This is a great chance to meet and learn from Native American LGBT peoples and the Two Spirit culture. The 2011 Tulsa Two Spirits Gathering will take place on April 15-18 at the Osage Hills State Park, in Oklahoma.
This is "a yearly event hosted and funded by the Tulsa Two Spirits Society, Two Spirit Society of Denver, and the Two-Spirit Council of Wichita" according to Native Out.
Photo by Tulsa Two Spirits Society
The gathering's program will include workshops on traditional and contemporary Native American culture, Pow Wows, stompdancing, celebrations, Native faith, and other related activities. No alcohol, drugs or guns will be allowed. There will be people attending from the United States, Canada, and Mexico, confirmed.
The Tulsa Two Spirits Society is "a non-profit Native American GLBT Collective. We seek to affirm and embody positive traditional and modern Two Spirit identities, and in so doing, be valued members of our communities. Education, Cultural Preservation, and Advocacy are our goals and priorities, and we are happy to say that we are allied with similar organizations throughout Turtle Island."
The term Two Spirit is a modern pan-indian (universal) phrase that can be applied to Native Americans who are Gay, Bisexual, Lesbian, or Transgendered. Two Spirit is generally felt to be the more culturally sensitive and accurate term over the presently accepted anthropological term "berdache," which simply means "kept boy," "catamite," etc. Use of the term Two Spirit carries with it the general inference of respect to the traditional role that a GBLT individual would have played among their people(s) prior to colonization. While it is most correct to use a people's individual term for their GBLT members, the term Two Spirit is useful when refering to Native American GBLT groups comprised of members from different or multiple native people's.
Many of the so called Latinos are Native peoples as well, and there is a growing movement among LGBT Latinos that are acknowledging our Indigenous roots. I will try to participate in this event, and hopefully other Latinos will be there.
Marriage equality has won a meaningful and important battle recently. The decision of U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker to overturn the homophobic Proposition 8 law in California, has raised hopes among LGBT queers activists and couples fighting for same-sex marriage. But the fight for Prop8 is not over yet.
While I agree that we LGBT people deserve the right to be legally married, but the question we need to ask ourselves is if all gay men want to get marry. In my experience, I think there is more gay men only interested in casual sex and non-serious relationships? Sometimes I can include myself in this group.
So how can we win allies over marriage equality when we give out the wrong message? What is the role of LGBT media on this?
Marcos is gay and Indigenous, he was born in Peru and raised in the Netherlands. As a newborn child, he was adopted by a Dutch couple who took him to a small town in Holland and raised him there.
Marcos and I met online thanks to my blog Peruanista. He returned to Peru as an adult searching for his relatives and his life changed when he met what he calls “my Peruvian family”. Things were a bit different than he expected, as he had to face racism and homophobia as never before.
In this extraordinary testimony, Marcos shares a very sad but uplifting chronicle that will open the eyes of many.
This story was written in English and Spanish by Marcos Lukaña Champi. Some English translation and editing by Carlos A. Quiroz. All photos and videos are by Marcos Lukaña Champi.
My story
By Marcos Lukaña Champi
The whole world knows that I am gay. When I was 17 years old I co-founded "All Together", a support group for young gay and lesbian people in Holland. I did this when I was living in the country side of Holland, where I was also the only allochtoon (non-Dutch person), as we say here.
In Peru one always inherits your father’s last name because that’s the law in Peru. In Holland it’s important that all members of a family keep the same surname. My Peruvian father died before I was born, so I use the surname of my mother Matilde Lukaña Champi.
I’m happy with my surnames, because that is who I am, that is how I was registered when I was brought to La Haye, as a child. I have two surnames as my mother Matilde and her sister Maria. I’m a Lukaña, like my grandfather Tiburcio who is in heaven now.
The story of my Peruvian family is a sad one, full of racism and ignorance. When my mother Matilde was only a child, her father died. Her older brother had already died so my grandmother [had to take care of] two young children and the child of another daughter who was already married.
As a child, my mother walked every day from the community of Chikis [to school] at the Markapata village, an hour and a half walk in the hills. This is in the Cusco region of southern Peru. The school teachers came from the big cities, they taught only in Spanish. One of her teachers was señora Flora, a woman from Cusco who had a sister in Lima.
