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Queer Brown Voices is the powerful collection of personal narratives that combines the traditional testimonios with institutional history. These personal essays tell the fascinating stories how how lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Latinas/os navigated LGBT activism from the 1970s to the 1990s. Queer Brown Voices helps illustrate the roles and organization of Texan Latinas/os in the LGBT movement. While these narratives clearly emphasize how the experiences of queer people of color cannot be understood within the unity of Latinas/os identities and LGBT identities; rather, within the intersections of these identities. This collection represents many types of activism from organizing support groups, performing community outreach, and facilitating …show more content…
LLENA provided a space for lesbian latinas that they could call their own and feel a sense of wholeness. As a way to be heard and understood LLENA “organized cultural activities, poetry readings, and performance art,” which provided the members a way to reach out to people in the community who might not otherwise hear their message. Prior to her involvement with LLENA, Noriega worked with female poets of color creating chapbooks. She basically acted as an independent book publisher during a time when it was difficult to get a woman’s voice heard, even more so to be a published, female, person of color. Like Queer Brown Voices, Noriega’s work acted as an outlet for those stories which were less commonly be heard. Similar to Noriega’s hand in independent publishing, Letitia Gomez’s participation in ENLACE not only provided points of contact for LGBT Latinas/os, HIV/AIDS education to the Latina/o community, and provided a sense of place for LGBT Latinas/os through “parties and bailes”, but also sponsored LGBT arts programs that were just forming in the 1980s, such as the Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. In this way, both Noriega and Gomez assisted the discussion of LGBT Latina/o struggles through the arts by making them more accessible to a wider …show more content…
In Cháirez’s, “From the Closet to the LGBT Radio Host in Dallas,” he illustrates his endeavors to create a Latino arts collective called Artists Relating Together and Exhibiting (ARTE). ARTE was an inclusive group of artists which strived to showcase as many Latina/o artists regardless of sexual orientation, however he does note that if any members were found to be homophobic they were asked to leave. In addition to this, Cháirez’s worked to form a strictly “gay Latino” radio show under the direction of Dallas’s KNON-the Voice of the People-a nonprofit radio show. Titled Sin Fronteras, without borders in Spanish, his radio show acted as the voice of the LGBT Latina/o community in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Sin Fronteras only featured out Latinas/os as a way to actively promote gay Latina/o pride. This radio show primarily featured gay Latina/o singers and poets. In this way, Cháirez also provided an outlet for artists to express the struggles of LGBT Latinas/os even though these stories were often overlooked when considering the entirety of the LGBT community.
Although through different mediums, these three authors provided means of art as a method of activism by giving artists a way of discussing the struggles of LGBT Latinas/os. The amazing thing about art is a method of activism is that it can provide a way of reaching
In Vicki L. Eaklor’s Queer America, the experiences of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, and transgender people in the years since the 1970s gay liberation movement are described as a time of transformation and growth. The antigay movement, threatened, now more than ever, created numerous challenges and obstacles that are still prevalent today. Many of the important changes made associated with the movement were introduced through queer and queer allied individuals and groups involved in politics. Small victories such as the revision of the anti discrimination statement to include “sexual orientation”, new propositions regarding the Equal Rights Amendment and legalized abortion, were met in turn with growing animosity and resistance from individuals and groups opposed to liberal and
For years the LGBT community has been consistently denied the same rights as their heterosexual counterparts, and it wasn’t until last year that same sex marriage became legal throughout the United States. However, they are not the only minorities being discriminated against in the United States. That is why Dolores Huerta, a well-known civil rights activist, points out that people who have experienced oppression should come together to achieve equality. In her keynote speech at the 21st National Conference on LGBT Equality, Dolores Huerta uses ethos, logos, and pathos as an effective way to inspire her audience to make a change in society.
Historian David Carter, provides an intriguing in-depth look into the historical impact of the Stonewall Riots in Stonewall: The Riots that Sparked the Gay Revolution. This engaging book adds to the genre of sexual orientation discrimination. Carter extensively analyzes the various factors that played a role in igniting the Stonewall riots and the historical impact that the riots had on the Gay Revolution and movement for gay equality. Through the use of interviews, newspapers, and maps, Carter argues that the riots were a product of many geographical, social, political, and cultural factors. Carter further argues that the riots ultimately led to the forming of the Gay Revolution and caused sexual orientation to be a protected category in the growing movement for civil rights. Carter’s book provides a well-structured argument, supported mainly by primary evidence, into the different factors that contributed to the riots as well as a detailed account of the events that transpired during the riots and the political attitudes towards homosexuality in America during this time.
In his essay "Selena’s Good Buy: Texas Mexicans, History, and Selena Meet Transnational Capitalism,” Coronado (2001) argues that Selena embodies displaced desires that need to be situated in their historical content. By looking at how Texans and marketers reacted to Selena’s death, Coronado was able to show us how Selena’s death can be looked at form a psychoanalytic lens. The working class’ obsession with Selena can be seen as a fetish of sorts. A fetish is caused by trauma and can be applied socially to a irritable social construct. In other words, Selena could be a social fetish; the Latinx working class abruptly lost someone who was representing them in mainstream media, leading to the trauma. In this theory, Selena is no longer seen as a person who contributed hugely to the rise of colored people in mainstream media, but as
Figueredo, Maria L. "The Legend of La Llorona: Excavating and (Re) Interpreting the Archetype of the Creative/Fertile Feminine Force", Latin American Narratives and Cultural Identity, 2004 Peter Lang Publishing, Inc., New York. pp232-243.
