Morton drives an inconspicuous silver minivan while tracking down criminals.

Constable Lisa Morton knocked on the door of an unassuming Calgary home after receiving the report of a break-and-enter. She was greeted by an elderly religious Jewish woman wearing a wig who, after allowing Morton to enter, informed her, “You’ll have coffee.”

“No, no thanks,” Morton replied. “I’ll just get to work.”

“Fine,” the woman said. “You’ll have tea.”

There’s no sense in arguing with an older woman who has made up her mind. While her cup of tea was being readied, Morton went to check out the window where the burglar got in. She wanted to use a fingerprinting dust that would stain the walls but checked first to make sure it was okay with the homeowner. The woman reacted as if the question were ridiculous.

“Whaddaya think, I can’t paint it?” she said.

Sure enough, the dust turned up the burglar’s sweaty handprint on the semi-gloss paint. The window he’d climbed through was so high that he’d had to hoist himself up to get in, leaving evidence behind. The burglar obviously didn’t know much about the Identification section of the Calgary Crime Scenes Unit, where Morton has worked for the last three years.

“He was toast,” Morton recalls.

She managed to lift four fingerprints from the inside of the windowsill. The prints turned out to be in the police database, since their owner had been involved in previous criminal activity. Morton recognized the name attached to the prints, and the burglar was arrested soon after.

But first, Morton followed her hostess into the kitchen where she drank her mandatory and well-deserved tea.

Morton gets ready to hit the road in search of a criminal.

All in a day’s work

Lisa Morton has been a Calgary police officer for 10 years, and has belonged to the Crime Scenes Unit for the last three.

Her day is dictated by the laptop, and by a police radio hooked up to her unmarked minivan. The radio squawks and crackles reports of recovered stolen cars and other crime scenes from officers, and from Morton’s partner, who drives a separate car.

The Identification section where Morton works is responsible for checking out murder scenes by examining body positioning, extrapolating the direction of bullets based on wounds and point of entry, and finding evidence that would say nothing to an untrained eye, but that, to her, speaks volumes.

“I’m really good at figuring out what caused certain types of blood splatter,” Morton says, conjuring a hypothetical crime scene on a nearby wall with a wave of her hands. “Like, for example, the guy had to be standing here and shot from this angle for his blood to spray this way.”

On a slow day, Morton will head to one of the police service’s giant storage lockers for recovered stolen cars, and will spend hours going over a car with a flashlight. She’s looking for evidence and fingerprints on metal, glass, and plastic so that a suspect can be connected to the theft, and charged.

It’s possible to drive past her, completely unaware that she’s a cop. The silver minivan that Morton drives makes it easy to mistake her for a soccer mom.

She dresses in plain clothes, which she finds more practical than her uniform because “I’m less likely to rip the back of my stretch pants when I’m crawling on my hands and knees.”

She wears no makeup, and has an outdoorsy, no-nonsense look about her. Darkening roots peek out of her ash-blonde hair, which falls down the back of her black Calgary Police windbreaker.

Morton keeps her van heater on low. It’s no wonder, since the woman seems to create enough heat of her own. She’s a talker who waves around her hands and arms to illustrate her every point. Her enthusiasm might get her mistaken for a rookie who has yet to become jaded. It’s hard to believe that this woman will ever become cynical about her job.

While Morton says, repeatedly, that she’s a cop before anything else, she relishes the more specialized nature of her current position with Ident (Identification section), puzzling out the who, what, where, when, and why of crime scenes.

“My boyfriend thinks I’m crazy,” she admits. “I’ll sit there for hours and try to puzzle out [a crime scene] and I think it’s fun.”

Morton dusts a beer can for fingerprints.

The glamour of garbage digging

The Calgary Police Crime Scene Unit is no CSI: Miami or CSI: New York. The TV shows’ high tech machinery identify the culprit and victim while officers sip on chai lattes and toss around theories. Their world is a far cry from real life.

Instead, the fingerprinting lab smells and looks more like a high school photography room, with a vinegar tang of chemicals, smudged, worn countertops, and cement floors.

Morton and her colleagues make do with the limited resources they have. Morton winks when explaining, “Both boys and girls use the same powder room here.” The “powder room” contains the dark magnetic fingerprint powder recognizable from TV, a couple of small feather dusters, a flashlight, a magnifying glass, and a garbage bag full of pop and beer cans.

Morton whips out a can from a garbage bin and proceeds to demonstrate how to dust for prints.

“You’d be amazed at the prints we can lift from cans, chip bags, chocolate bar wrappers,” she says. “Stuff people throw into the back of a car that they’ve stolen or are in while out committing another crime.”

The lab also includes two rooms with humidifiers that work in conjunction with certain chemicals, and are used to lift prints off special materials like cardboard or plastic.

One of the humidifiers is the size of a fridge. That’s overkill if you’re trying to lift a print from an object as small as a knife. For such smaller items, a police officer rigged up a second humidifier out of a cardboard box, cut a door in the side and used a pop can to hold the chemicals. “We use what’s handy,” Morton explains.

Next is the dry room. This room resembles a garage more than anything else. Any evidence that comes in wet or blood-soaked is stored in a locker in the dry room to ensure that it isn’t tampered with.

Morton smiles at a joke Bourassa made while relaxing in the Medical Examiner’s office.

Bodies, bone-saws, and ball-busters

A frequent stop for Morton is the Calgary medical examiner’s office, which suffers the indignity of being constantly mistaken for the post office across the street.

Out of all the offices on Morton’s daily rounds — including the personal desks at the police department downtown — the medical examiner’s looks the most welcoming, despite the dead body lying exposed on a gurney.

Morton plops herself down in the office space directly across from the corpse and, in full view of the autopsy equipment, starts talking with some of the medical examiners. Here, there are computers present, and all the equipment looks shiny and new. The facilities are brightly lit, warm, and smell like Glade air freshener.