Without permission from my grandmother this woman Flora took my mother from Marcapata to Cusco, when my mother was only 10 years old. From there she took her by plane to Lima were my mother was given to the sister of this woman Flora.
Then this rich White woman in [the neighborhood of] Miraflores in Lima became my mother’s patrona [patroness, slaver]. My grandmother searched for my mother in the city of Cusco, but she never saw her daughter again.
My mother had to baby-sit and work in the kitchen. She really was a slave –Peruvians don't want to call it this way, but if a worker does not get paid and gets beaten and insulted, that is slavery.
My mother was a young Quechua girl. She was insulted as “chola de mierda, india” [fucking chola, Indian] and her patrona beat her up so she would stop speaking her native Quechua tongue. She hardly got any food to eat. She never left the house of her patrona.
When my mother was 17 years old, an ex-servant [of that house] freed her. This girl came to the house to free my mother from slavery. That White family was away for the weekend and my mother escaped through a small window with the help of the ex-servant.
At 17 she did not know anything about the world. She was not raised by her mother but by the patrona [slaver, boss]. She moved to [the affluent neighborhood of] San Isidro where they found a new patrona for her, but a good one who allowed her to study in school during nights.
Meanwhile her first patrona’s family was searching for her, in newspapers and television, saying that their adopted child had run away from home. My mother stayed safe in the San Isidro house, knowing that if she returned, she could expect the same fate as other servant girls who become too old: they are buried in the desert.
Rich people in Lima used to kidnap Indigenous girls from the Amazon and the Andes, and force them to work as prostitutes or servants. It would not surprise me if this still happens today, as I heard of brothels in [the poorer district of] Comas where minor girls from the Amazon are working as sex slaves. If an Andean girl gets too old, White families kill them and later they get a new girl.
When my mother was older, she went to a lawyer with other Indigenous women who experienced the same abuses. But the lawyer told them not to go to Court, because they all would get killed by the rich White families. The lawyer told them that this had happened before, the Judges always rule in favor of the rich White families and afterwards the Indigenous women get killed by order of the rich families.
Flora and the slaver of my mother moved with their family to the United States. They live there now.
Whatever happened to my mother from when she was 20 to 27 years old, I do not know. I think she liked rough men, like policias [police men]. She was so eager to get pregnant from a blancón, a mestizo [a light skinned man].
When one is traumatized by racism, you have in general two options: you either hate your oppressors, or you hate the reasons why you are being oppressed. My mother chose the later option and she really hates Indigenous Andean men, our culture and the Quechua language. This happened also because she was 'raised' that way by her patrona.
When my mother got pregnant of me and my father died, she did not want me anymore. She was terrified of having an Indigenous son, because it could ruin her life and the lives of her children. I would be a threat to my sister Rosa.
She was ashamed and thought that having me as her son, she would never get back with her first husband. She still had the dream of having a limeño [Limean] family, a non-Indigenous family. Her ex husband choose instead a mestizo woman with whom he is married to this day, and he threw my mother to the streets.
There were other reasons for my mother to give me in adoption, but the main reason would be that as an Andean man, a cholo, I could not study or find work easily so I would for ever be a peso [burden] to her family. That was the main reason.
My mother really thought that Andean people were rude and stupid, and she wanted to “purify” her blood. I think she hated herself. Her wish was to have her own 'White family', a Hispanic family that would be able to study, a family of which she would be a proud mother.
She said to me, that when she was freed at age 17 she was like 'an animal'. She didn’t know anything about real life and she was very aggressive. It did not surprise me to know that her first husband left her when she was pregnant of her second child: my brother Hugo.
Some people felt sorry for this Indigenous woman and her mestizo children, so they were helping her. Ever since then, she stayed in the rich part of [the neighborhood] San Miguel, and until this day she doesn’t know anything about the pueblos jovenes [shanty towns] of Lima, or the downtown area, she only knows San Miguel.
