Annotations for Communities: Lgbtqia People

The New York City school system is still looking for a replacement for ousted Chancellor Joséph Fernandez. The controversial administrator will vacate his post in June. From New York, Mandalit del Barco reports.

Joséph Fernandez returned to the city where he was born three years ago, vowing to turn around the nation's largest school system. In the end, it was his controversial reforms that put him at odds with his own board of education. His support for social issues created controversy, especially his programs to distribute condoms to high school students and his curriculum to teach respect for gays and lesbians. Fernandez had these words after a meeting in which board members voted not to renew his contract.

Some of my detractors have said, “Well, you didn't have to get into these issues of HIV AIDS…You didn't have to get into these issues of tolerance and bias program.” And that's a part of a… major part of educating our kids. I wouldn't have done it differently.

In a recently published autobiography, Fernandez details his years as a heroin addict and a gang member who went on to become a teacher and later Miami School superintendent. He also criticized New York's governor and mayor for not spending enough on education. Unless New York City's Board of Education reverses itself or is restructured, Fernandez's contract ends in June. For Latino USA, Mandalit del Barco in New York.

This is Latino USA, a radio journal of news and culture. I'm María Hinojosa. Today on Latino USA, what it's like to be Latino and gay.

It's very, very difficult just to be lesbian or gay and be Latino, but I guess that at the same time, it's very beautiful.

A conversation with a music man named Dr. Loco.

We decided to take a cultural position in saying, “we're pochos and proud of it.” You know, somos bilingües. So what?

And a commentary from the streets.

I can't join a crew. I just renounced one, but I've got to protect myself. So the only thing left for me is to get a gun, or is it?

All this, here on Latino USA, but first: las noticias.

[Crowd chanting]

Many Latinos from across the country were among the hundreds of thousands of gays and lesbians who recently converged on Washington, D.C. They gathered in the nation's capital to celebrate their identities and demand lesbian and gay rights. In the wake of that event, Mandalit del Barco in New York spoke with several gay and lesbian Latino activists, and she prepared this report.

It's very, very difficult just to be lesbian or gay and be Latino, but I guess that at the same time, it's very beautiful.

Gay activists like Hector Seda are becoming more politically active, out there proclaiming their identities and working on issues like AIDS and equal rights. Seda is a board member of LLEGO, a national organization of lesbian and gay Latinos. He sees in this country and in Latin America an emerging political force.

It's beginning. It's happening in Puerto Rico. It's happening in general, all…I mean, it's happening in this country right now. Everybody, us, general Latinos and gays in this country, we're fighting for basic human rights.

We also have to be ready for the backlash because with visibility, there comes a very strong backlash, and usually, it's very violent.

Juan Méndez is a gay Puerto Rican who documents cases of gay bashing for the New York City Gay and Lesbian Anti-Violence Project. Méndez rejects the stereotype that Latinos traditionally have more difficulty acknowledging homosexuality than do other cultures.

Homophobia is not any more or any less than in any other community, and I think that when people start talking about the taboos and machismo, you know, and things that, really, we have a very…I would call it a racist slant or context, because, you know, I don't see any other culture that has it any different.

Many gay Latinos, like Méndez, believe that the issues important to them are not necessarily reflected in the agenda of the gay movement as a whole. For instance, he says, the issue of including gays in the military was declared an issue by white gay activists.

I, as a gay person, have no interest in being part of a military core that has invaded not only my country, but has also supported dictatorships, right-wing dictatorships in many Latin American countries, and no one in the gay and lesbian community has stopped to think about what this means for non-white lesbians and gays.

The emphasis on this issue also bothers Terry, a New York City lesbian who declined to give her last name for fear of alienating her Cuban abuelita, her grandmother. She says that when she was at the march in Washington, she was so offended that she found herself booing when they called out the names of gay military men.

Clearly, I see that the mainstream gay and lesbian movement has become more and more focused on their primary desire is to be regular Americans. That is what is happening in this gays and the military thing. They want the right to be regular Americans. Well, we're not regular Americans, no matter what we do, so I don't fit into that agenda, and I don't want to, and I never would, even if I tried.