But the fresh sweet smell fades when a round electric bone-saw (about the size of a fist and 10 times as loud as a dentist’s drill) starts whirring nearby, operated by one of the medical examiners. The hot, smoky smell of the drill on tooth and bone fills the air.

Morton and Kendra Bourassa, a technician, ignore the drill and remain seated in the office while chatting, their conversation shifting from the birth of a colleague’s baby to exactly how old you have to be before you’re considered a ‘cougar’ (an older woman who chases younger men). Bourassa ups the estrogen level in the room a notch and describes the time she had to castrate a body during an autopsy while a couple of male police officers watched.

“The guys said ‘we saw the way you handled that guy’s balls and we’re gonna call you the ball-buster,” Bourassa laughs.

A woman may not have to be a ball-buster to survive in law enforcement but it doesn’t hurt to be tough or have a sense of humor. Although the ratio of men to women in the medical examiner’s office is about equal, there are definitely more male cops in Ident than female. Morton says she has never been at a disadvantage.

It may help that Morton is physically imposing at 5’10” and about 210 pounds — a stature that counterbalances her bouncy nature. She’s an approachable police officer who also looks like she can take down the bad guys. Morton gleefully tells the tale of when she got a tip from a resident about a stolen car, back when she was a beat cop. Morton found the car along with the thief at a gas station, and confronted him alone.

“He sorta took a look at me and realized I was alone.”

Not at all threatened by a lone female police officer, the suspect allowed Morton to pat him down with his back turned to her and his hands on the hood of the car.

“As I was patting him down, I kept talking so he wouldn’t hear me reach for my cuffs. I had them on him so fast he had no idea what had happened.”

Morton cuffed the suspect in a single move, a technique all officers are taught during training. On the way to the police station, the suspect tried to strike up a conversation with her from the back seat.

“You’re a big girl, eh?” he asked Morton.

“Yup.”

“You work out?”

“Yeah, you kind of have to for my job.”

“You must be a farm girl.”

“Yup.” (Morton lives far from Calgary’s white-collar bustle with her boyfriend, another police officer. They own three horses and 10 cows.)

Thinking she wasn’t watching him, the suspect tried to take some drugs, including a capsule of hemp oil. The two proceeded to get into what Morton calls a “tussle,” ending with Morton’s foot stomped down on the suspect’s neck.

“The adrenaline is pumping and the stuff you’re capable of is pretty incredible,” Morton explains. “But you crash right after. I remember shaking because my energy dropped so low. So I had a Coke to bring it back up.”

Crimes and misdemeanors

Morton’s rural private life stands in sharp contrast to her career investigating city crime, but with her strong physical presence and her infectious enthusiasm, it all seems to work for her.

When she first started working as a cop, she and her partner answered a frantic call from a mother whose son was slashing his wrists. When they arrived at the scene, they both agreed that Morton should talk to the boy. The boy’s father had left home when he was young, and it was more likely he would respond to a woman’s authority.
  
After another suicide attempt and a second call from the mother, Morton went back to talk with the boy. This time the boy confided that his father, and a friend of the father’s, had sexually abused him when he went to visit. Based on the boy’s testimony, the father was arrested and charged.

Ten years later, Morton ran into the same boy after her partner pulled him over for speeding. Remembering, Morton shakes her head in wonder. “The fact that this kid was still alive was pretty amazing,” she recalls. “That I was able to reach him and have an impact on his life, wow.”

But she still gave the kid a ticket.

In The Fray Contributor

‘Hkun Pa-O’ is in Burmese lettering on the author’s bag.

By early evening, the vendors in Chiang Mai’s night bazaar are already chatting amongst themselves, their words and laughter floating back and forth between the crowds. Their covered metal stalls were wheeled out in the afternoon, and now they line both sides of the wide sidewalks; imprisoning us all in the still air of this makeshift corridor. The path is only two tourists wide, forcing sweaty strangers to squeeze and bump past each other. The confines of the stalls selling souvenir t-shirts, pillow covers, candle holders, and Diesel jeans extend for blocks, broken only occasionally by the glass fronts of air-conditioned shops like Boots and Swensen’s, or by the wide entrances leading to more shops within covered plazas.

My mission here is focused. I have perfected the look that says “save your breath, I’m not buying,” without being overly diffident or rude. At least, that’s what I like I think. I try to weave my way through with the grace of a seasoned expat, but am thwarted at every step. First a young tourist creates a bottleneck as she stands in the path, trying to squeeze in and out of a T-shirt one size too small. Next, a group of French people huddle around a calculator, haggling over the cost of a blanket. A compassionate stranger stands aside so I can pass in the other lane, but I soon become blocked by an old couple who refuse to walk single file. Shoulder to shoulder, they move at a snail’s pace. I think evil thoughts behind their backs.

Most of the shoppers pay no heed to the vendors, inching and pushing along, studying the goods, they don’t make eye contact until they are ready to bargain. Perhaps they are afraid of triggering an onslaught of sales tactics. But the vendors here are not so pushy. Some of them doze off in their chairs. They seem to be in their own world, but I can see that they notice the shoppers. I feel special when they remember me, and smile in recognition. I can hear their words following me, quiet comments and curious glances that fly ahead to catch someone else’s attention.

A man catches my eye and asks a now familiar question, “Where’d you get your bag?” The man is blind in one eye, and has a big smile; I’ve had this conversation with him more than once. “A gift from a student,” I tell him. He asks where I am from, what I do. Others who’ve stopped me before say nothing more, their curiosity guarded and their faces inscrutable.

I never ask questions in return. Simple questions could reveal topics unsafe for discussion, and I am reluctant to put them on the spot. Still, I know why my bag catches their eyes. It is like any other hill-tribe bag around here, but it is the Burmese lettering that people notice. It was a heartfelt farewell gift from Hkun Sai, a former student. The simple white letters spell out his clan name, “Pa-O.” From Burma’s Shan state, the Pa-O is one of the country’s smallest ethnic groups, and the one at the greatest risk of losing its culture to the encroachments of civil war. I don’t know how exactly the vendors can tell my bag is from Shan state, but they can. Some of the men volunteer with visible pride the information that Shan state is theirs. I wonder if they are disappointed when I tell them the bag was a gift, that I have never been to Burma.

