Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons^™

Outside/In: Crossing Queer And Latino Boundaries, Luis Aponte Pares

Community Studies Faculty Publication Series

In this essay, I posit that to fully grasp the degree to which Latinos have latinized New York City's landscapes, the role Latino queers play in this process merits examination. Latino queers have begun to challenge queer institutions. They also aim to be coproducers of a queer imaginary and appropriate places of queer culture, thus Latinizing queer culture. They also claim a role in the coproduction of a Latino imaginary. By adding sexual orientation to this identity, queers indeed "queer," mariconear, decenter heteronormative Latino culture, perhaps producing a new "conception of 'identity,' which lives with and through, not despite, difference," …