#also latinx was created by queer latines

[dani-draws-201]

Why do ppl care abt Latinx, like if you dont wanna use that term its fine,, Latino or Latine is also gender neutral,,, but i swear that latinx isn't our biggest problem jesus. Like why dont we focus our energy on how machismo literally protects pedophiles?? Bc a lot of latines value men over their daughters so when girls come foward they get blamed for a GROWN MAN'S actions!!! Hatred of queerness will be our downfall bc how you gonna have a melt down over a letter, grow up. And now i see fellow latinos supporting Sara Huckabee Sanders bc she banned latinx,,, like,,,, did yall forget she calls our immigrant parents criminals?? Hating latinx is just a way to lure out latin voters. Dont fall for it.

[honoratacarnage]

Hey friendo, I was hoping for some advice! The post you reblogged about neopronouns and other cultures/languages- I noticed in your tags you said to use 'latine' and not 'latinx.' Is that the generally preferred term? I've only ever seen latinx, and am a baby in learning Spanish, so I just don't have a lot of knowledge about addressing people properly outside of the m/f gendered terms/conjugations, but I want to! Pls give me some pointers, history, context, culture etc 🙏

oh heya there! so, the main issue about using the x in latinx is that it literally doesn't make sense in latin languages. it is a word that is impossible for the latine speakers to come up on their on as that "X" sound only exists in spanish or portuguese when surrounded by vogals, and would NEVER end a word, meaning that the ones that created and use the latinx term aren't even latines themselves, they are white anglo people! so when white queers use the term latinx, it almost feels like a slur, as it a term created by the other majority to label a minority in a way they don't approve!

the use of latine (and other gendered words that you see with -e) happens as both Portuguese and Spanish use -o as masculine and -a as feminine (amigo <- masculine, amiga <- feminine).

Historically, masculine terms were used to denominate ambiguity and neutrality, however with the push of the non-binary native speakers that weren't comfortable with masculine terms, new vogals began to be explored to serve as a neutral term, and -e was the easiest one use! now if you want to use neutral terms in Spanish, try switching the -a -o for -e! so it becomes (amigo <- masculine, amiga <- feminine, amigue <- neutral)

if we are talking about neopronouns... i know more about the portuguese ones, but i researched a bit bout spanish ones, so it's ok. so to start, in Brazilian Portuguese the traditional 3rd person pronouns are Ele/Dele (he/him) and Ela/Dela (she/her). When we were creating the new neutral pronoun, the other vocals were considered, however the -i in (eli/deli) sounded too much as a high pitched ele/dele, so it was scraped. Elo/Delo was better however the 'o' sound was too uncomfortable to say, so it was also scraped. In the end, the Elu/Delu was chosen as the neutral pronoun! as an example let's take the "she's my friend" sentence:

"ela é minha amiga" <- feminine

"elu é minhe amigue" <- neutral

Elu/Delu work the same way 3rd person They/Them do, and just like there's other neopronouns in english to signify neutrality like Xe/Xem, theres also other ones in portuguese like Ile/Dile, Ilu/Dilu and many more!

now talking bout spanish, i know about the equivalent to 3rd person They, which would be "Elle". El is masculine, Ella is feminine, and it appears that the native speakers combined both to create a neutral pronoun, it being Elle. let's take a sentence as an example of use " they are my friend" in Spanish become "elle es mi amigue"

therefore, if you want to be nice to your fellow latine queers and not sound like "im a white anglo speaker and i know more about your language than you", please use "Latine" instead of "Latinx"!

hope this explains some things :p

[strwbrymoonchild]

The Strides and Shortcomings of Queer BIPOC Representation on Television

Series like Orange is the New Black and The L Word pioneered the contemporary lesbian revolution on television by introducing us to entire casts of queer characters and relationships. Characters like Shane and Piper were beloved and revolutionary to an audience that could relate to the experience of being white and queer, but for a BIPOC audience, the portrayals were often tragic, unrealistic, or insignificant. Although these shows exist in the LGTBQ+ television canon, having predominantly white producers and writers leads to myopic portrayals of BIPOC characters. Orange is the New Black was praised for its range of representation but where that diversity ended--and was needed--was the Writer’s Room.

While the show struggled to portray its BIPOC characters with dignity, Piper, the protagonist, profited from the system in a way her BIPOC counterparts did not. Criticism grew louder with the death of beloved character, Poussey, and continued for its treatment, of the remaining BIPOC women and queer-identifying characters. Similarly, The L Word has been criticized for its treatment of BIPOC characters (the few they had were either killed or reduced to stereotypes), and specifically the show’s handling of bisexual and transgender characters.

The television industry tried to answer the criticism by introducing new BIPOC queer characters to its larger casts. Rosa Diaz from Brooklyn 99 came out as bisexual in the fifth season of the show, with an entire episode centered around her coming out to her Hispanic parents---highlighting a culture where homosexuality is often not accepted. Kat from The Bold Type came out as queer---a pivot from the standard formula we’ve seen of shows that star women navigating a big city like New York. After her first relationship with a woman, she further explores her sexuality within an open relationship. Then there’s Eric Effiong, the bestfriend of the straight protagonist, Otis Millburn from Sex Education. His sexuality is never troped but instead, is a facet of a charming and complex teenager. While this is a step in the right direction, the problem remains that BIPOC characters are often minimized in favor of their heteronormative, white counterparts. We see this in shows like Shrill, a comedy series that offers a variety of BIPOC queer characters, but reduces them to stereotypes to play off of the complexities of the protagonist, a heterosexual white woman.

Characters often lack authenticity, a problem that stems in part from the lack of representation in producer and writer roles. A significant moment, in which Kat is arrested for trying to stand up for Adena, is lost as writers fail to acknowledge what a situation like that could realistically look like for someone like Kat. Love, Victor which attempts to show the struggles of Latin protagonist, Victor, by giving him a traditional Latinx family to come out to, falls short at portraying an authentic experience. Both producers of Love, Victor are white, but contrast that with One Day at a Time, a series co-produced by Gloria Calderòn Kellet, who is Cuban. The series, about a Cuban American family--one member being the queer daughter, Elena--is rich with cultural authenticity. This is showcased in the way the Alvarez family, especially the younger generation, interacts with cultural traditions, like Elena’s resistance to a traditional Quinceañera because of its misogynistic history. Kellet also made sure to have a predominantly Latinx writing staff for the show. 

There are a few series who have taken the lead in portraying nuanced queer relationships and identities with a BIPOC protagonist. High Fidelity stars Zoë Kravitz as Rob, a biracial Black queer woman, who keeps a list of her “Top 5 Heartbreaks,” including a woman. While the show explores Rob’s relationships with men more thoroughly, that doesn’t negate Rob’s queer identity. In Vida, Emma is a queer Chicana, kicked out of her home as a teenager by her mother for her identity and she later returns to her old neighborhood to help run the family bar after her mother’s death to reconcile with the emotional damage her mother left behind. Emma’s identity is fluid and she finds herself having to defend her queerness at a table full of fellow queer women. Known as “identity policing,” this moment shines a light on the complexities within LGBTQ+ communities. Twenties is another series we see with a BIPOC, queer protagonist. Hattie, a character based on show writer Lena Waithe, boldly navigates the entertainment industry by defying the norms of what it means to create good work as a Black creator while also navigating within a community of straight friends and unhealthy relationships. Jonica “JoJo” Gibs, the actor playing Hattie, said, “Having Hattie on TV as a masculine-presenting queer person — female — I think it’s revolutionary.” A nuanced portrayal of queer love is explored thoroughly in Euphoria with Rue and Jules.  The show’s portrayal of a relationship on television between a cis woman and transwoman, especially one that is interracial, is not a dynamic we see often. Each of the above-mentioned characters are multifaceted and rooted in their cultural and queer identity. But being a revolutionary character in television can isolate them as the example for what it means to have a certain identity or a certain experience. Emma’s story is not the epitome of what it’s like to be queer Chicana woman living in Los Angeles. Kat’s is not the only story for a biracial Black queer woman in New York. 

While it’s great to see more portrayals of BIPOC, queer characters written by BIPOC creators, it’s important that we begin to see these characters on a broader and mainstream scale, or risk-reducing these single narratives and characters to stereotypes. We’ve begun to see more Black and Latinx creators, but there is still a lot of representation that is lacking. Where are the stories centered around Indigenous people and their specific struggles? Asian? Transgender?  The television industry needs to allow these stories to reach the mainstream, to stop relegating the many intricacies of these underrepresented identities and experiences to the periphery of the industry. And although these conversations are not always palatable to a white audience, that is exactly why they are so important to have.

[bdub86]

There’s a line in the first episode of the new “He-Man” series where they jokingly refer Teela He-man’s sidekick and then what do they do with the new black female character… they make a Teela’s sidekick. That’s what main stream media productions idea of diversity is.

Insert character of color, usually black; probably a male, in a seemingly unimportant position like the black police captain of the 1980s and 90s but ultimately doesn’t matter to the overall story. Or these days barely subverting the racist expectation and making the black character smart.

But this has created problems for black characters and black talent in Hollywood because Asian and Latinx folks hate on those characters and black actors instead of the unimaginative racist white writers, producers, studio execs for their limited imagination for what it means to be inclusive. And this doesn’t even consider that these characters are ultimately disrespectful to the communities there supposedly “representing“.

Creating characters like this are toxic to the communities that are supposedly being represented whether it be female characters or queer characters or characters of color.

You don’t have to make female/ queer/ characters of color ridiculously better than the cishet/white/ male characters you just have to make them human beings. Make just as good as the white male character. Spread the story focus around and include multiple characters of color from the same race/ ethnicity with different personalities and hell they can be similar but give them nuance perspectives on the same issue.

Repeat with for female and queer characters and don’t forget to be intersectional. Make them good, make them bad, make them somewhere in between but most important just make them human beings.

The problem is:

Hollywood doesn’t know how to include Latin next characters because unless they can have the character speak Spanglish, which doesn’t work in an He-Man universe or fantasy universes, because Latinx is a cultural identity not a race and that culture doesn’t exist in xyz fantasy world.

