Tal Como Somos: The Latino Culture

The Latino culture has very strong ideas of the masculine and feminine image and what is accepted from each gender identity. The Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, and Queer (LGBTQ) Latinidad community as a result often do not fit into the roles their society expected them to fill. Due to the conflict in beliefs between the sexual orientation and ethnic background of a Latinidad LGBTQ member, they can face various difficulties that lead into mistreatment from themselves and the surrounding world. They often experience: a lack of acceptance in society, hash treatment, depression, self-hate, and resentment from their own religion. These can also result to various forms of violence toward the LGBTQ individual from verbal and physical violence to neglect.

Depending on the strength of the bond a family has to the individual compared to the one they have with their beliefs, determines their acceptance or lack of. The rejection of one’s own family is hard to imagine and is a struggle to go through especially in a culture known for its close family ties. In the documentary, Tal Como Somos: The Latino GBT Community, a transgender women Gabriela, before her transition was kicked out of her family home when she was around sixteen years old after her mother caught her wearing hair extensions. This rejection had caused her to turn to alcohol and then drugs. She eventually conquered her addictions and successfully made her transition into the women she is now, but her experience shows how important acceptance really is. Years later her mother learned to accept Gabriela and they are as happy as can

The community as a whole is powerful, but can often be a negative contributor to the abuse of an outsider. In Desert Blood many women had be brutally murdered, but nothing was being done about it. Instead the victims were seen at fault because the vast majority of the community had the notion that any women out at night was asking for it. They must have just run away with their boyfriends or something of that nature. The problem was ignored and not dealt with properly. These murders in the fictional novel, Desert Blood, where based on true murders in Juárez. The poor women were working for a better life and to provide for their families by working in American Factories. Instead Women have suffered the ultimate price, their life’s. Working toward ending the silence along with the novel the music video and song, “Invalid Litter Dept” by At The Drive in was written in tribute of the many women’s whom lives had been taken away from them. The video includes images of newspaper headlines and images of the scene. This media is much needed because with knowledge of what is right, wrongful doings can be