They mention the transition of “the closet,” as being a place in which people could not see you, to becoming a metaphor over the last two decades of the twentieth century used for queers who face a lack of sexual identity. Shneer and Aviv bring together two conflicting ideas of the American view of queerness: the ideas of the past, and the present. They state as queerness became more visible, people finally had the choice of living multiple lives, or integrating one’s lives and spaces (Shneer and Aviv 2006: 245). They highlight another change in the past twenty years as the clash between being queer and studying queerness (Shneer and Aviv 2006: 246-7). They argue that the active and visible contests over power among American queers show that queers now occupy an important place in our culture. They expand on the fact that queerness, real, and performed, is everywhere (Shneer and Aviv 2006: 248). This source shows the transformation in American culture of the acceptance of queerness. It makes an extremely critical resource by providing evidence of the changes in culture throughout the last two decades. Having the information that queerness is becoming more accepted in culture links to a higher percentage of LGBTQ youths becoming comfortable with their sexual identity. However, compared to the other sources, this
In the first image on the left, a man is kissing a lady; the artistic way of expression can be interrupted as disrespectful or offensive. Her work has had a lot of criticism as there is too much sexuality featured. For example, the boy and the girl on the cliff having oral sex. Nevertheless, she doesn’t shy away from controversial topics of racism, gender,and sexuality in her paper -cut silhouette.
The media considers the1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City the spark of the modern gay rights movement. This occurred after the police raided the Stonewall bar, a popular gay bar in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village. Allyn argues that the new energy and militancy generated by the riot played a crucial role in creating the gay liberation movement. Arguably, the Stonewall Riots have come to resemble the pivotal moment in gay rights history largely because it provided ways for the gay community to resist the social norms. In fact, the riots increased public awareness of gay rights activism (Allyn 157). Gay life after the Stonewall riots, however, was just as varied and complex as it was before. In the following era, ho...
Today I am going to introduce to you the Lesbian Avengers. I will lay out the history of activism that led up the this group and then introduce the queer context that this group was founded under. When I have established that foundation, I will tell you how the Lesbian Avengers were founded and by what means they ran the group. Specifically, I will explain and analyze an action of the Washington, D.C. chapter. I argue that the Lesbian Avengers are fighting for a new lesbian visibility, different from that of Lesbian groups in the 1970’s such as Lesbian Nation. I also argue that the Lesbian Avengers have a specific understanding of action and queer theory which is why their group has been a success.
The difficulty of determining what gay and lesbian text is poses a challenge in finding material applicable to queer theory. However, being subtitled as a Gay Fantasia on National Themes by its openly homosexual author, Tony Kushner’s Angels in America is most appropriately viewed through this lens, as the play’s content directly illustrates the purpose of queer theory. Entangling the personal with the political, Kushner seeks to deconstruct the heteronormative agenda by illustrating the relationship between Reagan, AIDS, religion, and homosexuality through their impact on his characters. All struggling with some aspect of homosexuality, each perspective told in the play expresses the depth at which societal norms damage the freedom of American citizens. With sexual identity at the f...
This investigation will examine a few key works by the anonymous female artist group know in popular culture as the Guerrilla Girls. In this essay it will reveal several prominent themes within the groups works that uncover the racial and gender inequalities in politics, art and pop culture with the use of humor. These collaborating artists work and operate with a variety of mediums, their works display a strong message concerned with activism connected by humor allowing the Guerrilla Girls to communicate and resonate a more powerful message to the viewer. The ways in which this collaborating group has employed many questions and facts against the hierarchy and historical ideologies which have exploited women and their roles in art. This investigation will allow the reader to identify three areas in which the Guerrilla Girls apply a certain forms of humor to transform society’s view on the prominent issue of gender in the art world. These specific ploys that are performed by the Guerrilla Girls are in the way they dress, the masks they wear, pseudonymous names of dead women artists and the witty factual evidence in their works. These are all examples to evoke audiences in challenging not only the art society which dictates the value and worth of women in art but also to confront yourself and your own beliefs in a way that makes audiences rethink these growing issues.
This provides evidence of the stereotype that Latinas are sexual beings as she is called out for not reciprocating an act that majority of girls would deny anyhow, but since she is a Latina it is assumed that she likes it. She goes on to state in a metaphor that “I was supposed to ripen, not just grow into womanhood like other girls,” (8) meaning that she was thought of as a fruit, an inanimate object, used for the pleasure and to satisfy other people, even though she is a human being herself. Finally, the author’s last personal anecdote is one where she was at a poetry reading and “an older woman motioned [her] to her table” (13) and Cofer believed it was to sign an autograph. However, the woman “ordered a cup of coffee from [her], assuming that [she] was the waitress”
The regulated and heteronormative sexuality embedded in Mexican culture is not a secret, nor is it a rarity. It is, however, exclusionary for nominating a style of heterosexual sex as the ideal sexuality. On Mexican culture and this ideal, in “Queer Aztlán: Re-formation of the Tribe,” Cherrie Moraga notes, “Since lesbians and gay men have often been forced out of our blood families…. we are in a critical position to address those areas within our cultural that needs to change” (232). Gil Cuadros’ City of God addresses the problem areas in Mexican culture that Moraga mentions. In the first part of the collection, Cuadros presents short stories that highlight the fault in historic and traditional views on sexuality held by older Mexican generations,
We have been exploring the ideal beauty, the different norms for a woman to follow, the suppressions of real identification, and how all that affects those who might not “meet” those expectations. In this week’s material we are presented with Las Krudas, an all-women Cuban trio, that through hip-hop, they “address the cracks of a socialist national identity constructed in homogenizing terms” (Rivera-Velazquez pg. 100.) Basically, they try to break the norms of the idealized way of living one’s life, especially women’s way of living their lives.
Some main principles of second wave feminism are the focus on sexual reproductive rights and increasing women’s presence in the work field. Because the WLM was largely led by white, cis-gendered, middle-class women, queer women of color had a difficult time gaining recognition within the movement. This essay will explore the ways in which queer