Students tell Latino myths from their childhood

Everyone might still remember some myths that were told by their family or peers during their childhood. Myths sometimes are intriguing or just unbelievable. Whatever the reaction to the myths, they carry traditions and culture. Four Hispanic students shared their childhood myth stories below.

1. Ashley Caceres, architecture major, junior

El Cucuy:

Caceres’s version of the bogeyman is a mysterious shadow creature that lives in the dark, especially under the bed or in the closet, and terrifies children. The story is used by parents to dissuade their children, and was used on Caceres to not misbehave.


2. Erick Portillo, architecture major, freshman

La LIorona:

Possibly the most famous Latin American legend of all time. La LIorona is a poor peasant girl who fell in love with a rich nobleman. The man refused to marry her because they had three children outside of the marriage. LIorona drowned her children in a river and told the man. However, the man still refused her because of the crime and married another girl. LIorona eventually killed herself. She was cursed to wander around the rivers looking for her children for all eternity.


3. Karina Arechiga, speech pathology and audiology major, senior

El Silbon:

The Whistler is a horror character in Venezuelan folklore. The ghost is a black-hearted young man who murdered his father and ate the father’s organs. Silbon wanders the earth, lugging a bag filled with bones of his father.


4. Sandy Amador, speech pathology and audiology major, sophomore

In Amador’s version of El Cucuy, it is a monster that lives under children’s beds. In order to let Amador behave herself when she was little, her mother would say “If you misbehave, El Cucuy will come for you tonight.”

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