Episode 7 – World AIDS Day and the Founding of allgo

Thank you for listening to audio QT. I’m your host karma Chaves. And on today’s episode, we’re going to listen to an interview that I conducted in December, 2021 for world aids day with, uh, local activist, uh, Maria Elon. And it was something for a world aids day event that I did related to. Book, there were other parts of it.

What you’re gonna hear is simply the interview I did. And so the beginning and ending might feel a little bit weird because it was originally done before a live audience. Uh, but I hope you enjoy. Thank you. So when I was trying to figure out what the hell this book was about, I was on Instagram and there’s this Instagram.

What do you call ’em accounts called Barrio archive? ATX I think, and Alan Garcia has it, and he had like some images from this group called photo banita. That was a project of algo in the eighties and was talking all about this person named Maria Limon. And I was like, oh my God, who is this? Like, what is this?

I was like, this is the most amazing thing. So I find this person. Is probably, you know, stalker caller figure, like, will you talk to me? And so I end up having a few conversations. Those conversations don’t end up in the book, they will end up in something, but I’ve been so compelled by Maria’s work. That when I thought about what would a book launch be, what would I wanna do to launch my book?

It would be one to feature the art of amazing poets, be in a beautiful space. And to have a conversation with someone who I think is like one of the most amazing activist artists and humans on the planet. And so at this point, I would like to invite Maria LAE to the stage. And I’m gonna ask her some questions about those early days.

So some of you might not know that Maria moved to Denver a few years ago and works at the university of Colorado Denver. That’s what pays the. But, you know, she just can’t stay away. So comes back frequently, thankfully, and we drug her back for this event. And so I guess I wanna just ask you what was queer, Latinx life like in Austin, in the seventies and eighties?

Well, it wasn’t Latinx that’s for sure.

they’re laughing. I would have to say that by the mid eighties. There was a pull to figure out ways to be in community with each other. And Austin at the time, unbeknownst to us had become somewhat of a nest for people who were organizing around various issues. And so from where I sat the movement to free ourselves and our bodies.

At that point, specifically gay, lesbian, you know, kind of narrow back then Latinos had everything to do with our ability to connect with others. And I’m super grateful for that because it laid the standard for how it is that movements work in my mind. So involved when we were first organizing algo, were the lawyers with the national lawyers Guild.

There were the people who were working with CPE, the committee in solidarity with the people of El Salor. It was the people working with event Remos brigade, sending teams to Cuba every year, and definitely working around issues related to Palestine, prisoner rights, police brutality, all of these things.

We were all involved. While we were organizing Al. And so in my mind, I thought everybody did that. I was really shocked. I was really shocked when we started founding the organization. These are people who were very present in our lives and are, I don’t even wanna call them allies because it’s a buzzword.

But so it’s also, it doesn’t quite capture the depth of the connection that we had with each. Ride or die is probably a better term for the people who are still very much involved in our lives. Maybe not as connected as we once were, but I know in a minute, if we needed to, we could call these people and they would be there.

They would figure out a way to be there for us in a minute. And so it felt like a very busy, very creative, very violent is the only word I can think of time. Did that answer your question? That’s exactly. I think what I wanna hear and I, and I’m, I’m interested too in like how you go from being involved in all these different political movements.

And this is also at a time when we don’t have the sort of proliferation of the nonprofit industrial complex as we might call it now. Right. And so how is it then that all that comes together into this thing that we now know as all go, like who, who are the actors and, and what’s the. I would say that within the group of people who decided that we were gonna come together and do this thing, it included a very wide range of activists and thinkers and organizers.

There were people who were very much involved in electro politics, and there were people who were very much involved in working with unions. And there were people who were very much involved in getting the us out of Hondu DAS. For example, the Texas state guard had been sent to Hondu. To go ahead and rec havoc on people’s there.

And so we were this broad spectrum of people with different perspectives and views. And I think each of those people held perspectives that were essential to the founding of the organization, cuz it came together in this nice. So to speak and everybody added their little bit of this and a little pinch of that.

And it worked for whatever reason and not to say that it was smooth. We were in each other’s throats quite a bit. I remember, oh my God. I could tell you stories, girl, but we would argue and they were. Big arguments among those of us who were much more invested in a form of political assimilation than others of us were, for example, in political and economic assimilation, because clearly there was a struggle and it was economic and we all needed to survive.

And then there were those of us who were ready to go ahead and, you know, say, we’re gonna go ahead and bring the state down. Can you imagine the tension? Yeah, among people who were really good at tossing daggers, verbal daggers at each other, I have to say looking back, it was very entertaining. We were smart and we got totally stupid with it.

And we figured out how to hang in there with each other. And so that’s how the organization came together. And fortunately for us, there was a woman who had money who had. The building on third in Congress, at that point, it was called the grassroots peace building. And in that building, a lot of these activists who had been involved doing all kinds of work found.

And so the very first office at algo held was probably the size of this stage that we shared with another organization called Ebony connection. Those are the very first offices we had there. So having the proximity of having Ebony connection there, along with the Texas civil rights project and the United farm workers and the American friend service committee, all of that was part of that mole that came together.