When it comes to Asian characters they don’t have much imagination about how to include them without making them emotionless sword wielding martial artists who also ridiculously better at every thing. Or they just make them indistinguishable from “white” characters aside having them voiced by Asian actors. (the female versions are distinguished by the purple, pink or blue colored hair streak or regardless of gender they have a white dad and Asian mom)

Hollywood thinks strong female characters means give her conventionally masculine traits and make her a “bad asses“ that are ultimately Mary Sue’s who are over Powered or as I said before ridiculously better than all the male characters at EVERY THING. (Probably also a lesbian/ bisexual)

Also any queer characters that they include are usually female and not always actively acknowledged. Except in the very last season usually the very last episode of the series. Any male queer characters exist in the background.

[granvarones]

the late great and house music pioneer, dj frankie knuckles, once said that house was disco’s revenge. and he wasn’t lying. but in the years between the racists- and homophobic-driven disco backlash in 1979 and the rise of house music in the late 1980’s, black, latinx and lgbtq club goers were building the queendom for the eventual reign of house music. and those building blocks included the sound of electro and freestyle music. when most people think of freestyle music – that is those who actually know or who are willing admit that they know what it is – they associate the complex genre of hard electro beats, loud bass drunks, orchestra hits and latin percussions exclusively with latinx or italian communities. but like disco, freestyle music has its roots in black music. at the start of the 1980’s, the state of dance music was wobbly at best. while the genre still thrived underground, it was seen as poison at the mainstream level. that was until the introduction of the roland tr-808 drum machine. one of the breakout songs to utilize this magic of of the 808 was afrika bambaataa’s 1982 hit “planet rock.” the song not only forged a new direction for hip-hop but it forever changed the sound of music. electro music, which was widely referred to as “breakdance music” in the early 1980’s, exploded on r&b radio with songs “one more shot” by c-bank featuring Jenny Burton and “play at your risk” and eventually in pop radio after the monstrous success of “let the music play” in 1983. and black artists were at the forefront of the movement. here are 15 songs that played a critical role in the history of freestyle music.

C-BANK “ONE MORE SHOT” 1983

afrika bambaataa & the soul sonic force’s 1982 hit “planet rock” sonically changed the sound of music. in 1983 c-bank, a studio project created by producer john robie, released “one more shot” featuring jenny burton. it helped launch the electro music genre.

PLANET PATROL “PLAY AT YOUR OWN RISK” 1983

“play at your risk” by planet patrol is one of the most brilliant electro songs. released in 1983 and produced by the same team that delivered “planet rock”, soul patrol’s vocal performance on “play at your risk” masterfully walked the line between doo-wop and electro.

SHANNON “LET THE MUSIC PLAY” 1983

“let the music play” introduced the electro sound that later birthed the freestyle genre to the masses. released in 1983, the song peaked inside the top 10 on both the pop & r&b charts making shannon the mother of freestyle music.

XENA “ON THE UPSIDE” 1983

in 1983 world renowned vocalist lisa fischer (yes, that lisa fischer!) made her solo debut with the barbosa & ligget produced “on the upside” under the stage name “xena.” the song was a minor club hit in the US and UK.

CHAKA KHAN “MY LOVE IS ALIVE” 1984

after dominating r&b/funk music in the late 1970’s, chaka khan rebranded herself as a one of electro music’s leading vocalists with her 1984 album “i feel for you.” one of the album’s most slammin’ tracks was the john robie produced “my love is alive.”

SYLVESTER “ROCK THE BOX” 1984

“rock the box” was the late great sylvester’s foray into the 808 drum machine universe after helping to introduce electronic dance with his 1979 hit “you make me feel (mighty real).” released in october 1984, “rock the box” proved that sylvester could pack the dance floors in the post-disco era.

LOLEATTA HOLLOWAY “CRASH GOES LOVE” 1984

loleatta holloway’s 1980 club hit “love sensation” is one of the most sampled songs in history featured prominently on marky mark and the funky bunch’s 1991 #1 pop hit “good vibrations.” loleatta reached #5 on the dance chart in 1984 with the arthur baker produced “crash goes love.”

CAROL LYNN TOWNES “99 1/2″ 1984

featured on the 1984 motion picture “breakin’” soundtrack (a movie about a white woman trying to appropriate the breakdancing movement), “99 1/2” was a slammin’ electro cover of the alton mcclain & destiny’s 1979 disco tune. townes’ cover peaked inside the top 10 on the dance chart and just outside of the top 20 on the r&b chart.

NOLAN THOMAS “YO, LITTLE BROTHER” 1984

before milli vanilli pulled off one of pop music’s biggest scams in 1990, “nolan thomas” pulled a similar stunt in 1984. elan lanier, a black studio singer recorded vocals for “yo, little brother” but when it came time to release the single, a non-black performer was chosen to appear in the video and be the face of “nolan thomas.” produced by chris barbosa and mark ligget, “yo, little brother” reached #26 on the r&b chart and #57 on the hot 100.

FONDA RAE “TOUCH ME (ALL NIGHT LONG)” 1984

years before cathy dennis made “touch me (all night long)” an international hit, fonda rae’s original version was a club hit in 1984 peaking #5 on the dance chart. it was also featured in the 1985 “a nightmare of elm street” sequel “freddy’s revenge” – a horror film with the most gayest and homoeroticism subtext of all time.

TRINERE “I KNOW YOU LOVE ME” 1984

trinere’s 1984 miami-bass hit “i know you love me” was produced by the genre’s creator pretty tony, the mastermind behind 2 of freestyle music’s most enduring hits “when i music” (1983) & “lookout weekend” (1984) by debbie deb. “i know you love me” was re-released in 1986 and reached #69 on the r&b chart.

NAYOBE “PLEASE DON’T GO” 1985

released in 1985 when nayobe was just 15 years old, “please don’t go” blended pop, dance, electro and latin music sensibilities. the song set the format for the latin-freestyle genre and every freestyle song that have since followed.

HANSON & DAVIS “HUNGRY FOR YOUR LOVE” 1986

the freestyle/house duo hanson & davis consisted of two former studio session singers. their sole hit was the pulsating “hungry for your love.” the song garnered heavy rotation at r&b radio and peaked at #16 on the dance chart in 1986.

JOYCE SIMS “ALL & ALL” 1986

by the time singer/songwriter joyce sims hit the club scene in 1986, electro began to morph into a more house & latin-freestyle sound. joyce’s debut single, the matronix produced “all & all”, was the perfect blend of the aforementioned sounds. the song would become one of the first freestyle songs to chart inside the top pop 20 in the UK.

MONET “MY HEART GETS ALL THE BREAKS” 1987

“my heart gets all the breaks” is, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest freestyle songs of all time. released in 1987, the song peaked inside the top 20 on the dance chart and #48 on the r&b chart.

by the mid 1980’s, latinx artists like lisa lisa, the cover girls, safire, tka and nayobe had merged the electro sound with latin music sensibilities making way for the latin hip-hop sound that would later be identified as freestyle music. house music and new jack swing replaced the electro sound in black radio by 1988. today we honor of the electro/breakdance/freestyle music genres and the critical role they played in keeping Black, latinx and queer dance floors packed in the 1980s.

[mariposavuela]

I think it’s important to understand that Latino / Latinx / Latine is not a race, and yet it is.

Under the cut because it’s long, and because I make many mentions to horrific abuses perpetuated by conquistadores and slave traders.

In that, we are racialized and that racialization comes from national border tension and power hierarchies from colonization. But there, that word - Latinidad (as it is in the US, where this is actually a word) is a relationship to colonization and then to assimilation.

Latinos are mixtures of many races, so let’s narrow it to the three that emerge the most - white conquerers, the people Indigenous to the Americas, and then Black enslaved people. Many many many Latinos are mestizo, which is a mixture of white and Indigenous ancestry, because (this is important), the Spanish people enslaved and raped Indigenous women. Often, other Indigenous nations traded enslaved Indigenous women to the Spanish. There are a lot of mestizo babies because of horrible sexual abuse, enacted because of horrible misogyny on both the Spanish and Indigenous men’s sides. This, I say adamantly, does not mean the Indigenous people deserved to be conquered, nor does it mean that all Indigenous nations were like this. However, this does say that if we have Spanish ancestry, the origin point was not consensual. It was rape.

And then, when many of the Indigenous nations were actually pretty great at defending their homelands, because they were familiar with their homelands, and they were smart intelligent human beings, the Spanish people decided to switch tactics from pillaging to assimilation. Assimilation is when they figured out how to convince people to adopt the Spanish ways through 1- religious conversion, 2- intermarriage (where the women were property), and 3- threat of violence. So new children born after the initial genocide never learned about their original cultures because 1- the Spanish murdered their ancestors, and 2- they were not allowed to afterward.

All right, so then, as the Spanish took over the land and massively wiped out Indigenous people through genocide, they realized they didn’t have enough people to work the land. So, the slave trade. We are more familiar with this in the US, because of great educational efforts put forth by Black scholars, but basically, people in Europe put up the money, they stole people from Africa, and then they shipped these African people to the Americas like chattel, in brutal cargo conditions, also mass raping African women on the way. As Europeans brought Africans to the Americas, by and large many Indigenous populations were already dead, but there were still many that survived, and everyone intermingled and many had babies, some by force and some by choice.

So there are a lot of mixed-race babies in the Americas. That is why Latinidad as a race breaks down - there is no one racial makeup that makes this. And you can’t just say that Latinos are people colonized by Spain - Portugal did the same thing, they just got Brazil before Spain could get it, basically. However, this is also why we don’t say anything in this hemisphere of America is Latino. Haiti, by and large, is not considered Latino. I’m not sure if this is the most accurate understanding on our behalf, but for the most part, Haiti is understood more as a syncretism of African and French cultural practices. Most Latinos are a syncretism of Indigenous and European practices with African influence coming after. This is also why people consider Filipinos to be Latinos of Asia - they have  a similar colonial history with similar syncretisms coming out of it.

It’s complicated in the way that queerness is complicated. Queerness is not just a sexuality, and yet it is also a sexual identity label. Queerness is a relationship with sexuality and gender the way Latinidad is a relationship with race and culture. This is also why we can’t ever settle on A Word. There’s so many players involved that each group has basically created their own syncretisms and cultures, so some people are Tejanos, some people are Chicanos, some people are Latinx, some people are Caribeños, some are Central American, etc etc etc etc etc, and even then, there are still many Indigenous people who are still part of their nations who were never assimilated and never genocided out of existence. 

