Mexican Culture: Coming Of Age In American Culture

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Coming Of Age In every culture there are ages that bring importance. Many ages come with having a celebration for them. Each and every culture go a different way of celebrating different ages. There are many cultures you could compare and contrast but, in this paper I will compare the different celebration of ages from the culture of my own to the Mexican culture. In America, there are particular ages that we traditionally celebrate. A very common age that people like to celebrate, is the age of 16. It is often looked at as the “sweet 16”. Also, it’s the age at where you are able to receive your driver’s license. There isn’t really an age before 16 that we do take time to recognize. Turning 16 is the age of entering the women hood …show more content…
The girl’s godparents and her mother and father are a huge part of the ceremony. In other cultures, they often celebrate the coming of an adult for both men and women, but in the Mexican culture it is strictly only in celebration for the women. In former days, when the girl would turn fifteen, it just meant that she was ready to take on full responsibilities and indicated that she was at a “marriageable” age. But, today, the celebration of the age takes on many other different meanings, the celebration of women-hood, family, and her …show more content…
Today though, the celebration focuses around the transitions to school, work, and gaining a social life. The godparents and her own parents go “over the top” with this party. Something big about this celebration is the cake. Similar to a wedding cake, it is big and has decorations. At this party there is dancing, a band and plenty of food. The dancing consists of the cumbia, and salsa. A traditional dance often is done at this party, where all the guys circle around the fifteen year old women with baskets of food on their head. This is to show that the girl is now old enough to take on more responsibilities as the guys are often looked at to do most of the work. Like any other wedding or ceremony, there is a toast at the beginning of the celebration. The parents give special messages giving the girl wisdom and transferring life experience to their
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