heritage in America. This article shows howl have been using lessons from my over thirty years' study of Igbo folklore to reacquaint Igbo people in America with Igbo cultural heritage, thereby shaping their preparedness to resuscitate and establish their ethnic community tradition in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Proverbs in political rhetoric help grass-roots efforts to bring about human and social improvements regionally, nationally, and globally. Drawing on the proverbial prowess of such national figures as Abigail and John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Franklin D. Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Barack Obama, and others, this article shows that they employ proverbs based on spatial metaphors or proverbs in general that help to bring into focus the ethics of place that is ever more concerned with global matters. Proverbs as "monumenta humana" are part and parcel of the ongoing struggle toward progress on many social and political fronts in an interconnected world. As traditional and more recent shared wisdom, proverbs play a significant role in relating local and national issues to the global sphere of politics aimed at the equality of all people and their unalienable right for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Save for a number of small additions, this article reproduces the text of my plenary lecture organized by the Folklore Fellows of the American Folklore Society. I delivered the talk on October 23, 2009, in Boise, Idaho, with the theme of this annual national conference having been "Examining the Ethics of Place." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although folklorists have seldom concentrated on politics, folklore thrives among decision-making elites and the politically aware citizenry. One genre is the "policy legend," a traditional text that describes institutions or social conditions, often in a historical frame, to call for governmental or collective action. Even though policy legends are typically transmitted in written form, they change continually, adapting to their political contexts and the concerns of their communicators and audiences. They frequently take the form of lists, which we call folklists, and survive through autopoiesis, the propensity of a system to repair and maintain its internal elements and boundaries. This article analyzes three policy legends: the list of historical statistics on the prevalence of war, then-and-now lists of the worst school discipline problems, and an alleged, wordy federal regulation on the price of cabbages. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many generations, the Dance of the Cúrpites has been performed annually at Epiphany by young, unmarried men in the Purépecha (Tarascan) town of San Juan Nuevo Parangaricutiro, in the Mexican state of Michoacán. Ethnographic data suggest that the dance is an abstract representation of the biblical visit of the Magi, the underlying metaphor of which the dancers enact in order to express their masculinity and court their sweethearts. Examining possible reasons for the failure of the many dancers who are migrant workers to recreate the dance in California, the author contends that the context-specific meanings of the dance do not easily translate abroad. Nevertheless, upon returning home, young migrants embrace the dance as a way to reaffirm their membership in the community, thereby resolving, if only briefly, the ambiguities of their transnational lives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dance has long played an important role in the construction of Latin American national identities, and growing interest in the body as a focus of research has created a new impetus for dance ethnology. Nevertheless, academia in the United States as well as in many other countries has been slow to accept dance studies, in spite of the important roles that dance has played in the early development of the disciplines of anthropology and ethnomusicology. This introduction discusses the history of dance in the fields of folklore and ethnomusicology and then considers the contributions of this special issue of the Journal of American Foildore to debates about transnationalism, globalization, changing ethnic identities, and gender roles. Conflict between insider and outsider perspectives on such issues can be partially resolved, it is suggested, through participatory or reflexive methods. Dance ethnography is thus shown to be an essential tool for the study of changing social realities in Latin America today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite recent calls for establishing a paremiological minimum for the United States, there has been little systematic empirical attention devoted to the issue of pro verb familiarity in this country or to the possibility that geographic differences might preclude establishing a single paremiological minimum that would be equally representative of proverb familiarity in diverse regions around the country. This article reviews the call for establishing a paremiological minimum for the United States and the relevant efforts to date. The article then summarizes the results of a study of proverb familiarity among college students in four different regions of the United States, presenting results from both a proverb familiarity rating task and a proverb generation task. These data make it possible to determine the relative familiarity of several hundred proverbs and to assess the possibility that familiarity with these proverbs varies across regions. The success of this approach is evidence that this type of nomothetic and quantitative analysis of folkloric material can be a useful complement to performance-oriented research. For example, the results suggest some limits to the verisimilitude of people's intuitions as to the currency and familiarity of proverbial texts, as proverbs often listed as "common" were sometimes shown to be relatively unfamiliar (at least to contemporary college students). Further, although statistical analyses of the data did reveal that there may be some difference in absolute levels of familiarity across regions, it was also clear that the relative familiarity of various proverbs nonetheless shows strong stability from one region to another. In general, then, the data presented here provide clear evidence that proverbs familiar in one region of the United States can generally be expected to be familiar in other regions as well; this finding suggests that a truly national paremiological minimum may well be achievable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article reviews the cultural exhibition titled "Kentucky by Design: The Decorative Arts and American Culture" at the Frazier History Museum in Louisville, Kentucky form August 4, 2016 through February 12, 2017.