Miss Long Beach Pride of 2022 hosted LBCC’s first “Joteria” event on Wednesday to celebrate the convergence of Latinx and queer cultures. 

The event featured Loteria, a common Mexican household game structured like bingo. 

To play, an announcer reads the names of images from a stack of cards and players cover the images on their decks, traditionally with uncooked beans. 

“Joteria” brought its own spin to this Mexican game by also making the event a drag show. Miss Pride, who goes by the stage name “Torta Jugosa,” danced and lip-sang in drag fashion while doubling as the game’s announcer.  

The event’s planning committee purposely chose the name “Joteria,” which is a play on the words “joto” and “Loteria.” 

For many years, “joto” was actually a derogatory Spanish slang term used toward gay people.

So if “Joteria” was meant to be a queer-inclusive event, why use the term “joto” in the name? 

“‘Joto’ is a word that has been reclaimed,” said Jose Ibarra, director of LBCC’s Phoenix Scholars program and part of the Latinx Heritage Month planning committee. 

“[Joto] was previously used in a negative way, but it is now a term Latinx queer people can use to identify themselves.” Ibarra said, “It is similar to the way the word “queer” used to be derogratory, but has been reclaimed by the community.” 

Reclaiming words that were previously offensive is a way to show that words can’t harm the people they are targeted toward. Instead, these people are using those negative words to brand themselves to show that they are proud of who they are. 

Itzel Marin was the person on the planning committee who originally pitched the idea for “Joteria.” She works for the Social Intercultural Center on campus and also identifies as both queer and Latinx. 

“We wanted to be intentional about creating an intercultural event,” Marin said. “During Latinx heritage month, most people acknowledge being brown but not the other identities that people can have.”

In the Latinx community, those other identities, such as being queer, have not been traditionally acknowledged because the community has had an unfortunate history of machismo.

Machismo, meaning “strong or aggressive masculine pride,” has negatively enforced gender norms that have made some queer people feel like they can’t express their whole selves. 

This event intended to create a safe, inclusive space where students were free to express all of their identities. 

But the event didn’t want to focus too much on the negative effects machismo has had on the community.  

“When people talk about queerness its often about trauma, and sometimes you do want to step away from that. We wanted to remind students that being queer is not just trauma—there’s beauty too. There’s so much culture and so much tradition in both communities, so we also do want to celebrate that.” Marin said. 

A diverse lot of students who attended the event were seen cultivating this new culture of acceptance by introducing themselves to unfamiliar faces. Some were even explaining the rules of Loteria to those who had never played before. 

Attendees yelled “Buenas!” whenever a game was won, and blazingly cheered when Miss Long Beach Pride performed her numbers. 

Miss Pride concluded the night by reminding everyone “it’s not about who you love or what you love, it’s about how you love.”