That’s also why Latinidad is a United States thing, because these disparate groups of people would have not much in common in their home countries, but when immigrants came to the US, or when the US decided half of Mexico was theirs, suddenly all these different communities were all lumped together as <mestizos who spoke Spanish> and thus given the same caste. It is a coalitional term for people in the US that has now spread back because of our increased globalization making us aware of US imperialism and needing coalitions to fight against those problems.

And so we quibble over things like “how do we say Latinx and is it even a good word?” when we could perhaps do better to look at the things we share in our histories and maybe just kind of like, let people say whatever they want because we know they all mean the same thing, all these words suck for the same reasons and all of them are good for the same reasons, and perhaps we need to make sure people don’t get killed by pesticides sprayed on them as they pick grapes and that women are not forcibly sterilized in detention camps before we get dogmatic over what our team name is.

[straightouttagershwin]

Breaking Legs, Crushing Dreams

Witches, haunted opera houses, small-town diners, the founding fathers, and a magical Scottish town. These unusual topics are dazzling Broadway musicals loved by thousands. Musicals are a brilliant show of song, dance, and story that almost everyone can relate to. Every theatre kid has a role they would do anything to play. Unfortunately, casting bias based on race, gender, or sexuality, could make it difficult . In the past, most characters could be played by straight, white, cisgender actors. In today’s theatre world, that is being challenged. Why should there be a “basic” type of actor, and why should they get all of the parts? When people see themselves represented, it matters. It is especially important in youth development. Casting people of color, LGBTQ+ actors, and gender swapping, can change lives. A recent challenge to the status quo is the historical hip-hop musical, Hamilton. Casting a black man as George Washington, an Asian woman as Eliza Hamilton, and a Puerto Rican man as Alexander Hamilton himself, shocked audiences everywhere and opened up eyes to the possibilities of casting shows. 

Ten years ago, a black man playing George Washington was unheard of. Why did modern day genius, Lin-Manuel Miranda, decide to challenge that? To tell “...the story of America then, told by America now.” What exactly does that mean though? Miranda wanted to tell the almost unbelievable story of America’s creation. But he wanted to tell it through the mouths of the immigrants the country was built on (Quiñónez). The founding fathers were young, rebellious, and brave. They went against their king to fight for freedom and justice for all, but to them, “all” was all white men. Through Hamilton, the people left out of  “all men were created equal” get a chance to tell the story. The good, the bad, and everything inbewtween. Black men get to tell the story of soldiers fighting for the abolition of slavery, Latinx, Asian, and Black women have the opportunity to pay respects to some of the first feminists, and continue to spread the message of equality to the next generation. 

The characters in Hamilton are all based on real people. Because of this, there is debate about whether there should be a line between fantasy and reality in casting. A popular example is Wicked. The story takes place before the events in The Wizard of Oz and includes many of the same characters. Wicked has been on Broadway for 16 years. This year, the first woman of color portrayed the deuteragonist, Glinda. Why did it take so long for this to happen? It’s unlikely that is was malicious. The casting directors did not sit in their offices and throw every woman of color’s headshot in the garbage. It is also quite unlikely that it was completely by chance. The reason was most likely somewhere in the middle. In 2003, Kristin Chenoweth originated the role of Glinda. Chenoweth is tiny, blonde, and white. This description was used in casting every Glinda after her, and very rarely changed. As stated in the Wicked Wiki page, there have been 32 Glindas on Broadway. 32, and only one was a woman of color. So when it did change, people noticed. Brittney Johnson made history in January 2019. She became the first woman of color to play Glinda on Broadway. She made headlines in the theatre community, and made hearts swell, as she gushed about how much it meant to be playing the character. In an Instagram post, the actress told about her excitement, “My hope and prayer is that people see my story and have faith that they can achieve their dreams too. Nothing is impossible! And no dream is too big.” The dream she speaks of, is crashing through the stigma of a white woman playing a beloved character. Through this, she shows kids, adults, and everyone in between, that they too can bring a character to life. 

Aside from race, there are several other factors that could cause someone to not get a role in a show. Gender is a debated trait in modern theatre. Should characters be able to be gender swapped? Most argue that there are some roles that can be gender swapped, and some that cannot. And some believe that all characters should be cast as written. A recent example of gender swapping in a professional role is the character Old Joe in Waitress. Up until late 2018, the role was for a man, and played by one. In December 2018, the writers and directors decided to change that. When beloved actress June Squibb came to see the show, the creative team got an idea. They immediately decided to change the role to Old Josie, and cast Squibb in the part. “In this moment of time, it seems like a wonderful brush stroke to make the owner a woman-a strong, savvy business woman who is trying to help another woman find her footing.” says book writer, Jessie Nelson. Old Josie was loved by audiences and actors everywhere. But would the same love go to other characters?

 In the recent past, I acted in a production of  The Little Mermaid. A friend of mine tried out for Ursula, and had a shot at the role, except that this friend is a boy. He has the vocal range, the acting skills, and everything else necessary to play the character. But unfortunately, he wasn’t considered for the role. There are a lot of possible reasons for this. The conservative town, the young audience, or the views of the casting team, but it all comes down to the same reason. Our brains are trained to think that boys should play boys and girls should play girls. But is that even a factor here? The casting of mythical creatures has always been interesting to me. They’re fake, so there’s no reason for people to put any restrictions on who can play them. 

Religion is another casting factor in theatre. Most of the characters in the famous show, The Fiddler on the Roof are Jewish. Does this mean they should only be played by those of Jewish faith? In most cases, religion isn’t an issue in casting. But when it comes to religions that have been discriminated against, there are arguments. Religions such as Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism are the most argued about. Because the people of these religions have been treated so poorly and given so little chance to be represented, when a character identifies as one of them, it’s important. Some argue that a person not of these religions should not play characters that are, because the young people of the religion deserve to see someone like them, playing someone like them. This is especially important for hijabi characters. Women who wear the traditional headdresses are tormented in public, have their hijabs ripped off, and are mocked and laughed at for their choice. So to put a random actress in a hijab for a show, seems wrong to those who undergo the discrimination every day. 

Although America is supposed to be a haven for people of all backgrounds, racism is still a frequent issue. The iconic retelling of star crossed lovers, West Side Story, has been subject to a lot of whitewashing. To whitewash is to cast a white actor in a person of color’s role. In the 1961 film version of the show, the lead female character, Maria, a Puerto Rican girl, is played by Natalie Wood, a Russian woman. This casting, though common in it’s time, was offensive to the entire Latin community. Essentially telling them that their actresses were not good enough to play the character. However, the show is getting another chance. Set to be released in 2020, Steven Speilberg’s remake of West Side Story stars Rachel Zegler, a Colombian teenager, ready to take on the world as Maria. Zegler has spoken out several times about how important representation is. Millions of fans are awaiting seeing a true Latin Maria on the silver screen. 

Sexuality is becoming a more and more important factor in casting every day. Recently, the Tony winning show, The Prom, has been in talks to become a movie. The show centers around two girls who want to go to prom together as a couple, but the school administration shuts down the prom in retaliation. Young queer kids everywhere were thrilled when the movie was announced. They were less thrilled when the casting possibilities were announced. When it was announced that Ariana Grande would be playing the main character, Alyssa Greene, fans were not happy. In the Broadway show, Alyssa was played by a queer woman of color, and as far as we know, Grande is neither. Casting LGBTQ+ actors as LGBTQ+ characters is extremely important to the audience. If a character is “straight-washed” it takes away part of the identity the original actor brought to the stage. It also takes a role from an actor that could play it with more honesty, emotion, and feeling, because they have shared experiences with the character. 

Kelli Jolly has been involved in theatre for a long time. From growing up a dancer and actress, to choreographing shows, to becoming the president of a theatre organization, she pretty much lives and breathes it. When asked how casting has changed in her time in the theatre, Jolly said that it has changed a lot. “Directors are casting in creative ways to bring a story to life in a different way than the story has been portrayed in the past. It is exciting to watch different versions of the same play or musical with non-traditional casting.” Those like Jolly, who have theatre in every part of their lives, are excited to see change and creativity in shows. They are also excited to watch what the new generation of actors tell the same stories, in a whole new way. A group of 16 actors, directors, and stage managers were asked if (aside from characters that are written with a specific race, sexuality, or religious belief) casting should be blind, and 94% said yes. The world is changing, and theatre is changing with it. 

Casting should be based on talent first. Casting an actor that does not deserve the role is wrong, no matter their race, gender, or religion. Characters can and should morph as the times change. Aiming to be more inclusive and to better represent the world around them. But if a character is a certain way for a reason, the actor should reflect that. Seeing yourself represented in media is important. Having diverse actors can help make that a reality for more people.  

Works Cited

Fierberg, Ruthie. “Why Sara Bareilles, Diane Paulus, and Jessie Nelson Changed Waitress' Old Joe to Josie.” Playbill, PLAYBILL INC., 18 Nov. 2018, www.playbill.com/article/why-sara-bareilles-diane-paulus-and-jessie-nelson-changed-waitress-old-joe-to-josie.

Person, and ProfilePage. “Brittney Johnson on Instagram: ‘My Heart Is Bursting with Gratitude. Thank You, Thank You! God Is so Good! I Am so Humbled to Be the First Black Glinda and Honored to...".” Instagram, www.instagram.com/p/BsgWkRehCVo/?utm_source=ig_embed&utm_campaign=dlfix.

Rogo, Paula. “This Actress Just Made History As First Black Woman To Play Glinda In Broadway's 'Wicked'.” Essence, Essence, 14 Jan. 2019, www.essence.com/entertainment/this-actress-just-made-history-as-first-black-woman-to-play-glinda-in-broadways-wicked/.

Samberg, Joel. “Fiddler on the Roof.” My Jewish Learning, My Jewish Learning, 6 Jan. 2004, www.myjewishlearning.com/article/fiddler-on-the-roof/.

