Problems with Branding Something "The First Ever," An Example

About a month ago, I learned that a Latino Institute was to be held at Creating Change, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's annual conference. Creating Change is an important space where activists, professional LGBTs, policy influencers, etc, come together to share, learn, strategize, and build community. I attended several Creating Change gatherings over the years and have always left feeling reinvigorated by the opportunity to be around those who share similar values and ways of being and knowing in the world, and to dialogue (at times argue) over strategy and our understandings or relationship(s) to history and current experiences.

It is based on my experiences at Creating Change, my past as an organizer of, and in, LGBT (in some instances Queer) Latina/o spaces, that I offer some thoughts on the Latino Institute and the language deployed in its branding.

I sincerely hope these thoughts are taken as an offering, rather than an attack or an attempt to stir the pot with gratuitous bitterness (I try to be explicit when the latter is my intent). Specifically, I want to share thoughts on language, history, and lessons I learned over the years.

First, I'm filled with a mixture of sadness and pride that a Latino Institute has finally become part of the institution that is Creating Change. Felicidades, kinda.

Second, the language used to brand the Institute is problematic. This was not the first time queer Latinidad came together at Creating Change to have conversations about intersectionality of identities and experiences, as well as dialogue and strategize around pressing issues affecting our communities. There were meetings before. 

Of course, we can talk about the effectiveness and efficiency of these meetings (being messy was basically a ground rule), but I cannot sit idly without reminding or informing folks that these gatherings took place and that, in many ways, these created much of the foundation on which this Latino Institute stands. While it is technically true that this was the first ever Latino Institute at Creating Change, important historical facts can be inadvertently glossed over or erased with language and branding.

Third, the Latino Institute does not stand on past Latina/o spaces alone. Creating Change has had a Queer People of Color Institute for many years. And, yes, the QPOC Institute was deliciously messy in all kinds of ways (perhaps it still is-- it's been years since I've attended). From white folks and light-skinned folks being asked to leave or prove their "ethnic'ness" to disagreements over sex-positive icebreakers, we laughed, rolled our eyes, cried, and sucked our teeth. But above all, we came together. That these spaces were about coalition and community building in ways that sharing a particular colonizer allows us to take for granted, should be learned from, rather than overlooked as a non-Latina/o space.

I do not seek to diminish the work of bringing together a Latino Institute at Creating Change. But I do hope to bring forth a perspective that comes from years of introspection, heartache, and a commitment to remember and document the complexities of our histories.  


Hopefully the Latino Institute was better structured and better facilitated than we were capable of. Hopefully folks in the room were able to get past the political stumbling blocks we encountered time after time. Hopefully, history will be better preserved and shared so that future meetings know and remember, they were not the first either. 

On Being Brown, Queer & Prochoice

As a queer man of color I am adamant about having a public ideological and physical pro-choice stance. I believe that queer men, particularly queer men of color, must not only stand in solidarity with our sisters in demanding and embodying values of reproductive justice, it is essential that we also see our own bodies as requiring a world where reproductive justice is demanded, lived, and sustained.

While I am not interested in dogmas that require one person to be wrong in order for another to be right, I do find that to be anti-choice (for to be pro-choice is, by definition, to be pro-life in its real meaning) is to be lacking in an understanding of a shared human experience; it is to be lacking in humanity.

I grew up in an anti-choice home. My father is an adamant believer in the rights of a fetus over all else. I understand the context and religious and cultural fervor from which he basis his belief. However, my understanding, or perhaps better said, my knowledge of these undergirding values are not enough for me to cease to insist that to be anti-choice, to be a cisgender male, and to be of color, are all unacceptable contradictions.

Reproductive injustice has roots in many unhealthy terrains, though I am particularly interested in the role economics have played over the centuries in insisting on the control of women’s bodies specifically, but also the bodies of people of color (understanding that these two identities are not necessarily exclusive). My refusal to procreate to parent myself is rooted in a number of ideological stances. I need only look at the many examples of men who have failed at being fathers and whose failures are celebrated by a misogynist and both anti-woman and anti-man-of-color society; something I have seen celebrated by my own family.

I live in a world where the lives of young adults (increasingly of color) are seen as disposable in the way of sending them to risk facing their own death while massacring young adults of color, including their communities. This reality creates impossibility in believing that we, as a society, collectively believe in the sacredness of all life.

