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Quinceañeras come in new flavors now
By Claudia Kolker

As the mariachis played “Las Mañanitas” the middle-aged women adjusted their tiaras and elbowed toward the door. But the Houston auditorium was already full. The doors swung shut, and several of the hopeful party girls were left outside. It was the “Quinceañera You Were Too Poor to Have,” and despite the cheeky title and costume-wearing audience, the gathering showed an enduring sentiment. Quinceañeras, for many Latinas, still matter. The way they’re celebrated, though, is undergoing startling changes.

A fusion of Aztec adulthood rite and Spanish religious pageant, “quince” parties are held throughout Latin America when girls turn 15 years old. Festivities traditionally include a Mass, a lavish party, and for the quince girl, a confectionary pink gown – a look more daddy’s girl than debutante, more fairy queen than femme fatale. In traditional societies, the spectacle announced to the community the girl had become a woman – ready both for marriage and adult responsibility.

Even in the modern world, however, not having a quince can pinch a Latina’s heart. It was this wistfulness that prompted Houston writer Gwendolyn Zepeda to play host to that crowded quince/reading in 2003. Celebrating her first book, 32-year-old Zepeda wanted at least some of the festivity she’d missed as a girl. Urging guests to dress in frills and sequins, she opened up the microphone for readings about adolescence, womanhood and hard times. The happening was tongue-in-cheek – and yet so eagerly attended that guests had to be locked out.

“It was about art fueled by deprivation,” Zepeda reflects of her adult quince’s popularity. “I think Latina culture puts a lot or pressure on young women. Quinceañeras are an acknowledgment of that fact. Everyone in the community thanks you for being a woman.”

Despite the enveloping effects of U.S. culture, quinceañeras thrive here. Their growing popularity even has started to alter their character. This year, when some 400,000 Latinas in this country turn 15, a rapidly-expanding industry waits to attend them.

In one of the most telling developments, quince girls have their own magazine. That’s a key milestone for a social movement – indicating enough readers and advertisers to sustain a publication, says Luis Salinas, a University of Houston sociologist who studies quinces. And while quince girls once shopped at ordinary bridal stores, they now frequent specialized boutiques, wedged in strip malls next to Office Max and Applebee’s. Accoutrements such as limousines and set designers have become standard. At the two Houston schools Salinas studied, working-class and middle-class families spent an average of about $10,000 per quinceañera.

In one of the most telling developments, quince girls have their own magazine. That’s a key milestone for a social movement – indicating enough readers and advertisers to sustain a publication, says Luis Salinas, a University of Houston sociologist who studies quinces. And while quince girls once shopped at ordinary bridal stores, they now frequent specialized boutiques, wedged in strip malls next to Office Max and Applebee’s. Accoutrements such as limousines and set designers have become standard. At the two Houston schools Salinas studied, working-class and middle-class families spent an average of about $10,000 per quinceañera.

Quinceañeras now draw teens for reasons far removed from the event's original purpose. That’s dispiriting to some. While quinces once centered on the church, for instance, some teenagers drop the Mass altogether. Writer Zepeda, who until recently maintained a quince website, says many girls still see quinces as a rite of passage. But it’s a passage to adult consumption habits, she says, not responsibility.

“I hate to sound like a grumpy old woman,” Zepeda says. “But a lot of the letters I got seemed to be more about materialism, more like Bridezilla: ‘How beautiful can I look and how much attention can I get?’ ”

Girls routinely wrote Zepeda letters about gang-themed quinces featuring bandannas, or “ghetto” quinces with brand-new Nikes and sports jerseys. The saddest e-mails, Zepeda says, came from pregnant girls unsure whether they should tell their parents before the quince happened. Other girls would write back the website, advising them to keep silent so they could savor one last party.

Yet quinceañeras also have gained some surprising substance. In an industrialized society, turning 15 doesn’t hold the same importance that it does in agricultural societies with shorter life expectancies. But in the United States, quinceañeras have become a cherished way to transmit Latino culture. As a custom, quinces are surprisingly durable, fading in popularity only with the fourth generation.

With first-, second- and third-generation Latinas still celebrating, quince culture is spreading. In a recent study of Houston public schools, non-Latina students reported they envy – and occasionally emulate – their quinceañera-holding classmates.

But the fastest-growing group of quince converts is young boys. More and more parents are lavishing their sons with parties, limousines, speeches – everything except the dress.

“Our business is about 50-50,” says Eric Chaney, who takes reservations for AAdvantage limousine service in Denver. “There’s not much difference in what they want. The quinceañero boys reserve the same things as the girls do – our SUVs.”

Old-schoolers such as Zepeda find this trend appalling. It seems, she says, a stripping of the quince’s essence – that bittersweet acknowledgement of what Latinas must endure after their one shining day.

But the new generation of quince boys also reflects changing assumptions about Latinas. Critics of the quince custom – and even fans – often complain about the huge expenditures some families make on gowns and bands without saving a penny for their daughters’ education. In some places, however, this is slowly changing.

One Houston girl, sociologist Salinas says, financed her whole quince – and raised money in the process for her first year of college. She managed it by asking relatives and local businesses to be cash sponsors, a variation on the quince tradition in which friends are padrinos of items such as cakes and decorations. “She raised a lot – more than $15,000,” Salinas says.

“One of the main qualifications is their grades and future goals,” says Special Moments boutique owner Susan Pérez, who dreamed up the project. “I have done quinceañera planning for close to 15 years, and what I have seen is a lot of emphasis on the party ... and a lot of the girls married at the age of 18.”

All 16 girls will go to a kind of 21st-century finishing school, where one month they'll learn financial management, another they’ll learn etiquette and another they’ll practice writing their résumés.

The idea, Pérez says, is to redefine the quinceañera. Making womanhood synonymous with education, this new vision of a quince melds a girl’s old-fashioned rite of passage with a modern ritual that unlocks doors for women.

Claudia Kolker is an editorial writer for the Houston Chronicle. She was previously the Houston bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times. Kolker has lived and reported from Mexico and Central America, and written extensively about immigrant life in the United States.

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www.gwenworld.com by Gwendolyn Zepeda, author and creator of the adult quince artists’ gathering of “The Quinceañera You Were Too Poor to Have”