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Letter to the editor

More than a party

By BRENDAN WATSON, Times Staff Writer
Published September 7, 2007

Annie Meier gets ready to celebrate her quinceanera, her 15th birthday. It acknowledges her transition of a young lady from childhood to young adulthood.
	[Atoyia Deans | Times]

ADVERTISEMENT [Atoyia Deans | Times] Annie Meier and her escort, Jared Brunson, perform a dance routine at Annie's quinceanera at the Gulfport Casino. Annie's Cuban mother, who married a Swiss, wanted her daughter to know what it was like to be Cuban without feeling "different," as she often did after fleeing Cuba. The Meiers invited 250 guests but didn't want something like MTV's My Super Sweet 16.

Annie Meier is talking about her big day, gesturing with her left hand, which has 13 names scribbled across the back in black ink. "They don't have a clue," says Annie of friends she made the first week of her freshman year in St. Petersburg High School's IB program. "But I have been trying to frantically explain to them what a quinceanera is and why it's one of the most important days of my life."

For Americans used to Sweet 16 parties, Annie's fervor might be taken as an overstatement. But for Hispanics living in the United States, the day is a chance to affirm their culture and for a young lady to realize that she now shares responsibility for its traditions.

A quinceanera, or quinces, is the traditional Hispanic celebration of a child's transition into adulthood on her 15th birthday.

The quinces is celebrated differently across Hispanic cultures. In Mexico, for example, the day starts with a traditional Catholic Mass, including a pledge to remain chaste until marriage. For Cubans, the quinces is modeled more after a French debutante ball. The highlight is a quinces court, which performs a choreographed dance that highlights the birthday girl.

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Ballet slippers fill Annie's second-floor bedroom window of the family's Gulfport home. She performs ballet, modern and hip-hop with the Florida Dance Theater in Lakeland and belongs to the St. Petersburg High Devilettes dance team.

For Annie's quinceanera, the family hired Salsamania Dance Studios in Tampa to choreograph the traditional waltz, a salsa and other Hispanic dances. Annie asked a friend from Miami to choreograph a hip-hop number.

"I'm not just a pretty white girl who twirls all day," Annie says.

As the teenager talks about her festive rite of passage, her mother sits across the room. She's exhausted, slouched into an oversized love seat. They're missing a dress for the court. Caridad Meier still hasn't found a photographer for the party.

Her family fled Cuba in 1960, after Fidel Castro's revolution a year earlier. Caridad was 4.

"I felt a little self-hate about being Hispanic and being different," Caridad Meier says, recalling the pressure to assimilate into her new school and form friendships in Miami.

Her mother never learned English.

"She didn't know my friends. She didn't know my teachers. She never came to my school," she says. "I didn't want to be that way. I wanted to be involved."

Caridad left Miami for Europe to follow her oldest sister, an opera singer. She met her husband, Beat Meier, a Swiss, in Vienna. Annie was born in Zurich.

Annie says when she spends time with her Swiss cousins, you'd hardly know they were family. Caridad says the Cuban culture is so much warmer and livelier. She wanted her daughter to know what it was like to be Cuban, without feeling "different."

"I grew up American, going to the movies," says Annie. "Now I'm having a quinces and showing everyone I am Cuban and I am proud of it."

Beat Meier had been to a couple of quinceaneras before. At one, the girl was carried into the hall on a throne. "It wasn't going to be that," he says. Mrs. Meier insisted it wasn't going to be like MTV's over-the-top bratfest, My Super Sweet 16, either.

They rented the Gulfport Casino, which cost $150 an hour for residents. They also used disposable plastic place settings, and asked a family friend - a Jewish actor from New York City - to be the emcee.

But for the Hollywood-themed party, they rolled out a red carpet for 250 invited guests and served traditional Cuban food, including a whole roasted pig. Beat Meier estimated that the party cost $7,000.

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The day before the party, the chief choreographer is still struggling to get the attention of the giddy teenagers. A group of boys float off to a corner where they're playing with a talking cutout of Mike Myers in the Austin Powers films.

"Some of you can't dance and talk at the same time, so just don't talk. Any one of you," barks Maria Elena Gillis, the choreographer, when she finally gets their attention.

Only about half the members of the court are dancers. The first practice was disastrous. Most of the kids didn't understand the salsa steps, which were called out in Spanish.

Caridad goes home and pulls up YouTube videos to show her daughter what salsa is supposed to look like.

Mother and daughter are worried about the final performance. Annie doesn't know whether her father will embarrass her during the father-daughter dance.

"He can't dance at all, so it's going to be crazy," says Annie. "He's just going to be a mess."

At the party Saturday night, Ricky Martin's Pgate plays over the speakers, and the court makes its entrance, half-walking, half-spinning to the front of the dance floor.

Nearly half of them are out of synch.

But suddenly, Annie appears at the center of the group. She's beaming, wearing a white billowy dress, the disco ball reflecting off her tiara. The court falls into step, following the stronger dancers up front.

Even Beat Meier plays his role perfectly, with the exception of trying to play with Annie's tiara, which gets stuck in her hair.

- - -

As rehearsals progressed, Valerie Mull, 14, also a ballet dancer and a student in St. Petersburg High's International Baccalaureate program, started to show more interest in her Puerto Rican culture.

"She's learning more Spanish and she's more into the food," says her mother, Vionette Mull. "My mother lives in Puerto Rico and doesn't speak any English, so it's really important that she does learn more about the culture and is able to connect her grandparents."

The classes also helped Jared Brunson, 14, who is studying dance at Gibbs High School and who is half-black and half Dominican, connect with his Hispanic culture.

"I live with the black side of my family, so I don't really get an opportunity to participate in something like this. It's been amazing."

Dawn Wyllie, whose son, Connor, 14, a student at Palm Harbor University High School and part of the court, says her family is "pretty white bread." But she says her son really enjoyed learning about another culture.

- - -

At the party, Annie makes two costume changes. She finally appears for the hip-hop number wearing white sunglasses, a black jacket with bright, multicolored dice, black Capri pants, high-tops and white tube socks with red stripes.

The floor of the casino shakes under the dancers' feet. They tease their way across the dance floor on their backs, and show enough of their maturity to make their grandmothers uncomfortable.

But there's still one more quinces ceremony. Annie presents roses to 15 people who have played important parts in her life: best friends, her choreographer, her emcee, her godmother. Then her grandmother is ushered to the front.

"I can't speak Spanish, but I am getting there," says Annie, who has a friend translate. "Tell her I can't say anything to her, but I can say one thing: Te quiero mucho."

I love you very much.

Brendan Watson can be reached at 893-8275 or bwatson@sptimes.com

[Last modified September 6, 2007, 20:14:35]