LOOKING BACK
For a decade now, Boyle Heights Beat’s youth journalists have reported on some of the neighborhood’s most outstanding businesses, institutions and individuals. In this recurring series, we’re revisiting our sources and updating some of those stories.
The colorful papel picado hanging outside the entrance of Mi Centro adds a splash of color on an otherwise gray, industrial stretch of Clarence Street in Boyle Heights.
Mi Centro is housed in a renovated warehouse meant to be a hub for gay Latines on the Eastside. Inside, two nonprofits work in tandem: the Los Angeles LGBTQ Center offers health and social services, including asylum support, while the Latino Equality Alliance (LEA) sets itself apart as a space for youth and family education and empowerment.
LEA, in its 15th year of service, offers internships, resume building training, cultural art classes, workshops for parents of LGBTQ+ youth and health and community resources for all. The space also serves as a community hub for local youth, many from Mendez and Roosevelt high schools. Now, LEA’s impact stretches beyond Boyle Heights. In August of 2023, the organization established a second LGBTQ+ youth resource center in Bell, called Mi SELA.
Jesica Santiago, a community organizer at LEA leads youth workshops and advocates for safer and more inclusive schools across LAUSD by engaging with families of queer youth.
“A lot of parents come asking questions. Like if their kid just came out to them and they don’t know what to do or how to react,” the 25-year-old said. “And so they come asking these questions of what does it mean to be a parent of a queer and trans student?”
Gloria Godoy, 42, is a parent of two teenagers who regularly visit the new queer youth space in Bell. After hearing her youngest daughter was being bullied at her school, she discovered LEA’s programming in Boyle Heights. Immediately, she and her family felt at home. She was relieved there was a space where her children could be independent and safe.
“I’m really appreciative of the program. It came to us as a family at the right time,” Godoy said, referring to the challenges with finding a healthy space for her 14-year-old daughter who dealt with depression. “She did a mural [with Mi SELA] and it pulled her out from the dark place and gave her something to look forward to,” Godoy said.
Latino Equality Alliance was established in 2009 as a coalition of representatives from various organizations coming together to fight against California Proposition 8, a failed ballot initiative that would have eliminated the right of same-sex couples to marry in the state.
The group’s Executive Director and one of its founders, 55-year-old Eddie Martinez, said he didn’t have queer safe spaces like LEA when he was growing up. After seeing gaps in services offered to the LGBTQ+ community, Martinez set out to position LEA to adequately meet Latines’ needs beyond HIV/AIDS testing and substance abuse support.
“When we look at the overall health of the family, we need to have a very holistic approach.” Martinez said. “We do that by providing a safe space, but also opportunities for youth to develop their leadership skills, to advocate and to help support their health and their academic success.”
With a wider geographical reach, LEA supports queer youth like Adijared Huerta, 18, in southeast L.A. County. Huerta visits Mi SELA weekly and through their programming, felt more ready to have difficult conversations with their family about identity.
“I live in a Hispanic household and “gay” in general is very secretive and not to be said out loud. Being in LEA opened up more doors with who I could talk to instead of being in my household feeling like I’d be judged,” Huerta said. “I’ve been more open with my queer identity.”
Martinez said they chose southeast L.A. County because it is a region that largely voted to enshrine gay marriage, plus he saw youth in Bell less open about their queer identities than their Boyle Heights counterparts.
“I think we have to realize that youth cannot travel all the way from all parts of L.A. County. So if there are opportunities to open up more LEA offices or spaces in other areas of the county where there’s a desert for LGBTQ resources, I definitely would like to see LEA go in that direction,” Martinez said.
Some Boyle Heights youth like Xitlali Gonzalez, 19, have been coming to LEA for their entire high school careers. Now a youth coordinator and intern with LEA, Gonzalez values the physical space the organization offers to her and her peers.
“We have a really cool balance of productive meetings and meetings where we just sit down, eat and watch a movie,” Gonzalez said. “I feel like a lot of people don’t have that opportunity to have a space where you can just chill and watch a movie and then do your homework.”
Gonzalez attended the center’s recent event, Queer Prom, which was organized by LEA youth to celebrate the end of the school year and the beginning of Pride month. Students curated the music, catering and settled on a 1980’s theme of “Supernova.” Gonzalez said she enjoyed LEA’s homespun prom better than her own high school dance a few weeks prior.
“The whole point is to have this prom for people who didn’t go to theirs or people who didn’t like theirs or people who have problems at school. It was really fun and the vibe was just really, really good,” Gonzalez said.
LEA and its partners provided free suits, prom dresses and makeup to youth who chose to attend the event to remove any financial barriers for families. More than 50 teens showed up to the end-of-the-year bash.
Huerta traveled from Bell to attend LEA’s Queer Prom in Boyle Heights and said the community around LEA is what keeps them coming back.
“The whole staff is great and it feels like family when I’m there. Out of all of the resources they have, the people really bring the organization together,” Huerta said.
READ THE ORIGINAL:
In 2016, then Bravo Medical Magnet sophomore Alex Medina wrote this story highlighting LGBTQ+ youth in Boyle Heights:
LGBT youth feel more accepted in Boyle Heights, but say prejudice lingers
Organizations like the Latino Equality Alliance (LEA) are working to address that prejudice in the local neighborhood