The smiling vendor who always stops me is one of those men. He asks if I know about Shan state. When I answer yes, he gives a silent nod; I like to think it is one of approval. I am the one left with curiosity, about his life, his past, his injury, but I continue on my mission. I quickly cross the street, waving off the tuk-tuk drivers, pass a monotony of souvenirs. I head towards a glass case full of sparkling silver. There is a group of women in immaculate black burqas choosing their purchases with confidence. I peer around them politely, looking for Nang Nang’s familiar round face.

I met Nang Nang and Hkun Sai, classmates, when I first came to Chiang Mai last August. My arrival here was random and hurried. With a rapidly expiring Australian student visa, I had neither the funds nor the desire to return home. I had the general goal of building a career in human rights, particularly with refugees, but no job prospects. With two weeks to spare, I purchased a one way ticket to Thailand and sent an application off to the Burma Volunteers Program, hoping for a three month placement that would provide room and board. When they offered me a two-month paying gig at the School for Shan State Youth Nationalities, I didn’t have to think too hard. I set off for Chiang Mai, armed only with a contact number, and having never heard of Shan state.

The School for Shan State Nationalities Youth (SSSNY) was founded almost four years ago by Nang Charm Tong, a 24 year-old Shan woman and activist, who also founded the Shan Women’s Action Network (SWAN). The school provides post-secondary training to students of any ethnicity from Shan state, and they work to promote individuals’ right to an education.
Their location is not public, and for safety, the students are mainly confined to the school for the duration of the term.

There were 22 students when I arrived 7 months into the term. Most of them were younger than my own 26 years, and had names it took me a month to remember. Hkun Sai, at 33, was the oldest. He was the most outspoken about an individual’s right to their own culture and language. Although confident in his opinions, his inability to make a direct statement often borders on a stutter. He loves dancing, in the traditional style with dainty steps and graceful hand movements, even to his classmates’ bouncy pop music. He would sometimes express frustration that he wasn’t allowed to wear his traditional longyi, or Burmese style sarong; it might have aroused suspicion among the neighbors.

Nang Nang, 18, is ethnic Shan, and is one of three girls who went on to work in the night bazaar. She is cheerful, but often had to be coaxed to speak out in class. Like all the girls, though, she freely joined in arguments about women’s rights. Pan Pan, who is ethnic Karen, also went to work in the same shop. Recently turned 18, Pan Pan appears dainty and girly, but has no compunctions about stating her mind. Once when she spotted me in the night bazaar, she ran after me down the street to give me a hug and tell me she misses me so much she can’t stand it. Nu Lat, also Shan, was the youngest in the class, at 17. She’s confident, but not as gregarious as Pan Pan. She too went to work in the night bazaar, selling clothes.

Along a sidewalk of the night bazaar, vendors rest under cover from the rain.

When a refugee is not a refugee

Shan is the largest state in Burma, bordering the north of Thailand and the southwest of China. At least half of its 8 million people are Shan, but there are also Karen, Kachin, Mon, Wa and Lahu, and Pa-O. Its history as a nation is not well documented, and is often overshadowed by Burma’s. The state became a British protectorate in 1887, two years after Burma became a British colony. Between 1942 and 1945 the Japanese invaded with the aid of the Burma Independence Army. The British regained control after the Burmese forces switched sides. Shan leaders met with General Aung San of Burma and signed the Panglong Accord in 1947, whereby they agreed to join the Union of Burma when it gained independence the following year. In return, Shan state was given the right to secede after 10 years. After Aung San was assassinated, no government of Burma since has recognized the constitutional clause which grants Shan state the right to independence.

Burmese troops entered Shan state in 1952 and declared martial law, ostensibly to fight Chinese Kuomintang forces there. According to the Burmese junta, General Ne Win seized control of the government in 1962 amid the chaos of civil war. According to Shan sources, civil war broke out after Ne Win’s military staged their coup and tore up the constitution.  In the new constitution, there was no secession clause. Socialist Burma became a unitary state; Shan leaders and the royal family went into exile.

Since 1962, Shan state has been home base to no less than three major armed resistance forces at any given time, as well as smaller forces with shifting allegiances. With mergers and splinters, armies have changed names and changed leaders. At present, the Shan State Army (SSA) has formed the strongest resistance to the junta. It is one of the last groups to refuse a cease-fire agreement with the government.

In return, the people of Shan state have faced the greatest retaliation. Since 1996, more than 300,000 people have been forcibly relocated, their villages burned and surrounded by landmines or armed guards. Some of my students can no longer return to their homes. SWAN’s 2002 report, “License to Rape,” details over 175 incidents of rape and assault involving 625 girls and women. Perpetrated by Burmese forces over a 5-year period, 145 rapes were committed by commanding officers, and only one rapist was ever punished.

That the Junta uses forced labor is common knowledge. Firsthand accounts given to the Shan Human Rights Foundation (SHRF) reveal that men, women, and children alike are forced to work as military porters; they are often used as human minesweepers. The evidence points to a military campaign targeting civilians. With no where else to turn, people flee over the border to Thailand.

The Thai government limits refugee status to those who are “fleeing fighting.” The Shan are excluded from this definition. Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has stated that the Shan are “cousins” who can easily integrate into Thai society, and do not need humanitarian aid. Without legal rights or protection, they are left vulnerable. In April, 500 Shan were given temporary refuge inside the Thai border after their camp near an SSA base was shelled. In May, after the Thai Government announced a crackdown on illegal immigrants, the 500 were ordered to return. Although they were given a month to move, the army immediately began blockading their supplies coming from the Burmese side. Of the 500, half are orphans.

