Rituals Die, Others Come of Age : Culture: Life-cycle traditions that have been inherited, adapted or disowned in America are the topic of a Fullerton exhibit.

Barbara Loh wanted to celebrate the birth of her son, Jason, in traditional Chinese fashion. So exactly one month after his birth, she put together a mahn yueh family party. She was, however, willing to take tradition only so far: Snacking on the customary pickled pig knuckles was one thing this new mother couldn’t do.

“My 89-year-old grandmother made up tons of this stuff,” writes Loh, a second-generation Chinese American from New York, in an account of Jason’s birth in 1986. “She said it would build up my health and rid my body of any germs that I might have gotten from (giving) birth. I personally could not stomach the smell nor appreciate her culinary efforts. . . .”

Loh’s use of some ancient Chinese birthing rites--and her rejection of others--illustrates an essential theme underlying Fullerton Museum Center’s new exhibit, opening today, about the ways Americans mark birth, coming of age, marriage and death.

“Rites of Passage in America: Traditions of the Life Cycle,” organized by Philadelphia’s Balch Institute for Ethnic Studies, explores “how all this plays out in American society,” where long-held practices--either indigenous or those brought here by myriad immigrant groups--often are modernized, if not abandoned altogether, says curator Pamela B. Nelson.

“Some families will keep some traditions,” Nelson said, “some will keep others; some won’t keep any, and some will keep them all.”

Items on view include an early 1900s family album, frilly favors from a quinceanera (Spanish for “15th birthday party”), a dazzling, rainbow-colored sari worn by the bride at a Pakistani wedding and a video of the 1983 New Orleans jazz funeral for musician Gate Johnson, during which Johnson’s friends made music and danced exuberantly. Loh’s experience is represented by a photo of her 1-month-old son, her written account and the special outfit he wore for the mahn yueh party.

In general, humans embrace rituals because they help us feel that we’re not mere specks of dust rushing nowhere in the vast siphon of space, said Nelson, now on sabbatical from the Balch Institute.

“The rituals we practice are rituals because they are done over and over through generations,” Nelson said in a recent phone interview from her Philadelphia home. “This links us to our past, our ancestors and to future generations; we become members not only of our contemporary community but of those that have come before and will come after us.

“Also, they convey status,” Nelson said. “As you go through your life, you have these events that let the community know that you have made it from one stage to the next, that you are officially an adult, for example.”

During the first half of this century, first-generation immigrants tended to drop the customs of their homeland, Nelson said.

“There really was a reason to want to Americanize,” she said. “If you wanted to get ahead or even survive, your best bet was to change your name and not look strange or different.”

Second-generation Americans have taken greater interest in cultural traditions, she said. That’s partly as a result of the “ethnic-pride movement,” she said, which conveys “a sense that you can be American and also have an ethnic identity.”

Loh’s parents, for example, had not practiced Chinese birthing traditions, “but her grandmother wanted her to use them, and she in turn was interested in reviving them. She adapted those parts that she felt fit into her lifestyle and her sense of what would be meaningful for her, and pretty much dropped the rest.

“After her child was born, she wasn’t supposed to take showers either,” Nelson said. “There’s a belief that when a woman gives birth, her balance of yin and yang is thrown off. She has too much yin, the female, cold, dark side, and that she needs to therefore eat only warm foods and not get chilled (by bathing). She did take showers, however; she was not willing to forgo that.”

Another instance of revitalization and adaptation of one of the rites least practiced in contemporary U.S. society--coming of age--is Unyago , an “initiation into adulthood” combining old and new that has been developed by some black community and religious groups.

Members of these groups “saw that their children needed a serious opportunity to learn about their past as well as issues that traditional rituals couldn’t cover,” Nelson said. Those modern problems include “sexuality, how to open a bank account and balance checkbooks,” on which classes were given, along with those on black history, during the Unyago observance, “things they felt their children needed to know to be responsible adults.”

The practice of death rites also has greatly diminished in this country, where death mostly takes place in a hospital, rather than at home, with professionals rather than family members handling all aspects of the burial, including preparing and cleansing of the body, Nelson said.

With this “sanitation” of death, she said, came the unfortunate loss of many traditional ways that helped communities, families and individuals cope with death, such as long grieving periods.

“Now there’s an expectation that you’ll be back at work in the next week, like you’re supposed to grin and bear it.”

Still, there are signs, if not yet widespread, that mourning customs are gaining popularity, Nelson said.

After Fullerton Union High School student Angel Gonzalez was killed in a 1992 shooting a few doors away from the Fullerton Museum Center, his friends spray-painted their names on a nearby concrete block wall, much as other Latinos elsewhere in the country paint memorial walls near sites of accidental or violent deaths, said Fullerton Museum Center curator Lynn La Bate.

Eventually the names were painted over, La Bate said, but “it allowed people to acknowledge the event, to grieve and mourn.”

* “Rites of Passage in America: Traditions of the Life Cycle,” opens today at the Fullerton Museum Center, 301 N. Pomona Ave., Fullerton. Through Aug. 14. Museum hours: Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, noon to 4 p.m.; Thursday, noon to 8 p.m. $1.50-$2.50. (714) 738-6545.