As I continue to meditate on my relationship to reproductive justice values, I am convinced that it is my own queerness that fuels this unwavering commitment toward choice. Of course, I am pro-choice because I am human, alive, and conscious. I am also pro-choice because I understand and witness the economic underpinning of an anti-choice movement.

Angela Davis points out in her book “Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey, Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday,” that “the slave system’s economic management of procreation... did not tolerate and often severely punished the public exhibition of self-initiated sexual relationships.” I do not believe in hierarchies of oppression or in playing oppression olympics. I have no intention of comparing enslavement to any other act of human violence. I do, however, think often about how the “economic management of procreation” is manifested in, permeates, and feeds the anti-choice movement, and, without a doubt, in the anti-gay movement.

A world where women have agency and are able to make informed decisions about their own bodies and health, is a dangerous world to live in for those wanting to control procreation. Similarly, living in a world where I, a brown queer man, chooses to love another brown queer man (or worse, multiple), is a direct resistance to the economic control of human bodies.

While the Supreme Court ruling on Lawrence v. Texas was historic in that it eliminated the criminalization of homosexuality as an act, queer men must not limit their celebration to this decision alone. Queer men, especially queer men of color, must also remember and remain vigilant of the historical importance of Roe v. Wade. It is critical that queer men of color understand that both cases, and perhaps most importantly in Roe v. Wade, one of the questions at hand was that of self-determination and the repulsive act to legislate the body.

Certainly, the two aforementioned Supreme Court rulings have enormous implications for the lives of queer men of color. However, we must not overlook the fact that we live in constant fear that one day Roe v. Wade might be in jeopardy. In addition, while criminalizing homosexuality has been deemed unconstitutional, queer men of color continue to live under constant threat of violence and criminalization by the State.

It is my hope that in coming to the realization that reproductive justice is not the exclusive concern of women, queer men of color might insist on a comprehensively just movement for queer rights and demand that the institutional leadership of the LGBT movement manifest such values. LGBT rights (including marriage equality, freedom to serve in the U.S. military, hate crimes legislation, and workforce nondiscrimination efforts) must be informed by the other issue movement areas that pertain to the lives, experiences, and mere survival of all people of color. Perhaps in employing such values and a multi-layered, multi-issue, and multi-identity analysis will create the language, spaces, and ability to engage those LGBT rights efforts that are counterintuitive and at odds with liberation.

_____________________________________
Originally posted on February 5, 2010. Reposted in honor of the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.

Serosorting: The Panel That Was and Could Have Been?

Last night I had the opportunity to attend the SF STOP AIDS Project/SF AIDS Foundation Real Talk: Serosorting* panel dialogue, facilitated by Sister Roma, and held at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center. Days before the event I had been following the lively conversation on the event's Facebook page and enjoying the various perspectives from folks who were engaged through insightful critical contributions on the topic. Of course, many folks were in disagreement with each other, while some were in disagreement with the fact that an organization would even broach the subject. If the provocative language for the event "'F**k without condoms? Ever?' Let's talk about it," wasn't enough to make me want to attend, the Facebook page conversations enticed me even more.

I admit that I walked into the room with some really high expectations. From the title of the event to the fantastic dialogue on Facebook, I was ready to enter a space of conversations that took us beyond conventional rhetoric and morality-based messaging.

Program staff did a fantastic job at presenting the most current data on San Francisco communities. What I found most interesting about the data was that a reduced Community Viral Load in San Francisco was suggesting a reduction in HIV infections as well. With 44% of people living with HIV on treatment, the analysis seemed to offer that we are on to something. In addition, audience members were able to participate in live polling (via text messaging) regarding behaviors and perspectives, which offered some fantastic data that I hope will be made available to the public in some format in the future.

Up to then, I was pretty happy with the event. There were a few interesting and evocative comments, which I thought would lead us into deeper places as we sought to further unfold our understandings and opinions about serosorting. And then things started deteriorating.


I was disheartened to hear audience members' lack of generosity toward other queer men. Every time I heard someone insist that no man should be trusted and that we should assume all men are positive, I wondered if they realized they were talking about the person next to them; they were talking about themselves. I don't mean to dismiss the possibility that some men living with HIV might very well be having condomless sex with other men without disclosing for the purpose of infecting others. But I couldn't help but wonder what deep traumas we carry that this very unlikely scenario becomes the basis on which to construct such awful assumptions about every one of us. 

