Faculty and students create a coming-of-age celebration for young Latinas

The three well-coiffed teenagers in dresses of red, sky blue and peach were right on cue, descending a staircase one by one Saturday as an emcee read each of their names.

The roughly 200 friends and family members in the Muncie event hall applauded as the girls strode onto the dance floor for a string of rituals that would mark their ceremonial arrival at adulthood.

It’s a scene common at poignant and often pricey coming-of-age parties for 15-year-old Latinas across the United States and Latin America. But the quinceanera, provided free to three east central Indiana girls and their families, wouldn’t have happened without a Ball State University professor and several students who built the first-time event from the ground up.

“It’s about how significant a quinceanera is in the lives of not just the female who comes of age but also the family,” said Maria Williams-Hawkins, associate professor of telecommunications, “and what it says about loving your children and showing the world how much you care for your child.”

The 23-year Ball State educator involved her TCOM students, who helped with event preparation and turned on their video recorders to make keepsakes for the girls and interview family members for a possible documentary about the day. Williams-Hawkins also partnered with the Latino Student Union (LSU) for the numerous tasks involved in making the event possible.

LSU President Carlos Mata, a 21-year-old junior majoring in telecommunications, said he had been thinking about putting on a quinceanera for most of his time at Ball State. A conversation he had with Williams-Hawkins, who had similar ambitions, set things in motion.

“I wanted to create an event that brought together the Latino Student Union and the Muncie community to help celebrate Latino traditions,” said Mata, who hopes the event can become an annual celebration.

Their work included finding a priest for the Mass that is traditionally part of the event and securing free or discounted services such as a cake, decorations, catering, an event space at the historic Cornerstone Center for the Arts and security. Funds for these services came from LSU, a small grant from the College of Communication, Information, and Media and other sources.

Yes, it really is a gift

Another challenge was finding girls to participate.

Organizers worked with Muncie Community Schools, spread news about the event through word of mouth and even met with families in their homes. Once there, it was the students’ job to convince family members that an event costing them nothing would be special enough to celebrate their girl’s coming of age.

LSU public relations director and quinceanera organizer Victoria Voelkel, noting the high cost of her own celebration, described her role.

“People were very skeptical,” said Voelkel, a 20-year-old sophomore majoring in hospitality and food management. “They know what a quinceanera is. They know what this is all about, so they’re like, ‘How are you doing this for free?’ ”

One mother they convinced was all smiles during a dance rehearsal at Cornerstone two days before the big event. Ana Vazquez of Yorktown sat at a table as a choreographer ran her daughter Alicia and the other two girls — along with several of the girls’ young friends and family members — through a series of dance moves for the big day.

Speaking through a translator, the native of Mexico said the fact that she went without a quinceanera made her especially grateful to organizers for her 14-year-old daughter’s opportunity.

Alicia, her mother said, showed her excitement by practicing her dancing at home and at a nearby park.

Pageantry of a wedding

The quinceanera’s origins trace back centuries, possibly to rite-of-passage customs in Aztec and Mayan cultures. The word “quinceanera” — derived from the Spanish word for the number 15, “quince” (pronounced “KEEN-say”) — can alternately refer to the celebration or the girl being honored. In modern times, particularly in the United States, the parties can be as lavish as a wedding and cost thousands of dollars.

Crista Tharp, CEO of Kokomo-based Blissfully Simple Events, said the eight or so quinceaneras she has coordinated during the past dozen years have included 300 to 400 people and cost an average of roughly $6,000.

“So if you think of a wedding, that’s how people are planning these.”

Saturday’s celebration reflected several traditions common to the quinceanera. The three girls and a dozen friends and young relatives, collectively referred to as a "quinceanera court," performed the dance they had spent time rehearsing.

Then came a series of family-centered moments focused on a girl’s coming of age: the presentation of a tiara, a pair of high-heeled shoes and a “last doll,” as well as a slow dance typically involving a girl and her father.

The evening’s backdrop was on par with its pageantry.

Cornerstone is a six-story former Masonic Temple built in 1926 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The evening reception was in the nearly 7,000-square-foot Colonnade Room, the facility’s largest space, which features high-beamed ceilings, terrazzo floor and a mezzanine balcony made of marble and plaster and appointed with wrought-iron railings.

Mari Cruz, an LSU member who also helped organize the event, said she got nostalgic during a dance rehearsal there in the days leading up to the quinceanera.

“I was dancing with (the choreographer) so the quinceanera and escort could see how it was supposed to be done,” said Cruz, a 20-year-old sophomore majoring in advertising. “It brought back a lot of memories.”

Making new memories was the charge of Williams-Hawkins’ telecommunications students, who were documenting Saturday’s celebration and interviewing parents of the girls at the heart of the quinceanera.

“It’s a culture I’m not really familiar with, so I thought it would be interesting to document,” said Henry Tegeler, a freshman telecommunications major. “This is something they probably want to keep for a very long time. So that’s what I’m really trying to make, something that’s very personal to them, not just an event video.”

By Christopher Rickett, University Magazine Editor