Puerto Rican “Activists” Workin’ It In The Wrong Way

cross posted from my Media Justice column

By now you’ve heard of the ABC television show “Work It.” A triflin’ and low rating show that features two middle aged men (one racially white another Latino) who dress up as women to secure employment in the US. Yes, you read that correctly; at a time when women still don’t make as much as men (and where transgender people don’t make as much at all!), when the feminization of poverty is still a part of our society and world, and when transgender people are still the most oppressed, underemployed, murdered, invisible anderased members of our communities.

ABC Chief Paul Lee states he “doesn’t get” the big deal about how harmful “Work It” is based on GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign's activism around the show and their efforts to challenge it coming to air. Lee states he doesn’t “get it” because he loved the movie “Tootsie.”

What Lee and others fail to see is that these are characters that are created so that we can laugh at them. These characters are performing stereotypes and misconceptions of what we assume to be a challenge when people “dress up” as the opposite gender. The characters perpetuate a gender binary. These characters are making a choice to dress up which gives the illusion that sex and gender are choices that people can simply change their mind about.

Others that fail to see this problem: some Puerto Rican activists. For the past week I’ve received so many emails about how Puerto Ricans are represented on “Work It” by Latino character Amaury Nolasco, who plays a Puerto Rican character. The “dehumanizing” and “blatantly offensive” comment where the “culture was attacked by an insensitive stereotype” by Nolasco’s character who states: “I’m Puerto Rican, I would be great at selling drugs.”

This statement took less than 10 seconds to say and hear. Because of that 10 seconds a huge storm of protest has erupted among Puerto Ricans.

My heart breaks here. All of this mobilizing and protesting for one line by a character, yet NOTHING from any of the grassroots organizations, such as Boricuas For A Positive Image, celebrities or community activists that have jumped on this protest about how Puerto Rican and Latin@ transgender people are impacted by this show. There is an overwhelming silence. Where is the alliance building with transgender activists? Where is the joining with GLAAD and HRC? Where is the mobilization beyond targeting me as a Puerto Rican, but not as a human being that values all members of our community, especially those who are harmed the most?

The images and video that have been created around the challenging of ABC by Puerto Rican activists are very single issue when we are not a single issue people! The messages being sent: Transmisogyny is alive and well. We don’t care about your gender we care more about your ethnicity (and only if it is Puerto Rican). We don’t care how something may harm and dehumanize the Puerto Rican transgender community unless it impacts us directly.

I understand this response especially since Puerto Rico has been struggling with drugtrafficking, drug use and abuse, and drug related crimes for decades. One of my most vivid memories of Puerto Rico was in 1995 when armed US military would line the streets and randomly pull cars over and check for drugs. It was a scary time, and those times remain today, especially with the high murder rate in Puerto Rico (and a number of those murders are of transgender Puerto Ricans and lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer Puerto Ricans) and when the stop and frisk experiences of Latin@ and Black youth living in NYC and in-school arrests are ridiculously high.

What I don’t understand is how can “activists” separate these issues so easily? If we stood with our transgender community in fighting this show when it was being created and knew it centered a Puerto Rican actor who was misrepresenting Puerto Rican transgender women, would we be here today? It’s possible we would, it’s also possible our voices as Puerto Rican consumers, Puerto Rican media makers, and Puerto Rican people would have resulted in a similar apology and a more quick removal of the offensive show. When we partner together to support and make change for our most oppressed members of our community we all benefit.

My hope is that Puerto Rican activists today learn about the anti-oppression legacy that civil rights activist Sylvia Rivera, a Puerto Rican-Venezuelan New Yorker, has left us. And then share her legacy and not keep it just for ourselves, but speak on it to youth, our elders, other Latin@s, everybody! To learn how you can support the Sylvia Rivera Law Project visit their website.

Womyn's Herstory Month: Sylvia Rivera

As March is Womyn's Herstory Month I plan to feature one Latina each week that you must know about. Last week it was Latinegra/Afra-Cubana Magia MC. Today it is activist Sylvia Rivera.

Sylvia was an activist, radical woman of Color, and a survivor in all ways you can imagine. A Puerto Rican-Venezualen transgender woman and self-identified drag queen living in NYC who at the age of 3 was raised in kinship-care, she was vocal, persistent, and demanded that the rights of all people be granted and respected. She advocated for transgender people to fight and take the "historical legacy" that is theirs within history all over the world, and not just within LGBT movements. She, like many Latinas, was not a single-issue activist. She fought for working-class and working-poor communities of Color, queer communities, anti-war policies, housing and homelessness changes/access, civil rights, and human rights. Sylvia is not only a part of transgender history, she is a part of Latino history, womyn's history, feminisms, LGB history, and US history. She is often erased, forgotten and excluded because of isms in various spaces, but we ALL must challenge this as she did.

She has been a part of multiple movements, not just ones focused on sexual orientation that, as they attempted to create change at the policy level excluded gender identity and ultimately her, the transgender, and drag communities, but she was also a part of other radical spaces. If you do not know about how LGB organizations have historically and currently push out transgender activists and community members, you may read up on it in various spaces and here is one starting point. She speaks about joining the Young Lords Party:

Later on, when the Young Lords [revolutionary Puerto Rican youth group] came about in New York City, I was already in GLF [Gay Liberation Front]. There was a mass demonstration that started in East Harlem in the fall of 1970. The protest was against police repression and we decided to join the demonstration with our STAR banner.

That was one of first times the STAR banner was shown in public, where STAR was present as a group.

I ended up meeting some of the Young Lords that day. I became one of them. Any time they needed any help, I was always there for the Young Lords. It was just the respect they gave us as human beings. They gave us a lot of respect.

It was a fabulous feeling for me to be myself-being part of the Young Lords as a drag queen-and my organization [STAR] being part of the Young Lords.

I met [Black Panther Party leader] Huey Newton at the Peoples' Revolutionary Convention in Philadelphia in 1971. Huey decided we were part of the revolution-that we were revolutionary people.

Part of her activism lead to becoming a co-founder of the Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), a radical organization that provided various services to the community from organizing demonstrations, offering housing, to food. Here is more on STAR from an interview Sylvia did with activist Leslie Feinberg

STAR came about after a sit-in at Wein stein Hall at New York University in 1970. Later we had a chapter in New York, one in Chicago, one in California and England.

STAR was for the street gay people, the street homeless people and anybody that needed help at that time. Marsha and I had always sneaked people into our hotel rooms. Marsha and I decided to get a building. We were trying to get away from the Mafia's control at the bars.

We got a building at 213 East 2nd Street. Marsha and I just decided it was time to help each other and help our other kids. We fed people and clothed people. We kept the building going. We went out and hustled the streets. We paid the rent.

We didn't want the kids out in the streets hustling. They would go out and rip off food. There was always food in the house and everyone had fun. It lasted for two or three years.

I encourage you all to read Jessi Gan's article about the life and legacy of Sylvia Rivera as well as Tim Retzloff's piece in the Centro Journal published in 2007.

She died February 19, 2002 and has left us all with an amazing legacy for creating change in communities of Color, communities that are under-resourced, and with tools to begin and continue decolonization efforts.


Watch SYLVIA RIVERA TRANS LIFE STORY in Entertainment  |  View More Free Videos Online at Veoh.com

Learn about the Sylvia Rivera Law Project (I use their film and curriculum Toilet Training in my class every semester!)

Check out the NY Public Library Digital Gallery of images with Sylvia.

Lee en espanol El legado de Sylvia Rivera: Los hispanos y la lucha por los derechos civiles de la comunidad LGBT

foto credit: srlp.org