{"id":1645,"date":"2016-06-14T20:36:41","date_gmt":"2016-06-14T20:36:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/heart-beats.ca\/HDB\/?p=1645"},"modified":"2018-02-11T05:38:27","modified_gmt":"2018-02-11T05:38:27","slug":"latin-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/heart-beats.ca\/HDB\/latin-night\/","title":{"rendered":"Latin Night"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Latin Night sounds like my dream but I live 15 minutes from a Latin gay club in Toronto and I\u2019ve never gone. It\u2019s been easier to hide in queer scenes and be mad at all the white people than set foot in a place where I can\u2019t compartmentalize all these parts of who I am. Not Latinx enough, not white at all: this is the story for many of us and queerness adds another layer I don\u2019t know how to navigate.<\/p>\n

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When my family first got to Canada, everyone was so impressed with me. They bragged about how quickly I adjusted and learned English while everyone in my family struggled. Youth gave me a brain ready to absorb everything but that youth also left me without forming my cultural identity. I learned early that I needed to assimilate to survive without realizing I\u2019d be sacrificing my Latinidad, my roots:<\/p>\n

I only had white friends<\/p>\n

I went to art school<\/p>\n

I did not want a quincea\u00f1era<\/p>\n

And while I have a mami who loved and loves her daughter despite being a little rara\/weird, I learned to avoid situations where I felt\u00a0further displaced. I left\u00a0the family gatherings before the questions about boyfriends began, I moved to another city. I don\u2019t go to Latinx events because the only person who might come with me is the white girl I used to date. Latin America was colonized and traumatized and homophobia is a thing there like it is everywhere. It has taken so many years to find my way back to this Salvadore\u00f1a trenzuda and I still have so much further to go.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know anyone who died on Saturday but like many of us, I also feel like I do. They\u2019re the maricas my father would have mocked or like me, the marica my father doesn\u2019t know about. These Latinxs\u2019 ability to be whole, even for a few hours on a Saturday night, got them killed and I don\u2019t know how to live with that right now.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

by Karen Michelle Campos Castillo<\/em><\/p>\n

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