Speaker shares unique perspective on LGBT life
Close to 120 people filed in to the seats of Bowen Auditorium, some equipped with
notebooks and pens, others with just a curiosity for how the speaker would address such a unique
and sensitive subject.
As the Glatfelter bell tower struck 7, Radost Rangelova of the Spanish Department
introduced the speaker’s many accomplishments in Latin American and sexuality studies. As she
finished, the speaker addressed the full auditorium with a broad smile and booming voice.
“There’s so many of you! I wasn’t expecting this many people,” he said.
This exclamation marked the beginning of Lawrence La Fountain-Stoke’s lecture entitled
“Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in the Diaspora.” The event took place on September 20
in McCreary Hall.
During his presentation, La Fountain-Stokes addressed issues in the Puerto Rican LGBT
community. He also discussed the lives and works of eight Puerto Rican LGBT artists.
These same artists are the subject of his book, “Queer Ricans: Cultures and Sexualities in
the Diaspora,” which the University of Minnesota Press published in 2009.
According to La Fountain-Stokes, many LGBTs living in Puerto Rico leave their
homeland due to the intolerance they face. Because Puerto Rico is an American colony, the U.S.
is a natural safe haven for these people.
Starting in the 1970s, many Puerto Rican LGBTs both in Puerto Rico and the U.S. began
using the arts to portray their unique experiences.
La Fountain-Stokes briefly discussed the works of Puerto Rican LGBT artists Luis Rafael
Sánchez, Manuel Ramos Otero, Luz Maria Umpierre, Frances Negrón-Muntaner, Rose Troche,
Erika Lopel and cousins Arthur Aviles and Elizabeth Marrero.
These artists are, or were, poets, playwrights, choreographers or story writers who
addressed their unique experiences as Puerto Rican LGBTs.
La Fountain-Stokes shared some examples of these artists’ works.
For example, he passionately read a poem from Umpierre’s “The Margarita Poems”,
which gives a sometimes sexually explicit portrayal of lesbian love.
He also explained the work of Arthur Aviles and Elizabeth Marrero, who rewrite wellknown stories around the theme of Puerto Rican LGBT life.
One example of their work is “Maѐva de Oz”, which features the character Dorothy from
“The Wizard of Oz” as a Puerto Rican lesbian living in the Bronx. The play includes a bilingual
song to the tune “Over the Rainbow”, which La Fountain-Stokes sang for Monday’s audience.
La Fountain-Stokes said that he wrote his book featuring these artists not only because he
is a gay Puerto Rican, but because no one else had written on the subject.
“There wasn’t a book like this. I felt it was urgent [that this topic be addressed].”
He added that many books emerged in the 1990s that addressed homosexuality in
general, but “there isn’t a book about the Puerto Rican experience.”
This experience, he said, is different from that of homosexuals of other ethnicities
because gays, like any other group of people, “can be racist.”
Gettysburg student Olivia Wolfertz described La Fountain-Stoke’s presentation as
“enticing.”
“He read with enthusiasm,” she said, referring to two poems that he read. She also said
that he was “obviously proud” to be a gay Puerto Rican and that he made “sure [the audience]
got what he was trying to say.”
Wolfertz attended the lecture as part of her Feminism in Global Perspective class. Many
other attendees were also there because of classes in the Women, Gender and Sexuality or
Spanish departments.
Tomas Varanauskas, however, did not come as part of a class. He came as part of Allies,
the campus’ gay-straight alliance group. Allies was one of the event’s sponsors.
As a member of this club, he said that he appreciated La Fountain-Stoke’s unique view
on the LGBT experience.
Other sponsors of the lecture included the Events Planning and Coordinating Committee;
Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies; Latin American Studies; the Department of Spanish; the
Office of Student Activities; the Intercultural Resource Center and the Black Student Union.