There are official refugee camps along the border for Karen and Karenni, which are supported by international non-governmental organizations. Groups like the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees cannot access the Shan because they have no legal recognition as “persons of concern.” Those Shan in unofficial camps along the border, estimated to be over 5,000, receive support and aid from grassroots organizations like SWAN, SHRF and the Shan State Army. The SHRF estimates there are more than 200,000 Shan seeking refuge in Thailand.

Although safer, life in Thailand is not easy. Many Shan work as fruit-pickers, often living with their families on the edges of the longan, mango, or strawberry orchards. If they are lucky, their children may attend classes taught by “barefoot teachers,” volunteers from NGOs or the SSA who teach secretly in the fields.  Although they can register as guest workers and obtain permits, this offers little protection from harsh working conditions. Agricultural workers are exposed to dangerous pesticides; factory workers are exposed to paint and chemical fumes. Many employers deduct the cost of the permit from wages already below minimum wage. Most families must live on much less than $100 a month, not enough for both food and rent in Thailand.

From a friend’s guest-house in the centre of Chiang Mai, we can see two families living on the open concrete floors of a building under construction. He’s been told the families are Thai, and will live in the subsidized housing when it is complete. I think they are Shan with no where else to go.

When a foreigner is not a foreigner

After their school term ended, many of my students returned to working for their own organizations, conducting research and human rights documentation. A few went on to further training. Of the three, Nang Nang is the only one who stayed at the night bazaar. Pan Pan, who loves languages and wants more than anything to study abroad, is now studying French. When I visit Nang Nang at work she is happy to see me, escaping from the dreary bored faces behind the counter to greet me with a hug and an exclamation of  “Ahh! Teacher!” There are a few other women working at the small shop front but I rarely see her chatting with them. A few of them are Shan as well. In my brief conversation with one girl, she plainly told me I’d gotten fat. Sometimes Nang Nang complains about gossips, but she doesn’t give details.

Nang Nang came to Thailand with her family when she was 16. When she first arrived, she worked briefly in construction and then at a restaurant. She says the job at the night bazaar is her favorite, but it hardly seems like much of a choice to me. As her teacher, I tried my best to convince her to attend a program for training in human rights education. She turned it down. Without any financial resources, she was afraid that she wouldn’t be able to find another job as good she has. Her pay is around $100 a month plus commission, working 70 hours a week. It’s a sum paltry by my standards, but fair in local terms. Most migrant workers get paid half as much for doing twice the work of their Thai counterparts and this employer, at least, pays everyone the same.

When I interview Nang Nang about work, Pong, also 18, comes along to help translate. Pong, a classmate, attended a journalism training course after the School for Shan State and now works as an environmental journalist. They both tell me that their favorite thing about the night bazaar is the people from many different countries. They prefer being around foreigners, they say, because Thai people often look down on them. Migrant workers have become a stepping stone for the quickly rising middle class here, providing cheap labor for construction booms, and servants for Thai homes.

For Pong, the worst thing about the night bazaar is the strange men who catcall her; for Nang Nang, it is the fear of immigration agents. They operate undercover, single men shopping on their own, and when they hear the telltale signs of an accent, they ask to see IDs and work permits. Nang Nang has an ID and a permit which she recently paid a month’s wages to obtain. But it makes no difference, she is still illegal. The law restricts migrant workers to menial service and construction work, retail is off limits.  

Nang Nang has yet to be carded, though, and it seems her employer has paid the more important “fee” which makes agents skip this shop. Allegedly, the unofficial fine when caught is 10,000 baht, which is more than $250. The official fine is three months in jail, a fine, and deportation. In an unofficial deportation, one is simply dropped on the other side of the border. More fees and bribes can be paid to get back across again.  In official deportations, individuals are put on a plane and handed over to Burmese government officials. Leaving Burma without authorization is a crime punishable by a year or more in prison.

Neither Nang Nang nor Pong can give me an idea of how many Shan are working at the night bazaar; they tell me that they hear “many many people speaking Burmese.” That everyone is forced to learn and use Burmese in school breeds resentment among many, and a general reluctance to speak it at all. Nonetheless, it is often the only common language available. Nang Nang and Pong, however, do not talk with the other workers they hear speaking Burmese. If there is a sense of solidarity and community among the Shan in Thailand, it is not aired in the public markets of Chiang Mai. Blending in and keeping a low profile is key to surviving as an illegal immigrant, and this is easiest done alone.

When Nang Nang and I chat in front of her work, she always holds my hand. She is more generous in her affection than I am. When I first visited her at work, she told me laughingly about her co-workers’ shock that I had actually come to see her. I know it gives her some satisfaction then, to be seen holding my hand. I haven’t told her that it also brings me no small amount of joy. We make a strange image, standing there, hands clasped, between a trinket shop and CD rack, the crowd swarming around us. We stand on two sides of a divide: tourist, educated, white on one side; local, uneducated, poor on the other. I can see people looking at us oddly, some trying harder to hide it than others.

What makes me smile, is knowing what they cannot see — that the divide between us is not so great. With my students, I am their teacher and their friend; never the farang, or foreigner, that I will always be in Thailand. We share a certain camaraderie, being outsiders in a foreign land. Truth be told, they will tell anyone who will listen about Shan state and Burma. They speak matter-of-factly about the tragedies that are occurring there. If they do not share their personal stories with me, it is probably because I have never asked. I don’t really want to know. I can’t change their pasts, and I think they can handle it better than I could. Of what is going on in their hearts, I get only tiny glimpses, in wistful faces when they tell me of their homes, or in eyes tearing up at the mention of a father.

Before I leave Nang Nang at work, she tells me that Nu Lat has returned from her trip to Bangkok. She worries about her, but is envious that Nu Lat travels so freely, with no apparent fear of being caught. I tell her about Pan Pan studying French, but she seems uninterested. I wonder if they’ve had a falling out, but don’t ask. I also mention Hkun Sai, who is now living at a refugee camp while he applies for resettlement in the United States. We hug good-bye, and I promise to see her again soon. She steps back behind the counter and I step back into the flow of tourists, looking for my first opportunity to escape between the stalls and into the open air of the street.