So, yeah. I wanna transition a little bit and ask about, you know, the early eighties and when it became clear that there was something going on, there was maybe you didn’t know a name for aids yet. When did the community really see that this thing had to be addressed? There was not one moment that I can recall Ardo might be able to know, but I think there were people who were very aware of what was happening nationally and politically within the democratic party.

And they had their fingers on the pulse in many ways, in different ways. And when it became clear that this was gonna be affecting us, we knew that we had to organize something. And so we applied for funding and we received it. You know, surprisingly from the us conference of mayors, I believe was our first funding source.

I have to cry. One of our founders was a nurse. He was a nurse and he was a good friend. He was my housemate and he was the first, there were only two nurses willing to work with people who had aids at Brenridge hospital. He was one of them. And so we got this sense. We knew, right. We knew what was happening, both as it related to health, but we also saw the political and the cultural devastation that came with that.

Ramon. I found out later after he died himself aids, he used to live just right up the street here on Tillery. He was my roommate at the time. And he would get in bed with these men who had been left alone and abandoned. And it was when everybody was wearing full protective gear and wasn’t necessary. But at that point, you know, yeah.

Homophobia being what it is and the fear. He would get in bed with these men and hold them as they were dying when nobody else would touch them. You know? And so we had these different perspectives of people looking in and we started being in contact and in connection with act up, you know, in other chapters we had been a part of organizing statewide glue was a gay, lesbian, Hispanic Sunni.

Yeah. And then we also got connected with Diego, which was a national gay Latino organization. And they were based primarily outta DC. There were brilliant minds at work who understood things that I could not even relate, but they got it. They figured it out. And so that is when we realized we had to do something and we had to organize ourselves.

So, yeah. And so out of that became this project that y’all called in photo Manita. And so you had this little bit of money. I mean, I’ve looked in the archives, I’ve talked to you about this, but I’d love if you had just talk to us a little bit about some of the things you were doing to raise awareness and just kind of, I know it was a lot, we organized ourselves, I ahead already been organized as an organization.

There were big events that were happening. And so we had a group of people who were coming together on the regular and there was some education already going on, at least among ourselves. In partnership with aids services of Austin, even though we had big old fights with them, they didn’t like it when we first got funded.

Ugh. Yeah. And we knew that we needed to figure out how to cast a wider protective net on the Latino HEO community in Austin, cuz we knew what was gonna happen. And so one of the very first things that we did and remember that these are people who were used to organizing political campaigns. And so what do campaigns do they block.

And so we organized this massive day of block walking one day and it was amazing. We put our logo out there and, oh my God, the very first logo that was selected, I feel, you know, as a mistake, although the people who fought with me about that are now dead. So my story wins. It was this very conservative Christian who picked this very gross.

Design and for whatever reason, the organization decided I was voted down. We didn’t understand consensus building then. So I was voted down and they selected this logo that went up on a billboard here on seventh street. And it was very generic and. I hated that the money went to this person who was out lobbying against our own interests as a gay organization.

But anyway, so we did that and then we block walked and there was no hotline available. Then there was nothing like that. And so what we did is when we block walked, we knew that we needed to set up some kind of system for people to call. If they had questions that would be in Spanish. And this was, I don’t even think the health department had that kind of education going on.

So we had an answering machine, an old school answering machine. And that first weekend that we did all that work, somebody called me, I guess it was on a Sunday morning after we blocked walk Saturday. And. Asked if I’d called the number 4 7 2 2 0 0 1. We still have the number. And apparently the machine, somebody left a really long detailed message, asking very explicit questions about transmission that really didn’t need to be asked for.

Almost an hour on the tape. And so whenever anybody called that’s the recording

that they got . So there was quite a bit of education happening for anybody who called. And after that, we tried to make sure that, you know, there were times when people could answer calls and that was our first attempt working in collaboration with aid services of Austin, arguing about what people needed.

going toe to toe with folks. And I would say hopefully now they would look back and some of them, I still know and they would say, yeah, it was hard, but here we are. I mean, obviously the need for Spanish language material was key, but at the time, I mean, what were the kind of unique things that we’re facing the Latino community and.

Made some of these conflicts with these, I assume white led organizations. I Miha can’t get in their heads, you know, I mean, you know, that’s true and that’s a world. I do not know I couldn’t understand how they, in my mind it made absolute sense that Ebony connection should be funded to do work. Very specifically.

We tried to explain that we, as Angela Davis once said, I’ll never forget this. I wanna tattooed on me. We separate not to be separatist. But to do specific work, cuz there are things that only we knew how to handle because we understood the context and we understood the challenges in people’s lives. Only we could handle.

So there was a radio station it’s no longer operational max just died recently. And he was a founder of that radio station. And one of the things that they would do is that they would announce this is again, back in the day when there were immigration raids on the radio. , you know, things like that. And that did not even enter the mind of people working at aid services of Austin, because in their mind they wanted to get all the resources that they could do it all and handle it all better, which I understand in some ways, and we know that doesn’t work.

