This Activist Didn't See Queer Latinos Like Him In Media — So He Told Their Stories Himself

The following text is an excerpt from How Does It Feel to Be Unwanted?: Stories of Resistance and Resilience from Mexicans Living in the United States, one of my books. You can find the link to the complete text of this particular story HERE or at the end of this page.

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One of the most infamous scandals to hit turn-of-the-century high society in Mexico City happened on November 18, 1901, during President Porfirio Diaz’s reign. That night, police raided a party at a private home and arrested forty-one gay men, nineteen of them dressed in drag. Officers violently burst into the house, and to publicly humiliate the partygoers, forced them to march through the streets. They were called bums, thieves, and faggots, and once in jail, they had to pay steep fines to be released. Those who could not afford the fines were taken to the state of Yucatán to work off the debt laboring on public works projects.

The notorious episode was widely covered in the press, and was dubbed “The Dance of the Forty-One.” Later it was discovered that one of the guests at the party had escaped arrest. Rumor had it he was the son-in-law of President Díaz and had been quietly let go. To this day, in Mexico the term “forty-one” is still used to refer to homosexuality.

Eight decades later, in the early 1980s, Alberto Mendoza, twelve or thirteen years old at the time, was riding in a car with his father. It was a hot summer day, and they were waiting to drive through the border checkpoint from Tijuana into San Diego, California. A commercial promoting San Diego’s upcoming gay pride parade came on the radio. Alberto’s father seethed, “They should set off a bomb and kill all those fags!” The comment deeply upset Alberto, who did not then openly identify as gay.

Twenty years after that, in 2013, Alberto decided to start an organization to claim his identity, for himself and for everyone else like him who had faced discrimination and bigotry because of their sexual orientation. He named it Honor 41.

Read the complete story: https://www.them.us/story/honor-41-how-does-it-feel-to-be-unwanted