My mother never went away from the pituco [affluent] parks she loved so much. I have a picture of her while pregnant of me, standing in the park just about 100 meters of the place where she lives now: a wooden house, without toilet, electricity or running water. When I returned to Lima, I lived there as well but not longer than 5 months.
Marcos recorded this video when he visited his family in Chikis, Cusco with her mother Matilde, who had not returned there since she was kidnapped at age 10.
My Peruvian family
When I found my mother again, she immediately began talking about my biological father. She was telling me that I was just like him and I always looked like him. This made no sense to me, because out of all her children I’m the one that looks the most like her.
The folks who help me finding her, said that she was glad to meet me. But when I finally met her, I said to my mother: "Allillanchu mamáy", which means “How are you mother” in Quechua language.
She replied "This boy can’t be my son, this must be a mistake because my children don’t speak Quechua. My children speak beautiful Spanish, they are modern, ellos quieren superarse con sus estudios, [they want to improve themselves with education]. This boy looks like a piraña [gang member], he is dark-skinned and all my children are beautiful light-skinned, he does not look like a child of mine."
From far, very far, I saw this gay boy walking acercandonos [towards us]. It was Jorge, my youngest brother who had arrived and said about me: "Look how [Marcos] looks and listen to the way he speaks" -by then I used Peruvian words like pata because and I had already learned the accent in [the neighborhood of] Ate Vitarte.
"No, he cannot be a foreigner because foreigners are bueneducados [well educated], he must be an impostor, he is just some muchacho del barrio [street boy]. Don’t give him our money! That's what he wants!”
I thought this could be a mistake due to our cultural differences, but now I know that my problems with the 'feminine' members of my family began at the very moment when I met them.
Eventually my family believed it was me, and I video recorded everything. I still can see how cold my sisters acted towards me, especially my “pituca” sister Estrella. My family doesn’t have a penny or a toilet, but they behave like pitucos. [Pitucos are people in Lima pretending being rich].
My mother always said that Hugo looks like her and that I look like my father, she said something is wrong because I’m not light-skinned. "But I look exactly like you mamá" I said. "But why don’t you speak Spanish, you must be an Andino and you speak Quechua!" she replied.
I told her that I studied at a prestigious university in the Netherlands, and that I choose subjects like Spanish, Quechua and Latin American studies.
My brother Jorge said "How can you study at a university, you look like [my sister] Giovana, she is stupid. Tú no pareces inteligente nada, yo parezco más inteligente y bueneducado que tú." [You don’t look smart, I look smarter and better educated than you]
En Lima, parecer inteligente es más importante que ser inteligente. [In Lima is more important to ‘look’ smart than really being smart.]
My sister Giovana is my only sibling who has never lived as a pituco, because she is not capable of doing so. She is dark skinned like mamá Matilde and me, she is the black sheep of the family. She was happy to meet me because we resemble each other a lot. Her husband José is a member of our family to me, he treated me the best and eventually he accepted me as being gay, too.
"I really studied at a university, I speak 6 languages and also have had some linguistics lessons in several other languages", I said. "But you don't look to be that way, how is that possible!?" they continued asking. "You behave very rudely".
My sister Estrella speaks American English so we began a conversation in English. It was really a shock to my mother. But at some point she was very happy.
The first day I spent it with my sister Rosa -my second sibling before Jorge, because my mother wouldn’t let me go alone to the streets. At that point, Jorge was still avoiding talking to me.
"You are gay, can you tell me something about gay life in Perú?" I asked Jorge. "I am not gay, what makes you think that?" he said in a very dramatic feminine way, ha!
"Soy homosexual también, todo el mundo sabe, también todos mis patas y no tengo verguenza de ser así. Ya tuve mi pareja con mi 18 años y casi casamos, porque esto es normal en Holanda. Soy homosexual, no veo a las mujeres, solo a los chicos y los hombres, a mí me gustan los varones peruanos, son muy machos, este tipo no existe en Holanda, es una sociedad feminina.", le dije a mi hermano Jorge.
[I told my brother Jorge “I’m homosexual too and everybody knows it, including all my friends and I’m not ashamed of who I am. I had a boyfriend since I was 18 years old and we almost got married, because that’s normal in Holland. I’m gay and I don’t date women, only men. I like Peruvian men because they are very masculine, I don’t see that type in Holland which is a feminine society.”]