One of the most thought-provoking and insightful comments of the night came from an audience member who said, "What does it mean that we think everyone we fuck is going to kill us?" The question begged for deeper and more critical conversation about how the constructions we hold about each other's bodies and intentions impact our decisions, our health, and our love for one another. 

What could have been a lively high level conversation about each other's practices and strategies, turned into peer-to-peer admonishments with the same bland morality-based HIV 101 messaging we've grown accustomed to hearing on the streets. It seemed that each time someone offered ideas about how to strategize around a particular scenario (i.e. sex between serodiscordant men), a person behind me would keep yelling "Use a condom! Use a condom!" 

Yes, I know. Use a condom. We've all heard it. But, obviously,  by virtue of being in a space to talk about the fact that not all men use condoms all the time (I believe the audience poll noted that some 95 or 97% of men in the audience have had condomless sex), I would hope we'd be prepared to take the conversation to the next level. While Sister Roma's facilitation was fantastic at deescalating tensions, I kept hoping she'd redirect the conversation back to the purpose of the gathering: to talk about practices and strategies. Where were the impassioned men from the Facebook page posts?

Sadly, the panel, too, left a bit to be desired. Comprised of a mix of field experts and folks who brought their personal experiences forth, the panel had a quasi-traditional feel to it. That is, I felt as though we were to see the panel members as just regular people engaged in a non-heirarchical dialogue with us, with occasional facts-based contributions.

I'm all about deconstructing the Panel Framework and holding horizontally structured community conversations. But that isn't what was offered either. Instead, there was a mixture of panelists who had specific data or information to offer in a given moment, and other panelists who seemed to be the experts in their lives in the same way I am in my own life, but who had more power in their voice by virtue of being on a panel. Pulling off these approaches can be tricky and require a skill that I didn't quite see surface.

Lastly, I can't end this post without looking at race. Besides the one person who seemingly self-identified as Latino, the rest of the panel was unsurprisingly white. Now, I'm not proposing a quota system by any means, but I am calling into question the intention of the organizers. In 2012, in San Francisco, to hold an event with mostly white panelists leaves a lot to wonder. Surely there are men of color who are experts in the field. I know for a fact that there are men of color who are experts in their own lives and capable off offering broader insights on the panel. If there's room for a bartender and club promoter, there's room for more than one person of color.**

In the end, I'm grateful to the organizers for pulling together the event. Despite the critiques, there were some stellar moments. My hope is that through our collective feedback, we are supporting the SF STOP AIDS Project/SF AIDS Foundation to grow with us. These are undoubtably strong foundations to build on.



______________________________
*Serosoting being the practice of choosing sex partners (and in some instances, sexual position) based on all parties' HIV status.
**Not a jab at bartenders or club promoters, but certainly a critique of panel organizers.

AWP 2013: A Post-Racial, Post-Queer, Post-Trans Writers' Conference?

Yesterday, the Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) announced the list of selected evens for its 2013 Conference, which is scheduled to be held March 6-9 in Boston, MA. Every year the competition seems to steepen, with this year's proposals of over 1,300 being reduced to 516 (tentatively) accepted events. With just under 40% of proposals being accepted, AWP is projecting to have some 1,980 panelists, 58% of whom are women, and 42% men.

I have been to three AWP Conferences (Austin '06, Denver '10, Chicago '12; weather kept me from D.C. '11), and, thanks to the genius and hard work of my brother and fellow-writer, Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhran, I've presented at two of these, while missing the third panel in D.C. Overall, I've found the Conference to be rather enjoyable and good for my writer spirit. Given that I often neglect the writer in me due to professional and other obligations, it is a blessing to spend several days with no other hat than that of a writer. Adding to the experience is the opportunity to connect with old friends, make new ones, and stalk a writer (or three) I admire.

Last night, I went to AWP's website and found the List of Accepted Events. I proceeded to do my research and was frankly surprised and a bit disillusioned by the small number of selected events that deal specifically or remotely on matters of queerness, gender-expansiveness, and race. Through some obsessive investigating, I found that 29 of the 516 events specifically reflect these identities and experiences. That's below 6% of all accepted proposals. 