[womenandfilm5]

Vida (2018-present) is a tv series on the Starz Network that premiered in 2018 and is currently in its third season. For my explorations report, I will be writing about season 1 of the show. Vida was created by Tanya Sarracho who also serves as writer and director on some episodes. . Vida ‘s main protagonists are Mexican -American Emma and Lyn, who are estranged sisters brought together due to their mother Vida’s death in their East Los Angeles town of Boyles Heights. . The name ‘Vida’ means life in spanish, which takes on greater meaning in the opening scene when we see someone die. We later find out that the woman who dies is named Vida, so the contrast in the fact that the whole show is about someone who is no longer living and whose name means life is dead is interesting.     . We are introduced to Emma, the older of the two sisters as she takes a car ride to her deceased mother’s apartment. We see Boyles Heights through her eyes as the car moves on from the graffiti on the buildings, and the people walking through the neighborhood. Emma seems nostalgic and we can infer that she probably has not been back home for a long time. . When Emma arrives at the apartment, Lynn is already there being served by Eddy. Eddy introduces herself as their mother’s roommate, although Emma doesn’t seem convinced. It is clear that there is tension between Lynn and Emma due to Emma discovering Lynn knew about her mother and Eddy.

. One of the most interesting scenes in the first episode is the display of emotions from Eddy, Emma and Lyn at the funeral. Lyn cries, but not as much as Eddy who acts like a grieving widow. Emma is stone faced and uncomfortable when members of the community hug her and offer their condolences. Ed later reveals that she was married to Vida. .

Emma’s reaction to her mother being lesbian is “All this time, this woman was married to a woman!” and calls Vida a hypocrite, although she never explains why. We later find out that it is because Emma is also lesbian, and the reason she left Boyles Heights was because her mother found out that she was in a relationship with an older woman. Vida’s internalized homophobia is what has led Emma to fear coming out to her sister and the community. .

One of the most interesting things about Vida is the use of language. Lyn and Emma both use spanglish, as does Eddy. However, Lynn and Emma are called ‘gringas’, a term usually used to refer to white people. They are ostracized by most of the community and considered outsiders because they left Boyles Heights and returned as ‘a hippie vegan’ like Lyn or an uptight no- nonsense business woman like Emma. They are considered part of the gentrification that is happening in the community because they want to sell the bar Vida left them to a developer who is known for tearing down buildings and replacing them with condos. .

The idea of home is a theme that is present throughout season 1 of Vida. Emma can’t wait to sell the bar so that she can go back to her life in Chicago. She pretends to have no affection for the bar their mother left her, her sister and Eddy until the last few minutes of episode 6 (which is the season finale)  when she says “I love this place, I learnt to walk on these floors”.  Emma finds out  that her mother’s bar feels like home to the Latinx queer community that frequent it because they are ‘only tolerated’ as one character says at other bars. The apartments in the building are also home to mostly undocumented immigrants who would not be able to afford to rent elsewhere. .

. Wardrobe plays a major role in supporting the personalities of Emma and Lynn. Throughout the season, Emma wears red lipstick and work clothes (blouses and suit pants) which establishes her as a business oriented, high strung woman. In an article titled Vida Mines The Highs and Lows of Coming Home, the author states that  through her clothing, Emma “has constructed armor around herself—lipstick, an immaculately blunt bob, a forbidding affect—that keep other people at arm’s length” (Gilbert, 2019). Emma’s inability to let people in also shown in how she treats sex. She barely speaks to the non binary character she has a one night stand with, then refuses to talk about her mother with a childhood lover. .

Lyn wears boho clothing and her appearance contrasts with the laid back neighborhood she is in. As a character, she is portrayed as naive, selfish and aloof. While her sister tries to find a way of selling the bar, Lyn shops and begins an off and on again toxic relationship with Johnny, her high school lover. Although she is uninvolved in the day to day operation of the bar, it is Lyn who comes up with the idea to rename the bar Vida in honor of their mother.

. One of most interesting moments in season 1 of Vida that relate to Lyn is when she undergoes a cleansing ritual conducted by one of the elderly women who live in the apartment complex above the bar. Lyn does the ritual because she wants to ‘be good’. However, when she realizes that the ritual has removed everything bad for her including Johnny, she demands for it to be reversed, demonstrating that she is still selfish. In my opinion, Lyn is one of the few characters that doesn’t display growth through the season.

.

. In terms of cinema techniques, I like that a couple of episodes ended in wide shots of the LA skyline. Lynn, Eddy and Emma all have moments when they go on the roof to talk or relax and the skyline grounds the show, reminding us how important the location is.

. There are elements of magical realism in Vida which I found differentiated the show from other dramas. In the first episode, Emma keeps seeing a little girl who doesn’t say anything. In one scene, the girl jumps off the roof and Emma is terrified, only for the girl to still be alive and insult her. At the end of the episode, we see graffiti with the same girl painted on, which I inferred to mean that the girl is a younger version of Emma.

. I like that Vida had an all Latinx writers room because it is important for people of Latin American descent to be able to shape, create and tell their own stories. In terms of reception, according to Forbes in an article titled Critically Acclaimed Latino Dramedy ‘Vida’ Kicks off Final Season on Starz’, the network experienced a 17% percent increase in Hispanic subscribers following the premiere, which prompted the network to announce a third season two days after season 2 premiered.

. A few days after the season 3 premiere was announced, STARZ revealed that it would be the last season, not providing a reason why. As a loyal Vida subscriber, I was disappointed and I hope that the show is picked up by Netflix. I haven’t yet seen the third season, but I am interested to see how the story is wrapped and to see how the characters' relationships with each other evolve. There are not enough Latinx driven shows on television or on streaming platforms in 2020, but I do think that shows like Jane the Virgin and Vida have paved the way for more shows that deal with issues related to Latinx audiences. For example, there was a show on Netflix called Gentefied that had a similar premise to Vida released a few months ago about a family whose taco restaurant is on the verge of bankruptcy and being sold to a developer who wants to gentify the area.

. Season 1 was too short to effectively show character arcs as each episode was only 30 minutes and there were 6 episodes, but the second season expanded to ten episodes, so that provides more of an indepth look at Lynn, Ed, Emma and the other characters. -- MK             

. Works Cited

. Villafane, Veronica. “Critically Acclaimed Latino Dramedy 'Vida' Kicks Off Final Season On STARZ.” Forbes, 29 Apr. 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/veronicavillafane/2020/04/29/critically-acclaimed-latino-dramedy-vida-kicks-off-final-season-on-starz/#70559f665b56

. Gilbert, Sophie. “Vida Mines the Highs and Lows of Coming Home.” The Atlantic, 25 May 2019, https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2019/05/vida-season-2-review-starz/590227/.

[cbcdiversity]

Author Spotlight: Aida Salazar

What are your literary influences?

My literary influences come from disparate sources. I studied a wide variety of theory in college and graduate school — everyone from Roland Barthes to Judith Butler to Gloria Anzaldua and Cherrie Moraga to Bell Hooks to Mikail Baktin to Subcomandante Marcos. I also read poetry voraciously including everyone from Waslowa Simbroska to Lorna Dee Cervantes, Audre Lorde, Rumi, Wole Soyinka, Juan Felipe Herrera. I was marveled by the fiction of Milan Kundera, Arundati Roy, Elena Poniatowska and all of the Latin American magical realists – Asturias, Garcia Marquez, Allende, Esquivel. But also, American writers such as Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, James Baldwin, Helena Maria Viramontes, Ana Castillo, Julia Alvarez and Christina Garcia. I was drawn to authors from the margin almost exclusively. In a sense, I created my own canon in this way.

It wasn’t until I became a mother that I truly started reading children’s literature. My children and I found an oasis in our weekly visits to the library. In Oakland, we are fortunate to have a comprehensive Spanish language collection at the Cesar Chavez Library and we often checked out the forty-book limit! However, many of the books were authored by non Latinx writers and were translated into Spanish. While these books served to reinforce the Spanish language in our family, I saw the huge lack of writings from Latinx creators. I wanted to be a part of filling that gap. I wanted for my children to not only see their language reflected in books but their cultures and their sensibilities. That is why I always praise the work of those Latinx authors who forged the way so that new Latinx kidlit authors could have a seat at the table. We stand on the shoulders of giants and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention their work. Authors such as Pura Belpre, Gary Soto, Sandra Cisneros, Alma Flor Ada, Pat Mora, Carmen Lomas Garza, Francisco X. Alarcon, Juan Felipe Herrera, and Victor Martinez really set the stage for us to be able to tell our stories to young audiences too.

What was the first book you read where you identified with one of the characters?

As a young child, I didn’t understand that I was missing in the narratives of books that I read. I loved Judy Blume. I loved Shell Silverstein. I loved Encyclopedia Brown and Choose Your Own Adventure books. I connected to those books by default, in a similar way that I connected to mass media that also didn’t include me in their blond-haired blue-eyed middle-class, English-only narratives. There was no other option. It wasn’t until I was eighteen and in college that I enrolled in a Latino (we called it that back then) literature course that I saw myself reflected in a book. I remember reading the short story “My Lucy Friend That Smells Like Corn,” in Sandra Cisneros’ Woman Hollering Creek and feeling a moment that I can only describe as grace. I realized that I had been missing in almost everything I had read up until that point. My experiences were alive and validated in that story. It was exhilarating.

Did that experience lead you to want to write books for readers with diverse backgrounds?

I was so inspired by reading all of the books in that Latino literature class. It was an awakening not only to the world of Latinx literature but to the possibility that I too could be a writer. I had been writing poetry and stories since I was a young teenager but those writings remained in my notebooks and journals. After reading their work, I began to take myself seriously and began to understand the writing that lived in my heart could be something I could aspire to do as a living someday. However, my awakening is one that should have not taken eighteen years and I want to be part of making sure that doesn’t happen to other children.  

Your characters in The Moon Within have interesting intersections. Could you speak to why this was important to build into your book?

I did this intentionally. My children are multi-racial and bi-cultural like two of the characters, Celi and Iván. It is not uncommon to see many different mixed children in the San Francisco Bay Area where we live. I find it beautiful how they navigate multiple cultures – sometimes with a sense of wonder and pride and sometimes with neglect or shame and every feeling in between. It’s complicated and certainly isn’t always seamless given so much discussion over racial and cultural purity that is happening today. Through those characters, I wanted to show this negotiation, how they deal with these fusions. I wanted to show readers what it might look like for someone to celebrate and embrace all of who they are. Similarly, I wanted to show with the gender fluid character, Marco, the intersectionality of his identity as a gender fluid Mexican that happens to be in love with playing bomba (a Afro-Puertorican form of music). It was important to show readers that we could be queer and Mexican, Black Puerto Rican Mexican, and Black and Mexican. The range of identities are part of the beauty of who they are, and serve to strengthen and not weaken them. 