At that moment he couldn’t help it but to believe me, ha, ha.
Then everything went well, we went out together to [a gay bar called] Sagitario, which was the best time I had with him. It was weird because I already had gone to Sagitario before. We came back home that night, and the next day I went to churcn with my mother.
That afternoon my mother went to work -she sells sweets and candy in the streets, she has her own street corner where she is the only one with a license. Jorge and I were lying down in bed. "I want to go to meet some nice boys" I said. So we went to downtown Lima where Jorge knew other gay guys.
Eventually I met a nice boy, and he really looked Latino, like the ones I have seeing at the U.S. television. In the Netherlands there are few mestizo / Indigenous Latino people. To me this was very special because we don’t have that type in the Netherlands.
"That is just a piraña [gang member], you better get a blancón [White man]" Jorge said to me. "Why do I need a White person? I already had Dutch partners Jorge, but these boys are very special to me and I really like him." I said.
Jorge went away with a White Peruvian soldier (he did not look like a soldier to me) and I went away with Abel, the piraña-dude who was very nice.
Abel and I came back later and ate some Chinese food, then I called Jorge on his mobile phone. When we met he was very angry at me: "Did he rob you? Why did you go with him? He is just an ordinary Peruvian boy, a chichi! You are so nasty for being with him, you really disgust me!" Jorge kept saying to me.
Ever since that day he is mad at me. Todo el tiempo Jorge estaba peleando conmigo desde este día, peleando por las puras nomás. [From that day, Jorge kept fighting with me all the time, for no reason.]
A year later I met Abel again and we hanged out in downtown Lima, where I found a place and I stayed alone this time. I really liked his type which I always see on television but never in real life, while living in the Netherlands.
Lima
There is a dog in my mother’s house named Leon, and he protects everybody because my little brother is very, very feminine, thus there are pura mujeres nomás, [only women in the house] which could be dangerous in Lima.
But they live in the richer part of San Miguel away from the 'poor people', away from the gangs and criminality. They live in the fantasy world of my mother, a life from which my older brother Hugo escaped.
I really miss my brother Hugo and I want to be there for him. He was robbed in Lima just before Christmas day, and a couple of months ago he and his wife gave birth to my niece Ruby and they were robbed again, while being threatened with guns by two guys.
My brother Hugo took the decision to move to Puno [in the southern Andes], where the family of his Indigenous Aymara wife lives.
My brother left my mother's house at early age because he could not stand to be the only 'cholo' –as they insulted him- of the neighborhood. He was always saying that he was Andino (Andean) and not a Pituco [White-wannabe], that he was not a Limeño but a Cusqueño [from Cusco].
I argued about this with my mother: No soy blanco, soy indígena Quechua, y tú también! runakuna kanchisyá! No soy limeño sino cusqueño! [I’m not White, I’m Quechua Indigenous and so are you! I’m not from Lima but from Cusco!]
My brother couldn’t stand the self-discrimination of our famuly, and neither could I. For us boys it’s harder to accepted that. Finally Hugo found a wife, she was one of my sister’s friend and my mother was mad at him.
“Ella es una chola pobre, una chola pobre, recién llegó con su pollera desde Puno, una pobre. No comprendemos porque Hugo no está con una señorita bieneducada de San Miguel.”
[She is a poor chola, a poor Indian, she just arrived from Puno wearing that traditional skirt. We don’t understand why Hugo couldn’t find a well-to-do bieneducada girl from San Miguel for himself.]
I hate this “bieneducado” thing. It means nothing more than a White-wannabe, having this Pituco behavior and mentality.
When I went to Cusco and returned to Lima, my brother Hugo saw a video that I recorded with our family in the Markapata and Chikis rural communities.
Those are the Indigenous towns where our roots literally lay. I think this influenced on him to make the decision to move to Puno and to live with his wife’s family. Now his children speak Aymara as a second language and Hugo is working in the mines of Puno.
Hugo and his grandaunt in the community of Chikis in Cusco.
