Pandemic disrupts quinceañeras, strains Latino businesses in Sonoma County

Myrian Rosas has been waiting her whole life for her quinceañera.

For Rosas, it’s more than a celebration of her 15th birthday. It’s a tradition steeped in Latin culture and heritage that holds great significance.

She’s had her long-sleeved sky-blue gown and brilliant golden crown picked out for more than a year. Her makeup would have had natural hues and she would have pinned back part of her curls. Her mother said she would have looked beautiful when she appeared before hundreds of friends and family for the first time as a woman.

The nearly 300 attendees would have feasted on a buffet of Mexican staples: carnitas, pollo, tacos, camarones. Rosas would have dazzled when she traded her golden high-heeled shoes for sneakers to dance with her father in the Sebastopol Holy Ghost Society hall on May 20.

Her big day would have replicated those of many Latina girls on their 15th birthdays: she would have woken up at 9 a.m., donned her finery, met her friends, gone to mass, taken photos and danced and celebrated for hours before winding down the night at 2 a.m. Because her family would have made essentials such as food and decorations, the party would have only cost $15,000, she said.

Then, COVID-19 stopped the world, suspending the Sebastopol teen’s long-held dreams.

“At first people were telling me we could delay it a month or so, because we thought it would be over in a month,” said the Analy High School 10th grader. “Then I thought, ‘OK, we still have three or four months.’ And then it passed and I thought ‘OK, well, I’ll do next year.’ I cried a little bit. I was really sad. I really wanted it to be that day, but I can’t change it. It’s a pandemic.”

COVID impact

In Sonoma County, the coronavirus pandemic has disrupted not only families’ quinceañera plans, but the fortunes of local and Latino businesses that cater to the celebrations as well, including limousine companies, dance choreographers, food trucks, DJs and dress shops.

“There’s just a lot of money spent on one quinceañera and there are so many all the time,” said Marco Suarez, business diversity program manager for the Sonoma County Economic Development Board. “Obviously, it’s being felt throughout these businesses and many of them are just self-employed entrepreneurs. It does impact them greatly.”

Bertha Barajas, an event planner who owns Bevess Floral in Santa Rosa, said she’s personally lost around $100,000 so far this year because of canceled quinceañeras. She’s not eligible for financial assistance or loans, she said. A sliver of a silver lining has come from increased orders for sympathy flowers — a bleak sign of the times, the Santa Rosa resident said.

Her event packages for quinceañeras include food, decorations, cutlery, music and photography and range from $10,000 for about 100 people up to $35,000 for 300 people. Her customers start to plan about a year in advance, she said.

Barajas never had her own quinceañera, but she planned her daughter’s party at the Santa Rosa Veterans Hall. Seeing her daughter in her red dress was breathtaking and incredibly special, she said.

“When I saw when she put on the dress, she looked very different, like a princess but not,” Barajas said. “I can’t even explain it.”

The big event

As beautiful a sentiment as the quinceañera tradition can be for Latino families, the celebration also has its critics, who point to the thousands of dollars often spent for the occasion.

The quinceañera tradition can be traced back to the Aztecs, said Abraham Solar, the director of Hispanic ministry at Petaluma’s St. Vincent de Paul Church. Aztecs and other ancient indigenous cultures lauded women who turned 15 as being fertile bearers of future warriors, Solar said. In the 20th century, it became something more commercialized, he said.

“(Quinceañeras) can be very expensive and families open a line of credit. It’s a sad thing for the families,” said the Petaluma resident. The celebrations range from a few thousand dollars to $50,000. Chase Bank even offers a line of credit for families to finance the festivities, he said. In Latin culture, friends and family members act as “padrinos,” shouldering the cost for specific aspects of the quinceañera.

“Some families want to do it because they want to create a show, to create vanity for people, for themselves and their parents,” Solar said.

For 12 years, Solar taught eight hour-long classes about the tradition of quinceañera at his church. But he stopped in 2006 when, he said, it became apparent how much the culture was changing.

Mothers and daughters

Even so, the tradition holds a special place in Latino families, especially for mothers and daughters. Seeing the look on a mother’s face when her daughter slips into her dream dress is one of Leticia Enriquez’s favorite parts of owning Novedades Mexico in Petaluma, a shop that offers ornate quinceañera dresses.

The Petaluma resident started selling goods at the flea market in Napa before opening her store 10 years ago. Her shop is full of vibrantly colored dresses, high-heeled shoes, elaborate crowns and a medley of other decorations. Her quinceañera dresses range in cost from $100 to $1,800.

“When (girls) come in, they don’t know what they want. Sometimes they know but most times, they don’t have any idea,” she said.

“I let them be free in my store and try everything they want to try, different colors and styles, and then I see their eyes when they like something,” she said. “You can see in their face; you can see happiness. They open their eyes bigger and then they start dancing and moving and I know that's the dress. I can feel that and it makes me happy.”

COVID-19 has knocked down her client base from as many as 20 customers a day to about a dozen a week, she said. Though the financial stress is great, she plans to do everything she can to keep her business afloat so she can continue to help young women find their perfect dress.

“My business is my dream coming true,” Enriquez said. “When all these things happen, some part of me is sad because I don’t want it to disappear. … I appreciate life and when you have dreams, it makes a difference in life.”