A Mexican Sweet 15 – a bluejean girl becomes a woman

In the Mexican desert, full of hardship and dust, the traditional quinceañera is a chance to be a princess for a day.

from the January 4, 2008 edition

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Though the wind has died down, the desert night is frigid, and the crowd shivers in their be-ribboned chairs as the family hands out the dinner plates. The DJ has arrived with a wall of speakers 15 feet high, and he begins to blare waltzes and pop songs and Mexican polkas. People circulate around the tables, greeting old friends visiting from Mexicali and Los Angeles, and young single men, eager to drink and dance, and gather at campfires on the edges of the court.

While this is a celebration, it also marks the introduction of this lovely shy girl, this youngest daughter, to a dangerous world. Young womanhood is an uncertain time anywhere, and here unplanned pregnancies are common, with many girls ending their teens as single mothers or reluctant brides.

So the mood thickens as Seraya, with only a filmy shawl and adrenaline to ward off the cold, dances a symbolic farewell waltz with her father around the basketball court. She then tosses a doll to a circle of younger girls, representing the end of her childhood, and throws a fabric heart to a circle of young boys, signifying her new ability to date with her family's approval.

Finally, her mother and father kneel to change her shoes, swapping her low heels for the high heels befitting a señorita, and her ceremonial transformation is complete.

Each set of padrinos is called on to waltz with Seraya and her escort, then waltz with one another, and we swirl round and round the girl and her dazzling dress, forming an ever-expanding circle of relatives and friends, letting her go while trying to keep her warm.

The party thumps and grinds long into the night, but by the next morning, the chairs and tables and empty kegs have been whisked away, the paper garlands already lying in the dust. At Seraya's house, visiting relatives overflow into tents, and everyone is gathered in the yard around a kettle of hot stew, talking animatedly despite the cold and lack of sleep and the feet sore from dancing.

Seraya, relaxed and smiling at last, sits inside on the couch with friends and relatives, watching the video of her party with the fervor of a sports analyst. The princess is once again a teenager in denim, with her future before her, and her mother, Magdalena, is smiling too.

Yes, the planning, the cooking, the sewing, it all took weeks of work, Magdalena says. But didn't everyone look beautiful?

"Valío la pena," she says. It was worth the trouble.

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