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East Palo Alto residents and surrounding communities will celebrate the city’s first LGBTQ+ Pride event on Sunday, July 23.
Festivities will take place in the East Palo Alto Boys and Girls Club at 2031 Pulgas Ave. from 1-5 p.m., with free, family-friendly activities for all. Organizer Venus Itzuri Perez-Hernandez said as many as 15 local LGBTQ+ organizations will host booths, while drag artists, ballroom performers and a DJ provide live entertainment.
The event is a product of the Mariposa Outreach Center, an informal organization founded by Perez-Hernandez this summer.
“I wanted to create something that kids younger than me could have that I didn’t have growing up as a young trans (transgender) girl,” she said. “I’ve been through my fair share of hate crimes here in East Palo Alto.”
Perez-Hernandez, who was born and raised in the city, said she has been followed by groups of people calling her slurs and threatening her life.
“I thought that it was fitting for a trans girl from East Palo Alto to provide or create some kind of outreach center for the community because, at the end of the day, trans women — brown and Black trans women — have always been at the forefront of all queer liberation,” she said.
She hopes to grow the center in the future, eventually establishing it physically with an office space offering LGBTQ+ resources and, in collaboration with a local clinic, access to confidential testing for sexually transmitted infections.
“I truly just want to provide a safe haven for all the queer kids here in East Palo Alto,” she said.
Perez-Hernandez reflected on growing up in East Palo Alto, where the closest available LGBTQ+-focused center was the San Mateo Pride Center, roughly 13 miles away.
“In East Palo Alto, we really had to find community in San Francisco and Oakland,” she said. “We want to be able to bring that back to East Palo Alto and provide those resources here so people don’t have to commute so far.”
Perez-Hernandez found community in the ballroom scene, a Black and brown LGBTQ+ subculture originating in Harlem and recently depicted in shows such as Pose. She has been doing ballroom for over five years.
“That’s where I found my community; people that understood my experiences,” she said. “I felt embraced; I felt seen; I felt validated. It all felt inclusive and I wanted to be able to bring that to East Palo Alto as well.”
Most recently, Perez-Hernandez won Femme Queen European Runway at The Lovers Revenge Ball in San Francisco.
The event on Sunday will combine talent from across the Bay Area, including a drag queen from East Palo Alto and local rhythm and blues-hip hop artist Humble Hart. The Mariposa Outreach Center is accepting funds through Venmo, which will go towards Pride and future projects. Perez-Hernandez hopes that the afternoon will bring together queer people from all over and highlight the rich cultural diversity of East Palo Alto.
