UC San Diego

The transformative process of adolescence plays an enormous role in shaping personal identity and worldview. Cultural celebrations, like the quinceañera, contribute to this transformation and provide a framework for understanding how the process of growing up is informed by ethnic heritage, socioeconomic status, and family relationships. I examine Sebastian Kadlekic, Emma, Steinkelner, and Kit Steinklener’s comic book Quince, in which a 15-year-old girl receive superpowers at her quinceañera, as a representation of the transformative potential of the quinceañera, and suggest that it can and should be read as a piece of visionary fiction, as popularized by Walidah Imarisha and adrienne marie brown: it is work that creates a new reality paves the way for the physical manifestation of such a reality. Using writings about quinceañeras as a background for visual and textual analysis of the comic itself, I hope to demonstrate the significance of Quince as a cultural product and representation of the future.