Music infuses the whole world of The Moon Within …can you speak a little on that, a little on what role music plays in your own life?

Ironically, I am not a musician though I have a good ear and I love to dance. I am married to a musician and there has not been one day in the eighteen years since we’ve been together when we did not engage in some way with music – listening, playing, singing, dancing or just being in a house filled with instruments and an extraordinary recorded music collection. Our children were naturally born into this environment and took to music right away. I realized that this was a unique experience and that it could be a wonderful world to explore in this book. I wanted to normalize music and the arts as a way of life but also, wanted to inspire readers to seek out the arts as a way to find agency as the children in the book did through traditional music and dance. These are superpowers that unfortunately, with the cutting of the arts for decades now, we don’t have access to as much.

I made a playlist on Spotify that includes all of the styles of music that inspired The Moon Within – bomba, indigenous Mexican music, Caribbean music, and lots of moon related songs in Spanish and in English. It can be found here: https://spoti.fi/2FSnZgM . I hope that you enjoy it!

This Author Spotlight appeared in the April 2019 issue of the CBC Diversity Newsletter. To sign up for our monthly Diversity newsletter click here. 

Aida Salazar is a writer, arts advocate, and home-schooling mother who grew up in South East LA. She received an MFA in Writing from the California Institute of the Arts, and her writings have appeared in publications such as the Huffington Post, Women and Performance: Journal of Feminist Theory, and Huizache Magazine. Her short story, By the Light of the Moon, was adapted into a ballet by the Sonoma Conservatory of Dance and is the first Xicana-themed ballet in history. Aida lives with her family of artists in a teal house in Oakland, CA.

[ememariebee]

Reflection 07

https://whyy.org/articles/philly-sanctuary-is-an-explosion-of-latinx-pride/

https://belatina.com/the-hottest-street-art-in-latin-america/

https://www.thrillist.com/travel/los-angeles/murals-in-east-la-latinx-artists

In chapter 17 by Melissa Castillo-Garsow she discusses art, and how it can be generated with ethnic pride and a sense of community. She talks about how art has reflected family life, religious practices, immigration and the border, along with cultural icons of Mexican descent. Along with that she talks about how subways became the canvas of choice as well. What started with writing, turned to graffiti. Graffiti quickly became a part of hip hop culture and became a part of the music’s visual expression. 

Garsow also talks about how Chicanx art evolves. She retells a description by Judy Baca, “Chicano art comes from a creation of community. In a society that does not affirm your culture or your experience Chicano art is making visible our own reality, a particular reality—by doing so we become an irritant to the mainstream vision. We have a tradition of resisting being viewed as the other; an unwillingness to disappear.” 

After reading this quote I was really moved. When Baca spoke of the tradition of resisting, all I could think about was how true that statement was. It honestly reminded me that I need to stand up for myself more in the society we live in. I’ve been facing a lot of hardships this semester with my job, and it’s been affecting my mental health in a negative way. I’ve been shutting down and running away from the problems, but I need to start being brave. 

https://southwestcontemporary.com/jose-guadalupe-posada/

In chapter 18 by Rocio Isabel Prado, she talks about Latinx and Chicanx for a long time have only seen their culture “depicted by way of Americanized, cheapened fast food, advertisements, xenophobic politicians, and shallow representations of sacred traditions and ceremonies.” However Latinx artists now are trying to escape the confinement of offensive portrayals of Latinx identity but creating meaningful art.  

Prado also talks about how a lot of Chicano artists were inspired by Jose Guadalupe Posada’s satirical calavera caricatures. Artists have based art off his work and use it now to criticize politicians, urban youth, and other political topics just as Posada did with his art during the Mexican Revolution.

https://illustrationchronicles.com/jose-guadalupe-posada-skulls-skeletons-and-macabre-mischief

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/735942

Prado also talks about Latinx feminist artists are also using art to express female bodies, work, sexuality. She also talks about how queer Latinx artists embrace their sexuality and they also take offensive homophobic labels and turn them into something positive. 

https://www.outsmartmagazine.com/2021/06/latinx-lgbtq-artists-portray-their-struggles-in-a-holocaust-museum-houston-exhibition/

https://www.etsy.com/listing/448724928/la-bandera-lgbt-pride-rainbow-flag-gay

When reading this chapter I felt reminiscent and appreciative of the artists. I was in a History of Mexico class where part of the learning process we did a simulation of the Mexican Revolution. In the simulation my role was Jose Guadalupe Posada, and it was really meaningful for me because as I researched him for the role, the more I learned about his art, the more I aspired to make art like him. He had a huge impact on the Revolution and helped inspire thousands of people and I would like to make art like that one day. 

When it comes to Queer Latinx art, I am very inspired that artists are taking homophobic critisisms and turning into something good again. As a person who identifies in LGBTQIA any art that empowers us. I am 26 and I finally came out this year to my family. It was really hard for me, because I once had a conversation with my mom where I asked her, what would you do if I were lesbian? 

And she responded with, “It might take me a while but I could learn to forgive you.”

We had this conversation when I was 15, and it stayed with me for over ten years. This conversation happened when my mother was in an extreme religious faze, where her view on the world was skewed. Years have passed and she has changed her mindset on life, and it has become easier for me to speak with my mom. But I spent a lot of time in fear of what people would think of me if I came out. I was confused about my own sexuality and started shutting down any feelings I had to people who were not men. 

This past year, after the pandemic and having a lot of isolation from the world, I was finally able to come to terms with my sexuality. When asked what my sexuality is, I say, “I’m not straight,” because that is how I feel. I am attracted to people not based on their sexual identity or their looks, I am just attracted to people based on their personality. When I came to this realization, it also came with the fact that I would have to tell my family and friends if I have had a partner that was not a man. That was hard for me, because all I could think about was the conversation I had with my mom when I was 15. 

So I had decided that I would only come out to my family if the person I was dating was not a man.

I recently moved to Arizona over the summer, and within about a month of living here, I met my partner. We started dating and I finally found someone who I could be myself with. My partner identifies as nonbinry, and I knew this would be a hard to explain to my family. 

However, things have started to get serious with my and my partner, and we’ve started to talk about marriage, so I knew I needed to speak with my family about my partner. Telling my mom thankfully went better than I thought it would, and she thankfully adores my partner through the few conversations they have had on facetime. I am bringing my partner home to meet my family over thanksgiving, and I am excited but nervous at the same time.

My family has a hard time understanding nonbinary, and using they/them pronouns, and I know the week I am home is going to be a struggle, but I hope my family tries. And even if they don’t I know I just have to be patient and stand strong to help my family learn. 

I am inspired by Latinx people who go through the same familial struggles that I go through being LGBTQIA. I have been working on my own art, trying to express my LGBTQIA identity through art, and my partner’s feelings and identity as well in hopes to better explain to my family. Through art I hope my family can learn to understand me, and others who identify as LGBTQIA.

https://twitter.com/crosstownarts/status/611228317367275521

In chapter 19 by Richard Alexander Lou and Guisela Latorre they talk about family, culture and one’s identity in relation to the two. They talk about how in general people of culture need to remember, recall family histories, and retell the information and the part it takes in politics, along with how their stories actively challenge the white narratives in the United States. Too much of world history is white washed, and inaccurate as to cover up the mistakes of the people of our past.

They also bring up attitudes and behaviors that are seen as normal in cultures. They bring up machismo, and how there is a lack of concern with “how men of color really live in transnational realities.” 

Lou recount’s his family’s story through an art exhibit sharing his Chinese and Mexican heritage and retelling his life. He shares his family’s history of migration, displacement, and belonging. They talk about the importance of retelling family stories and history as a way to bring light to the truths of history. 

https://www.memphis.edu/art/people/rlou.php

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/la-et-cm-soul-mining-vpam-20180504-htmlstory.html

This chapter was interesting for me to read because I get really passionate about how wrongly we are taught history. We are taught what feels like lies, and blatantly obvious white washed history, in high school and middle school. Then you get to college and you learn a lot of shocking truths. It’s important to learn about history correctly, and to make sure we learn it accurately at a young age.  

But this chapter also moved me because being from a white family, I don’t feel a sense of cultural belonging or heritage. We don’t have cultural traditions of any kind except for hallmark holidays. I’ve always felt a loss, and to be honest I have felt jealous of people who have such rich cultures. That’s why I enjoy learning about my major. I enjoy learning about Latinx cultures, and traditions. I love learning Spanish. There are times where I have felt more at home while learning about other cultures than in my own home.

[theparaminds]

When taught to young children, music is explained as ‘what emotions feel like’, in it’s simplest form that is all that music is. Yet, Holladay has embraced this idea to the highest degree, whether purposefully or subconsciously, to create some of the most honest and hopeful music around. 

Standing as both a person of colour and as someone who identifies with queer communities, Holladay is not the final puzzle piece ready to complete an existing story. Instead, he survives as a piece uniquely his own, starting his own puzzle to find the answers to questions he and so many others know, yet struggle to understand. 

Music is much more than just sound or vibrations to Holladay; it’s a way of life, it’s healing and above all, it’s freedom in a form that can never be taken away. And in the same vein, Holladay is more than just a musician to those around him; he’s an open book that challenges us to listen and understand others, yet above all, to reflect on ourselves and to become the best possible individuals we can become. 

PM: First question as always, how is your day going?

H: My day is ok, I had something planned but just woke up late. But tomorrow's a new day and I can get back on it. I have just been at home with the homies.

PM: Is that a sort of morning meditation for you all?

H: Actually, Yeah! First, we drink coffee then we all just spiral together

PM: To begin why don't we look at your beginnings as an artist, how do you believe your environment growing up led to you becoming an artist and feeling you needed to express yourself artistically?

H: Music has not always been, but has now become a healing tool. Ever before the music, I make now I was making hip hop and at the time I was perpetrating the same cycles that I was put in, that was machismo culture and indulging in that. At one point I moved away and freed myself and just decided to create music of what I truly feel and wanting to create healing.