STORY INDEX

ORGANIZATIONS >

Shan Herald Agency for News
URL: http://www.shanland.org

Shan Women’s Action Network
URL: http://www.shanwomen.org

TOPICS > SHAN

The Shan in Thailand: A Case of Protection and Assistance Failure
Written 06/22/2004 by Refugees International
URL: http://www.refugeesinternational.org/content/article/detail/972/?mission=1724

In The Fray Contributor

Giovanca performs a dance number to a Spanish-language song. (Elizabeth Gawne)

Though Andreas Villazane, 22, was his high school’s prom king — its first Hispanic prom king, in fact — the night wasn’t quite complete.

“I didn’t go to prom with my boyfriend because I was afraid of what people would think,” he says, touching the collar of his coral dress shirt. He looks up and smiles. “We couldn’t go to prom together, so we got to do it tonight.”

Villazane sits at a confetti-spangled table behind a bevy of red and black balloons, taking a breather from the dancing at Noche de Arcoiris (Night of the Rainbow), a queer youth prom held in Pilsen, Chicago’s largest Mexican American neighborhood. Behind him, in the Mexican Fine Arts Museum’s West Wing, the few wallflowers watch the crowd from the sidelines. Fledgling drag queens test their heels on the dance floor, from time to time touching the ends of their hair. A girl in a red salsa dress, grinning, elbows a male friend towards a tall, dapper boy in a fedora, and a slightly older white lesbian couple, one in a suit, the other wearing a midnight-blue gown, grin sheepishly at the boys grinding on the dance floor. Two girls share a tender kiss.

The event is hosted by WRTE 90.5 FM’s Homofrecuencia, the country’s only Spanish-language queer youth radio show, as a reclaimation of the beloved and benighted high school ritual. It is, to the best of their knowledge, the first time a queer prom has been held in Chicago outside of the North Side’s Boystown, Chicagoland’s mostly-white gay mecca. “That’s part of the point,” says Homofrecuencia producer Tania Unzueta,. “We want to create a safe space for us within our own communities. We want to be who we are, where we live.”  Unzueta says the invisibility of Latinos in the queer community inflicts a crisis of identity on lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered and quuer Latino youth. “It implies this dichotomy,” she sighs, “that gay means white, and Latina means heterosexual. If youth can’t see gays within the Latina community, and Latinas within the gay community, it affects their image of themselves.”

Rafa and Giovanca, the newly crowned Noche de Arcoiris’ prom king and queen, mug for the camera. (Elizabeth Gawne)

Between songs — mostly top-40 hip-hop and dancepop, with a dash of salsa — Unzueta goads promgoers to sign up to compete as prom king or queen. “Gender doesn’t matter!” she adds. “Sign up for whichever one you want.”  Later, as the contestants strut and dance onstage, one of the kings-to-be seductively strips off his tie, and suggestively begins to unbutton his shirt. “No, no!” shouts Jorge Valdivia, WRTE’s general manager — but he’s laughing through the reprimand. “We want to keep doing this prom!”  

About half the dance’s attendees are high school students or recent graduates; the others, older queer singles or couples seeking to revisit, and reimagine, their own high school proms. Alicia Vega is a board member of Amigas Latinas, a Chicago-area group for Latina lesbians founded in 1995 that was instrumental in promoting and supporting the event. She looks in wonder on the starry-eyed couples entwined on the dance floor. “I’m genuinely amazed that these youth are able to come out at such a young age,” she marvels, her dark eyes twinkling. “I couldn’t imagine taking a girlfriend to prom.” Vega didn’t come out until college, and didn’t meet other Latina lesbians until she encountered Amigas Latinas.

With other Latinas, she says, “there’s an automatic connection. There’s a lot of cultural issues we share, particularly involving family.”  That most Latinos are  Catholic plays a large part in their experience of homophobia and heterosexism, as do cultural expectations surrounding marriage and children. “It’s like that in Hispanic culture,” comments Helen Guerrero, a Northeastern Illinois University freshman. “Parents think your purpose is to have a job, get married, and have children. Especially if they’re religious.”  Unzueta adds, however, “some parents don’t understand that being a lesbian doesn’t mean you don’t want children. Then again, they don’t understand that if you’re a woman” — straight or gay — “you may not want them either.”  These combined pressures make “school and home … very different worlds,” she says. Even Jose, a high school junior whose mother is lesbian, is out to friends but not to his family. “It hasn’t really come up,” he says quietly.

Onstage, amid students’ hooting and cheers, Valdivia and Unzeuta finally select a prom king and queen: Rafa, a slim boy with a winsome smile, and Giovanca, a dazzling drag queen with round, doll-like eyes. Valdivia places a purple tinsel crown on each of their heads, grinning. Earlier, Giovanca performed not one, but two drag numbers in the evening’s show, which also featured the hip-hop moves of the Chicago Gay Youth Center dance troupe, a performance by Andres de los Santos, the Midwest’s only Spanish-performing drag king, and the brief heartfelt remarks of Carlos Tortelero, director of the Mexican Fine Arts Museum. “This is always your home, remember that, okay?” Tortelero says. An unassuming man with warm blue eyes, he made the rounds of the room during the prom’s catered Mexican dinner, shaking the hands of everyone in sight. Giovanca remained the crowd’s undisputed favorite, however: Flaunting sculpted legs, flawless lip-synching and flashy dance moves, she, too, rounded the room, taunting and flirting with men and women alike.

Giovanca, out of drag, is Victor Gomez, a Homofrecuencia radio contributor and host. Gomez nonchalantly strips off a slinky red dress and sleek brown wig as we talk backstage before the event. “There aren’t enough resources for queer youth in Pilsen,” he remarks. “There aren’t places where they can meet each other, support each other. When you have to go outside your community to get that, it seems unfair. The North Side isn’t always somewhere you fit in.”