Cusco
Last June, I went to Peru again. This time I ignored Jorge and I rented my own room in a barrio close to San Miguel, between [the universities] las universidades de PUCP y San Marcos.
I went to Cusco for the second time and my mother Matilde came along. When we were in Lima I told her that I was gay. She was really mad with me because she said she wanted me to marry a beautiful blond Dutch girl so she would have nietos [grandkids] with fair hair.
We went to the Marcapata community, mamá and me. To make a long story shorter: she began arguing with her sobrinos [nephews and nieces]. My cousin Rosmery who is very proud of being a Quechua woman, she hates when people pretend that they don’t speak Quechua.
Rosmery said to me: “Marcos, I’m so glad that you are visiting us. I’m happy that I have a new cousin, and you speak Quechua, you are like us, we are the same, you are not ashamed of who we are."
"They used to call us Indians, then Cholos, campesinos, or simply Andeans. But that’s who we are and I’m not ashamed and neither you are. This is our land, we are the originary people of the Andes and our language is Quechua, you are also a Runa, a Quechua man.”
Desde este momento, y porque trabajé las chakras de mis abuelos, me he sentido muy Andino y muy Qhichwa Runa. Tomé la identidad de mis primos, mi verdadera identidad.
[Since that moment, and because I worked the farmland of my grandparents I felt very Andean and very Quechua, a Runa which is a man. I took the identity of my cousins, my true identity.]
Also according to the Dutch culture I am a Quechua Andean, because your identity in Holland is made of the family history, your blood linage and ancestors.
The Dutch make a classifications between the autochthonous and allocthonus Dutchman, to prevent discrimination, so that the State can be a reflecion of the population. The Mayor of Amsterdam is Jewish, and the Mayor of Rotterdam the second-biggest city, is a Moroccan of Berber origin (Berber are the Indigenous tribes of Morocco) and he is also gay. People must be included as a reflecion of the state.
Because my mother was behaving badly to our relatives, I decided to leave our community of Chikis. She was upset, but also grateful.
"Marcos, por ti, por tu culpa ahora vivo en la verdad, ahora sé mi vida muy bien, y era una mentira que los indigenas andinos son salvajes, ellos son muy amables, ellos no dejan a sus hijos como los limeños, como los mestizos como tú dices. Los varones acá son buenos, yo sería muy feliz acá, el Hugo sería un joven campesino, como él siempre quería, y Rosa tendría su familia.”
[“Marcos, because of you, you made me live my reality. I know my life better now, and it was a lie that Andean Indigenous peoples are savages. They are very nice, they don’t leave their children alone like limenos mestizos as you say. The men here are really good, I would have been very happy here, your brother Hugo would be a farmer like he always wanted, and Rosa could have a family.”]
“Era tonta yo, muy tonta, estoy triste, pero gracias Marcos, la realidad me duele, cuando te toco tu nariz veo que es mío, todo es mío, tú me pareces más que tus hermanos en Lima, el Hugo nunca me ayudó, tampoco tío Pancho, pero tu regresaste a mí desde tu vida linda, tú eres mi hijo, más que los otros (!yeah,she really said it) tú no tienes nada de tu papá como pensaba. Como varón macho homosexual siempre podrías protegernos, contigo la vida sería mejor. Los varones andinos no son salvajes, estaría feliz acá yo, tu adopción no era necesario nada, que tonta era yo, pensaba que serias un andino, un cholo, un salvaje."
[“I was silly, very stupid, I’m sad, but thank you Marcos, the reality hurts me, when I see your nose is like mine, everything is mine, you look more like me than your siblings in Lima, your brother Hugo never helped me, nor your uncle Pancho, but you returned to me from your beautiful life and helped me, you are my son, more than the others, you are not like your father like I thought. As a man, a masculine homosexual man you could always protect us, with you our life could be better. The Andean men are not savages, I would be happy here, you adoption wasn’t necessary, I was stupid, I thought that as an Andean man you were a cholo, a savage.”]
I told her. "Mamá, yo soy un andino, un indigena, pero soy mucho más que eso. Tu vida era una mentira, no eran tus pensamientos sino eran los pensamientos de tu patrona. Es ella quien te enseñó esto, por culpa de ella me dejaste a mí, a tu único hijo Quechua. Deja tu cólera, deja tus prejucios, ahora sabes que los hombres andinos, los hombres en Chikis y Marcapata son ambables, no somos agresivos ni tontos!!"