PM: Have you found a positivity and personal success in rejecting modern male stereotypes and hyper-masculinity? And what do you find the importance of that is in art and in general life?

H: I’m looking to free myself in every way possible and stepping back from hip-hop and just allowing myself to create based on feelings. But it's really important for all of us, especially us men of color who make music because there is no black and white. We should be able to touch any topic, cry and be able to feel in general.

PM: Through the challenges of being queer and a POC, how did you find yourself working towards self-acceptance and understanding?

H: As of recently its funny to me, the past two weeks I've been getting a lot of people reaching out and telling me how my work makes them comfortable with their queerness or in their own skin. We tell ourselves this is why we do this, and you can become very narcissistic in it, but my end goal is to make music that makes me feel safe and to see other people are feeling that way it boggles my mind yet happy.

PM: As well, while looking at music, how have you felt the groups you represent have been treated in the industry and how could it improve as time goes on?

H: I won't name but some of the people who have been representing the QPOC community have this fetish for white men and It's so easy for us men of color to love someone that doesn't look like us, it's harder to love someone that is a mirror. We need to keep working on loving ourselves and being accepting of how we as a community are and our faults.

PM: How about the indie community specifically? Has it embraced it you and given you a better safe space that's a lot more positive to work in?

H: Yeah I don't have that many homies in the scene, but the ones I do, like Victor, Cuco and Jasper Bones, are all very loving and accepting. When I was making hip-hop, not to say there weren't love filled spaces, but it was to an extent, but now I’m happy and feel like I'm apart of something special.

PM: While you mention them, what’re your thoughts on this rising group of brown artists like Victor and Cuco, and how would you say their and your rise has meant for all of your shared cultures in media?

H: I think it happens a lot in the media where each generation has a group of brown artists come up. There's this marketing tool of ‘the Latin explosion’ and it happens all the time. In the 2000s it was Frankie J, Baby Bash etc. and it makes me uncomfortable, it makes me feel like we always haven't been here and are something new. But with this happening it's being seen as us finally being heard and hopefully it can break the chain of what the media has done to latinx artists.

PM: Almost in a way the difference seems to be a lot more pride and self-love towards the community you guys have come from, have you felt growing up you’ve always been connected to where you come from or did you find you rejected it for a while?

H: For my experiences, I went through a long self-hate phase, I used to be so lost after the 2000s it felt like there was no representation of myself. Whatever I saw I wanted to be, and I wasn't seeing me. Slowly I started reading and becoming educated about becoming myself and why brown is beautiful. I hope I can be that for other kids and make sure real representation that isn't token can speak to others that I once was like.

PM: We talk about healing but you also speak about self-hate. But you're also someone who speaks a lot on mental health in your communities, is this something music has helped you heal through?

H: Of course, releasing music is always after coming to terms with an issue and something I needed to confront. Talking about mental health is so important to me because there's such a stigma around it,  It's something essential and it's something that needs to be a core of dialogue.

PM: How have you felt the communities you are a part of have, especially the POC communities, dealt with the rise in mental health importance and dealt with others being more open on the issue

H: I would like to say it's getting better, and I say that because I'm not around a lot of older brown folks anymore, I’m very much around those in my age range, and we’re all pretty accepting. We’re working towards things and being transparent as much as possible. It feels it's getting better but there’s the outside world I'm not part of, you know? There are still kids being told to not cry, it'll take a long time till we get there.

PM: Who have you found as you’re healing, growing and creating that you are looking up to and learning from as you discover yourself and transverse through challenges

H: The universe, and that can be any higher power, whatever it means to you. It guides me and teaches everything as I go. As well, the people in my space and my managers and the people I work with, all the homies. I feel the universe has given them the message to pass down to me.

PM: Looking ahead, how do you hope to see yourself grow as an artist through the next months and years and how does that growth look for you?

H: I just hope that whatever I’m working on, it'll be beautiful and that's what’ll come out of me. The last song I released, Baby boy, that came from wanting to figure things out and be comfier so the more I go into it, the more I learned myself. I just want to keep creating until it’s habit

PM: Do you have any future work on the horizon? And how does it build on past work?

H: I think since I'm trying to figure out something new every day or any chance I get, every time I do that is when I create but with the same cadence and feeling as before. I do want to put an EP together soon, it's going to sound different but it’s still going to be me.

PM: What to you is the most important lesson to pass down to others who have been through or are going through the same challenges as you?

H: Be patient with yourself and your process, it seems like a long road, feeling like you'll never reach where you want to be, but you just have to trust your process and the universe. Step back from the moment and group yourself when possible. And second, know safe spaces exist and that you're loved and accepted somewhere, trust the world will take you there.

PM: And for a final question, what’s a book everyone reading should pick up?

H: The Malcolm X autobiography, after I read it in high school it just sparked something in me, it didn't stop there because it shows you that change is possible within a person.

PM: Do you have anybody or anything to shout out or promote? The floor is yours.

H: Shout out to my safe space and everyone in it. I love them very much and the past couple months being here has helped me so much, I feel like if I didn't find this space I would probably not be here anymore, honestly, and having a support group is so important, you don't have to be an individual and independent all the time. We are social creatures who feed off each other. We need people. Shoutout to the music homies, Victor, Cuco, Jasper Bones. That’s about it.

Follow Holladay on Instagram and Twitter

Listen on Soundcloud and Spotify

[lifebydesign66]

White Supremacy Culture

TAKING IT PERSONAL: WHITE SUPREMACY CULTURE

As a queer-identified, able-bodied and cisgendered woman with class and race privilege, I strive to prioritize naming how social locations shape the ways we move and show up in our lives. I believe those of us with privilege(s) are presented with opportunities to examine our values and actions with honesty, humility and openness. My hope with this imperfect piece is to enliven anti-racist study and exploration. Focusing on racial formation and white supremacy culture in this writing is intentional, however, is not meant to downplay or discount the role of intersecting categories of gender, sexual orientation, ability, nationality/immigration status, age, class or religion. In upcoming pieces, I will discuss interlocking systems of privilege and oppression, the origins of identity politics and delve deeper into white supremacy culture.

DEFINING TERMS

White supremacy culture is the idea (ideology) that white people and the ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions of white people are superior to People of Color and their ideas, thoughts, beliefs, and actions.

White supremacy culture is an artificial, historically constructed culture which expresses, justifies and binds together the United States white supremacy system. It is the glue that binds together white-controlled institutions into systems and white-controlled systems into the global white supremacy system. [from Sharon Martinas and the Challenging White Supremacy Workshop] (1)

UNEARTHING MY PRIVILEGE

I didn’t grow up wanting to be a psychotherapist. As far back as I can remember, I’ve loved dinosaurs. The movie Jurassic Park came out in 1993, but I am almost positive I knew the word “paleontologist” before then. I remember sitting in a ditch, filling a small plastic tube--the ones used to hold a single rose--with dirt. I grew up going to museums, zoos and libraries. I saw people who looked like me, white and sometimes women, in positions of authority, which gave me a sense of choice and possibility. My life reflected the race, class, citizenship and gender-conforming privileges of my family, privileges with violent histories.

MY UNSPOKEN QUESTIONS ABOUT PRIVILEGE

As a child, messages about cultural acceptance were confusing at best. My Southern California elementary school had a “Multicultural Day” every year where we learned about celebrations and food from around the world. At the same time, I didn’t understand why people around me were so angry when families came to the United States from Mexico. Many of my classmates were from Mexico and Latin America. There were palpable rifts in the process of making friends. There were also moments of possibility. I remember proudly singing songs in Spanish, dressed up as a fairy in a musical production of “Hansel and Gretel.” Something changed in my fourth grade year when suddenly we weren’t speaking Spanish anymore at school. Instead, we focused on glorifying the genocidal California Mission system. Nationalism, racism and xenophobia prevailed and the rift became an abyss. As I look back, there were moments when a part of me felt uneasy and had questions about the messages I heard from the media, from family members and at school about my classmates and their families, yet I wasn’t even sure how to form the words.

GETTING UNCOMFORTABLE ANSWERS ABOUT WHITE SUPREMACY CULTURE

Those gut-wrenching “something is wrong here” sensations continued, building up as my home life became increasingly scary and unpredictable. Ultimately, my privilege gave me the opportunity to understand my privilege. The private high school I went to effectively prepared me to attend a state college. My intention was to become a wildlife biologist. Barely a semester into college, that plan began to unravel. Too many questions went unanswered. My first sociology class was like a gateway drug. I needed to understand and Ethnic Studies made the most sense of the world. Native American Studies, Ethnic Studies including Black, Latinx and Asian-American Studies and Women’s Studies arose out of demands for higher education to prioritize the knowledge and experiences within these communities. What I learned was shocking, disorienting and powerful. Coming to terms with having been lied to all your life is overwhelming. Where to direct all the anger, sadness and guilt? Part of my answer was--and is-- to stay committed to understanding, reflecting and acting.

WHY RACE WAS INVENTED

In their pivotal text Racial Formation in the United States, Omi and Winant stress that “the emergence of a modern conception of race does not occur until the rise of Europe and the arrival of Europeans in the Americas” (2, p.61). When power-hungry European businessmen  came into contact with indigenous civilizations, they found a way to justify mass murder by religious doctrine. Later, when conditions in the United States changed, “European colonial powers established “white” as a legal concept in 1676 after Bacon’s Rebellion, during which indentured servants of European and African descent united against the colonial elite” (3, p.125). Then the wealthy European settler-colonialists gave “white” servants privileges, like land, access to guns and the ability to form militias, effectively squashing the possibility of overthrowing them. Laws made by the wealthy for the wealthy changed the once shared conditions of people from different geographic locations (4). Hence, race is an ever-changing category, created to maintain wealth and power for social, political and economic purposes, enshrined in every aspect of society.

UNDERSTANDING THE SMOG OF CULTURAL RACISM

As Beverly Daniel Tatum explains in her book Why are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? (5), “cultural racism” is a part of our collective experience because it is “like smog in the air.”  This smog is made up of “the cultural images and messages that affirm the assumed superiority of Whites and the assumed inferiority of people of color” (p.6). Dr. Daniel Tatum offers countless examples of the ways in which these unspoken and direct messages, from very early in life, shape identity development. In other words, the smog of cultural racism creates the conditions of how we understand ourselves and one another.

