JN
Tennessee (via Zoom call)
November 9, 2020
Customary Folklore, Folk Celebration
“New Orleans Sweet Sixteen”
Informant Data:
JN is a high school classmate of the collector and is currently a junior at a university in Tennessee. She grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana and has lived there for all her life. She went to a small K-12 private school in Uptown New Orleans that was generally relatively affluent. JN attended this school from kindergarten until twelfth grade. She was a 10th grader (sophomore in high school) at the time of this folk ritual.
Contextual Data:
This interview was conducted approximately 5 years after the sweet sixteen party occurred. Both the informant and the collector were present for the party, as everyone in the grade at the school was invited to attend. The celebration itself consists of roughly 20-30 honorees—all of the girls in the sophomore class at each private school in the city—and approximately 300-400 guests. The informant reported that all of the girls in her class participated in the celebration.
The sweet sixteen is a typically American phenomenon that is present in media targeted at young adults. It is celebrated by young girls on their sixteenth birthday and represents a coming of age celebration. Within New Orleans culture, there exist already a coming of age for young women—debutante balls, which occur during a woman’s third year of college—so sweet sixteens are somewhat de-emphasized and are organized to celebrate all of the girls in a single class simultaneously. The celebrations are organized and paid for by the moms of the sophomore girls. Dads are typically not involved in planning. Only girls from the local private schools and a few girls from one of the local public schools throw sweet sixteens.
Item:
“The moms who plan the event rent out a large venue to throw a party for the sophomore girls. The event doesn’t celebrate any single birthday, but instead celebrates all of the girls’ sixteenth birthdays.”
“I had already turned 16 my freshman year, and just had a small celebration with family and a few friends.”
During the event, no gifts were exchanged besides a small gift bag for each of the honorees. Each girl had a poster with a picture from their childhood on it. Guests were expected to write kind messages on each poster wishing the girls well, however some guests (typically their teenage boy classmates) would write rude or offensive messages so parents had to be present in order to ensure that the messages were kind and free of profanity. The informant also mentioned a certain social hierarchy that was reinforced by the number of messages on each girl’s poster—the girls who were more popular or who had more friends typically had more messages written on their posters and those with fewer messages typically felt self-conscious.
The informant also mentioned that there was a pressure to drink at the event—in part as a sign of maturity or “coolness.” Parents—typically moms—patrolled the bathrooms to ensure that honorees and attendees refrained from drinking.
Connor Page
12 Webster Ave.
Hanover, NH 03755
Dartmouth College
Russian 13
Fall 2020