These activists say that while some differences exist over so-called gay and lesbian issues, what is important is for lesbian and gay Latinos to develop their own unique political agendas, and not only within gay political circles, says Méndez.

We have to fight within the gay and lesbian community at large for our issues as Latinos, but we cannot forget to fight within our Latino community at large for our issues as gay and lesbian people.

For Latino USA, I'm Mandalit del Barco in New York.

This is news from Latino USA. I'm María Martin. Proceedings have begun in San Francisco for the administrative discharge of Army Sergeant José Zuniga, the 1993 Sixth-Army Soldier of the Year and a decorated Gulf War hero. Zuniga recently announced he was gay. Franc Contreras has this report.

Zuniga disclosed his sexual orientation at April's Gay and Lesbian March in Washington, knowing he might jeopardize his own future in the military. He says he made the announcement because his exemplary record and achievements would enlighten those who oppose gays in the military. Army personnel would not comment on Zuniga's case, saying only that he has been processed for administrative discharge. The outcome depends on President Clinton's decision on the gay military ban. Regardless of his personal fate, Sergeant Zuniga says he hopes his action will encourage other distinguished gay and lesbian soldiers to reveal their orientation. For Latino USA, this is Franc Contreras.

75 year 75-year-old Rosada Vaquerano calls Barrios's suspension an injustice, saying his work has empowered the South Bronx, one of the poorest communities in the country. As a proponent of liberation theology, Barrios believes it's a church's duty to work for social justice. Besides establishing a gay and lesbian ministry, Barrios created programs for Puerto Rican political prisoners and immigrants. He helped start a needle exchange program to fight AIDS and protested a medical waste incinerator in the neighborhood. St. Anne's church runs the only soup kitchen in the South Bronx and it's the home of the Pregones Theater Company. United Methodist Reverend Eddie Lopez is one of many clergy supporting Barrios.

In the poverty-stricken South Bronx, a controversy has erupted over the alister of an activist Puerto Rican minister. Supporters of Episcopalian priest, Father Luis Barrios, who preaches liberation theology want him reinstated at St. Anne's Church. But his superiors say Father Barrios has gone beyond the boundaries of a good Episcopalian minister. From the South Bronx, Mandalit del Barco reports.

[Background--Sounds--Crowd chanting] Supporters of Reverend Luis Barrios have been rallying with protest songs and prayers in front of the city's episcopal cathedrals, St. John The Divine. On May 19th, the popular priest was suspended from his parish at St. Anne's Church without explanation by Episcopal Bishop Richard Green. Parishioners of the mostly working-class Puerto Rican parish are furious over Barrios's suspension from a church that's been politically active since the 1960s.

Es una injusticia y te lo que estan hacienda con el porque el padre barrio… [Translation--Dub--English]

Other priests have been doing exactly what Luis Barrios has been doing, and they have not been removed, they have not been taken out, they have not been suspended, and that's our concern that it's because he is the Puerto Rican priest at South Bronx that he's being removed.

Episcopal Bishop Richard Green, who notified Barrios of his suspension in the letter has been unavailable for comment and he reportedly refused to discuss his reasons with St. Anne's vestry, but his spokesman told the New York Times that Barrios had displayed vocational immaturity when he blessed the unions of gay couples and when he allowed a Roman Catholic priest and bishops from so-called schismatic churches to use St. Anne's. [Background--Sounds--Crowd chanting] On a recent Sunday, Barrios's supporters calling church leaders homophobic and racist rush the altar of St. Anne's Church chanting in solidarity and forcing a replacement priest to cancel mass. Meanwhile, this protest continued, Father Barrios has been waiting it out in another church, St. Mary's in Harlem. Looking back, Barrios says his troubles began in January after he delivered a sermon critical of the church.

My concern in that a particular moment in that sermon was that we talking about justice and transforming this society and the church need to play a very important role in changing society and getting into something that we call justice, but we need to start doing some cleaning inside the church. So my biggest concern, and it's still my biggest concern, is that we are in a church that is racist and homophobic, and if we are not going to deal with this, how we going to deal with the society preaching what we are not really practicing.

