ABSTRACT
Although constrained by poverty, parents tried to provide special life passage celebrations for their children, to validate each child's significance to the social group. In deference to the cultural memory of high infant mortality in Puerto Rico's history, baptisms were celebrated after a child had safely reached one year of life. The child was then given his or her name formally and welcomed to the circle of the living. Until then, in a way similar to the belief systems of the poor Brazilians described by Nancy Scheper-Hughes (1992), the infants were considered to be little angels, capable, at a moment's notice, of returning to heaven. A baptism anchored them in the human community, just as a wake and a rosario allowed a person's soul to depart. Such was the celebration of Victoria's first birthday.
