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We skipped straight to Yahoo!'s own Birthdays > Quinceanera category. Quinceanera refers literally to a girl's fifteenth birthday celebration, a ritualized "sweet fifteen" tradition in the Hispanic community, a coming of age party with Catholic, Mayan, and Aztec roots. At the first web site, Ana's Quinceañera Web Page, we learned about the cultural and historic background of this girl's rite of passage, "which is slowly evolving as a reflection of the concerns of present-day Hispanic culture." Ana's site features five Latina
women of different generations recounting their Quinceanera experiences. They reflect on the role that this special birthday party played in moving them from a traditional Latino family community into adult womanhood in a bicultural environment. Other web sites in the Yahoo! category describe elements of the Quinceanera in different Latino communities. Common features of the event include a special mass, attended by family and godparents (padrinos), a formal court consisting of the young woman's contemporaries (damas and chambelanes). Guests receive gifts (bolos), and the occasion ends with a cake, a band, and a dance. We read about the tradition of giving a symbolic doll or figurine to a younger sister and discovered that many bridal shops also offer dresses and accessories for Quinceanera participants.
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