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Adela Vázquez (born 1958) is a Cuban American transgender
activist Activism (or Advocacy) consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived greater good. Forms of activism range fro ...
and performer.Vázquez, Adela. "Finding a Home in Transgender Activism in San Francisco." In Queer Brown Voices: Personal Narratives of Latina/o LGBT Activism, edited by Uriel Quesada, Letitia Gomez, and Salvador Vidal-Ortiz. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2015. Hailing from Cuba during a time of political uprising, Vázquez was one of 125,000 people who sought asylum and migrated in the Mariel Boat lifts in 1980. Local to San Francisco's gay scene, Vázquez began to organize with HIV prevention organization
Proyecto ContraSIDA Por Vida Proyecto ContraSIDA por Vida (also known as PCPV and Proyecto) was a non-profit HIV-prevention agency located in the Mission District of San Francisco that provided community-based healthcare for the Latino/a and LGBT communities. It was one of sev ...
(also known as PCPV, or Proyecto) and became a community activist for transgender rights.Rodríguez, Juana María. Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces. New York: NYU Press, 2003.


Early life

In 1958,
Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; ; 13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 200 ...
organized the
July 26th Movement The 26th of July Movement ( es, Movimiento 26 de Julio; M-26-7) was a Cuban vanguard revolutionary organization and later a political party led by Fidel Castro. The movement's name commemorates its 26 July 1953 attack on the army barracks on Sa ...
to overthrow Fulgencio Batista. Vázquez was born in 1958, and during her birth, homes were burned and cities were destroyed because of the revolution. Vázquez was born out of wedlock and was adopted by her grandfather and grandmother, with whom she lived. Raised in
Camagüey Camagüey () is a city and municipality in central Cuba and is the nation's third-largest city with more than 321,000 inhabitants. It is the capital of the Camagüey Province. It was founded as Santa María del Puerto del Príncipe in 1514, by S ...
, Cuba, Vázquez spent her childhood walking around downtown and the Casino Campreste. She encountered a large Cuban LGBT community, eventually being baptized as "La Chica Streisandisima" at the swan fountain in Casino Campreste. Her early involvement with the LGBT community in Camagüey and emigration to the United States was the influence for Jaime Cortez's graphic novel ''Sexile''. In Cuba, Vázquez was inducted into the military but was ineligible for service because of her homosexuality. After being denied, Vázquez committed herself to education and worked toward her teaching degree at Destacamento Pedagogico Manuel Ascunce Domenech.


Migration

On April 4 of 1980, Castro's government announced that any Cuban wanting to leave to the United States was free to go. Castro did this in response to five Cubans who stole a bus and crashed into the Embassy of Peru in Havana, seeking asylum. Vázquez was one of the people who sought asylum as part of the Mariel Boatlift and emigrated to Florida. Leaving behind family and belongings, Vázquez departed from the port of El Mosquito, a beach she recalled as unsafe and overcrowded. Her experiences on the Mariel boat for eight hours were less positive until she docked at the island of Key West, Monroe County, Florida. Vázquez was moved to the Cuban refugee center of Fort Chaffee in the city of Fort Smith, Arkansas and recalls being greeted by the
Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
that surrounded the center. Spending a month and half there, Vazquez's experience were generally positive as she recalled the center providing adequate healthcare, churches, and food for refugees. In 1980, Vázquez was sponsored by the Los Angeles LGBT Center to travel to California. In Los Angeles, she met Rolando Victoria who would become her drag godmother until Victoria's death in 1982. While in California, Vazquez took jobs as a gift wrapper for Neiman Marcus, a hairdresser, and hotel clerk after she moved in 1983 to the Tenderloin district in San Francisco.