Of the 516 accepted proposals, only five* (1%) are specific to queer and/or gender-expansive identities and writing, and 27** (5%) are specific to communities of color. An additional five accepted proposals seem to include these identities and/or issues (in various degrees) as a part of their overall purpose.

Of course, I know that there are queers, gender-expansive folks, and/or people of color on panels that might not be about, or address, these experiences specifically. However, I personally gravitate toward those panels and events that are intentional and explicitly forthcoming about queers, the gender expansive, and people of color. While I applaud the integration of our communities into other panel opportunities, I continue to believe there is also value and need in creating spaces that are specific to, and intentional toward, our experiences and our values. Hosting a conference with a majority of women panelists is something to be proud of, but it isn't enough; it certainly does not guarantee inclusivity of queer/gender-expansive/women of color.

History has long shown that in spaces where queerness, gender-expansiveness, and race are not intentionally and explicitly brought to the forefront, non-queer, cisgendered, and non-people of color experiences and voices dominate or, more commonly, occupy entirely. Of the 94% of accepted proposals for AWP's 2013 Conference, I trust that the vast majority will either speak to our experiences tangentially or not at all. The latter being the most likely case.

Here's a quick breakdown of the number of panels specifically by, for, and about queers, the gender-expansive, and people of color:

LGB(T)Q, Trans, Genderqueer: 5*
Native, Indigenous, Aboriginal: 4
Black, African American: 5
Arab-Amarican: 1
Asian American: 3**
Caribbean: 1
Latina/o: 3
Chicana: 1*
Immigrant, People of Color Diasporas, Immigration-focus: 4**
Pan-People of Color: 5

I am left to wonder if AWP is demonstrating its (in)ability --or apathy-- to ensure queer, gender-expansive, people of color voices are demonstrably visible and heard. Perhaps this is a reflection of organizational values, or the effects of living in a world that is allegedly post-racial, seemingly increasingly post-queer, and hesitantly post-trans. Perhaps this is what it means to live in the aftermath of selective Gay Marriages, one Transgender Meeting at the White House, and the election of the first Black President. Or, maybe it's just another straight, cisgender, white organization doing that thing straight, cisgender, white organizations do.

Of one thing I am perfectly sure: 6% is an unacceptably low number for a conference taking place in the second decade of the 21st Century. 



____________________________________
*One event is Lesbian and Chicana focused.
** One event is Asian American/Immigrant focused. 

From One Spic to Another: A Response to CNN's Ruben Navarrette Jr.

Querido (that means "Dear") Ruben,

Thank you for your opinion on the matter of Leo Manzano's choice to hold both the U.S. and Mexican flags during his silver medal victory at this year's Olympics. I thank you, not because I agree, but because I appreciate the moments when someone who looks more like me than, say, nearly every other CNN contributor, offers an opinion that might seem unbecoming of a fellow Spic. Your words are a sobering reminder that we are anything but a homogenous people, no matter what your bosses think.

While I happen to have an opinion about your taste in Mexican pop stars, I don't care to offer one about whether or not you approve of the waving of the Mexican flag at immigrant rights marches or Luis Miguel concerts. Thankfully, Mexicans and Mexican-Americans (I make the distinction here since you choose to do so throughout your article) are utterly stubborn and won't give a damn about your endorsement of their actions. I do, however, care to offer a few opinions about the implicit and explicit white supremacy you deploy and uphold throughout the piece.

Since I was born in the U.S. and educated in a few of its universities, I will make you proud by employing a skill (or three) I learned in this benevolent country of yours. Namely, my English 101 teacher's obsession with bullet points to organize a counter argument. Please note that I do not see a useful distinction between Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, so I'll abstain from following your footsteps (or your heart, for that matter). Lastly, please also note that my use of the term "Spic" is offered in my grandmother's humorous tradition as a reminder that you and I are the physical manifestation of that which has long been hated of, and about, Mexicans. 

Aquí te va (that means, "Here you go")...

• Crazy Mexicans

You say that most of us "would need a whole team of therapists to sort out [our] views on culture, national identity, ethnic pride and [our] relationship with Mother Mexico." I assume you're not counting yourself among those of us in dire need of a team of shrinks, which is a shame, really, since you might be able to actually afford that team of therapists, while most of us would be left negotiating sliding scales. But I digress. Won't you process with us?