[“Mother, I am Andean, an Indigenous man, but I’m much more than that. Your life was a lie, those weren’t your thoughts but they were the ideas that you learned from your [slaver]. It’s because of her that you left me, your only Quechua son. Leave that anger behind, leave your prejudices, “]
But the next day everything changed. She was acting horrible, very aggressive not only by words but also physically. She asked me to stop talking to my cousins, which I didn’t do. Then she asked to leave my siblings alone, but I didn’t want that. She told me that my brother Hugo would always hate me for being gay, that he would beat me up.
In reality I was my mother's best wish and worst fear: me Marcos, her Indigenous Andean son who speaks Quechua, who is not well-to-do, who likes Reggaeton music, but also a student at European universities. I speak many languages and I’m very modern like the gringos [White people] that my mother admires so much. I’m both.
I’m the combination of all my brothers and sisters and my mother. This is like a novel and I have everything from them, except their norms and values. I belong to the Dutch working-class, and I’m not embarrassed of that. I have a college schooling in Holland, which is not possible for many rich Dutch kids.
Here in Holland I have more Quechua friends. Among them is a man whose sibilings were killed in front of him by the Peruvian military. He also lived in Miraflores, and there are more like him. They all worked for rich White families in Lima. Those families moved to Miami, escaping from justice.
To me racism, injustice and slavery in Peru are not cases from the past, but they are still here and the consequences are still felt. Although I was raised in Holland and have the Dutch nationality, I am also part of the injustice done to my Peruvian family.
I never wanted to be separated from my hermanos [siblings], especially not from my brother Hugo, and I had always lived with him in my mind.
Those rich people who maybe are living comfortable lives in Miami, they had my mother as their slave since she was 10 years old. This trauma corrupted my mother’s well-being, her mind and social behavior. And we, her children whom she still insults every day, are also victims of her slavery.
I want to go back to Peru in the Dutch summer of 2011, to meet the member of my family that I don’t know yet and whose mother tongue is Quechua, so they can help me improve my Runasimi [Quechua] skills.
My cousins in Cusco don’t know that I am gay. The next time that I go to Perú I don’t want to be in contact with my sisters -the men in my family has accepted me but not the women.
Marcos appear at the end of this video recorded in the Indigenous community of Chikis, in Cusco. Marco's cousin is carrying her baby on her back.
Being gay
Being gay is not just an identity or a choice for me. My younger brother Jorge who lives in Lima is also gay. When I came out to my family it was difficult for him, for my mamá and sisters to accept me.
“You are a man Marcos you are a male, Jorge is gay but you aren’t,” they told me. Even my younger brother Jorge said that I was too masculine to be gay.
My older brother Hugo is very tough and macho, and I told him that I’m gay. I wanted to do this even though my sisters and mamá told me that he would beat me up. I told him and he accepted me, saying that he would never hate gays because he is the father of two sons, and one never knows so he would never hate his sons.
My brother presented me to his patas [close friends] and we worked together in his “combi” bus, and I was his cobrador [fee collector] in Lima. The last day before I took the plane back to Amsterdam, he took me to the airport while he was working.
"I love you brother" I told him. "You're the only hermano [brother] who accepted me, although you are the varón [straight man] of the family".
Yes, I’m really glad I told my brother and that he accepted me. In my apartment in Amsterdam most my neighbors are Arab, Turkish and Black men and they all accept me, because I’m direct and I’m not ashamed of myself. I really like straight people, they are my best friends.
Accept that one is gay also means to accept that you are a man. That you are not that different. Although people say it’s just a tiny difference and preference. I only feel proud to be gay when people say they hate homosexuals, because I don’t want to feel ashamed.
Most of the times I feel that I’m not just gay, I'm a man in the first place.
Marcos and his new friend in Lima
Update: Currently, Marcos is studying Linguistics at Vrije VU Free University of Amsterdam, and he plans to study next year at the Catholic University of Peru.
