QUINCEANERA|’It’s really cool to be Puerto Rican right now’

Published 12:00 am Monday, January 5, 2009

After he moved to Vicksburg from Puerto Rico more than 20 years ago, Gerardo Velazquez realized it might not be smart to bring all of the traditions of his youth with him.

Take the Latin American Christmas custom of serenading neighbors with songs in the middle of the night. “They’d have the police after you if you did that here,” said Velazquez, an engineer at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center.

But Velazquez and his wife, Vivian, were able to acquaint some area residents with one Hispanic cultural tradition this weekend. They staged a traditional quinceañera — a party that marks a girl’s 15th birthday — for their daughter, Rebeca.

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“It’s a day of celebration, a tradition that we’re glad to be able to do here,” Gerardo Velazquez said.

The festivities began with a Saturday afternoon Mass in honor of Rebeca’s birthday at St. Paul Catholic Church and moved on to the Vicksburg Country Club, where about 40 family members who flew in from Puerto Rico and Texas joined scores of local friends to see a video with scenes from Rebeca’s first 15 years and watch the honoree share a traditional quinceañera  waltz with her father. Dinner and more dancing followed.

The quinceañera , which marks the transition from girl to young woman, has similarities in American culture, such as “Sweet 16” birthday parties and debutante balls.

While common in states such as Texas and Florida that have large Hispanic populations, quinceañeras  have been rare in Warren County. Vivian Velazquez, who moved with her husband from Puerto Rico 22 years ago and now teaches Spanish at Vicksburg High School, said that she knew of only one quinceañera  that was held before her daughter’s.

The tradition was unfamiliar to the scores of non-Hispanic friends of the Velazquez family who attended the church service and party.

“I think it’s awesome,” said Haley DeRossette, a 16-year-old friend of Rebeca’s. “It’s more like a wedding than a party.”

Rebeca’s 15th birthday is not until March. But her family decided upon the date for the party because her older brother, Paul, is slated to graduate from Vicksburg High School in May. “I figured that my mind would be completely on graduation by March,” Vivian Velazquez said.

The honoree, who wore a tiara and a white gown designed for the event, said that she was “royally embarrassed” by a couple of photographs featured in the video presentation. “There was one that showed me dancing as part of a show-choir group that I was in, and I had never seen a picture that showed what I look like dancing,” Rebeca said. “I wasn’t prepared for it.”

Overall, though, she said that she felt honored.

“This is something that is an old tradition in our culture,” she said. “It feels really cool to be a Puerto Rican right now.”

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Contact Ben Bryant at bbryant@vicksburgpost.com.