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When visitors enter the quinceañera exhibit at the Yakima Valley Museum, the first thing they see is a pair of seafoam-green Converse high-tops with flashy, graffiti-style lettering on the side that reads “mis quince” — “my 15th” in English. “This is Yakima right here,” said Yesenia Navarrete Hunter, a professor at Heritage University in Toppenish, Washington, who worked on the exhibit. During a traditional quinceañera, the cumplimentada,or birthday girl, exchanges her everyday shoes for high heels, signaling her transition to womanhood. Nalya Marquez, Navarrete Hunter’s niece, used the high-tops as her “everyday shoes” at her quinceañera in 2017.
Navarrete Hunter grew up in the Yakima Valley, an agricultural area in central Washington where Latinos have worked, lived and settled since the 1930s. The region’s Latino population is still growing, and Navarrete Hunter, who studies Latino cultural history, is interested in how different generations cultivate a sense of place by celebrating traditions like the quinceañera.
Throughout Latin America, quinceañeras are typically held on a girl’s 15th birthday and usually consist of a Mass at a Catholic church followed by a lavish celebration. The exact origins of the quinceañera are unclear, but it is thought to have started in Mexico, and some scholars think it has roots in Aztec and Mayan coming-of-age ceremonies. Navarrete Hunter found little evidence of specifically Indigenous origins during her research, though young people in many cultures go through a rite of passage around the age of 15. What is certain is that the tradition is influenced by Spanish and French colonial practices, and has always carried their patriarchal, heteronormative and cisnormative baggage. That is beginning to change, however.
While the celebration used to signal a young woman’s readiness for marriage, that’s “definitely not the message we give out anymore,” said Ashley Zarco, a Heritage University student who helped put together the exhibit.
The tradition is influenced by Spanish and French colonial practices, and has always carried their patriarchal, heteronormative and cisnormative baggage. That is beginning to change, however.
Marquez loaned the museum not only her sneakers but her dress, a shimmering green ballgown with a cascading ruffle skirt that resembles breaking waves. Fourteen other women contributed quinceañera memorabilia to the exhibit, which features a rainbow of jewel-encrusted gowns ranging from the 1970s to the 2020s and an assortment of shoes, rosaries, invitations, bouquets and other ceremonial keepsakes. Through these objects and their stories, the exhibit shows how quinceañeras in the Yakima Valley have not only evolved but been reinvented by young Latinas seeking to express themselves and find their own sense of place.
The earliest photo in the exhibit, taken in 1967, shows three young women in simple empire-waist gowns celebrating in front of a wooden house. At the time, most migrant workers in the valley lived in temporary housing, in what Navarrete Hunter described as “impermanent, fragile” structures. Familiar cultural traditions, like the quinceañera, gave migrant families a sense of belonging in a new, unfamiliar place. But as the valley’s Latino population grew and became more established, quinceañeras began to skirt convention. “At some point in the last 30-40 years, young women really started taking charge,” Navarrete Hunter said.
Madeline Alvizo Ramirez, an artist and substitute teacher based in the Yakima Valley, remembers that for her quinceañera in the 1990s, her tailor altered her dress so that it was more modest than she wanted. But that didn’t stop Alvizo from subverting traditional norms: She paid for her own cake by picking asparagus that summer, and on the day of the celebration, teased out her hair and drew in pencil-thin eyebrows, embracing the chola aesthetic popular at the time. “It was a gangster quinceañera,” she said, laughing. “All my homegirls were there.”
Religion is still an important part of many quinceañeras, but now, some young women choose to distance themselves from that aspect or even skip straight to the celebration. The celebration is changing as well, Navarrete Hunter said, with single mothers or grandmothers filling the paternal role in traditions like the father-daughter waltz and the changing of the shoes. “There are a lot of ways to decenter the patriarchy in a quinceañera,” she said.
Throughout the Americas, young people are subverting the quinceañera in other ways. Queer and transgender individuals are adapting stereotypically feminine quinceañera traditions, and variations such as the cincuentañera, a celebration for women turning 50, are increasingly common.
Ruby Gutiérrez, a recent high school graduate who had her quinceañera in 2022, chose to have only boys, or chambelanes, in her court of honor, which typically includes both young men and women. Her dress was unique as well, with LEDs sewn into its fabric so that she literally lit up the room. “It was really whatever she wanted,” said Rosa Gutiérrez, Ruby’s mother. “That was the main goal, for her to enjoy the day.”
While most quinceañeras still feature traditional foods and dances, they may represent multiple or blended cultures. Gutiérrez and her guests danced to live music in three different Mexican genres: Banda, Norteño and Mariachi. Some young women perform traditional dances to reggaeton or pop songs. The “surprise” dance, during which the cumplimentada appears in a new outfit, plays a different genre of music or makes an abrupt entrance, might be a country-western line dance or a routine inspired by TikTok.
“It was a gangster quinceañera. All my homegirls were there.”
Quinceañeras remain a way for a girl’s family to show their love and support, said Diana Aparicio, an event planner who attends them on a weekly basis. She recalled that her mother worked extra hours picking apples and pears to pay for hers. Other women shared similar stories about how hard their farmworker families worked to throw them a quinceañera. It’s also typical for aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents to contribute to the event in small and large ways. Families “demonstrate their love by putting all this together for you,” she said.
All the women I spoke to talked about their quinceañera’s importance, not just to them or their families but to their communities. The celebration strengthened their community bonds, they said. Alvizo Ramirez was the only one in her group of friends who had a quinceañera — they are, after all, elaborate and often expensive, and not everyone can afford them. But it meant a lot to her friends to be able to participate, she said. “I was really honored to get that experience,” Alvizo Ramirez said. “I recognize the value that it brought to my community.”
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This article appeared in the November 2024 print edition of the magazine with the headline “Stepping out in high-tops.”
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