Cake, Cars, and Carne Asada?: Celebrating Latina Coming of Age in the Midwest

October 1 ~ 7pm at La Casa

While most American youths mark the advent of popular adulthood by the celebration of their 16th birthdays, Latinas in the U.S. have the choice of also celebrating their quince anos. This presentation explores a traditional Latina rite of passage, the Quinceanera. Most scholars emphasize the most saliently shared elements of the tradition as a gendered coming of age event celebrating a girl's transition from childhood to womanhood in the eyes of her familial and broader cultural community. This talk hopes to bring to the light the ways in which quinceaneras exercise their individuality within the limits of a traditional quinceanera celebration, particularly among underrepresented Latino communities in the Midwest. The goal of this presentation is to bring together multiple voices to discuss personal experiences and reflections on quinceaneras as well as how it comes to express the inherently complex nature of being Latino in the United States. Discussion will be lead by Rachel V. Gonzalez who is a graduate student in the Departments of Folklore & Ethnomusicology and Anthropology at Indiana University. Her primary research focuses on verbal and material arts of Mexico and the performances of gender, resistance, and marginality within Mexican descent communities in the Unites States.