TAKING IT PERSONAL: REFLECTIONS TO CONSIDER

How have you noticed the social/political/economic categories of race shift in your lifetime?

What does the “smog” represent to you?

How does the smog of cultural racism show up in your life?

What does it mean to be aware of white supremacy culture?

There are no swift solutions to doing the work of acknowledging privilege. It is an engaged process of openness to unknown and uncomfortable experiences. Over and over, mistakes will be made. What do you need to keep going?

In my client-centered work, I strive to maintain an awareness and respect for personal experiences and intersectional identities. I believe healing happens in powerful community action and when we invite ourselves to be fully honest and aware.

by Ashley Gregory, LMFT

[granvarones]

as a kid in the early half of the the 1980′s, i'd watch as my mother and her gay friends shuffle through a crate of vinyl records to choose a song to dance to. one of those songs was “let the music play” any shannon. her friend, Josie, a black gay man who looked very similar to “leroy” from the 1980 film, “fame.” he would dance and lip-sync as we watched. i remember being so captivated by his presence and in complete awe by the sound of percussions and the hypnotic hook (which was sung by a white dude named jimi tunnell) of the song. i am sure that my musical pallet and my incessant need to lip-sync songs was and still is informed by these memories. 

on february 1, 1984, shannon’s debut album “let the music play” was released. the success of the title track & the follow-up “give me tonight” were critical in the evolution of both dance and pop music. today we celebrate the unsung dance icon, shannon! 

by 1982, after the homophobic and racist driven disco backlash of 1979, dance music still struggled to garner play at pop radio. many uptempo songs, in an effort to not to be confused with “disco”, leaned more pop and r&b. high energy dance songs like sylvester’s “do you wanna funk” were regulated to dance clubs. particularly, black, latinx and queers clubs. mainstream audiences were still afraid of dance music. that would soon change with the release of afrika bambaataa’s “planet rock.”

released in 1982, “planet rock” was sonically unlike anything on heard on radio or the clubs. it was accompanied by songs electro-pop songs like jenny burton’s “one more shot” and “i remember what i like” and freeze’s “IOU. while these songs brought a more melodic yet harder sound to pop music, they did not crack the pop top 40.

in 1983, shannon auditioned for chris barbosa, a bronx raised Puerto rican who was experimenting with pop, dance and latin sounds. shannon landed the opportunity to sing the barbosa penned song entitled, “let the music play.”

“let the music play” became a massive cross-over hit peaking at #8 pop, #2 r&b and #1 dance. the song would also go on to become an international smash reaching top 20 in several countries. 

shannon’s follow-up single was the equally slammin’, and in my opinion one of the greatest pop songs in history, “give me tonight.” the song would reach top spot on both the r&b and dance charts. while many consider “let the music play” as the song that gave birth to the freestyle genre, and in many ways that is true. however, there are elements in “give me tonight”, the glitchy iconic breaks, that many subsequent freestyle songs would successfully and unsuccessfully duplicate. i just think “give me tonight” is just a far superior song. 

by the time shannon released “my heart’s divided”, her 3rd consecutive #1 dance record in the spring of 1984, no one knew what to call her sound. was it r&b? was it pop? was it dance? many in the industry just began to call it “the shannon sound.” i remember being a music loving kid calling songs by nolan thomas “yo little brother” and chaka khan’s “my love is alive”m the Shannon sound.  kid calling songs the “shannon” sound. it was this sound that fellow dance legends Lisa Lisa and shannon would build on to create the sound that we now officially call freestyle. 

shannon quickly followed up here debut album with the release of “do you wanna get away”, her 1985 sophomore album. by this time radio was now saturated with other “shannon” sounding songs. in an effort to separate herself from the pack, songs on “do you wanna get away” were a bit more poppy and not as dance oriented as her previous singles. the the title track, however, did give her another #1 on the dance/club chart and another top 20 r&b hit. 

after the release of a few more singles and one more album, shannon asked to be released from her contract and took an extended break from performing. 

in 1997, the dance music landscape had shifted. freestyle had long fallen out of favor and giving way to the house music dominance. but with shannon was still able to notch herself another #1 dance song with the release the Todd Terry produced “it’s over love.” 

shannon is still out here doing her damn thing in 2019! i saw her perform live once as part of a freestyle ensemble concert. she was the opening act. she greeted the crowd w/, “look at what i helped to create. i did this!” she got a standing ovation. yes, you created this miss shannon!

shannon’s “give me tonight” impact is still felt. miss aja kills this gawd damn performance by lip-syncing the best part of the song - the glitchy vocal break! lawd! this is how you honor a legend!

[notsoivorytower]

This month, we spoke with Ph.D. candidate and Anzaldúing It podcaster Jackie Cáraves. An L.A. native, Jackie talked to us about navigating life and the ivory tower as a QWOC, first-yen college student, and first-gen grad student in the borderlands. She shares her insights on the LGBTQ Latinx Community, impostor syndrome, code-switiching, and QWOC survival. Follow Jackie on IG @getitgirrl and @anzalduingit !

Hey Jackie! Tell us a bit about yourself and your academic journey. What is your field of study and what does your current research focus on?

I grew up in East Hollywood in Los Angeles with a single mother on welfare and two older brothers. My dad left when I was 18 months old and I’ve only seen him a handful of times throughout my life. As a unit, my mom and my older brothers Martin and Rudy are extremely close. We went through a lot together. My brothers really influenced my journey to academia. Martin showed me that it was possible to go to college by attending UC Berkeley after high school. My brother Rudy tried to provide for us by joining a gang, which really made me question why he had to go through that trauma as a necessary part of our racialized poverty. It made me want to understand the systems that put us all in those really difficult situations. When I went to UC Santa Cruz, I was inspired by my feminist studies classes and latino studies classes. In those classes, I learned about intersectionality and about my own family’s experiences in a systemic way. When I read the works of these chicana feminist scholars, I saw myself and I wanted to be just like them. I wanted to create knowledge and bridge academia and community.

I am currently a PhD Candidate in Chicana/o Studies at UCLA. My research focuses on the experiences of Trans and Gender Non Conforming (GNC) Latina/o/xs. My work really aims to highlight the ways in which Trans and GNC Latina/o/xs embody resilience and so my dissertation will mainly focus on family, chosen family, and spirituality as sources of resilience. I was connected to Bamby Salcedo, the president and CEO of Trans Latin@ Coalition, through a friend. After Bamby and I had developed a repoire, Bamby asked me to work in community with Trans Latin@ Coalition to co-produce the first report about health in the Trans Latinx community. Our report, The State of Trans Health, was published by Trans Latin@ Coalition last year and involved surveying 129 members of the Trans Latinx community all over Southern California. Based off of the work that Bamby and I did, I am conducting more in depth interviews with Trans community members about their methods of resilience.

Can you speak to your experiences as a QWOC in academia? You certainly seem to be vocal about attempting to break down the Ivory Tower. What are some obstacles / inequalities / disadvantages you've encountered and how did you deal with them?

For me being a QWOC in academia has come with imposter syndrome. My mom was only able to obtain an elementary school education. I am a first generation college student and a first generation grad student. So, my background only fills me with doubts about whether I can be an academic and a scholar. As I entered the MA and PhD, I became very uncomfortable being in those spaces, often feeling like I didn't belong or that I wasn't supposed to be there because I somehow felt I wasn't qualified to be there. I felt like someone was going to find out I was truly unqualified and kick me out of the program altogether. Even being in a program like Chicana/o Studies where my peers and professors are all People of Color didn't make it easier. Because ultimately academia is still academia and there is a culture of competition and performance that exists.

Academia is isolating, competitive, and based on production. My cohort is the first Chicana/o Studies Cohort at UCLA and I think we are keenly aware that we are the first. Being the first cohort is special because we are really building the culture of our program. We have tried together to build community, mentorship, and support each other. However, building this culture took time, so the first few years were especially difficult. Now, however, I think my main sources of affirmation and validation are my cohort members and my adviser. We are trying to break down, as much as we can, the sense of competitiveness and alienation that academia puts on grad students.

I also want to use academia to do community work. It is really hard to be authentic in a place that is so competitive and so based in what you “produce.” The ways in which I try to break that is through my scholarship and through my teaching.  

You focus on Latin American Studies and have been a big advocate for LGBTQ visibility. Can you tell us more about your goals for implementing your studies within the larger LGBTQ Latinx community?

Being in Chicana/o Studies and Latino Studies, I’ve learned a lot about race, class, and even gender. However, there is a dearth of social science literature that focuses on queer Latinx experiences. We see a lot of that scholarship, specifically chicana lesbian feminist scholarship, be relegated to the humanities. My goal is to bridge the literature and center current Latinx struggles. We have a lot of conversations now about intersectionality but a lot of our conversations have only one or two dimensions and we don’t include queer or trans identities in those conversations. They should. Centering the queer and trans community can help us understand heteronormativity, another structure that oppresses all of us. At least that’s what I want to bring to a university and academic setting.

In terms of the larger Latinx community, I want to use the resources of a university and my own social capital to collect information and make it useful for community members who are trying to empower and elevate themselves. For example, when Bamby and I did this study together last year, we knew what kind of data the study would produce because of our lived experiences. But we wanted to show the results in a printed, digestible way for grassroots organizations to bring to funders, politicians, and community organizers.

After listening to your recently launched podcast, "Anzaldúing It," we knew we had to feature you on Not So Ivory Tower. We appreciate you speaking on your experiences as a QWOC in L.A., touching on issues like being a child of immigrants, welfare, toxic relationships, and self-care. Can you tell us more about this project?

Thank you for listening to the podcast! It brings me so much joy to be talking about the podcast and to be in a place where we are now putting together the 10th episode! The idea of a podcast started with a conversation I was having with my best friend, Angelica Becerra. Earlier this year, I brought up the idea of doing a podcast to Angelica. I suggested it to her because we always come together and have these conversations on our own. What we talk about on the podcast is really how we talk to each other in real life and how we heal and bring joy to our lives. We learn a lot from each other and I just wanted to start recording these moments of our lives that have really felt cleansing and soothing for both of us.

