Queer Latinidad: A History of HIV/AIDS Art Consciousness in L.A.

• In Event: Mapping New Queer Spaces: Cultural Contexts of Latina/o Sexualities

Abstract

This paper argues that the late Gil Cuadros’s writing on queer Chicano sexuality and AIDS articulates a crossing of borders between his Mexican family and white culture. Spiritually and with conviction, Cuadros tells the story of a Queer Chicano growing up in the surrounding cities of Los Angeles while living with AIDS on the battlegrounds of his Aztlán in the 1990s. For many Chicano/as, Aztlán continues to be a place of reflection, meditation, and resistance. For Cuadros, it is a place where AIDS is also present which complicates the romanticized notion of Aztlán and simultaneously contradicts the constructs of a Chicano identity. Discovering how Cuadros’s writing is inclusive of the spiritual and sacred world of sexuality will manifest insight on how critical reflections can arise from the creative process. Alvarez’s presentation seeks to answer questions such as: How does the creative act of writing define a social-cultural experience in the face of critical circumstances and erasure? How does the creative act of writing shape and inform identity?

Author

• Pablo Alvarez, CGU