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The Quinceañera is a young Latina woman's celebration of her fifteenth birthday, which is celebrated in a specific and different way from her other birthdays. The word is also used to refer to the young woman whose 15th birthday is being celebrated (analogous to the word "cumpleañera" for "birthday girl"). The closest equivalents to the Quinceañera in the English-speaking world is the Sweet Sixteen or in more affluent communities, a debutante ball at the age of eighteen.
Celebration
The celebration marks the transition from childhood to womanhood of a Quinceañera. It serves as a way to acknowledge that a young woman has reached sexual maturity and is marriageable.
The festivities begin with a Thanksgiving Mass (Misa de Accion de Gracias), in which the quinceañera arrives in formal dress of a pink hue, accompanied by her parents (padres), godparents (padrinos), seven maids of honor (damas) and as many chamberlains (chambelanes) as the Quinceañera wishes. After the Mass, the younger sisters, female cousins and friends of the quinceañera pass out party favors, and the quinceañera leaves her bouquet in an altar to the Virgin Mary. The Mass is followed by a party either at the quinceañera's home or in a banquet hall leased for the occasion. At the party, the quinceañera dances a special dance with her father and male relatives, then her boyfriend, or male friend dances the remaining part of the dance with the birthday girl.
In Cuba, it may include of a choreographed group dance, usually 16 couples dancing waltz around the Quinceañera, who was led by one of the top dancers of her choice or her boyfriend. Sometimes the choreography included four or six other skilled dancers called Escortas (escorts). They were allowed (outside the choreography) to dance around the Quinceañera. They were usually dancers with good experience and were improvisers who did moves to make the central couple outstand for the expectators. They were also allowed to dress with different color tuxedos.
Fifteenth celebrations were very popular until late 1970s. The custom entered Cuba via Spain, but its major influence was French. Wealthy families, who could afford luxurious halls and the hiring of a notorious choreographer, were the actual pioneers of Quinceañeras. Although lower-income families could not afford the same display of wealth, they, too, started to celebrate Quinceañeras and called Quinces. Those celebrations usually took place at the very home of the Quinceañera or at a relative’s whose home was more spacious.
Expansion in Cuban society
As wealthy families celebrated this event at luxurious ballrooms, lower-income individuals, specially the young, would watch through the colonial-barred windows and enjoy it from the outside. Some servants and other employees to the wealthy families, who were involved in the caterings, were probably the first to import the custom into the rest of the population.
Some times the entire family would save through the years for this important event. The fifteenth birthday celebration acquired such as a relevant importance in the live of a young girl that a popular saying was: "There are two most important things for a woman: her fifteenth and her wedding." Luis Carbonell, nationally well-acclaimed figure who transmitted the average Cuban way of life, expressed this cultural custom through his Los quince de Florita.