I have suggested Marco to write more about his life, perhaps a book. If you want to contact him, please email me or leave a comment here.
Equality LGBT rights are finally included as part of the future Comprehensive Immigration Reform in the United States. Congress members have called on support for the Uniting American Families Act, so that U.S. citizens can sponsor their foreign partners to obtain legal residence.
Photo by Change.org
A group of Democratic Congress members have joined efforts with LGBT civil rights and Immigrant rights advocates, and have called on their colleagues to support passage of the Uniting American Families Act (UAFA) as part of the long awaited Comprehensive Immigration Reform (CIR), which they hope will be passed this year.
This means that if a CIR is passed, it will include provisions for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, by allowing lesbian and gay U.S. citizens to sponsor their foreign partners, in order to obtain legal residency and eventually apply for U.S. citizenship.
This initiative is led by Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT), and Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY), who are joined by Congressman Mike Honda (D-CA), Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-IL), Congresswoman Barbara Lee (D-CA), and Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO).
The UAFA has the support from the Congressional Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and the Congressional LGBT Equality Caucus, as well a coalition of 37 immigration, LGBT, and faith-based advocacy groups.
"Right now too many same-sex, binational couples face an impossible choice, to live apart or to break the law to be with partners, their families and children." said Congressman Luis Gutierrez during a press conference held yesterday in Washington, DC, while Congressman Honda said that there is not Immigration Reform without LGBT families.
According to a press release the lawmakers present at the press conference praised the effort:
“We are a nation of immigrants and, as a result, our diversity is our greatest strength,” Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) added. “Unfortunately, our out-dated immigration system contains laws that discriminate against LGBT families and hinder our economy, our diversity, and our status as a beacon of hope and liberty to people across the world. To be truly comprehensive and achieve real, long-lasting reform, we must provide all domestic partners and married couples the same rights and obligations in any immigration legislation.”
Illinois Congressman Mike Quigley [said]. “Immigration equality must be a lesson in inclusion, rather than an exercise in division and comprehensive reform must live up to its name by truly including everyone,” said Quigley. “Our march in the direction of progress and justice for families across this country cedes its moral high ground unless we say to say to LGBT families that this is their movement, too.”
Among the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, many of them are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, at last 1.2 million if we apply the 10% rule, but most likely the number is higher.
This includes about 36,000 LGBT bi-national families, where at least one of the partners is an undocumented immigrant and half of them have children together, according to Immigration Equality which is a national organization working for the rights of LGBT immigrants, HIV-positive immigrants, and their families.
The inclusion of LGBT families is now a mainstream part of Immigration Reform, say Rachel Liven, the Executive Director of Immigration Equality.
“We need a reform that respects family relationships, that treats all families equally and brings people into the system, out of the shadows, that would enable people to have full safe, secure lives in the United States. So everybody’s families must be included, you can’t push for an Immigration Reform that says ‘we are for families’ but not your family” added Liven.
Watch this video I recorded yesterday at the end of a press conference announcing the Congressional support for UAFA:
This initiative is not new. “It’s been a gradual process over a 10 year period, since Congressman Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) introduced the Reuniting Family Act in 2,000 and he has introduced it in every Congress. Now called [UAFA], it has gained a stronger support in the last year and a half within the Immigration Reform movement to the point that today is seeing as it should be, as a mainstream part of it.”
Negative reactions
As expected, Republican Congress members and some Christian churches are not happy about this initiative, and they already showed negative reactions, as Fox News reports:
With no support from the GOP, the comprehensive immigration bill introduced by Gutierrez last December has stalled in the House. Republicans say this legislation won't help.
"These are creative people who just have the wrong philosophy," said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, a member of the immigration subcommittee. "It's an alliance designed to grant amnesty."
"It tries to redefine traditional marriage. I can't support that," Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told Fox News. "If they're looking to truly reach out to conservatives and Republicans and do something in a bipartisan way, this isn't it."
Also, not all Democrats and Immigrant advocates support LGBT rights to be included in Immigration Reform, as author and blogger Sarah Posner writes for the progressive website Religion Dispatches:
As I’ve reported here, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY), who wasn’t at the press conference, has reached out for the support of conservative evangelical groups, who say they are for immigration reform but will not support a bill that includes LGBT equality.
