Once Upon a Quinceanera: Coming of Age in the USA

The bestselling author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents explores the phenomenon of the Latina "sweet fifteen" celebration

The quinceañera, the fifteenth birthday celebration for a Latina girl, is quickly becoming an American event. This legendary party is a sight to behold: lavish ball gowns, extravagant catered meals, DJs, limousines, and multi-tiered cakes. The must haves for a "quince" are becoming as numerous and costly as a prom or wedding. And yet, this elaborate ritual also hearkens back to traditions from native countries and communities, offering young Latinas a chance to connect with their heritage.

In Once Upon a Quinceañera, Julia Alvarez explores this celebration that brings a Latina girl into womanhood. She attends the quince of a young woman named "Monica" who lives in Queens, and witnesses the commotion, confusion, and potential for disaster that comes with planning this important event. Alvarez also weaves in interviews with other quince girls, her own memories of coming of age as an immigrant, and the history of the custom itself — how it originated and what has changed as Latinas become accustomed to a supersize American culture. Once Upon a Quinceañera is an enlightening, accessible, and entertaining portrait of contemporary Latino culture as well as a critical look at the rituals of coming of age and the economic and social consequences of the quince parties. Julia Alvarez's dedicated fans will be eager to hear her thoughts on this topic. It is a great book for anyone interested in American youth today — parents, teachers, and teenagers themselves.

"Skillfully blending memoir and social science, Alvarez (How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents) explores the quinceaera, the coming-of-age ceremony for Latinas turning 15. She spent a year researching and attending "quince" celebrations, finding out what rituals are favored and what they mean to the girls. She researched what the gowns and photo sessions cost. She interviewed people working in the "quince" industry, from party planners to cake bakers. After all, with more than 400,000 American Latinas turning 15 every year, and with the average quinceaera costing $5,000, the financial, if not the cultural importance of the "quince" should not be underestimated. Alvarez structures her book around one particular girl's ceremony, from the dreamy planning stages through the late hours of the actual, dizzying affair. By intercutting the party narrative with stories from her own youth, Alvarez reminds herself — and readers — that at some point we were all confused, histrionic adolescents. Both sympathetic and critical, she doesn't dismiss the event as a waste of hard-earned savings or as a mere display of daughters for the marriage market; nor does she endorse it as the essential cultural tradition connecting Latinas to their roots. Instead, Alvarez wants readers to focus on creating positive, meaningful rites of passage for the younger generation." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"'Skillfully blending memoir and social science, Alvarez (How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents) explores the quinceaera, the coming-of-age ceremony for Latinas turning 15. She spent a year researching and attending 'quince' celebrations, finding out what rituals are favored and what they mean to the girls. She researched what the gowns and photo sessions cost. She interviewed people working in the 'quince' industry, from party planners to cake bakers. After all, with more than 400,000 American Latinas turning 15 every year, and with the average quinceaera costing $5,000, the financial, if not the cultural importance of the 'quince' should not be underestimated. Alvarez structures her book around one particular girl's ceremony, from the dreamy planning stages through the late hours of the actual, dizzying affair. By intercutting the party narrative with stories from her own youth, Alvarez reminds herself — and readers — that at some point we were all confused, histrionic adolescents. Both sympathetic and critical, she doesn't dismiss the event as a waste of hard-earned savings or as a mere display of daughters for the marriage market; nor does she endorse it as the essential cultural tradition connecting Latinas to their roots. Instead, Alvarez wants readers to focus on creating positive, meaningful rites of passage for the younger generation.' Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)"

"Being 'muy Latina,' I came up with a quinceanera plan a few months before turning 15. I picked an elegant five-tier pink-and-white cake, a pretty-as-a-princess dress and the music to which I'd walk out on the dance floor, the supersweet 'Tiempo de Vals' by Puerto Rican heartthrob Chayanne. I added up the names of my closest friends — and some not so close — until I had 14 chambelanes... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) and 14 damas for my imaginary quinces party.

I didn't ever get that big fiesta, but my dream plan — which I am sure is shared by many other girls of Latin heritage — was my way of saying, hey, this tradition is mine!

