Quinceanera

A quinceanera, also called a fiesta de quince anos, is the Spanish tradition of celebrating a young girls coming of age on her fifteen birthday. This constitutes a ceremony on a girls fifteen birthday to mark her passage of womanhood, presenting to the community a young woman. The history of quinceaneras dates back to the Aztecs as early as 500 B.C. The word is made up of two parts with quince meaning fifteen and anera which is the derivative of anos meaning year. Traditionally, in order for boys to meet their father’s expectations they became warriors. For girls it was a different story. It was a time in their life when they transitioned from a child to a woman and presented this transition to the communiy.. The Spanish conquering the Aztecs

brought along this new custom. Young woman at the age of fifteen were now faced to choose between a life of marriage and a life dedicated to God. Therefore, they used quinceaneras to present a woman to society. Fifteen-year-old girls were considered women and were given the instruction and responsibility of adulthood. Although this is a significant right of passage, it is also an enormous honor looked forward to with pride and happiness. Every other birthday, came and went without major celebration, but throughout the history of quinceanera this special fifteen year old birthday has been filled with tradition.
The modern quinceanera usually starts preparing for this event about a year before.

She has to pick her dress, her theme, the church, the damas, the chambelanes, the padrinos, and many other details to make the day perfect. The celebration of the quinceanera began with a church service, or mass, to thank God for all the blessing he has given to her throughout the year and to let her live many more. The quinceanera has five padrinos for the church and they present her with gifts. The first gave her a medal which symbolizes her promotion of faith. Another gave her a rosary which represents instruction and reflection. The third padrino gave her a ring to show the commitment to follow God’s path. She also received a crown which represents honor and responsibility. The last gift was a bouquet of artificial flowers arranged to represent new life. The young quinceanera is usually accompanied by a close group of friends called damas and chambelanes or men and maids of honor. This honor court consisted of fourteen damas and fifteen chambelanes, including the honor chambelane which was her brother, but could have also been a boy she likes. These were the quinceanera friends, cousins, brothers, and sisters. Everyone is dressed formally, and the scene closely resembles a wedding. The quinceanera wore something that stands her out above the rest, a ball gown with many jewels hanging from her gown. The mass was held in the family church and the ceremony is a reaffirmation of the