As a black Puerto Rican, Barrios wonders of his work for independence of the island led to his suspension, or perhaps he says it was his support for gay and lesbian rights, but being politically active is something he's always believed in, even as a child in Santurce, Puerto Rico.

The whole point was that I grew up in a church where the priest was a member of the Puerto Rican Socialist Party and at the same time a very respectful priest in the denomination. And I never saw the contradiction between politic and religion. And of course he always told me that do not believe that there is a separation between politic and religion. So I grew up with that in my mind.

Barrios is still waiting for church superiors to communicate with him directly. He also believes church leaders underestimated the impact of their action on St. Anne's worshipers.

This is a Latino Black priest. Nobody's going to do nothing or sometimes is this racism that do not let you see that this person has some capacity or some organizational skill. So they took it for granted that nothing was going to happen and said, oh God, that's very dangerous to commit that kind of stupid mistakes.

Supporters say they plan to keep the pressure on until Father Barrios gets a public apology and is reinstated. Church officials, meanwhile, still decline to comment on the case. For Latino USA, I'm Mandalit del Barco in New York.

Recently, San Francisco-based comedian and performance artist, Marga Gomez received rave reviews for her one-woman off-Broadway show called Memory Tricks. Now, Gomez is working on a television adaptation of Memory Tricks, which looks back at her New York childhood with a showbiz family. From New York, Mandalit Del Barco reports.

Marga Gomez is the funniest simulated lesbian comic and performance artist who describes herself as somewhat of a misfit Latina.

My name is Gomez, and I look Latina and I feel that. I mean, I can eat spicy food, but I can't dance salsa or speak Spanish.

Marga is the daughter of a Puerto Rican exotic dancer and a Cuban impresario. Her solo show Memory Tricks is set in her precocious New York City childhood, when her flamboyant mom and dad were considered the Lucy and Ricky of New York's Latin vaudeville scene. [highlight music]

[background music] I thought of them as big, big stars. You know, you couldn't get to be bigger stars than my parents. Actually, they were stars in their community, and their community was a very poor community, so they were like poor stars, but I thought we were just like royalty. [highlight music]

In the 1960s, Marga's dad, Willy Chevalier, was a comic actor who produced theater reviews known as Spanish Spectaculars, [background music] featuring salsa stars like Tito Puente and Celia Cruz, female contortionists, magicians and other acts. He put together sketches called La Familia Comica, which sometimes showcased her mom's Afro-Cuban dancing, they're pet chihuahua, and little Marga Gomez.

[background music] I had delusions of grandeur from a young age, because my father would just tell me all these fantastic things, I was going to be the next Shirley Temple and all that. You know? I couldn't sing, couldn't dance, but somehow I was going to be the non-singing, non-dancing, Puerto Rican-Cuban Shirley Temple.

[background music] Marga says when they got divorced, she had to choose between her dad and her mother, Margarita Estremera, also known as Margo the Exotic. Memory Tricks is Marga's tribute to a bleach blonde, fem fatal mom who used to try to teach Marga to be a perfumed lady, how to hold her pocketbook and glide, glide, glide on high heels. In a scene from a recent off-Broadway show, she remembers going on a picnic with her glamorous mom.

Let me tell you about the picnic. Remember the picnic, the one I sold my father out for? My mother promised that we would go that Sunday, right after church. I was so excited. I prayed extra hard in church. "Father, God, please, don’t let her see any stores on the way." When the priest said, "The mass is over. Go in peace," [snapping] I was gone. I ran all the way home, ran upstairs to my room, changed into my play clothes. That's what I wear all the time now, my play clothes. Then, I ran to my mother's room to see if she was awake. See, my mother couldn't go to church with me on Sundays. She was a good Catholic, but after a hard night of belly dancing, you need your rest.

In Memory Tricks, Marga talks about not wanting to grow up to be like her mom, who always wanted a Caucasian nose like Michael Jackson's. But she's found you can't escape your roots, even if they are dyed.