When President Obama gave his immigration speech at American University earlier this month, the White House highlighted the presence of Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Leith Anderson of the National Association of Evangelicals, and Samuel Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. All three organizations oppose LGBT equality in immigration reform, and have said they won’t support a package that includes it.
Marriage Fraud
Many opponents to LGBT and especially immigrants rights, are saying that what UAFA would do is to increase the number of marriage fraud cases, but Rachel Liven thinks that a good immigration system should prevent that from happening.
“Marriage fraud is a very serious crime, that can lead to deportation, fines and [imprisonment]” to both parties involved, and in case of fraud “we support the same punishment for gay couples” who pretend fake marriages, because the couples that we are demanding this reform for are not fake.
These are “people that have being together for 20 years, 30 years, they own a house together, they have kids together, all they are asking is to prove how real their relationship is and to be treated equally”.
Liven said that given legitimate families the opportunities to be treated equally, will reduce the chances of fraud, as well as the numbers of people crossing the border or overstay their visa, because right now “there is not a decent system that allows families to stay together, to work hard and pay their taxes and be treated fairly, we need a system that will enable everyone to participate and to be treated the same” said Rachel Liven.
Rachel B. Tiven of Equality Immigration
LGBT support for Immigration Reform
Many leaders and activists working in behalf of the Immigration Reform movement are members of the LGBT queer communities. We are an important part of it, and Julie Kruse, the Director of Policy for Immigration Equality knows this.
“The LGBT leadership has brought much support for Immigration Reform and our organizations have millions of active members who are behind this. For instance, when Congressman Honda introduced the Reuniting Families Act it had only 5 Congress members supporting it. Now that LGBT families are included, it has the support of 80 Congress members.” added Kruse and pointed out that the LGBT movement has a strong presence in Congress.
Kruse, who is the daughter of a political refugee and has Mexican ancestors, says she is working in Immigrants rights advocacy for 20 years. “It is very important for us LGBT people, because family issues are important to us,we are very frustrated even if we are not immigrants but it’s horrendous that our families are being separated only because we are LGBT” said Kruse.
Also Julie Kruse pointed out that over 60% of LGBT people opposed SB-1070 the Arizona anti-immigrant law. “This country doesn’t consider us equally, and there are other communities that suffer of the same, we LGBT people understand that, [immigrants and gays] we are not separated communities.”
So there is a need for the LGBT community to do their part. “LGBT people need to demand Immigration Reform, we must understand the role that we have and step up and say that immigration is a gay issue, that we are committed to Immigration Reform for everyone because we are people that care about rights and equal treatment, that we are committed, “ said Rachel B. Tiven.
We as people “understand there is no line between all kinds of discriminations, we are all in this together. If you believe that the Constitution protects everyone in this country which is what the 14th amendment says, then you have to work hard to see that come through” added Liven. “What LGBT families are asking is to be held with the same standard”
The Immigration Equality Action Fund, which works on behalf of lesbian and gay immigrant families, will join lawmakers and pledge to bring the power of the LGBT community's grassroots -- in districts across the country -- to the campaign to pass inclusive immigration reform. The group -- and other LGBT, faith, immigration and civil rights leaders -- will, literally and figuratively, stand behind Members of Congress calling for an end to the discrimination faced by lesbian and gay binational families.
It is really hard being an undocumented immigrant in the United States, which implies living in fear while being prevented from living a life with dignity and full civil rights. Now imagine being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender, while being undocumented.
Many LGBT immigrants think of the United States is the only safe place they can call home, especially when they have rooted and created families with their partners, who are U.S. citizens.
Immigration Equality hears from 2,000 people every year. “About 1/3 come from countries where is not safe to be LGBT, and 40% are from Latin America, including Honduras, Peru, Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, where violence is a huge issue, and some of them are undocumented some have visas but want to stay.”
“We have to succeed,” said Rachel Liven. “Now we have to pass it. Today we are in it. We LGBT community have a new goal and we need to be extremely powerful about this, because it’s about family, so our job collectively is to move [Immigration Reform] forward.
