Latino Girl’s Coming Out Rite
As a woman who grew up in a Latino culture and whose mother spent her savings helping me to get an education, I can not help but write to let you know that the quinceanera is an appalling example of misplaced sentimentality and waste of money that would be better spent on giving modern Latino girls an education to fit them to survive in today’s job market.
Marriage is no longer a career and although preparing a girl (and boys too) to commitment to God and church and “to serve mankind,” to quote the article, is admirable, it is not the reality.
In the wake of the women’s rights movement one more thing needs to be said and can not be ignored in this fertility rite context--and we all know what that is--it is the need for young teen-agers to have sexual and family planning information.
MARY RUIZ
San Diego
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