baptismal vows made by her parents. Some more important milestones during the church service was the blessing of the gifts, which included a bible and a rosary symbolizing the eternal word of God. There was also the act of consecration to the virgin Mary. This is where the quinceanera takes a bouquet of real flowers, unlike the artificial flowers, and places it at the altar of the virgin Mary as a gift. She then made a quick prayer to the virgin Mary for guidance, strength, and vows to follow in her footsteps as a caring woman. This marks the end of the church service, but not the end of the celebration.
The quinceanera is not over after the mass. The parents of the quinceanera threw a big party to celebrate her fifteen birthday. Traditionally, the quinceanera and her honor chambelane would have rode in a carriage that would take her to the venue, but this time the entire honor court rode in a limousine. The celebration continued at a reception hall filled with decorations with the quinceanera theme to make the celebration look glamourous. I was told the celebration cost around fifteen thousand. At the venue the quinceanera and her honor court practiced several traditional ceremonies at the main entrance which represents her entrance into adulthood, accompanied by her dad and her honor chambelane. The quinceanera and her court sat at a special table, along with her parents, as they continued to celebrate and dine on traditional meals. Traditional Latin American foods present at the event were tacos, tamales, enchiladas, and even the specialty meat dish picadillo. The people present, the honor court, and the parents all made a toast to wish the quinceanera peace in her life, harmony, and joy. The cake was a very important part of the celebration. The cake is a special tradition to the quinceanera celebration. It was decorated with a doll on the top and had a staircase winding up the side with seven dolls lined up on each side, as if the court were climbing up to the top quinceanera doll. The quinceanera fed her parents from the same piece of cake she had.
Once they were done with dinner the dancing began. It all began with special milestones such as the changing of the slippers and the last doll, which both symbolizes her changing into a woman as she leaves her old shoes and past life as a girl. During the changing of the slippers the parents of the quinceanera changed her flat shoes to high heels. The doll ceremony had a member of the family give the quinceanera her last doll. This will be her last doll because she is now entering adulthood and will not be playing with dolls anymore. Therefore, she saves her quince doll as a memory. This is then proceeded by a very special father daughter dance symbolizing his recognition as she is now a lady and should be treated as such. Once finished, they moved to the waltz of the quincera and her court. Afterwards, because the quincera is of Mexican culture marchitas were present to celebrate the events accomplished during the special night. The dancing continued with a very special surprise dance that the quincera and her court prepared months in advance to show her ability of dancing. Some like to stick to their original Latin roots, but this dance was a bit more modern to the American culture with its music selection from todays hip hop such as the inclusion of Beyoncé songs. This is an importanct part of the ceremony as traditionally the quinceanera could not dance in public before her fifteenth birthday. Afterwards the party and dacning start, and as part of the Latin culture the DJ invite all of the people to dance the traditional cumbia.
Typically, quincereas are a Mexican tradition, so being from a Puerto Rican culture some of the language used was different than the Spanish I am used to hearing. Although Spanish is spoken in both Mexico and Puerto Rico there are differences in the way the language is used in these two places. Similarly, if we look at the English language we may find that English spoken here in New Jersey is different to that from England. The variations in the way the language is spoken sometimes proves to be a bit of a barrier in communication. These variations include differences in pronunciation and even different words that may translate to the same meaning. Om Wardhaugh’s reading he mentions the importance of communicate competence, which is not only knowledge on how to speak, but understanding the social knowledge of how and when to use utterance appropriately. For example, damas translates to ladies, but another way to say ladies in Spanish is mujeres. To assume that the Mexican Spanish variation of the word ladies is incorrect might have me come off as offensive, yet on the other hand it is only incorrect to me because of the culutural difference. However this is not the case for the entirety of the language as there are many words, like padrinos which means godparents, that translate that same across all variations of the Spanish language. The distinctions are minor, but can cause a dilemma in communication every now and then. Wardhaugh’s reading also states that, “in learning to speak we are also learning to ‘talk,’ in the sense of communicating those ways appropriate to the group in which we are doing that learning”. What this means is that these ways can differ from one group to the next, although there are terms such as Hispanic or Spanish that collectively assume all Latin American groups are the same there are many individual groups and cultures within that category that have their own cultural differences.
The tradition is also celebrated differently depending on the Latin American country.

With a Mexican quinceanera, because the family is Catholic, the celebration started much earlier in the day. The milestones of the last quinceanera doll, the change of shoes, and the waltz are also not included in the Puerto Rican quinceanera. In Wardhaugh’s reading he states, “From a finite experience of speech acts and their interdependence with sociocultural features, they develop a general theory of the speaking appropriate in their community. . . like other forms of tacit cultural knowledge, in conducting and interpreting social life”. In other words, appropriate and inappropriate behavior are variant depending on the culture. To assume all Spanish heritages are the same would be to overgeneralize that everyone from one Latin American culture has the same rituals and traditions as

another.
Attending this quinceanera, with an ethnographic perspective, my objective was to observe the tradition and its relation to behavior, language, and culture. A challenge with ethnographic research, when one’s own culture is quite similar to the one being studied and even when other attendees present are not from the Mexican culture, is that the results of the observation will be so diverse as a result of the multiple perceptions. Replication of the study can also prove to be difficult if not culture specific. Combining my observations with the Speaking model, the most evident discoveries were that of the setting, the scene, the participants, the ends, and the act sequence all in relation to the quinceanera tradition. The setting, the physical circumstance, is the venue, such as the church and the reception hall. The scene, the cultural definition, is that the mass allows for the transition of womanhood to take place in accordance with the appropriate religion and the reception hall allows family and friends to share the moment as a community. The participants vary from family members to the specific roles they may share, such as padrino. The Ends, or the purpose, is for the child to leave behind all child like things and prepare for womanhood. The act sequence, or the order of events, has the church portion of the quinceanera prior to the party portion, to stress the importance of religion to the Mexican culture. Overall, the quinceanera was a wonderful celebration, distinct from any other birthday because it remained true to the custom and values of that culture.