In the podcast we talk about our personal lives, academia, and those things that help us get through: spirituality, astrology, our families (both chosen and not) and food! We never thought that we would have so much interest, but we are so happy and excited that people are listening and that people seem to be taking joy in listening. This podcast is a way for us to stay connected to the world, ourselves, and our community. Especially in times like these, I think we need these brief moments of laughter, love, and honesty, almost as a respite from the news. We are super excited about sharing with you!

In one episode, you talk the roles code-switching and accents play in academia. This seemed like a perfect reflection of Gloria Anzaldúa's writings on performing multiple identities to survive. Can you speak more on your experiences with this?

As I’ve mentioned in the podcast, code switching is something that I have had to learn since I was little. As first generation students, child of immigrants, we learn this from a really early age. We switch from English to Spanish whether we are at school or at home. I also was in very white spaces from middle school and onwards and I learned the different borders I had to cross with my language whether it was with friends, teachers, or at home.

In academia I’ve had to learn a new language. I’ve had to try to find an academic voice that still remains true to who I am. I’ve tried to hold on to the way I speak and not assimilate. I try to keep the way that I speak from growing up in the hood and not try to erase where I come from.

Even though we are talking about language, I’ve also “code-switched” with my gender presentation and with my queerness. Code-switching is often about performance of your different identities and for a long time, I performed femininity because I thought that was what was expected of me. I’ve learned to live more authentically in the last 2 years too in my gender presentation. So in that regard I’m trying not to code-switch in my queerness.

What advice would you give a young QWOC just starting out on her academic journey? Are there any strategies, support systems, or tools that you think would help them navigate academic spaces better?

I would say, find those people that you feel safe with, share with them what you’re going through, and know that you’re going to have to be vulnerable. Community, friends, and family are essential for productivity. Also, don’t look for academia to validate you. It is important to remember that you are not a machine and productivity is not the only marker of your worth. Mental health is a real thing! Go to therapy, ground yourself in spirituality, get the support and help you need. It is important to laugh, love, and heal and try your best to remain true to yourself through this process.

[queermtl]

An interview with Montréal’s Cuarta Baby

Queer life in Montréal stretches far outside the mapped limits of the Gay Village, and a group of LGBTQ+ creatives are shining a light on queer expression that crosses boundaries, scenes and cultures. Rafaella Alegre (Cuarta Baby) is a nightlife organizer, ballroom house mother, outspoken activist and community builder (including co-founding the Montréal Kiki Ballroom Alliance), whose welcoming events have brought a uniquely Latinx flavour to Montréal. During a busy Pride season, we spoke with her about life in the city, the growing ballroom community and her upcoming Gasolina! An Urban Kiki Ball at La Sala Rossa on August 31, 2019.

1. Can you tell me a little bit about your personal history in Montreal? When did you arrive and what first caught your eye about the city to prompt you to move here from Peru?

I first arrived the day after Christmas in 2013. I had visited Montreal for some weeks in 2011 after being denied a tourist visa to go to NYC, and when I realized people could be openly queer or a woman without getting harassed on the street – or at least, way less than in Lima – I was like, ‘I need to get out of my city.’ Lima is a very hostile environment and even though I love my city and country, I needed to leave for my mental health and general well-being. It was the only city I had ever visited outside Peru at the time.

2. What prompted the creation of your party CRZN? Did you notice a gap in the LGBTQ+ community that needed to be filled in regards to Latinx people in Montreal? What does the name CRZN represent?

Exactly that. I missed the queer parties back home. The intersection of latinidad and queerness is very important to me, which I didn’t realize until I felt the void when I moved out. I found that other Latinx immigrant friends felt the same way, and they wanted a place to be able to perrear (grind) where the gender combination or femininity/masculinity of the participants would not be policed. I found that I hated the music in all the queer parties that I had been in Montréal and since I had nightlife experience from being a DJ for years in Lima, I figured I should do something about that gap. 

I really didn’t feel the urgency to solidify those plans until the tragedy that happened at Pulse. There was a need of a space to heal through Latin rhythms and that’s when I felt I had to rise to the occasion and this is when CRZN was born. Corazón means “heart” in Spanish, and I named it that way out of being passionate Latin queers and how we feel happiness or sadness intensely, especially these particular feelings of mourning. In Latin America, we have a history of using dancing and music to cope and heal and that’s something that it has in common with the queer community. I was told by someone one time that they thought the name meant “cruising” which I love as well – it’s a queer space after all, and I like to think it is also the bisexual party of Montréal. There’s something about reggaeton that is so sexual and makes you wanna hook up, so cruising also goes well with the brand and mood of this event.

3. Cuarta Baby is also a cornerstone of the Montreal ballroom community. When did you discover ballroom? What pulls you towards it? What are you hoping to do with your involvement as voguer, walker and commentator?

Thanks for calling me a cornerstone, that’s huge. I still see myself, as my name says, as a “baby” in the ballroom scene, because I am. My involvement started officially at the same time voguing classes started in Montréal, so more or less two and a half years ago. But, even in Peru I dreamt about being a part of it. I watched videos of Leiomy and tried to imitate the movements, but at that time, ballroom was not experiencing this boom of popularity so there was not even a single video on how to do a dip and the information to learn about the culture was very limited. It was only later that I was able to really delve into it completely. I really see Twysted Miyake-Mugler as one of my main mentors in this learning process – which never ends! 

I felt very alone with my feelings surrounding femininity in Latin America, where there’s a very specific way of being a woman – feminine, heterosexual, catholic – that probably only other latinas who were raised and lived there can understand. I didn’t fit that archetype in several ways and femininity felt more like a prison. It was only through voguing that I discovered a way of being femme that was liberating and subversive. Voguing really helped me find myself and being comfortable in my own skin and for that I will be forever grateful. That’s why the involvement of Afrolatinx and Latinxs in the beginnings of ballroom culture in NYC makes so much sense to me – it seems like in a way it’s a direct response to how our culture sees gender roles and expression. As a walker and a mother – though I prefer mami because it makes me feel less old! – what I want to do with my own participation is honour that legacy and that’s the main value of my kiki house Benetton. 

As a commentator, I want to blend Latin rhythms with original and authentic vogue beats while chanting in Spanish or Spanglish, to breach the gap between the main anglo-scene and the different newish scenes in Latin America such as Costa Rica, Mexico, Chile and hopefully, some day Peru! – something me and my collaborator DJ Minas have baptized as vogueton. It’s kinda like the lovechild between the two most influential songs in music history (in my biased opinion): Gasolina and The Ha! Dance. As a voguer... well, it’s no secret that I’m not a performance girl and Face is my category, so even though I do not compete, I do vogue for fun. It is an almost sacred ritual to me where I explore and relate to my femininity, and it’s the only time where I feel like I understand myself and can show myself through movement. It's so hard to explain our complex reality with words, so I think vogue does through movement what poetry does through words.

4. Where do you see Montreal’s ballroom community going in 2019?

I’m hoping it will get bigger and that queer and trans people of colour want to participate more and more. It does take commitment and years to get better at it, but it’s such an investment in art and talent that it’s worth it! We want to see the walker quality and quantity rise. 

5. How has the city changed since your arrival (and specifically since your involvement in both CRZN and voguing)?

Well, the percentage of bisexual men has increased considerably! Just kidding – or am I? I think both myself and the city has changed in different ways. My stellium-in-virgo ass is super obsessed with doing work for the community and stepping forward when there’s no one else doing it. We have a well-established party that doesn’t turn any profit but we’re able to keep it going and curate a unique space and sound where people feel safe. I’ve also been part of founding the Montreal Kiki Ballroom Alliance, which I think even though it has started only very recently, is already starting to do amazing work towards uniting and bettering the kiki functions in the city. So, on my end, I will keep trying to provide the city with events where you can perrear and voguear, be it a party like CRZN or a kiki ball like “Gasolina! An Urban Ball” or the “Labour Weekend Kiki Workshops”.

6. How has life in the LGBTQ+ community in Montréal affected you?

The privileged first world life that a queer can live here has made me really appreciate my opportunity of migration, but at the same time it has made me appreciate my upbringing in the third world because it made me who I am and has given me a grasp on reality outside of the North American bubble. If I could choose, I’d be born where I was born again and again. Sometimes the “gay community” – it’s hard to call it LGBTQ+, because it is very much centered around the G – I don’t know if “affect” is the right word, but it bothers me and makes me want to create my own social circles and surroundings! Ballroom is an entirely different story – it centers (or it should at least) the black transwoman experience and we are all guests there, but it definitely finds a way to include everyone somehow.

7. Who in the city inspires you?

Ballroom-wise, I am always inspired by Brian Amazon Disney and Chivengi. The way they move alone is truly beautiful and a learning experience on its own. My Benetton children – who I recruited for a reason – like Naomi. The way she commands a room is unbelievable! My music soulmate and collaborator Minas, who I organize CRZN and have infinite projects with. I know you asked Montréal, but I it wouldn’t be right in my book to acknowledge who inspires me in Montréal ballroom without mentioning the Toronto scene as well, so Twysted, Tamar, Ceasar and N9ne are huge ballroom inspirations! But, no shade, most of my inspirations for all things art and creativity are in Peru, New York and Puerto Rico.

8. If you were to tell visitors just arriving three things about Montréal that you love, what would they be?

I’d say first of all come during the summer and not to toot my own horn – but totally – I’d come when there’s a CRZN. Also, my bed is one of the best tourist spots out there, just saying.

[wearecraftinglove]

It’s hard to believe it’s already been a year since we started up Crafting Love! We’ve done so much in such a short amount of time and we’ve been able to grow even closer through creating together. We want to take a moment to thank everyone who has been there for us since Day 1 and everyone who has joined us along the way. We could not have done this without y’all. To celebrate, we’re having a week long sale with coupon code CLBDAY1. Use this code to get 25% off your order! We’ll also be adding brand new products throughout the week so be on the lookout! #craftingloveturnsone #happybirthdaycraftinglove #happybirthday #craftinglove #wearecraftinglove #qtpoc #qtpoclove #queer #queerlove #qtpocbusiness #qtpocowned #blackowned #buyblack #shopsmall #etsy #blacketsy #afrolatine #latine #latinx #afrolatinx #handmade #sale https://www.instagram.com/p/Bs9El71A4R9/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=s5kwblzcdyxj