She'd sing all the time in the house, but she'd sing like this. [Singing] What a difference, la la la besame, besame la la She'd sing--She knew so many songs and none of the words. So that's sort of, the way I sing, too, so don't sit next to me at a rock concert. [Singing] I can’t get no la la la la la la.

Marga now lives in San Francisco where she began her adult career in show business with the feminist theater company, Lilith. She honed her comedy talents with the San Francisco Mime Troupe and is one of the original stand-up comics with Culture Clash. [Piano playing “I feel Pretty”] Not long ago, for the biennial celebration of New York's Whitney Museum, she performed her second show, "Marga Gomez is Pretty, and Witty and Gay", which deals with her sexuality.

[Piano playing] It has to do, some of it with my relationship and jealousy. My parents were very jealous of each other, and just because I'm not in a traditional relationship doesn't mean that I can't be dysfunctional. So, I talk about being a jealous girlfriend. I also have this little interlude where I'm reading from the Diary of Anaïs Nin, and I read from her Lost Diaries where she goes to Disneyland and has a tryst with Minnie Mouse.

Marga continues to do stand-up comedy and is reading for movie parts.

[background piano music] I've heard about a Frida Kalo project, and I'd like to do that because I got the eyebrows and everything, little mustache too. I'll just stop bleaching that sucker.

This summer, marga Gomez is writing the screenplay of Memory Tricks for the PBS series "American Playhouse". For Latino USA, I'm Madalit Del Barco in New York.

Latino journalists continue to debate the relocation of this year's NAHJ conference from Denver to Washington. The new site was chosen because of the controversial passage of Amendment Two in Colorado, a law which allows employers to fire employees solely on the basis of sexual orientation. Betto Arcos reports.

Lesbian and gay Latino journalists and activists confronted reporters in Denver via satellite about the decision to cancel the conference scheduled for April in Colorado. Some NAHJ members from Colorado were still angry about the decision, saying it could have been more effective to fight the amendment in that state, but other members who supported the relocation defended their decision. Rosemary Arce, a TV producer in New York, said that the relocation decision served as an educational experience for the NAHJ members.

One of the problems with the debate that we had over this issue is that I think that they kept ignoring the fact that there are gay lesbian members of NAHJ that were very upset about our organization going into the state where they felt threatened, they felt under attack. And what ultimately happened, I think, is that the organization decided to respect their wishes. And it's been a good process. It's been a strengthening process for NAHJ.

Arce said that for the members to become engaged in the cause of Hispanic journalists, the organization has to commit itself to making people more politically aware. For "Latino USA," this is Beto Argos in Washington.

In press conferences held in Washington, New York, San Antonio, Chicago, and Los Angeles, over a hundred Latino health and community organizations joined with Hispanic political officials to announce a major effort to combat the devastating effect of AIDS on the nation's Latino community.

We're united in purpose. We understand how the AIDS epidemic is devastating our communities. We've let that be known for some time, but we did not have consensus and a unity of purpose and a strategy to work out among ourselves. And now this is different because today we announced to the world that, in fact, it's happening.

The announcement of the formation of the National Hispanic Latino AIDS Coalition followed shortly after the release of the final report of the National Commission of AIDS, created four years ago by Congress to advise the nation about AIDS and HIV. With us on the phone from Santa Barbara to speak about the commission's work and the Hispanic AIDS Coalition is commission member Eunice Diaz.

Eunice, the AIDS Commission ended its work with a report expressing frustration at what you called the lack of political will to carry out effective HIV prevention programs across the country. But what thoughts do you have about the political will to do something specific about the disproportionate number of AIDS cases in Latino and other minority communities?

One of the things that we were frustrated about is that after the end of four years of ardent effort and work around the country, there are so many unresolved issues 12 years into this epidemic. And the mobilization and development of leadership at many levels, including the federal level, has taken so long. And at the same time, we see in many of our communities, yet evidences of intolerance and inhumanity reflected in the response of so many to this epidemic and those afflicted. Therefore, the response to our community, the Hispanic community, is just part and parcel of how this nation needs to be organized to address the issues that are posed before us that are unresolved.

