Reading assignment for Monday, September 24, when we will have a guest presentation by Lisette Ordorica Lasater, a Ph.D. student at UC Riverside. Your reply (under Comments) is due before class. You do not need to answer these specific questions, but response should demonstrate you’ve done the reading and thought about the text.
Be sure to check and make sure your response posts.
Alvarez, Julia. Once Upon a Quinceañera: Coming of Age in the USA. New York: Viking. 2007. 59-82
Cantú, Norma. La Quiñceanara: Towards an Ethnographic Analysis of a Life-Cycle Ritual.
Davalos, Karen Mary. “La Quinceañera”: Making Gender and Ethnic Identities. Frontiers: A Journal of Women’s Studies, 16: 1996, 101-127.
Palacios, Monica. “The Dress Was Too Itchy.” Fifteen Candles: 15 Tales of Taffeta, Hairspray, Drunk Uncles and Other Quinceañera Stories. Ed. Adriana Lopez. New York: HarperCollins 2007.
Watch: La Quinceanera: A Coming of Age Ritual in Latino Communities
Readings are in the protected readings page.
Have you been to a quinceañera — if yes, what was it like? Would you have one for a daughter? A son? What do you think of the quince as a coming of age ritual? How does it compare to the coming of age experiences of Moraga and Cisneros?
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Photo Credit: from the photo stream of justplainhope
I have been to my fair share of quincenearas. I was a chamberlán for one as well. The chamberlan is one of the the member of the “court.” All the ones that I went to were different and had a very large range variability. The similarities they all shared were the mass, nice dress and crown. Some had courts with the dance performance others did not. some were in halls and some were in backyards. Some were extravagant to the extreme like a wedding(even more extravagant then some weddings) and some were more modest and humble.
The quinceanera is a coming of age ritual. It is a ritual and tradition that plays an important role in transitioning Latina women into young womanhood. This is a dual transition, it is a transition into young womanhood and being a chicana. The importance of this ritual seems apparent in the article by Norma Cantus because she mentions that Sandra Cisneros had a quinceanera in 1992 for her 38th birthday. The ceremony has another duality in that it is integrating latino and American tradition as Karen Davalos describes.
This dual transition realates to Moragas dual transition being a chicana as well as a Lesbian. All of these coming of age stories are not just about being a chicana. There is always more yet to all of them it is important to hold on to their chicana traditions and culture.
There Are issues with Quinceaneras that have risen. There is a danger of the special tradition to lose its true meaning and purpose when parents go into debt for the event. It is perfectly fine for families that have different monetary ability. They have different scales of quinceaneras but if you cannot afford it you cannot afford it. I have been to beautiful touching quinceneras that were in backyards and in halls. I also see parents make it more about themselves then their daughter, a lot of them just want to show off.
“The future is ours and we know it. Meanwhile the present needs to be lived through and paid for.” (Alvarez 70)
It is very interesting how Cisneros had a Quiceanera at 38, but we can understand why. This coming of age ritual is about becoming a woman and coming out to the world and being accepted as a woman. Not only in society, but also to the Catholic religion. It is an acceptance of maturing. We can have many thoughts of why Cisneros’ would have hers so late in her life, but the meaning of it is clear.
Before starting the reading for this week, I thought that quinceañeras would be a completely different type of coming of age compared to those we have already read about, but I do think that there are some similarities between this type of coming of age and that of Moraga and Cisneros. The authors we read this week, mostly the work of Norma Cantú and Karen Mary Davalos, articulate the quinceañera as this site of opposition. This is an interesting point to make considering how I first thought of the quinceañeras before I began reading; my experience with them. Just the way Alvarez describes the expo she attends in a really vivid way “the fancy dresses, the pink balloons, the wedding-cake-sized cakes, the last dolls encased in plastic, the fluffy pillows with straps for securing the heels” is how I was first imaging this week’s reading(Alvarez, 59). But Cantú and Davalos do quite a bit to change my mind about what a quince is really about.
When I first began reading the work of Dr. Davalos I thought that she was going to argue that quinceañeras are almost oppressive. She touches on that point, but takes her argument so much further. She writes that the women participating in the quinceañeras are “active agents, not just exploited and oppressed victims” (Davalos, 103). She bases her study quite a bit on the religious aspect of the quinceañera, so she is referring to the women being oppressed by the church in terms of the quote. If understood correctly, quinceañeras are used as means of social control by the church to replicate their ideas of morality, heteronormativity etc. But because quinceañeras are an evolving tradition those that participate in them never allow themselves to be contained in that way. Cantú argues for something similar. She writes that quinceañeras are the sites where “we resist and often succumb to the colonizing power”(1).
So in terms of being related to Moraga’s and Cisneros’ coming of age, well I see them as very similar. I see each of these women wanting to define their own coming of age, in terms of defining their own cultural identity, sexuality, or maturity, and it seems that the quinceañeras is a way to do that. As the authors point out, these traditions are fluid, everyone’s coming of age is different. It could be through the quinceañera or through writing or through a social encounter. It is about choice and that has a lot of feminist undertones to it.