Let's say you are correct and that "most" of us need some serious mental health support to grapple with a cacophonous disarray of identity traumas. But, if we were in such need, it wouldn't be because someone at some point "chose" the U.S. "over" México (that means "Mexico"), and "voted with their feet." But because someone, at some point, had to choose to try to make a life in the U.S. To be slightly clearer, the very existence of the U.S. is among the greatest sources of our traumas. Including for those who saw the border cross them.

• Contextualized Mexicans

You state that your opinion about the waving of the Mexican flag is all about context. I think the same is true about your comparison between Manzano's actions and the hypothetical Italian- and/or Irish-American waving two flags. While I wouldn't be offended if they did so, your comparison falls flat. After all, to paraphrase you, there's the matter of context.

First, while Italian- and Irish-Americans suffered persecution in the earlier part of their presence in the U.S., they have since enjoyed the process of acculturation and acceptance into the greater U.S. construction of whiteness. They, unlike you, my brother, now embody the rights and privileges that their white kindred have long enjoyed in this country. Despite your article and your allegiances, you, Ruben, are still a spic.

Second, while Italy and Ireland both face struggles of their own, Manzano's and (since we're talking about Mexicans) Mexicans' realities and contexts are quite different. Manzano lives in Texas. And, regardless of how he got to Texas (you seem to imply his family walked the whole way), Texas is occupied land. Occupied by this country that tis of thee. Furthermore, said occupation is part of a greater centuries-old project of global control and decimation of people and resources. You forget the role the U.S. plays in, and the dependency it has on, forcing people to cross manufactured borders.

The fact that Manzano's experiences and identities are such that he felt compelled or inspired to hold both the U.S. and Mexican flags during his moment of glory, is less the result of his parent's "choosing" the U.S. over México (again, that means "Mexico"), but that of the process of colonization (a 500+ year process you so eloquently prove is far from over). Remember, my brother, that the reason "Mexican-American" lives in your lexicon (and that your lexicon is English) is, among many other complex reasons, because of the invasion of these lands under the auspices of the same white supremacist ideals you are paid to uphold.

Third, you determine that Oscar De La Hoya's waving of the U.S. and Mexican flags "was largely symbolic" simply because he wasn't born in México and "wasn't an immigrant caught between two countries." As the decider of things patriotic, please, explain HB1070, Prop 187, Prop 227, and Prop 209, and tell me how you and I are not caught between two countries, despite being born in the U.S. For all your "ethnic pride," you seem to have missed the fact that all people of color in this country are caught between countries (geographic, political, metaphoric), regardless of where we were born, and how we ended up in your country.  

• Displaced Mexicans

Could it be that in your effort to think of us as "them," you have left yourself without context? That we live in occupied land does not make us "orphans of the Southwest." And while some might see their struggle fitting within the framework of "too Mexican for the Americans, too American for the Mexicans," there are also those of us who recognize the complexities of our histories and contemporary realities as part of our experience in this country. Perhaps this is what Manzano was attempting to share with the world. 

Politics of nationalism aside, I understand that my Mexican body exists in relationship to both the U.S. and México, however complicated and contested these relationships are. It's telling, however, that you interpret the image of Manzano holding the Mexican flag as a "signal to the people of Mexico," and to Mexicans in the U.S., a reminder of our own "sense of displacement." Our "displacement" is one that has involved us returning to a land we never left. But how to explain your displacement? 

• Individualistic Mexicans

You lecture that the Olympics are not about the individual but about being part of a team. A lecture that seems interrupted by the interviews, coverage, and announcers' narrative about Michael Phelps. Perhaps I am missing the part about how endorsements are a team sport.

Phelps and endorsements aside, the one thing I noticed most about this year's Olympics was the emphasis on "American" pride and belonging when it came to the people of color representing the U.S. This emphasis was more striking when Black and Brown bodies appeared on stage. What is your country so afraid of that it must be reassured that a Black runner and a Cuban-born gymnast are "proud" "Americans"? In their case, you are right, while the target is the individual, they stand there as part of a team, known also as their communities. 

