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Politicizing Abjection: In the Manner of a Prologue for the Articulation of AIDS Latino Queer Identities

2005; Oxford University Press; Volume: 17; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/alh/aji030

1468-4365

Alberto Sandoval-Sánchez,

Latin American and Latino Studies

Memories are archipelagos of islands surfacing on the horizon waiting to be revisited. With the AIDS epidemic, my memories are anchored in floating cemeteries in an ocean of pleasure and death, remembrance and oblivion, suspiros y cenizas. Wherever I go I carry mis muertos conmigo, en mis recuerdos, a generation of Latino gay men that in a self-imposed s/exile migrated to the US from the Caribbean and Latin America in search of independence and sex, satisfaction and love. The gay party that started with the Stonewall riots in 1969 was over by 1982 with the intrusion of AIDS. We all witnessed the time when Thanatos killed Eros with the mirrored disco ball on the dance floor. Gone with it are the beams of light which penetrated every single heart to the beat of Donna Summer’s erotic cadence of “I love to love you baby.” Ay! Ay! Ay! Gone are the dancing bodies covered in sweat, smelling sex, desiring an orgasm that would be a fatal attraction.