This summer twins Trina and Katrina Chacon, both participants in Girls Night Out, experienced one of the most important days of their life. That day was their quinceanera, an affirmation of their commitment to the Catholic Church and, on their 15th birthday, a celebration of passage into womanhood.
"It's like a wedding without the groom," their mother Isabelle explains succinctly.At Our Lady of Guadalupe Church, on 300 North and 700 West, on a hot summer afternoon in August, Trina and Katrina repeat their vows for Father Hernando Diaz during a special Mass.
The girls wear matching aqua and violet floor-length gowns. Fourteen damas (maids of honor) wearing matching dresses and 14 chambelanes (best men) in white tuxedos flank the celebrants.
In a pew near the altar, Isabelle fights fatigue. After months of preparation for her daughters' quinceanera, she has been up for 48 hours straight working on the dresses. Her husband Jose, a construction worker, wears an expression of stern fatherly pride.
About 40 adult sponsors, who have helped organize and pay for the event, are also in attendance.
Looking at the two sisters standing before the altar in their near-identical dresses, it is easy to forget how different they are.
Katrina is the stereotypical girl, worried about makeup and clothes. Trina is the tomboy, more interested in basketball than dating. But during Mass, it is Trina who is wiping away tears.
As she cries, Trina is thinking about her mother and the time and energy she has poured into this day. "When my mother was growing up she didn't have a quinceanera because there wasn't enough money," Trina explains, "That's why she wanted us to have one."
The two girls have been taking quinceanera classes at the church since June. Under Father Diaz, they have learned about Catholicism and its history as well as a woman's special responsibilities according to the church.
After Mass, there is a reception, dinner and dance at the Mexican Civic Center. These activities are by invitation only. Nine armed security guards, one for every 50 guests, patrol the center and its parking lot. The threat is gang violence, Trina says.
Neither Katrina nor Trina is a gang member, but through friends they are associated with a particular gang.
Police advise media not to identify gangs by name. To do so would give gangs recognition that might enhance their allure, says Lt. Jim Bell of the Metro Gangs Unit.
"With the number of individuals we have in gangs, it's hard for for a juvenile not to be related to or associated with a particular gang," Bell says.
The twins' loose association with a gang is almost as dangerous as if they were members.
"It often happens that people get labeled and rival gangs will target each other that way," Bell says.
The only incident at the quinceanera occurs at approximately 10 p.m., while the dance is in progress; girls from a rival gang slip in uninvited and try to pick a fight.
"They were bumping into people and pretending it was an accident," Katrina reports. After the two groups square off, exchanging insults and accusations, the outsiders are escorted off the premises by security.
Later, boys from the same gang drive by the civic center and throw a bottle out of their car. Trina and Katrina's chambelanes respond in kind.
Earlier that summer, during a post-game discussion at Girls Night Out, 15-year-old Melissa Johnson asked a question that epitomizes the situation of many of the young women in the program: What do you do when you have two groups of friends, both associated with different gangs, and you can't be buddies with both?
Or, in the case of the twins: How do you avoid having people associate you with a gang when some of your favorite people are members of that gang?
These are painful and dangerous dilemmas that these girls must confront; they have to make choices.
Girls Night Out coaches agree with the girls that it isn't fair.
But for Trina and Katrina and the other girls in the program, fairness often has nothing to with reality.