“Why Should We Stop Now” by The Natural Four

The Natural Four understand that they have a good thing going, so why should the

progress stop? Even though there was some backlash form the community, there was also a lot of pride being taken and people were finally being heard. It has taken a long time to get to this point, but the song encourages lowrider to be strong and persevere. I was curious to know what Kari, Vero, and DJ Brown Amy thought about the impact of their project on the community of The Mission, and even people outside the community. When asked about it DJ Brown Amy emphasized that she thought that despite all the media coverage on the hate crimes and

homophobia, there was a lot of love for the project. She recalls all the times random people came up to her and told her how much they were moved by the project and how much support they got on the opening night.

Vero remembers on opening night one of the many queer Latino Mission organizers born and raised in San Francisco came up to her after the opening night party and said, “I feel like we made it! Were here now.” She said, “the hate took up a lot of the media, but…the love is so

much bigger.” She recalls a young queer boy from Fresno (about 3 hours away) came up to her and said, “I never thought I could be this.” He told her about how macho his father was and how much they both loved the music, but never though he could be included because of his sexuality. Kari remembers a young girl speaking to her and telling her how her mom was lesbian, but her husband kicked her out of the house when she was found out. He ostracized her from the family, and even her family did not speak to her until she married another man, but now she is unhappy. The young girl was so moved because after the trauma with her mom, she never imagined seeing her mom’s story represented in this culture.

Maria brought up a topic from the closing event panel. While much of the community wants to deny that queerness exists in lowrider culture and Latino culture, there were homegirls and homeboys that would hook up with each other after cruising, but never speak about it. When she came out to her dad, he had a much different reaction because of his own past. When he was younger, he had hooked up with one of his homeboys. This anecdote from her father, who is a traditional lowrider cholo with a macho identity, reaffirmed to her that queerness is something that has always existed within her community. Maria thinks that The Q Sides allowed for conversations to happen that will help to break down stigmas within our communities. She says that when the community members try to erase the presence of queerness in the community, they are trying to stigmatize and shame people who are still your friends and family.

After bringing home one of her transgendered Latino friends, Maria’s family became more invested in learning more about the queer spectrum. She remembers her 60-year aunt asking questions about hormones and what it means to transition. This experience makes her believe that the culture is shifting and having queer Latino narratives being publicized, like with The Q Sides, attitudes are changing and important conversations are being held. Without the

homophobia there would be no need for The Q Sides. The backlash, though scary and sad, was important because it revealed how much social change in terms of accepting the queer

community that exists within Latino culture. She believes that for the younger generations, these changes are going to make it much easier for them to come out and to be included in the

community where families will be more accepting and more aware.

Figure 12: The Q-Sides, Volume 9.

For Al, participating in the photo-shoot replaced the loss of never being able to

participate in it when he was younger. He explained that, “being able to participate in something that may have been uncomfortable or painful, or something that you were excluded from was really empowering.” He said that every process of the project that he was involved in from the photo-shoot to the opening night, he got “to go back and live this life.” Something that was significant about the project was having so many different generations involved. For him it was exciting to see young people “in their neighborhood and represented.” Additionally, the amount of press that The Q Sides picked up was amazing to him because it started dialogues that had

never been started before and got various responses from various types of people like politicians, writers, artists, and community members. He mentions briefly that there is a possibility that maybe this conversation had been started before, but “in a very isolated bubble, of let’s say the literary world where people are coming together with like minds.” He argues that The Q Sides made it more accessible to the communities that needed it as much as the academic world. This reminded me of Hames-García and Martínez’s efforts to “re-member” the gay Latino experience. Hames-García and Martínez argue that the gay Latino male experience has been silenced and the narrative needs to be pieced back together. The way that Al described the morning he did the photo-shoot for The Q-Sides sounded like his narrative was being pieced together for the first time.

In the beginning, DJ Brown Amy really just wanted to represent their experience as queer Latinos in lowrider culture, and return to the idea of feeling like the only one when you were younger. But the night of the opening, and every night after that was a reminder that you were not the only person, and you are not alone. The way that my participants spoke about the opening night was as if their stories were being included in the traditional lowrider narrative. The Q-Sides was the vehicle that allowed the queer Latinx narrative to be included in the traditional story. Not only is it including the queer Latinx narrative, but also it is a source of encouragement, in the Mission district as well as Latino communities who participate in lowriding, to come to consciousness about how queer sexualities exist within the community.