By Katie Campbell staff writer

FELLSMERE — When the first Solis daughter celebrated her quinceañera 14 years ago, hardly any of the other Mexican teens in Fellsmere followed suit.

"Here in the states it wasn’t popular," the eldest Solis, Noelia Raya, 29, said.

The dresses, invitations and party supplies weren’t as available in U.S. stores as they are today. In recent years, that’s changed and Raya said she noticed more Fellsmere families were hosting quinceañeras.

"We’ve had 12 or 14 birthdays in the last year and our schedule is full until May," said the Rev. Noel McGrath of Our Lady of Guadalupe Mission Church in Fellsmere. "More immigrants are settling, and they’re not forgetting the culture they came from. Other cultures lose their traditions, but in this community they are allowed to speak the language and keep their traditions."

The third Solis daughter, Velia Solis, 27, agreed, saying, "This is one of the few traditions that we continue. We do it because there’s a community here. It’s expected. They all know the tradition."

It’s a trend throughout Florida, said Professor Philip Williams, who has been studying the role of religion in the Mexican immigrant community of Immokalee.

"I don’t know why it’s growing but it certainly isn’t dying," Williams said.

While the parties are more common, not every birthday bash is as grandiose as 15-year-old Evelia Solis’, which cost the family $13,300. The level of extravagance depends on the family’s economic status, Williams said.

"There’s symbolism in spending $13,000 because that’s a big hit for them. It’s a symbol of having ‘made it’ in America," Williams said. By Fellsmere standards, the Solis family has "made it" since they settled in Fellsmere in 1975 and the father, Ramiro Solis, started working as a field manager for Graves Brothers, a citrus company in Wabasso.

Overall, quinceañeras in the United States are more elaborate now than they were back in Latin America, said Uva de Aragon, Florida International University’s Latin American Department assistant director.

"As immigrants progress economically, they have more money to afford this type of thing. They want their daughters in America to have what they wouldn’t have been able to have before," de Aragon, a Cuba native, said. "In other countries it might have had a religious component before. In the United States it’s really not a religious tradition. It’s a party."

While Latino immigrants have forgone traditions such as wearing certain clothes and taking mid-afternoon siestas, the quinceañera tradition continues because it melded with the consumer aspect of American society, de Aragon said.

"It’s become an economic social status event of showing off to the community," she said.

Continuing the quinceañera tradition, however, has also become a way to affirm cultural identity, Williams said.

"It’s a way of rejecting the notion of the melting pot as opposed to just assimilating into the dominate American culture," Williams said.

Raya said she was proud the tradition continued with her youngest sister and she hopes her own children have quinceañeras.

"It’s important to keep the tradition because it’s part of us. It’s part of our heritage."

- katie.campbell@scripps.com