Jessica Hayek | Contributing Writer
Queerness in the Latino community has long been a taboo subject, often creating division within families and cultural spaces. But music and dance have always brought communities together.
On Sept. 17, students were invited to join the Pride Student Union and Latin Student Union at Florida International University for a discussion on Willie Colón’s 1986 salsa classic “El Gran Varón.” The event also featured a salsa dance lesson from the Latin American Dance Club.
Students mingled and snacked while PSU’s Melany Varela and the event host welcomed attendees as they arrived. Varela said her hope for the second edition of the event was to “cater to students of all intersectionalities, one of those being queerness and Latinidad, and do something special for that small community that we have here at FIU, as a great way to kick off Hispanic Heritage Month.”
Varela spoke about the importance of family in Latino culture and discussed machismo, or toxic masculinity, explaining that it “draws clear cultural lines about the roles individuals must play within family and community, with certain expectations or behaviors that are required.” These cultural pressures often give queer Latinos little space to express themselves or date freely, especially compared to their white peers.
Salsa music has long addressed social, political and racial issues affecting Latino communities. “El Gran Varón” is a salsa staple, often heard at family gatherings or during early morning días de limpieza when parents wake their children to clean the house. While many attendees had heard the song, few had taken time to closely examine the lyrics.
Varela broke down the song, which tells the story of Simón, a transgender woman rejected by her father after returning home from studying abroad. The lyrics include lines like “Nature cannot be changed,” with the chorus responding, “A bent tree can never be straightened.” The song ends with Simón dying alone in a New York hospital from AIDS related complications.
Later, LADC Vice President Isabella Figueredo led a brief salsa demonstration and taught basic steps so the group could dance to “El Gran Varón.”
Isabella Figueredo teaching salsa basics to attendees to the song “El Gran Varon” | Jessica Hayek
“The topic of queerness in salsa has been taboo,” Figueredo said, “but I hope this opens up conversations of acceptance in our communities.” She added, “I’m very proud to see that we’re talking about this in the Latino community, since a lot of it stems from repression within our people and culture.”
Varela said her goal was to “allow people of this intersectionality to explore and accept their identity, which can be hard since it’s not only about your sexuality but how it connects to your culture, your family, and your gender roles that are assigned when being Latino. The song ‘El Gran Varón’ talks about this issue and is so ingrained in our culture, to let people know that there is media out there that represents this intersectional identity in a place that gives them community.”
When asked what “queer Latinidad” meant to them, audience members offered answers like “confidence,” “shamelessness,” “resilience” and “pride.”
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