I was only asked to be a dama for a quinceañera once, and for that I am grateful. The girl’s quinceañera was all about “the fancy dresses, the pink balloons, the wedding-cake-sized cakes, the last dolls encased in plastic, [and] the fluffy pillows with straps for securing the heels (Alvarez 59).” I remember the day we had to get fitted for the dresses. I hated it. There were four damas, and we were significantly different in heights, weights, and body types. The same dress couldn’t possibly look good on all four of us, and it didn’t. I didn’t like how my hair was stylized and I had never worn that much make up before – I felt like a clown, and I felt as if I was being mocked as several cameras flashed before me during the photo shoot. My dance partner was a couple of years younger than me, a few inches shorter, and I had to take the lead because he was just learning how to dance. It must have looked great on video, right? I never complained because I understood that this quinceañera was not about me. I am Monica Palacios, almost.
I remember going into the bathroom at school one morning to find the girl crying in one of the stalls. A few months – six, maybe – had passed since the quinceañera but we still remained great friends. I asked her what was wrong and she began telling me of the situation she was facing at home: her father was recently laid off, her parents were constantly arguing, and their arguments grew increasingly violent. She had to shelter this from her two younger siblings, and it was beginning to overwhelm her. I went home and shared this with my mother, and do you know what she said to me? “You’ll never believe me, but this is all because of the quinceañera. They spent so much money on impulse but they didn’t stop to think how this would affect them in the future. Now they’re dealing with the consequences, and the frustration is putting a strain in their marriage.” Alvarez discusses a similar idea in Money vs Dinero.
Coming of age rituals are known internationally. Families give their children the best they can to introduce them to society and religious beliefs as adults. The meaning of the events have not change, it continues to be an introduction of a boy or a girl into this world as an adult. Reading the articles has made my vague perspective of a Quiceneara clearer. In the Latino community, I knew it was a party held for a girl turning 15. I was never really familiar with the meaning of the event as I never had one, nor did I know of a person who had one.
I have yet to be invited to such an event. It is great that a girl get to have such an elaborate party to celebrate her coming of age, however American consumerisms has changed the way this ritual is being celebrated. In Alvarez’ article we read about families overspending, not having a budget and already in financial trouble (63). The article continues with people throwing out their houses out of the window regardless of the fact that Hispanics live below the poverty line and are impoverished (65).
Alvarez article also gives a great example of how the tradition has changed as generations grow up with different culture upbringings. “When Abuelita is no longer a resource” mentions of how second generations want to be all American and some do not speak Spanish and are not familiar with the cultures. The third generation has a Hispanic heritage that makes them unique and they want to learn Spanish (69-70).
Being aware of this, I can see that this ritual, as meaningful as it is, it has gotten contorted. American consumerism has affected the true meaning of this event. This is not an event in which families have to undergo stress or financial troubles.
Though I am a woman of Mexican decent I have only been to one quinceañera in my life. The family was Colombian and my dad knew the birthday girls dad through business. Like most people, my dad and I hadn’t attended the mass before the reception, we went for the food and the party. I can remember Sofia, the birthday girl, in a big bright blue dress that made her looks like Cinderella. She performed a “dance” where she swayed around the ballroom accompanied by a chambelan. She also sang a song while baby pictures of her were displayed on the projector behind her. I thought it was all ridiculous. An excuse for attention and a grandiose party.
To be honest, I had no idea what the quinceañera was all about until these reading. I knew that it was a coming of age ritual in Latin tradition, but I was unaware that it had to do with staying a virgin and offering this fifteen year old girl up to God until marriage. I would say now that I associate most with Palacios character in “The Dress Was Too Itchy” on this subject. In my experience with Chicano culture and quinceañeras I believe that us Latinos often have the tendency to go over the top. We want others to know we’re not “nacos” and that we can have the American Dream of economic prosperity and still keep our culture and values. However, the truth is we can’t quite do that. As was described in the Alvarez reading “Once Upon a Quinceañera”, these parties are often putting working class families in debt. It has become tradition to throw these parties and spend tons of money, and as a byproduct the meaning of the ceremony is often lost.
American culture is also much more secular and materialistic than that of the Latin American countries. The church ceremony before the reception is scarcely attended by non family members and even then it is seen as an obligatory part of the whole shebang. The coming of age lesson is lost. This can be seen in Davalos’s writing when she interviews Victoria about what exactly a quinceañera is to which she can find no real reply. As Chicanas we are both American and Mexican and we have deep roots in both cultures, however, they are difficult to reconcile in many ways. The new breed of sweet 16 type of quinceañeras has been culturally created but the mashing up of these traditions and so the significance of the ceremony is vague to many.
Quinceañeras are more about “tradition” than transition. These parties focus on the dress, the hair, the church, the reception hall, but what about the girl? Is she mature enough to actually be considered a woman at the mere age of 15? I know I wasn’t. The day after I turned 15 I didn’t all of a sudden take on more responsibilities and have to beat boys down with a stick to stay chaste. I was changing, yes, but it didn’t start or stop on my fifteenth birthday.