• Ill-mannered Mexicans

My mother (also a Mexican, by the way) raised me to mind my manners. She often said that in the event that I had nothing nice to say, I simply say nothing at all. And, while I obviously did not learn that lesson well, I bring up my mother's emphasis on manners to say that I hear the pain in your voice as you decry the "ill-mannered" actions of our brother, Leo.

What I do not hear, my brother, is the pain in your voice that tells me you know of your country's lack of manners, of ethics, of humanity.

Tell me, my brother, what manners were reflected in the genocide of our ancestors? Tell me, my brother, what manners did your slave-owning founding fathers show as they "established" this country of yours? Tell me, my brother, what manners did Texans have when they sought independence from México so they may hold on to their precious institution of slavery, which México had since abolished? Tell me, my brother, what manners were reflected in the Eugenics movement that sought to declare you of an inferior race, and your mother fit for sterilization? Tell me, my brother, what manners do you see in your country when our brothers fill its prisons? Tell me, my brother, what manners has your country when families are viciously torn apart through an archaic inhumane anti-immigrant infrastructure? Tell me, brother. Please.

• Ungrateful Mexicans

Clearly, Manzano is an ungrateful Mexican. Before doing what seems short of burning the U.S. flag, he flaunted his ungratefulness by tweeting, not only in English, but in Spanish too. I'm dumbfounded by the implied accusation of wrongdoing simply by communicating in Spanish. Would you feel the same if it were a white athlete whose family ensured he learned Spanish, even as his Mexican counterparts had the language stripped or beaten out of them? Let me guess: It would be "largely symbolic."

The greatest sin of all, according to you, is that Manzano turned his back on the country that "gave [him] the opportunity to live out [his] dreams." Your severe amnesia aside, knowing what is known about how your country came into being and continues to sustain itself, Manzano received nothing that he and our peoples did not (mostly involuntarily) give your country first. 

Lastly, you, ungrateful Mexican, have the audacity to speak to the experience of Manzano's parents and dismiss their life story by arrogantly asserting that México "offered nothing to [ ] them and forced them to leave." That you can believe yourself separate superior to them, to us, has little to do with the plight of our peoples, yet much about what you have offered in sacrifice to a country that looks to all of us (yes, you too) with all the hatred, disdain, and perceived inferiority that is felt every time one of us is called a spic.

For all your CNN. The ease with which you refer to one of yours as "illegal." Your love for whiteness. And your pride in "the country that allowed [Leo Manzano] the opportunity to fulfill his potential." You, my brother, will always be just another Mexican in the eyes of your master. No amount of public chastising of your kindred will change the fact that in this country you'll always be one of us; a people displaced in a land we never really left.

So let Manzano have his cake and eat it too. Hell, our people helped bake the damn cake anyway.

Ethnically yours,


Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano

P.S. In the future, when you can't remember the last time someone accused you of not being proud of being Mexican or Mexican-American, think of me.

P.P.S. Your article, which speaks of the indigestion you experienced due to Manzano's actions, seems to have upset my stomach as well. Please, pass the Pepto-Bismol, hermano (that means "brother").

tatiana de la tierra, dura entre las duras

Foto por Ina Riaskov, Producciones y Milagros

Mudo late este corazón. Despacio rozan mis dedos este teclado. Precavido este suspiro. Me uno a los innumerables poetas que hoy derraman llanto a pluma abierta. Una de las nuestras, una de las duras, se une a aquella esencia a la que tanto adoraba.

Quien haya conocido a tatiana de la tierra sabe que para poesía hay muchas, mas ninguna como ella. Yo la conocí en Tucson, en la conferencia de NACCS en el 2001. Pero primero conocí su poesía.

Fue en una sesión de lectura dentro de la conferencia que me encontré sentado formando parte del círculo compuesto de dos escritoras, un escritor (las tres mariconas), y un público sediento. Las primeras palabras que brotaron de los labios de tatiana cayeron como gotas de sudor deslizándose por la espalda de su público, sus amantes. Tomándonos con la lengua y con los dedos de su musa, tatiana nos enramó con decadentes metáforas eróticas, añoranzas colombianas, y desafíos feministas. Nadie le hizo el amor a su público como lo hizo tatiana.