And so it wasn’t grave in self-interest necessarily. They thought. That they were doing the best that they could because they had already laid some groundwork for getting funding and figuring those kinds of institutional obstacles out. And so they felt that they could go ahead and do a better job of serving people.

And they were blind in one eye. That’s not my line. That’s. Rick brag, this author, who I asked him about racism in the south. And he said, people seem to be getting along. And I said, well, that’s not what I hear. And he said, well, that’s what happens when you’re blind in one eye, you know, they were blind in one eye and they couldn’t tell, they were just so used to seeing outta that one eye.

They didn’t know they were blind. So when you think back to that time, what do you think was the greatest success that you had. So many thoughts in the long run, you can look back and say, oh my God, I’m so glad that from a distance as we could, we participated with national act up because the pressure act up brought to bear made a huge difference.

You know, it made a huge difference. So from that perspective, I can see that. And then from this other perspective, we didn’t know it. I mean, we hoped that algo as an organization would, you know, establish roots to hell and under Priscilla’s leader. That happened. You knowgo got roots to hell now. And so I think that is a huge victory and we lost so many people.

It’s hard to claim it as a victory, but there’s a few people who just buy a hair, just buy a hair, made it to treatment and are still alive. You know, they’re still alive. That is in my mind personally, that’s a huge victory. That’s a huge. and it’s still shocking to me, karma that. So few people have the experience of helping people die, because that was our life, you know, for so long, it was our.

Figuring out how to put the financial pieces together, how to put the emotional pieces together, how to hold ourselves together, you know, and it, so it’s shocking to me. It’s still shocking to me that my own siblings that are all older than me didn’t know when my mother was dying. They didn’t know what was gonna happen.

I was literally flabbergasted and shocked. You know, and so I’m not one to say this made us stronger. No, we were strong, which is why we were able to figure shit out because we already had our act together because we’d been targeted for destruction in many ways. And still that’s very much the case. And we knew enough to build community.

We knew enough to go ahead and grant each other. Grace. when one of our allies or, you know, rider dies fucked up. You know, we would say Bato, don’t say that, you know, we need to do that. You know, and because of that, we had this connection and this community, and here I am all these years later, and this is still the gold standard for what community looks like.

And it’s expanded and grown and the tentacles have spread all over the place. You know, like a nice fungi, just, you know, grow. So, yeah, I know a nice fun guy, girl. Yeah. Yeah. I want you all to join me in. Thank you, Mari. And then we’ll open up for questions. Yeah.

If anyone had any questions or comments or wanted say anything, if anyone had stories they wanted to share, I will hand you the mic so that you can be, cuz we’re recording for a co-op to. You do this book now, what made me do this book now? I mean, I just think we can’t be thinking about aids enough. It’s like the kind of idea that aids is not over.

Right. And we often think it is. And of course, that article I mentioned earlier that Stephen Thrasher, you know, in two years in the United States, more people have died from COVID. Then in 40 years that we’ve had a name for. So imagine what we’ve been living with for the last two years, living through two pandemics, right.

But globally, so many of the life saving drugs that people with healthcare have access to in the United States, people still don’t have access to globally. And so I think it’s just important to be thinking about aids in a global context. And also, I, I don’t know at that age where it’s time to also be bringing people like Maria back into, you know, my kind of realm, people who may not know who are introducing.

I don’t know, building community. Yeah. So many years of milestones. I mean, you know, 40 years since we’ve had a name, but of course we know aids existed longer potentially that far ago. I mean, Ted car said at least since the sixties, but there’s others that say earlier. So does anyone else wanna ask a question for Maria or make a, so I’m just gonna repeat that real quick.

So your favorite memory of the really horrible time of supporting people. They’re worst hours. What’s your favorite? A few short ones. Joseph Vasque was in the hospital. He was very sick and still, you know, talking, he, he hadn’t slipped into a com or anything like that. And he, one of the founders of Algon for Maita and an intern came in and very rushed, took care of him, threw a few questions at him and then.

Joseph answered, trying to connect with this doctor or would be doctor and the doctor left right away just in this flurry of self importa. And Joseph put his hands on his pearls and whispered while we were sitting in the room with him. He whispered thank you doctor. That was so hilarious. that was hilarious.

You should have been there. And I think the other thing was when Ramon was dying and Ramon was very active. He’d been to Cuba. He went to Palestine. He used to be a nurse on the eighth floor, which was the eighth floor at the old Bracken. On the west side, the east side was cardiac. The nurses on the west side of that wing asked him to not be placed on that floor because they couldn’t stand the thought of taking care of him when he was dying.

It was too hard on them emotionally. So they put him on the cardiac side and the nurses knew him. And so they let us in essence take over the lobby. There was a lobby area on that floor. They. Park ourselves there. We had tamales. I mean, there were lots of people there over, I don’t know, maybe three, four day period until he died.

And the warmth that they were able to surround us with was still stands out as a memory. Yeah. Well maybe that’s a nice note for us to conclude our evening. Thank you all so much for coming out tonight. Really appreciate it.