Arreguian and Guerrero met and began dating at their Catholic high school. (Emily Alpert)

Guerrero echoes his comments. “Around here there isn’t really much for anyone who’s into the same sex,” she says, pushing her dark curls back behind her ears. She adjusts a dainty string of pearls over the neckline of her black lace dress. “You don’t meet anyone unless someone introduces you to them.”  She’s accompanied by her girlfriend, high school junior Yolanda Arreguian, who she met at her Catholic high school. I ask her how she knew her girlfriend was gay. She narrows her eyes satirically, and gestures demonstratively to Arreguian, who wears a dress shirt and tie, her hair short and spiky. Short of butch/stud visibility, word of mouth is the main way queer community is built in students’ high schools, particularly those where conservative or religious students have prevented the formation of gay-straight alliances.

“I’m the only openly gay student in my high school,” says Arreguian. Behind her glasses, hers is a direct and candid gaze. “I don’t care who knows, and I like being out.” At her Catholic high school, Arreguian actively organizes masses and attends religious events. “I might not agree with what Catholicism says about homosexuality, but I haven’t lost my faith,” she contends.

Over a massive cake, frosted with Homofrecuencia’s inverted-triangle logo, I marvel to Unzueta at the confidence of Arreguian and the other youth I’ve met. She nods, but reminds me that these teens “are comfortable being here to begin with. There’re others we still need to reach, who think they’re the only gay Latina people in the world.”  In contrast to Guerrero and Arreguian, who say “weird stares” are the worst they endure at their Catholic high school, other students have suffered unremitting taunting and threats at their schools. Some have dropped out.

I ask Arreguian how she developed the confidence to be an active, openly gay student at her high school. “I figure that being Latina alone gives you so many stereotypes,” she begins. “There’s stereotypes about being Hispanic, about women, about gay people, and I break all those stereotypes. I’m a Latina getting an education. I’m a girl getting ahead in life. I’m a tomboy and I’m proud of it.”  She grins. “I like telling people about it, because so many stereotypes can be broken by us.”

Guerrero taps her arm, ready to return to the dance floor. “And I think the fact that I can come out here with my girlfriend and not have everyone’s eyes on me is wonderful,” she adds, before Guerrero pulls her away from the table to dance.

STORY INDEX

ORGANIZATIONS >

Amigas Latinas
URL: http://www.amigaslatinas.org/

Boystown.com
URL: http://www.boystownchicago.com/

Homofrecuencia
URL: http://www.wrte.org/homofrecuencia/

In The Fray Contributor

The perfect couple on a spring break cruise in  March 2004. Photo snapped by Lindsey’s mom, who considers Todd her “adopted son.”

I met Todd on a curb outside a Target store. When I heard a high-pitched squeal reminiscent of sixth grader, I instantly knew I found a friend. It was all part of Michigan State University’s freshman orientation. They welcomed us with shopping bargains; I came home with a catch.

When Todd, my friend Danielle, and I exchanged phone numbers on the bus ride back, I knew Todd wouldn’t call Danielle; he would call me. Unlike Danielle, Todd and I both knew our exchanges weren’t a regular pick-up attempt. He called that weekend.

Todd was born and raised in Chassell, Michigan. You’ve probably never heard of Chassell because it’s located so far north in the upper peninsula of Michigan that Todd could basically reside in Wisconsin. Although Todd doesn’t have a yooper (the name by which downstate Michiganders refer to Upper Peninsula dwellers) accent for some odd reason, when he’s feeling festive, he will whip out his impersonation of an average yooper’s slang: “Aaaaayyyy, let’s go in da howuuuse.” His hometown is so small that Todd graduated with 23 people, including himself, and had to drive an extra 20 minutes every morning to get to the closest school that had a pool for swimming practice.

“They don’t like anyone who’s not like them,” Todd says of his family. “White, middle-class Americans.”

I imagine the conservative and religious Sauvola clan embracing me, fawning over the perfect daughter-in-law, except for the fact I’m gay.

Why don’t they have straight rallies?

Although fast friends, Todd and I took two months to come out to each other. Our discomfort showed in our hesitation at attending the annual Gay Pride rally held directly across from my apartment  complex. Despite a little skepticism — “Do they have straight rallies?” we’d asked each other — we walked over.

There were men in leather g-strings, protestors outside the fenced area screaming we were all going to hell, and the two of us— confused, new to the scene, and somewhat bothered by the fact that there were 3-year-olds present.

Quickly, however, we came to appreciate the sense of unity a Pride rally can provide. Everyone there was either LGBT, or accepting of our lifestyle, and damn, it felt good.

Michigan State has come a long way when one considers that 50 years earlier, rather than gay pride rallies, two massive purges took place on campus, in dorms where Todd and I might have lived. Police ransacked gay persons’ homes, arrested them, and forced them out of college.

Witnesses told of friends who were handcuffed and taken in for lie detector tests to determine their sexuality — as well as their future careers. Two professors were “excused” from their teaching responsibilities, while nearly 30 men were harassed or contacted by the police.

Today the campus, like much of America, has changed. According to Michigan’s Triangle Foundation, voting statistics from the 2004 election show MSU’s campus town of East Lansing as one of only two cities in Michigan that voted for equal gay rights on marriage. Despite this seeming embrace of acceptance, the history of both the city and university reflects a continuing struggle of the kind of repression Todd and I still face on an almost daily basis.

During the 1990s, when Todd and I were mere 8-year-olds, not even thinking about boys or girls, MSU assembled a task force on LGBT issues. Between 1990 and 1992, the task force dug through old campus newspapers and personal accounts — a total of 100 people, middle-class folk, gay, straight, old, young, faculty, staff, and students, offering their private thoughts and experiences — to unearth a history of what happened on MSU’s large midwestern university from the ‘30s through the present.

