Thanks to the advice and support she was given by photographers such as Robert Frank, Walker Evans, and Lisette Model, Diane Arbus was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1963 (three years later she would be awarded a second one). Under the title of American Rites, Manners and Customs, the project Arbus presented was intended to preserve certain common habits and ceremonies that usually go unnoticed through photographic portraiture. Weddings, children of wealthy families, and cross-dressers were some of the subjects she portrayed in her photographs, which were mainly taken in New York, although she also photographed pageants and festivals in Pennsylvania, Florida, and California.

The Guggenheim Fellowship allowed Arbus to construct a broad and solid personal corpus. The psychological strength of her gaze managed to transform subjects that were apparently normal into strange characters. In the image, the violent framing and the strong presence of the Puerto Rican woman’s head that fills the frame manifests the aesthetic influence of Lisette Model. Two years after the shot was taken, the photograph was included in the celebrated exhibition New Documents, curated by John Szarkowski at MoMA in New York. The exhibition, which also included works by Lee Friedlander and Garry Winogrand, signified the establishment of a new and radical generation of documentary photographers.