From RAQUEFELLA:

I’m pushing about ten years here in Los Angeles doing the community based queer Latina/o arts organizing thing that continues to move, baffle, inspire, exhaust me. Me da vida. I believe in making space for queer Latino/as living in Los Angeles to share creative work at an emerging level that often goes unseen and unheard. Oftentimes that’s the least of our troubles in the cacophony of violence that surrounds our realities as either gender-non-conforming outlaws trying to make a home in the communities we are from. We remember Gwen Araujo. Lawrence King, presente.  Sakina Gunn, RIP. These youth did not have the chance to spit their truth and so we, as poets and artists, render their struggles poetically to remember.

I hope L.A. Eastside readers can pause and think about the LGBT gente in their lives–have you ever thought about the struggles that they face as they remain true to themselves while occupying spaces with family, friends, and institutions like church and school. Have you ever stopped some bullshit language flying around the schoolyards or did you let the slap in the face go unpunished? Did you ever not talk to somebody because the gender line was crossed in such a way that…ni porque decirlo?

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