Activism

Vázquez's activist work began in 1992 when she was crowned Miss Gay Latina, by Instituto Familiar De La Raza—a community based health and wellness center.Quesada, Uriel, Letitia Gomez, and Salvador Vidal-Ortiz, eds. ''Queer Brown Voices: Personal Narratives of Latina/o LGBT Activism''. University of Texas Press, 2015. Post her crowning, Vázquez began to organize around transgender rights and issues. She quickly took notice of the large health disparities in the trans community and the need to mobilize. Vázquez was invited by trans activist Tamara Ching to speak to the issues the trans Latina community faced at the Human Rights Commission at San Francisco's City Hall. Among her many efforts, Vázquez protested the employment discrimination faced by trans people and their removal from the workplace because of their gender queerness. Through her outreach, Vázquez met a drag queen by the name of La Condonera "The Condom Women," otherwise known as Hector León. Together, Hector and Vázquez formed a group called Las AtreDivas (a portmanteau of the Spanish word atrevida—daring—and diva), which consisted of four drag queens. Las AtreDivas organized and presented on Spanish language shows at the gay bar Esta Noche, highlighting safer sex practices in order to bring awareness to
AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...
and contribute funds for local organizations like Proyecto ContraSIDA Por Vida. She is credited with being the first Trans Latina employed to address issues of HIV in San Francisco. Vázquez, also known by her drag name "Adela Holyday" was called a "top notch "drag" performer" and an "aesthetic marker" at night clubs.Rodríguez, Juana María. Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces. New York: NYU Press, 2003.http://nyupress.org/books/9780814775509/ Vázquez was centrally involved with
Proyecto ContraSIDA Por Vida Proyecto ContraSIDA por Vida (also known as PCPV and Proyecto) was a non-profit HIV-prevention agency located in the Mission District of San Francisco that provided community-based healthcare for the Latino/a and LGBT communities. It was one of sev ...
, an HIV prevention organization. Vázquez volunteered for Proyecto beginning in 1992 and later on became the first trans Latina employee, as their outreach coordinator. To combat the AIDS crisis, Vázquez and Proyecto organized around a multidimensional need to outreach. Vázquez's work was highlighted in UC Berkeley's Professor Juana María Rodríguez book ''Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces''. In her chapter, "Activism and Identity," Rodríguez highlights the ways Proyecto offered a dynamic, culturally situated, queer approach to community health. Vázquez's community work continued throughout the 1990s. Vázquez was on a committee of community advisory members for "The Transgender Community Health Project" for the University of San Francisco Department of Public Health. Vázquez later on went to serve as a Latino AIDS Education and Prevention Program Coordinator at the Instituto Familiar de la Raza, Inc., a non-profit dedicated to improving the wellness of Latino people in San Francisco.


Influence and Impact

''Diagnosing Difference'' (Film) - In 2009, Vázquez starred in a film titled ''Diagnosing Difference''.The documentary film highlights the stories of thirteen transgender and
genderqueer Non-binary and genderqueer are umbrella terms for gender identities that are not solely male or femaleidentities that are outside the gender binary. Non-binary identities fall under the transgender umbrella, since non-binary people typically ...
people and the impact of Gender Identity Disorder (G.I.D). In the film, Director Annalise Ophelian aims to humanize the conversation around Gender variance by featuring people who don't identify with the gender they were born with, rather than
psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and interpretation of how indi ...
and
psychiatrist A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
s leading the conversation. In the film, Vázquez discusses the complexities of
gender dysphoria Gender dysphoria (GD) is the distress a person experiences due to a mismatch between their gender identitytheir personal sense of their own genderand their sex assigned at birth. The diagnostic label gender identity disorder (GID) was used until ...
along with the pressure of needing to pass. ''Sexile/Sexilio'' (Comic): - ''Sexile/Sexilio'' is a bilingual graphic novel by
Jaime Cortez Jaime Cortez is a Chicano-American graphic novelist, visual artist, writer, teacher, and performer. Cortez is also known for his role as an LGBT rights activist, and HIV/AIDS prevention work. Early years Cortez was born in the agricultural town ...
published in 2004 that illustrates the life of Vázquez. Cortez uses
comics a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate ...
to illustrates various moments of Vázquez's life: her birth, Cuban school life, sexual explorations, Mariel Boat migration, and many others. ''Sexilio'' came out of collaboration with Gay Men's Health Crisis. Gay Men's Health Crisis has been an advocate and leading contributor to HIV/AIDS prevention. ''Sexilio'' was nominated as the National Association of Public Libraries' Queer Book of the Year. ''Queer Brown Voices'' (Book) - ''Queer Brown Voices: Personal Narratives of Latina/o LGBT Activism,'' edited by Letitia Gomez, Uriel Quesada, and Salvador Vidal-Ortiz is a collection of fourteen queer Latino Activist personal narratives and their impact on their communities. Vázquez is the only trans Latina voice in the book.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Vazquez, Adela Living people 1958 births People from Camagüey Cuban emigrants to the United States American LGBT rights activists HIV/AIDS activists LGBT Hispanic and Latino American people Cuban transgender people LGBT people from California Transgender women Transgender rights activists 20th-century Cuban LGBT people 21st-century Cuban LGBT people