Yes, I am a Lesbian |
On September 11, 1997, Mexican-born Jacque Larráinzar became the first lesbian to receive political asylum in the United States based solely upon her sexual orientation.
Four years earlier, Larráinzar had arrived in Seattle, having fled her country in fear of reprisals from the Mexican government for her political and community organizing work.
"I started to meet the core of the socialist elite in Mexico without realizing it," recalls Larráinzar of the period in her early twenties when she began working at a women's center in Mexico City. "I started helping them by doing outreach to marginalized communities. Because I play the guitar, I draw, and I speak English, I was very useful. I was very naïve and young and I was having a lot of fun."
By American standards, the center's activities would be considered laudable-women-centered art events, job training, AIDS education, prenatal care, mental health-but the Mexican government thought otherwise.
"For some people, just the mere fact that people who are at the bottom are trying to better themselves is threatening and it's dangerous," she explains. "And it's even more so if you are part of the well-educated and economically privileged group-as I was-which oppresses them. If you make a choice not to be part of that privileged group and to help the oppressed-I think that's viewed by the government as even more dangerous."
The center's phone was tapped, she and her colleagues were followed in the street, her home was illegally searched; Larráinzar became fearful, overwhelmed, and decided it best to leave the country.
Since arriving in the Northwest, Larráinzar has combined her many talents-as an activist, musician and visual artist-to bear on a startlingly diverse range of communities in Seattle, with a focus on immigrant rights, domestic violence and sexual orientation issues. To name just a few: she was a domestic violence legal advocate and statewide outreach coordinator at the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project; she created and produced a KCMU radio show that covered news from Latino communities in the U.S.; she helped create the Lesbian and Gay Immigration Task Force; and she performed music