Our Queer Lives, Our connections [and liberation] across borders / Nuestras vidas, conexiones y  liberacion transfronterizas.

We bring together Mexico-based and US-based scholars, artists, and activists to have a conversation on the state of “jotería” across our communities. Within Chicanx studies, Jotería is reclaimed from its derogatory origin to describe queer Mexican / Latinx / Chicanx / Indígena people and relate their experiences to decolonial world-building. 

Our panelists help us paint a picture that accounts for the diversity of experience, knowledge, and practices that exist within cuir-queer-jotería culture, and what this may then say about the state of our Mexican / Latinx / Chicanx / Indígena communities and their liberation efforts at large. 

Moderator: Olga Talamante 

Olga Talamante became the first executive director of the Chicana Latina Foundation in January 2003. Prior to this position, she was the Western Region Vice President of INROADS, a career and leadership development organization aimed at Latino, African American and Native American college students pursuing careers in business and engineering. In that position, she supervised the organization’s 12 regional offices located throughout the western United States and in Mexico.

Ms. Talamante is well known for her community activism and has worked with several service-providing and public advocacy agencies, including Head Start, the YMCA, the American Friends Service Committee and the Argentine Commission for Human Rights.

Some of her awards include: “Most Influential Latinos in the San Francisco Bay Area,” from the SF Business Times and SF Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, “Heroes and Heroines of the Latino Community,” from KQED-TV, the Diversity Award from Hispanic Magazine, the San Francisco Bay Girl Scout Council DAISY Award and the “Women Making History Award” from the San Francisco Commission on the Status of Women.

Currently, she serves on the boards of the National Center for Lesbian Rights; El Concilio of San Mateo County, and the Friends of the Commission on the Status of Women. She is also active with GELAAM, a Latino LGBT organization in San Mateo County and with the Latino Forum of the San Francisco LGBT Center.

Ms. Talamante’s family came from Mexico to Gilroy in the early 1960s and worked as farmworkers in the Santa Clara Valley. She received her B.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

Featuring:

AIMEE FENOCHIO SANTOS [Guadalupe Aimeé Fenochio Santos]

pasante de la Licenciatura en Historia del Arte

Bio: 

Soy originaria de Putla Villa de Guerrero, Oaxaca, pero vivo en la Ciudad de Oaxaca desde hace ocho años. Estudié la Licenciatura en Historia del Arte en la Universidad Autónoma Benito Juárez de Oaxaca y, en este momento, como pasante, llevo a cabo mi investigación de tesis acerca de las manifestaciones artístico-culturales en los espacios de encuentro de las comunidades sexo-diversas en la ciudad de Oaxaca.

Busco enfocar mi carrera en el estudio de la cultura, el arte y su historia desde una perspectiva de género; específicamente, me interesa dedicarme a la investigación en torno a las historias de las comunidades sexo diversas en México y Oaxaca, la producción de arte y narrativas culturales en el seno de las mismas y el impacto que esto puede generar a nivel social.

Actualmente trabajo en el Instituto de Artes Gráficas de Oaxaca (IAGO) como Coordinadora de exposiciones.

Mi nombre es Fran García Vázquez. Vivo en Ocotlán de Morelos, Oaxaca y me dedico a la elaboración de figuras decorativas ( barro policromado) desde que tengo uso de razón, debido a que mi familia se dedica a la artesanía, de ahí nació mi gusto. Aprendí de mi abuelita Josefina Aguilar y de mi padre Demetrio García Aguilar.

Mi trabajo representa todas las actividades tradicionales de mi comunidad y de mi estado de Oaxaca. Yo he tratado de expresar lo que siento y el orgullo de ser oaxaqueña, representando en mis piezas la belleza de mi estado.

Disfruto hacer todo el proceso, desde la extracción de la materia prima (barro) creando la pieza hasta terminar decorando con múltiples colores.

Me enorgullece mostrar en mi trabajo mi estilo, mi forma de interpretar lo que se vive, dar un mensaje en cada una de mis piezas, que la persona que la adquiera se sienta feliz y conectada, al alegrarle un rato de su vida.

Me encanta crear porque trato de dar un mensaje. Lo que hago es algo único, es mi manera de ver lo que sucede al mi alrededor. Hecho cien por ciento a mano, mi manera de expresar piezas que no se verán en ninguna otra parte porque es mi estilo único.

Ser artesana para mí significa mucho, ya que con ello estoy evitando que desaparezca una herencia que data desde nuestros antepasado, y ahora yo expreso de una manera más actual.

E participado en diferentes concursos y exposiciones.

Dr. Anita Tijerina Revilla is a muxerista and joteria activist-scholar, Professor, and Chair of CSULA’s Department of Chicana(o) and Latina(o) Studies. Her research focuses on student movements and social justice education, specifically in the areas of Chicana/Latina, immigrant, feminist and queer rights activism. Her expertise is in the areas of Jotería (Queer and Latinx) Studies, Chicanx Education, Chicana/Latina Feminism, and Critical Race & Ethnic Studies. She is a Harlandale High School graduate from the Southside of San Antonio and the first in her family to go to college. After receiving her bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and master’s degree from Teachers College, Columbia University, she earned her doctorate from UCLA Graduate School of Education in Social Sciences and Comparative Education with an emphasis in Race and Ethnic Studies.

fabian romero (they/them) is an Assistant Professor at the Ohio State University and a co-founder of the Parakata Sinsun Working Group. fabian is a P’urhepécha poet-scholar. They got their Ph.D. in the Gender, Women & Sexuality Studies Department with a certificate in American Indian Studies at the University of Washington in 2023. fabian’s work explores the manifestations of colonial heteropatriarchy in contemporary mestizo P’urhépecha heritage family structures in Michoacán and the diaspora.