Making More Than Memorias/ mga Alaala: A Working Paper on Identities and Transformations in Mexicana Quinceañeras and Filipina Debutantes.

Through in-depth interviews and observations, I have begun to explore the meanings and implications of female coming-of-age rituals for the lives and experiences of the immigrant individuals, families, and communities who celebrate them in the United States. In particular, I ask: What can Filipino American debutantes and Mexican American quinceañeras tell us about the individuals, families, and communities who organize and participate in them? And, what can studying quinceañeras and debutantes reveal about how actors can transform ?culture?? This paper-in-progress explores how debutantes and quinceañeras are sites for the production of multiple and intersecting identities, including gender, race and ethnicity, class, and age, and can therefore help us better understand immigrants, the fastest growing proportion of the US population; as well as the processes by which by which we are shaped into gendered, racialized, socioeconomic, and national beings; and/ or how we might be able to change the conditions that disadvantage certain beings over others. Preliminary findings discussed include debutantes and quinceañeras as immigrant strategies for trying to survive and transcend ?multiple liminalities,? and experiences of limited economic and social mobility. Also discussed is the hypothesis that quinceañeras and debutantes are methods of culturally socializing younger generations, especially young women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]