Cobra, which also catered to LGBTQ Latinos, closed in May. She had quinceañeras and weddings lined up for all of 2020. artist captured the subcultures of ’90s L.A.Īt Jalisco, among the many economic casualties of the pandemic is Vanessa Antonely, a drag performer who specialized in lip syncing as Adele and Amanda Miguel.Īntonely, 44, had hustled between Jalisco, another job charging entry at Club Cobra in North Hollywood and side gigs as a makeup artist. And more bars that cater to the broader LGBTQ community, including Micky’s in West Hollywood, dedicate certain nights of the week to Latinos and other ethnic groups.īut just as there’s no substitute for a queer bar, there’s no substitute for those catering to Latinos, says Eddy Francisco Alvarez Jr., an assistant professor of Chicana and Chicano studies at Cal State Fullerton whose research includes queer Latinx history.Įntertainment & Arts ‘We are not the footnote’: In photos, Reynaldo Rivera evokes L.A.’s queer Latino bohemiaĭrag bars, rock shows and performance artists. In recent years, roaming circuit parties have become popular among queer youth. “But there is something special lost when a bar of 30 years goes under, because it takes with it a local history and a staff that knows people’s names.” “Gay bars have survived political oppression, the AIDS crisis, previous recessions, so they will survive this pandemic,” he said. Mattson is sure the bars won’t entirely disappear. Every queer person can tell you the first time they went to a gay bar. “That’s something that straight people don’t often have to think about. “Even still, in this era where we can find queer content on YouTube and find sex partners or romance on phone apps, if you want to be in a room with other queer people, bars are often the only option,” Mattson said. Shunned or unwelcome elsewhere in less tolerant times, queer people could gather in bars, which for generations served as the community’s public squares and remain hubs for organizing and fundraising. After The Score closed in the early 2000s, LGBTQ patrons urged Garcia to dedicate her space to the community she had so openly accepted.
And the prevalence of AIDS among Latinos nationwide skyrocketed by 130% between 19.Īt Jalisco, some patrons unaccustomed to seeing same-sex couples turned aggressive toward the new customers. Then-President Clinton unveiled the “Don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, which prevented service members from being openly gay, lesbian or bisexual without the threat of being discharged.
California voters had approved Proposition 187, which sought to deny undocumented immigrants access to services, including public healthcare and education. Los Angeles in the 1990s was racially and politically tense. By then she had married Sergio Hernandez, who left his job as another bar’s security guard to help Garcia at Jalisco. When he died in 2005, Jalisco became hers officially. As the owner got older, he left Garcia to manage the bar by herself.