We are hopeful for a new day ahead. Being that just recently, this administration, the president appointed Kristine Gebbie, formerly the director of health for the state of Washington to really lead the country in an organized response to the AIDS epidemic. And we hope that that will now create the momentum we've been waiting for at least four years at the commission level. And then look at the needs of all communities, including the very specific needs of the Latino-Hispanic community.

Well now, one of the positive aspects of this, as you said, is the formation of the national Hispanic-Latino AIDS Coalition, a national organization to investigate the issue of AIDS in the Latino community. But to what extent is this really a new effort? And what does it say about the political will of Latino political leadership to also deal with this issue?

Well, the creation of the national Hispanic Latino AIDS Coalition represents a coming together of many organizations, national and throughout the country that spent years fighting the AIDS epidemic. And at this point, we were ready to do that and we were ready to call on our policy-makers at all levels, the national level, state, and local level to say, "We've got to be joined in our response to AIDS." And that is unprecedented. That's never happened. And for me, it represented a moment of triumph, a moment of significant push behind this epidemic. That now, we are telling our communities, si se puede, we can do it. And we can do it united in a coalesced form.

Well, thank you very much, Eunice Diaz, the only Latino or Latina member of the National Commission on AIDS, which completed its four-year term in June.

This poem was written after a conversation with a friend who is very frustrated over trying to get funds to help educate Latinos about AIDS.

Boston poet Martha Valentin has this commentary directed at the Latino agencies now coming together to help educate the Latino community about the AIDS virus.

Deadly Games People Play.

Because we did not get the funds, we cannot do the workshops. And though you did not get the funds either, your agency is responsible for doing the workshops anyway.

Every day, one agency of Mercy argues, competing with the other over who will educate Latinos on the evils of AIDS and the ways to be safe. And while they're arguing, every day three more Latinos die of AIDS. Macho men too proud to wear condoms, every day infect young, beautiful life-giving women who no one has taught that to demand protection is to express love. And every day, little people are born who will not be around to engage in the deadly games people play.

Marta Valentin is a poet, musician, and radio producer living in Boston.

Esperanza, or hope. It's said, that's one thing young people living in this day and age, often lack. But in San Antonio, Texas, a group of teenagers is creating theater that expresses a measure of hope for the future. Even amidst a reality of drugs, gangs, identity questions, and homelessness. Along with Lucy Edwards Latino USA's, Maria Martin prepared this report.

[Natural sounds, theater] Grupo Animo

It's the Friday afternoon at Fox Technical High School in San Antonio. The young members of the acting troupe El Grupo Animo, ages 13 to 18, have come together to start rehearsing their new production. The group's name derives from the Spanish word meaning spirit, energy, and a desire to inspire and the drama they're preparing is written and performed by the kids themselves.

[Natural sounds, theater] All the young women in the piece, over here.

Identity. [Natural sounds, theater]

The drama in production is called, "I Have Hopes, Hopes I Keep Sacred in My Soul." It's a series of vignettes, tales of young people, much like the members of El Grupo Animo, facing life's challenges and learning to cope.

It's about a young girl who gets pregnant and she has to tell her parents because both of us know so many girls who have already gotten pregnant and it's not looking better or anything.

I'm 17 years old, and I wrote about the homeless. So much we can learn from our people. They've gone through rough times, and by that, a lot of them are on the streets, and we don't even care about them.

I decided to bring up the issue of teenage homosexuality, because Hispanic, Mexican American families, it's harder for them to deal with it. There's a lot of tradition, and a lot of the tradition is built around the male role model and female role model, you know?

14-year-old Michaela Diaz, along with Guadalupe Covera and Victoria Rivera, are among the nine playwrights who make up El Grupo Animo. 16 year old Priscilla Valle wrote about a young gang member.

He's dealing with the pressures of being tied to his gang, but then wanting to get out and be free and lead the life that he wants to lead, that the gang doesn't allow him to.

You don't understand, what if they come after me? Babe, they know where I live.

They're tearing you apart. They mess around with people's lives like it's nothing. You can't be afraid to be who you are. Don't keep it down forever. I hate them!

