Genoveva Castellanoz
Mexican corona maker
Nyssa, OR
Genoveva Castellanoz was born in Central Mexico and moved at an early age to Texas.
She became versed in many traditional Mexican crafts including making paper flowers,
crocheting, knitting, and embroidery. Eva moved from Texas to Nyassa, Oregon, her present
home. She has received a National Heritage Fellowship and is a frequent visitor to
Washington where she teaches and demonstrates her master craft skills at festivals and in
classrooms.
Castellanoz is especially renown for making paper and wax flowers for baptisms, weddings
and quinceañeras. In this celebration of a girl’s fifteenth birthday, relatives contribute
one of the necessary items for the girl's outfit: the white dress and other articles of
clothing, a pillow for kneeling, and the corona, a crown of flowers, also white,
symbolizing purity. The corona is important to the aesthetics of the quinceañera event.
She is the only corona maker in the Pacific Northwest and is sought by families for
hundreds of miles.