In 'Once Upon a Quinceanera,' a fascinating, exhaustively researched book about the celebration of a girl's coming of age, best-selling novelist Julia Alvarez, author of 'How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accent' and 'In the Time of the Butterflies,' studies the ancient ritual that unites the U.S. Latino community and is rapidly evolving and spreading across ethnic lines.

The quinceanera party, with its throng of family and friends, shines a happy light on the 15-year-old Latina as she moves from childhood to womanhood. The obligatory ingredients — a family's nostalgic memories of her growing up, a priest's blessing, the 'court' of friends in tuxedos and gowns, the opening dance with her father — immerses a Latina girl in the fantasy that she is a princess, if only for one day. The ritual announces she is now old enough to shave her legs, wear makeup and heels and begin life as full-fledged woman.

Alvarez focuses on the quinceanera of Monica Ramos, a Dominican-American who lives in an apartment in Queens, N.Y., just miles from where Alvarez spent her adolescence. Monica's fiesta is far from perfect. The parents arrive late, the limousine driver gets lost in the neighborhood, Monica almost misses the church blessing, the photographer cancels at the last minute and then shows up with what seems to be a prehistoric camera.

Every chaotic moment, every misstep and catastrophe makes the event even more special to Ramos and her family, and prompts Alvarez to remember her own coming of age. Between chapters, sometimes to disorienting effect, she narrates her experience growing up in the 1960s 'in a USA just beginning to wake up to its own identity as a multicultural country with women and minorities demanding equal rights.' Alvarez's family was the only Dominican household in the barrio, and as she tried to learn a new language and adjust to the American way of life, she studiously avoided most of the traditions that connected her with her latinidad. She didn't have a quinceanera.

Now, she finds that with a growing Latino population in the United States, this tradition has a strong positive aspect: It binds Hispanics together. You might be Honduran, but you can hire Andean flutes, have a full court of 14 chambelanes and damas — believed to be a Mexican practice — and follow the Puerto Rican tradition of changing from flat shoes to heels. Some girls, including Monica, are now combining the Latino ritual with the Sweet 16 parties common in the United States.

Despite numerous interviews with experts and citations to nearly every book and article she could dig up about quinceaneras, Alvarez doesn't quite come to a conclusion about the tradition. On the one hand, she points out that it has become part of American consumer culture. The parties can be far too expensive — costing more that $5,000 in some cases. 'It is outrageous to throw the house out the window for a one-night party. Money that could well be spent by a working-class family on education or mortgage payments.' Her question is: Is it necessary to spend so much money to keep a tradition alive? Or worthwhile? It's not an irrelevant concern, given the statistics Alvarez cites, showing that young Latinas 'are topping the charts for all sorts of at-risk behaviors: from teen pregnancy to substance abuse to dropping out of high school. What is going on? We are crowning them princesses and meanwhile the statistics are showing a large number of our young girls headed for poverty and failure!'

Even so, says Alvarez, the quinceanera is an opportunity to bring together mothers and daughters, females of a whole family — sometimes an entire community. When the quinceanera's court rehearses the waltz and the family gathers in the kitchen to prepare the food for the party, there's a feeling of belonging. 'That oneness, that empowering feeling of being a part of an ongoing transmission,' says Alvarez, 'is what the tradition ritualizes, why quinceaneras are not just about the girls but about community, why they can enrich all of us.' And that, of course, is the point.

Luz Lazo is a reporter for the Spanish-language weekly newspaper El Tiempo Latino, owned by the Washington Post Company.

" Reviewed by Luz Lazo, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group)
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The bestselling author of "How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents" explores the phenomenon of the Latina sweet 15 celebration. An enlightening and entertaining portrait of contemporary Latino culture, this title also takes a critical look at the social consequences of the quince parties.

Julia Alvarez is the author of five books of fiction, a book of essays, five collections of poetry, and five books for children. She and her husband, Bill Eichner, founded Alta Gracia, a sustainable farm in the Dominican Republic that produces organic coffee and also serves as a literacy center. She is a writer-in-residence at Middlebury College.