It's really a lot of what's going on in their minds and in their lives, but they never have a place to talk about it.

Director George Emilio Sanchez of New York is working with the young playwrights and actors of El Grupo Animo.

It takes a lot of courage to be a young person. It takes a hell of a lot of courage to say, "Yeah, I'm young. I don't know everything, and I want to be alive." Boom. That to me is like heroic. I think individually, if you read the things they write, no, I don't think they have a lot of hope.

But still, say the kids, their stories do express hope as the title of their collective work indicates.

Even though we are, we're sad and depressed about it. I think there's always that bright side and that hope that we have, and that's just what the whole play is about.

That's why I think that the name of it, "I Have Hopes, Hopes I Keep Sacred in My Soul", is what we're using. They're not all happy plays with happy endings, but we're not trying to say that the whole world is terrible. You know, that everything's terrible, that there's no hope for anything. Even though we know what reality is, we still feel that there can be a change, that there will be a change, and if anybody, we'll be the ones who will do that. And that's our message, basically.

El Grupo Animo’s production of "I Have Hopes, Hopes I Keep Sacred in My Soul," runs through July 17th at San Antonio's Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center. The Center's theater director, Jorge Pina, calls the troupe the next generation of Chicano Teatristas.For Latino USA with Lucy Edwards in San Antonio, I'm Maria Martin.

This is news from Latino USA. I'm Maria Martin.

It is not a perfect solution. It is not identical with some of my own goals and it certainly will not please everyone, perhaps not anyone.

As President Clinton correctly predicted, his policy on gays in the military drew mixed reaction. From the gay community, there was anger and disappointment. Letitia Gomez is with a National Latino Gay and Lesbian Alliance in Washington.

It's incredible to me that if you say you're gay and you're in the military, that that is considered sexual misconduct and you can be thrown out. I mean, who in the United States has to deal with that except gays and lesbians in the military? One Gallup poll showed that 58% of Americans do favor the compromise.

For four days, recently, more than 150,000 young people gathered in Denver to see Pope John Paul II. Among them, many Latinos from across the country. Producer Betto Arcos, spoke to the young Hispanics about what was on their minds, issues ranging from the future of the Latino community to abortion, President Clinton's performance, and gays in the military.

The Hispanic community is not getting very well educated, okay? We need to push more for education.

We're working our way up, and I want to see us in power, not let everybody else walk all over us. We're going to be doing a lot of the walking, and we've got a lot to do.

President Clinton, up to this day, I feel that he takes in a lot of information from his public, from his staff, and he later he comes up with the plan out of that.

I think he's done a good job so far. I think he's the best president ever since John F Kennedy.

I'm sure he has good intentions. He can't please everybody all the time. He's looking out for the general welfare of the whole United States.

I do like the fact that he has let gays and lesbians in the army and stuff like that because I mean, that's their own private life, and nobody should get into that because it's theirs and it's personal. So I mean, we shouldn't hold that against them. Their preference is their business as long as they can do their work right. I mean, I think that's cool.

That's a tough situation. And the way it is right now there, we know that there are some gays in the military, but we don't know who they are, if they keep it quiet or ... Once you do know, I do know of one, a guy that was in my unit, and he seemed just like any other guy. So on a personal level, it's all right, but when you think about the overall picture, it's kind of an eerie feeling.

I don't know if you can say maybe the sixties, free love, everything like that was a part of it. And some of the people took that wrong as to what free love was, and they took it to the extremes with sex. And nowadays, you have a generation that holds nothing sacred.

Yeah, I believe that it's women's choice, even though in the case of rape, they should have an abortion, like incest and stuff like that. But I do believe it's women's choice.

Abortion is not a word for me. I don't believe in it.

Sex is not a game. It's not something we should play with. Responsible sex is knowing that you're going to have sex and knowing that the possibility of having a child is there and taking that responsibility if a child is in your womb.

I work in a neighborhood where the dropout rate is 75% of our high school and 75% of that, 45% of that is due to pregnancy. And I can't justify telling a kid for whatever reason, not to have abortion, not to have abortion, but I think it should be there to be addressed correctly.