Search the site...

SOL DE MEDIANOCHE
  • MARCH 2023
  • FEBRUARY 2023
  • JANUARY 2023
  • DECEMBER 2022
  • NOVEMBER 2022
  • OCTOBER 2022
  • SEPTEMBER 2022
  • AUGUST 2022
  • JULY 2022
  • JUNE 2022
  • MAY 2022
  • APRIL 2022
  • MARCH 2022
  • FEBRUARY 2022
  • JANUARY 2022
  • DECEMBER 2021
  • NOVEMBER 2021
  • OCTOBER 2021
  • SEPTEMBER 2021
  • AUGUST 2021
  • JULY 2021
  • JUNE 2021
  • MAY 2021
  • APRIL 2021
  • MARCH 2021
  • FEBRUARY 2021
  • JANUARY 2021
  • DECEMBER 2020
  • NOVEMBER 2020
  • Advertise with us!
  • OCTOBER 2020
  • SEPTEMBER 2020
  • AUGUST 2020
  • JULY 2020
  • JUNE 2020
  • MAY 2020
  • MAR - APR 2020
  • JAN - FEB 2020
  • NOVEMBER 2019
  • SEPTEMBER 2019
  • JULY 2019
  • MAY 2019
  • MARCH 2019
  • FEBRUARY 2019
  • NOVEMBER 2018
  • SEPTEMBER 2018
    • Yes on Salmon
    • Become a citizen
  • JUNE 2018
  • APRIL 2018
  • FEBRUARY 2018
  • DECEMBER 2017
  • SEPTEMBER 2017
  • JULY 2017
  • MAY 2017
  • Spring 2017 - No. 5
  • Winter 2016 - No. 4
  • Fall 2016 - No. 3
  • Summer 2016 - No. 2
  • Spring 2016 - No. 1
  • Contact
  • MARCH 2023
  • FEBRUARY 2023
  • JANUARY 2023
  • DECEMBER 2022
  • NOVEMBER 2022
  • OCTOBER 2022
  • SEPTEMBER 2022
  • AUGUST 2022
  • JULY 2022
  • JUNE 2022
  • MAY 2022
  • APRIL 2022
  • MARCH 2022
  • FEBRUARY 2022
  • JANUARY 2022
  • DECEMBER 2021
  • NOVEMBER 2021
  • OCTOBER 2021
  • SEPTEMBER 2021
  • AUGUST 2021
  • JULY 2021
  • JUNE 2021
  • MAY 2021
  • APRIL 2021
  • MARCH 2021
  • FEBRUARY 2021
  • JANUARY 2021
  • DECEMBER 2020
  • NOVEMBER 2020
  • Advertise with us!
  • OCTOBER 2020
  • SEPTEMBER 2020
  • AUGUST 2020
  • JULY 2020
  • JUNE 2020
  • MAY 2020
  • MAR - APR 2020
  • JAN - FEB 2020
  • NOVEMBER 2019
  • SEPTEMBER 2019
  • JULY 2019
  • MAY 2019
  • MARCH 2019
  • FEBRUARY 2019
  • NOVEMBER 2018
  • SEPTEMBER 2018
    • Yes on Salmon
    • Become a citizen
  • JUNE 2018
  • APRIL 2018
  • FEBRUARY 2018
  • DECEMBER 2017
  • SEPTEMBER 2017
  • JULY 2017
  • MAY 2017
  • Spring 2017 - No. 5
  • Winter 2016 - No. 4
  • Fall 2016 - No. 3
  • Summer 2016 - No. 2
  • Spring 2016 - No. 1
  • Contact

Where’s Our Queer Community?
​
by atlas katari

Picture

Every summer around the world comes a month intended to uplift, celebrate, and bring attention to the LGBTQIA+ community — June is Pride Month once again! But not everyone in our community can celebrate each June equally. For every person marking a new beginning this month, numerous others struggle to find their place in their community right at home. I will refer to this lost community as the Queer Latinx community throughout this article, as requested by my interviewees. And for these artists, small business owners, and innovators, some never find their community at home.

“Culturally, we’re all raised in a heavy religious home,” says Karina Liranzo (they/them), queer community facilitator with The Queen’s Guard and small business owner. “When I first came out, I was one of the very few queer Hispanics. And that [news] rolled out like fire.”
That was over twenty years ago. This generation’s queer community still feels the same pressure. The decision comes down to one of two options: either keep their identity a secret or tell everyone. “The Latinx community is very gossip driven,” says Amable Junior-Rosa (they/she/he), local drag queen and entertainer, now living in Seattle. “They want to know everything. Everything,” they say. Add that Spanish as a language is “so binary” (says Liranzo) onto the gossip-driven culture, and you’ve got a recipe to make anyone who doesn’t fit into that binary uncomfortable.

But the problem isn’t just Spanish or gossip. Alaska’s Hispanic community is pushing out its most vibrant members. Estrella “Star” Northcutt-Rodriguez (she/they), owner of Cafecito Bonito off Baxter and Debarr, expresses the constant identity shift, also known as code switching, she experiences in a day working at the café. “Even in our own culture, we have to code switch,” she says, “especially with our parents and elders.” Amable explains it further, too, by saying, “As I was experimenting, and learning who I truly was, I realized that I couldn’t be that old little Dominican from down the block. So now, when I go see my friends and my family, it’s a total code switch.”
This is the core of what’s pushing the queer community out of the same communities they grew up in: Queer Latinx people can’t be themselves at home.

If the problem was as simple as gossip, though, no one would feel a part of their cultural community. No one — not just the queer community — would feel at home with their extended families. So what’s explicitly outcasting the queer Latinx community? “It’s the uncomfortable questions,” Liranzo says. “[The way the community sees it,] there has to be a reason why we’re not cisgender, straight, and having babies. Or, in Amable’s case, why he’s not sleeping around with twenty other women.”

The fact is these old expectations are still pushed on today’s generations. Culture and tradition are absolutely important to sustain a community’s rich understanding of their history, but outdated expectations don’t have to come with. As time moves on, cultural expectations (and language) should develop with progress — not actively work against it.

The Queer Latinx community has already proved that it can thrive with and without help from home. “So, unless we’re literally going to dismantle the entire culture that is surrounded by the patriarchy, misogynistic religious aspects, and racism within our countries,” Liranzo says, “the reality is there is no going back.”
​

This Pride month, consider whether you’re supporting the queer community or not. Are you uplifting queer artists? Donating time, money, or other support to local non-profits? Are you showing your children that you’d love them even if you don’t understand them?
Because if not, they aren’t the ones that’ll be left behind in the end. It’ll be you. ​
Picture
Amable Junior Rosa (they/she/he). Photo: Catie Bartlett.
Picture
Karina Liranzo

PROUDLY POWERED BY SOL DE MEDIANOCHE NEWS, LLC.
Sol de Medianoche is a monthly publication of the Latino community in Anchorage, Alaska