El Portero, El Puente, Y Colorado
PORTERO IN SPANISH CAN EITHER mean “the bouncer” or “the caretaker.” El puente means the “bridge.” Colorado itself is a Spanish name given to the red-colored clay of our plateau by Spanish explorers. Gloria E. Anzaldúa, activist and scholar, once wrote: “Being the supreme crossers of cultures … our role is to link people with each other — the blacks with Jews with Indians with Asians with whites. Colored homosexuals have always been at the forefront (although sometimes in the closet) of all liberation struggles in the country.”
David Duffield
For generations, there’s been homophobia, racism, and genocide in human culture. Among native peoples in the Americas, homosexuality was “not such a big deal” according to Yolanda Alaniz and Megan Cornish in Viva La Raza: A History of Chicano Identity and Resistance. The “rare exception” was the class-stratified and patriarchal Aztec culture, which featured “grizzly punishments” for female adultery, homosexuality, and transvestism. The conquistadors were equally bad for sexual minorities, unleashing a war against sodomy and codifying the “medieval moralism” of the church. Chicana/o homophobia thus has roots, they argue, in a community already subject to economic and racial oppression. External oppression magnifies internal pressures on minorities within minorities.
Gays are also a small subset of the population, so our diversity can magnify broader cultural-social divides. According to Marc Stein, author of Rethinking the Gay and Lesbian Movement, among the gay liberation movement from 1970–1980, there was tepid reaction by white, gay, male leadership to the needs of other social movements. According to Stein, class-race consciousness led the cultural marginalization of minorities. Sometimes LGBT groups faced a cultural-competency crisis when dealing with people of color.
Donaciano Martinez, a long-time activist in the LGBT, Latino, and Chicano communities, has seen intersectionalities of many identities. Born in Colorado Springs, he grew up seeing signs saying “No Mexicans or Dogs Allowed.” He saw learned that “bathrooms and bushes” were the only meeting spaces for gay men in Colorado Springs. Donaciano was among the first generation of large numbers of Chicanos in Colorado to get access and finish college. We owe much of this heritage to La Crustaje por Justicia or the Crusade For Justice (CFJ), organized by Rodolfo “Corky” Gonzales.
In the late 1960s, the CFJ organized against anti-discrimination, education, and for political self-determination for the Chicano community. Yet, when Donaciano moved to Denver around 1976, he was told by other Chicano activists that the Chicano and Gay Liberation movement were separate things because their goals were different. In the early 1980s, Donaciano united with others against racism when local Denver bars kicked several black, gay men out for “causing trouble.” Your Own Understanding (YOU) was a group made up of whites, blacks, latinos, straight and gay people, and men and women. It took many years, but their efforts — and a sting operation — ended the discrimination.
According to the MileHighGayGuy.com blog, at same time gay and lesbian Latino/a people gathered to form their own support groups like Ambiente Latino for men, and Las Mujeres Alegres for women, both of which were forerunners of La Gente Unida. La Gente Unida, co-founded by Martinez, has been a strong advocate of immigrant, LGBT, and other rights.
Recently, the LGBT Latino community organized their own cultural events at PrideFest, and for their own resource center known as Unidos en Orgullo (UNO), or “united in pride.” UNO still has a digital presence, though its physical space and organization are undergoing reconfiguration. Self-determination within the LGBT community has meant greater visibility.
Space itself is important for community. El Portero is a gay, Latino nightclub in Glendale. It sits in a quiet lot, hushed away from busy streets. It seems a little decayed at first glance, but through the doors, one can hear bumping music and see young latinos gathered. For everything from a drag show to a concert, the club reminds this author of the Foxhole or Tracks (c. 1984). Like many of the best clubs, or community spaces, it’s a place away from places, where people can build community in their own comfort. Gender, race, and class blur slightly within these walls. Perhaps the patrons of El Portero are both porteros and puentes of Colorado culture.
To bridge both sexuality and racial identity, one can speak truth to power in experience. By creating community in support groups like Las Hermanas Alegres or in groups like La Gente Unida, or in spaces like El Portero, common identity is secured. If we see the humanity within ourselves and others, then the magnitude of divide is lessened. If we stop to appreciate the intersectionality of identity, we understand our own even more. If we allow space for multitudes of people, then there is prophecy in Anzaldúa’s words that people who are porteros, puentes, y de Colorado are unknowing leaders in liberation.
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