In the 1930s, MSU’s campus (then Michigan State College) had nothinglike the amount of tolerance it has today. In fact, if you were gay, you guarded your secret and kept a watchful eye out for any undercover surveillance. According to the task force report, the closest establishment to same-sex bars back then was the Black and Tan Club on Shiawassee Street in Lansing. The B and T Club was not a gay institution, but something equally risky — a place where black and white people danced together, and where, emboldened by this barrier crossing, the occasional homosexual person would show up. The gay revolution, however, didn’t begin to appear until the 1950s.

In that era, despite the hatred toward gays, there was still hope for a place of their own, the task force reports, and two bars opened thei doors to the homosexual public. The Quick Bar, and later, Woodward, gave small groups a place to go, and more began to follow. These bars not only gave gay people a place to relax, and socialize, such as Spiral — the hippest gay bar in downtown Lansing — does for Todd and me, but they also allowed LGBT folk to open up and meet other people like themselves. The task force reports that after the bars opened, groups of people would meet in their homes and have private parties, expanding their gay networks.

Coming to terms

My own upbringing mirrors the slow adjustment of MSU and the state of Michigan because it has taken me years to accept my own sexuality.

I was born in Flint, Michigan, notoriously known for its run-down General Motors plant, Michael Moore, and the forever deteriorating image of the city since the car factory shut down. My parents, both GM employees, relocated when I was in fourth grade from Burton, Flint’s nastier sister city, to Grand Blanc, a ritzy, well-off city that’s known for the annual Buick Open — a golf extravaganza Tiger Woods and other pros play in. I went to Goodrich Area Schools, situated a few miles up the road from my home, in the middle of acres of corn fields. Corn isn’t really exciting, and neither was Goodrich.

It’s been hard for me to open up and be myself. In sixth grade I already knew something was “wrong” with me when I fell asleep dreaming of a female criminal whom I, the undercover agent, was supposed to hunt down and cuff. I found her in a corner in an abandoned warehouse, and all I could fixate on in my dream was her breasts. At the time, I didn’t really know what homosexuality was, so I told myself it would be alright. I would be alright.

Right I was about my sexuality; wrong I was about it being alright. After dating a dopey gothic boy almost my entire my freshman year of high school, I started to date a girl. I met her in the hallway one afternoon after lunch period. I had heard rumors she was gay. She was a year younger than me, and even our first conversation flooded with flirting. She told me, “The rumor’s true,” and walked away, telling me she’d see me later.

We kept our relationship secret from most of the school, but everyone pretty much knew we were dating. When you live amongst the corn, the corn has ears, and those ears pick up small bits of talk all day long. We never faced any hatred, however; Goodrich was pretty laid back. But, on the other hand, I felt I was separating myself from my family. I had to come clean with my mom, my confidant, so I wrote a page-long letter dishing everything to her — my relationship, my feelings for women, my fear she would reject me. I left it on the table, and slept between bumps and knocks in the house, constantly waking with the lump in my throat suggesting that my mother was at my door.

The next morning was the worst of my life. My mom cried, told me it would be alright, told me not to lie to her anymore, and told me a lot of other do’s and don’ts. She said we would get through the awkward stage, as long as I didn’t lie to her about dating people.

The last part didn’t take. I continued to lie to everyone at home, then in college until my sophomore year. But that was before I met Emily.

Emily came along months after Todd. In fact, when I first laid eyes on Emily, it was Todd who listened to my lovelorn descriptions of her. He was my personal relationship advisor, giving me the nod or shake of the head when cute or interesting ladies walked down the street. In my eyes, Emily was perfect — quiet, reserved, fashionable, and edgy. There was an aspect to Emily that was so mysterious, I couldn’t help but want more.

After Emily’s roommate, Katie, and I paired up for a project in history class, my interest was piqued. Katie constantly bitched and moaned about how irresponsible Emily unplugged her alarm clock at least once a week. I laughed and wondered how someone could deal with such a jerk, but after Emily and I started going out, I didn’t mind the alarm clock being unplugged every now and then.

Throughout all of this, Todd was by my side, slipping homemade cards featuring dancing butterflies under my door whenever love’s roller coaster took a dip.

It was during that freshman year when, down in the dumps and seeking an escape from MSU life, Todd and I headed out to the only 18-and-over joint that was also gay-friendly — Spiral Video and Dance Bar. We ventured out alone, and ended up at a table with another couple. They bought us tequila shots for the rest of the night and we danced in a foursome on the sweat-soaked floor. After being driven home drunk by the even drunker
couple, Todd and I declared Spiral would be our new home away from the dorms, and that’s where we would spend our weekends, dancing the night away.

Stolen pride

Emily, Todd, and Spiral were part of my coming out. Life on campus also allowed me to grasp my gay roots. Everyone was so liberal and open; there were signs hanging in dorms for meetings with other gay students, and the people I came out to never dropped their jaws in disbelief. I am so thankful I wasn’t on MSU’s campus during the 1960s, when life wasn’t a root beer float with whipped topping.

Fortysomeodd years ago was the breaking point for both homosexual people and campus administrators. Before then, there was no reference to homosexuality or gay arrests in any police report, on or off campus. But in the decade famous for its massive protests of the Vietnam War, it was evident gay people were gaining a voice and the police were clearly on guard. In 1960, “homosexual activity” was added as a category for complaints through MSU’s Department of Public Safety. Within a year after the category was added, nearly a dozen complaints and six arrests were made for what police referred to as“people engaged in or attempting to procure homosexual activity.”

As arrests continued through 1962-1963, campus landmarks were renovated in hopes of altering “physical arrangements to discourage the recruiting of homosexuals.” The campus student union had its basement men’s room remodeled in hopes that gay people would stop meeting there. Yet the handfuls of hidden spots on campus where heterosexual people, such as beneath the Belmont Tower, met remained intact.

