Llena in the 1980s and Continuing Latinx Lesbian Community Formations in Chicago

Maria Elena Martinez was born in Durango Mexico and immigrated with her family to a Mexican barrio in Chicago called Pilsen when she was five years old. She was raised in a traditional Mexican household where the father ruled by patriarchal standards and the mother reinforced the standards of femininity and Catholicism expected of every family member, especially Maria Elena. Maria Elena was the youngest of five children, four of which were boys, making her the youngest and only daughter. As a result, she was highly protected by her family, in terms of promoting religious participation and full heteronormative behavior. She was expected to be the ideal heteronormative housewife who supports her male husband. Much to her family’s dismay, she became an athletic, independent, strong-willed, intellectually vibrant young woman who also happened to be a lesbian. As an adult, Maria Elena found solace in communities like LLENA.

In 1988, LLENA (Lesbian Latinas en Nuestro Ambiente) was founded by a group of queer women in the Chicago area. LLENA was created for the purpose of unifying Latinx women in the Chicago area that was popularly dominated by the rhetoric “Boystown” of the gay male community. LLENA allowed access for women to negotiate their visibility as both Lesbians and Latinas. Their need for community building signaled a pivotal political turn for the visibility of the Latinx queer community during this time period. My paper explores the political and community engagement of the LLENA organization through the point of platicas and looks to compare them to the current community organizing seen around sports, specifically soccer in the Los Angeles area. Through an analysis of space and the contentions over public and private, this paper looks to analyze the points of accessibility allowed to this community and how it has shifted across time.