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Intersecting Identities: Race and Gender in a Quinceañera Fashion Show

Serrano, Tamara E.
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1245259832

Abstract Details

2009, Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, American Culture Studies/Ethnic Studies.
Research on Latina girls often focuses on those stigmatizing experiences that mark them as highly susceptible to becoming young mothers, gang members and/or high school drop outs. Although quite scarce, there is research that interrogates the re-envisioning of Latina identities through transformative models that focus on how Latina girls are influenced by and in turn influence their surroundings. This paper focuses primarily on ethnographic research with four young Latinas from Toledo, Ohio who chose or chose not to participate in a Quinceañera Fashion Show sponsored by the social services agency Adelante, Inc. My interviews with some of the girls, as well as my observational experiences of the public events themselves, offered me a more complicated understanding of Latina girl culture as it relates to their community, family and peer lives. This study examined the girls' impressions of the Quinceañera Fashion Show, their interest in participating in this program, as well as their general understanding of the role of quinceañeras in Latina girl culture. The girls' experiences with the Quinceañera Fashion Show were the case through which I explored how gender and racial identities were developed and negotiated. Exploring the intersections of race and gender, this study examined whether this newest incarnation of the quinceañera, in the form of a fashion show, took on a contemporary quality that positively influenced the girls. This study also illuminates how the fashion show reproduced displays of normative femininity while also encouraging a sense of ethnic and pan-ethnic Latino/a pride. Furthermore, this study suggests that girls need to be afforded the opportunity to challenge normative ideals of race and gender and become producers of their own realities capable of defining what that reality should and needs to look like.
Susana Peña, PhD (Committee Chair)
Valeria Grinberg-Pla, PhD (Committee Member)
143 p.
American Studies; Hispanic Americans
Quincea&241; era; Latina; girl culture; Ohio; Toledo; race; gender; intersections; femininity; social services; fashion show; hispanic

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Serrano, T. E. (2009). Intersecting Identities: Race and Gender in a Quinceañera Fashion Show [Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1245259832

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Serrano, Tamara. Intersecting Identities: Race and Gender in a Quinceañera Fashion Show. 2009. Bowling Green State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1245259832.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Serrano, Tamara. "Intersecting Identities: Race and Gender in a Quinceañera Fashion Show." Master's thesis, Bowling Green State University, 2009. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1245259832

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

bgsu1245259832
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© 2009, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Bowling Green State University and OhioLINK.