In 1969, after police raided the Stonewall Inn — a dark and dingy predominantly gay club in Greenwich Village — campus groups become electrified by the resistance put up in New York. They admired their gay brothers and sisters who resisted the police force, and they too wanted to take a step into the accepting future. It was then, after Stonewall, that a weekly discussion group for homosexuals was formed off-campus, and MSU became one of the few universities across the country to have a gay organization.

Another positive step toward acceptance happened when the Gay Liberation Movement was registered as an on-campus student organization on April 27, 1970, and following it, the MSU Radicalesbians. Not far behind was a human sexuality course, taught by Eleanor Morrison, which focused on the components of sexual orientation and had assigned readings by lesbian and gay authors. MSU was becoming more accepting.

But progress for gay people is usually followed by repression. On March 4, 1972, the Michigan Gay Confederation established and planned the first Gay Pride Week on MSU’s campus. In June 1972, the start of what was to be Gay Pride Week provoked the first confrontation between MSU administrators and the Gay Liberation Movement.

Jack Breslin, MSU’s Executive Vice President, denied the organization permission to hang a banner at one of MSU’s campus entrances.

Complaints were filed with the MSU Antidiscrimination Judicial Board on the basis of sexual discrimination. In lieu of the complaints, Breslin responded, “I honestly believe that it is well within the powers of the MSU Board of Trustees to refuse permission for activities promoting lifestyles which are clearly at odds with the general atmosphere of the university.”

Arguments ensued regarding whether homosexuals should even be allowed to file complaints with the Judicial Board, and eventually the Board of Trustees decided complaints could only be filed by gay people if they were related to job discrimination. Through all of this, the banner was still not flying, and the first Gay Pride Week had come and gone.

Finally, in 1973, on-campus gay groups were allowed their banner recognizing Gay Pride Week. Kind of. Before the week began, administrators announced that the poles were going to be removed for “maintenance reasons,” the banner’s ropes were cut, and the landmark vanished from sight.

Downward spiral

Todd and I used to joke during our freshman year that if we didn’t find partners, we’d settle down together, get married, and fake the rest of our lives. If we were straight, we’d be able to do whatever we wanted. Todd and I could kiss by campus landmarks and no one would think twice about it. We could go into lingerie stores and buy handfuls of bras and underwear for me, and the clerk wouldn’t hesitate to serve us. If waiters asked the question, “One check, or two?” and we replied, “One,” they wouldn’t smile sly grins and think to themselves, “I wonder if I can get both of them home tonight …” It happens to Emily and me all the time.

Usually, though, we can find safety from the wandering eyes and glaring stares when we go to gay bars. So, a few weekends ago, Todd, Emily, and I went to our old favorite, Spiral. We still go to Spiral after all these years because it has a New York feel in our very non-New York town. When walking in, the industrial feel of the nightclub is punched out in tall, metal chairs adorned with red velvet on the cushions. Candles burn, little lounges are filled with red velvet couches, the bathrooms have red velvet curtains instead of doors, and the overall feel is pristine and modern.

Emily and I were sitting, sipping our glass-bottled beers, when a man approached Emily to tell her she was beautiful. She smiled, thanked him and proceeded to ignore his presence. You get these creeps all the time at the gay bar — men out to woo a lesbian.
The man finagled his way into a seat next to Emily and continued to tell her she was gorgeous. I tried shooting him a no-trespassing look, letting him know I was the only one who was going to eat sushi that night. There’s nothing more frustrating than a straight person trying to convert your lover. Instead of throwing a big fuss, though, I just pulled Emily onto the dance floor.

All of a sudden, I see him again. He’s talking to Emily, and I can tell by her uneven smile that he’s still telling her she’s beautiful, still trying to get into her pants, still being a pig.

“We’ve been together for two years,” I hear. “I’m sorry, I’m not interested.”

Emily’s smile is waning and my patience is growing as thin as the air on the packed dance floor. My friends, who can feel my tension, form a human wall between Emily and the man. It’s literally me, Emily, two friends, and the man trying to squirm his way into our dance circle. We’re still trying to keep our cool, dancing, but the man persists. He gives my friends the finger, picks my girlfriend up, raises her to the ceiling, and puts his face in her crotch.

I don’t remember if I shoved the guy, grabbed Emily, or if he just let her go, but we spilled off the dance floor in one fluid motion. I found Todd and his date and explained the whole situation; disbelieving, Todd and his date gallantly offered to kick the guy’s ass. I couldn’t stop thinking if Emily and I had been a straight couple, the man wouldn’t have had the nerve to so aggressively try and break us apart. I was surprised by the depth of my own anger. I hated this interloper and, if I didn’t want to be banned from my favorite gay bar, might even have entertained the idea of macing the bastard’s eyeballs.

And this is still the life we live, every day. We’re constantly battling to open ourselves up, dealing with a society that still wouldn’t mind repressing us and all the while politely doesn’t understand us. MSU has given Todd and me the chance to become who we are, and become more assertive along the way. We might not be 100 percent open, but we’re getting there.

Without the help of MSU’s understanding student population, or the Pride festivals Todd and I still venture to today, I might still be resting in the proverbial gay closet — a place where no LGBT person ever likes to hang out. And those pride festivals Todd and I used to feel weird about? We go to them every year, in as many cities as we can. Last year, Todd spent the night at my apartment, and when we woke up, the park across the river was filled with white trailers, rainbow flags, and tons of people. People just like us. We got dressed and walked over together.

This time, we stood by the fence where the protestors were and laughed at them. We ate elephant ears and strolled around the various vendors. We were happy children were there, because after all, when I have kids, I’m going to want them to see all sides of life. But most important, and closest to my heart, my girlfriend broke her pact of never showing public displays of affection and held my hand. And for the first time ever, I finally felt complete.

STORY INDEX

TOPICS > RESOURCES

Michigan State University’s LGBT website
Resources, event listings and services for students, staff and others.
URL: http://lbgtc.msu.edu/

ORGANIZATIONS >

Triangle Foundation
One of Michigan’s organizations serving the LGBT and allied communities.
URL: http://www.tri.org/

In The Fray Contributor