Promoting binational efforts

Saturday, March 21, 2009

For the past five years, "Marcha Lésbica co-organizer Mariana Pérez and her partner Breana George - who lives in California - have worked together to pair activists from Mexico and Latin America with California's Latino population, developing Spanish-language support groups, workshops and community events.

George said the need for binational efforts has been further fueled by the 2008 approval of Proposition 8 in California, which restricted marriage to unions between a man and a woman.

She said the proposition's passing is proof of a communication breakdown between the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) community and U.S. Latino populations, including Chicanas and immigrants.

Several members of the Latinas y Lesbianas y Aliadas from California will participate in Saturday's Marcha Lésbica in a show of solidarity. The group, established by George's university department, was a first for Watsonville, a small agricultural community composed mainly of Mexican migrants.

"As Chicanas as Latinas, it's very important for them to have a perspective of themselves as lesbians that takes place outside of the United States, and that they can have a sense of origin in Mexico as lesbian women," Pérez said. "It seems absurd to us that they're supposedly passing laws that are going to support us . but in practice, the public servants continue having very machismo and authoritarian attitudes."

-MARIA GALLUCCI/Special to The News