Recuerdo en particular un poema declamado esa tarde en la que describía un trío sexual entre mujeres. Mas no fue lo erótico lo que me cautivo, sino la delicadeza con la que describía este acto, este ritual entre mujeres. Fue al comparar este momento a tres niñas jugando en los columpios de una escuela, que reconocí el arte y la destreza de poetas capazes de entrelazar analogías arraigadas en los recuerdos de nuestra infancia con los momentos más puros y hermosos de nuestra vida adulta. tatiana fue una poeta como ninguna.

tatiana no permitió que la industria poética dictara el camino de su poesía. Manteniéndose una escritora autónoma durante la mayoría de su carrera artística, tatiana nos trajo obras irremplazables como For the Hard Ones: A Lesbian Phenomenology/Para las Duras: Una Fenomenología Lesbiana (publicado por Calaca Press y la misma tatiana), Píntame Una Mujer Peligrosa, y Porcupine Love & Other Tales from My Papaya, entre otras. Al haberse esperado a que una industria capitalista le brindara el honor que merecía nos hubiésemos perdido de la riqueza de su arte. Fue por su gallardía que no solo las mujeres a las que sedujera, sino que a nosotros, sus otros amantes, también tuvimos la oportunidad de ser acariciados por sus letras.

Esta noche, la manifestación física de tatiana de la tierra transciende. La mujer nunca deja de ser, se une a todo lo que nos rodea, lo que nos penetra, lo que es.

tatiana fue mi colega, mi mentor, mi amiga, y mi inspiración. Su recuerdo vive en las páginas de sus libros e hilvanados entre las páginas de aquellos poetas, los que la amamos y amaremos.

tatiana escribió para las duras, siendo ella dura entre las duras.

tatiana de la tierra: 

poeta. mujer. amante. 

lesbiana. fiera. cantante. 

sobreviviente. intelectual. erótica. 

bibliotecaria. amiga. 

dura.

Lupe Ontiveros: An Actress We Deserve(d)

I don't remember how old I was when I first saw Lupe Ontiveros on screen. But I do know she was the first brown face I ever heard speak English on TV (yes, even before Edward James Olmos).

Growing up as a brown kid in the 80's, with a father who only spoke to me in Spanish, a mother who only spoke to me in English, and a schooling that taught me that my bilingualism was a deficit to be overcome, making sense of who I was and who the people I "come from" were, was an arduous, painstaking process. Although I didn't quite have the language or understanding to make sense of the experienced animosity toward brown people I witnessed and felt, something in me cherished the scarce moments when brown faces crossed the screen.

Among the scarcity of brown faces, Lupe Ontiveros remained a constant. And as an adult, seeing Lupe on Selena, Real Women Have Curves, and Desperate Housewives, conjured childhood memories, and helped put my own experience into perspective. She did so in ways others never did. For what I needed to see on screen were not the heroic Stand And Deliver humans I would never (and have yet to) meet, but the people down the street, the people at the supermarket, the people who raise(d) me.

Lupe wasn't afraid to portray the characters of women, specifically Chicanas, who aren't the most "palatable." From Yolanda Saldivar, to Carmen García, to Juanita 'Mama' Solis, Lupe served Chicana fierceness like no other. Lupe embodied these mujeres by surfacing their complexities and their humanity. From the possessive friend/lover, to the overbearing all-too-concerned with qué dirán mother, to the skeptical daughter-in-law-hating suegra, Lupe gave us raw, unapologetic images of people whose personalities were not without context. Lupe portrayed the women in my life, Lupe portrayed me. Possessive friend/lover, overbearing, still concerned with the pinche qué dirán, skeptical, and untrusting. Through her acting, Lupe gave us the beautiful, the strong, and the, oh, so messy in us. Lupe portrayed Us.

Neither of my grandmothers were universally adored as they were tough, often crass, intentionally irreverent, and at times rude in their own bluntness and clarity. And for as much as my mother tried to teach me to be delightful, respectful, and amicable, I too, am often less than palatable (I am undoubtably their grandchild). Lupe portrayed both of these women with the craft and the corazón that they, and our comunidades, deserve(d).

And while JLo went from playing a Tejana to play sweet Italian girls, Lupe, a Tejana herself, kept serving corajuda, terca, macha, and loving madre/ lover/ friend/ enemiga/ chingona fierceness. Lupe was an actress we deserve(d).