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This electronic thesis or dissertation has been downloaded from the King’s Research Portal at https://kclpure.kcl.ac.uk/portal/ “The half-breed, the half-dead” Blood-Mixing, Queer Latino Cultural Production, and HIV/AIDS, 1981-1996 Carroll, Victoria Elizabeth Awarding institution: King's College London The copyright of this thesis rests with the author and no quotation from it or information derived from it may be published without proper acknowledgement. END USER LICENCE AGREEMENT Unless another licence is stated on the immediately following page this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ You are free to copy, distribute and transmit the work Under the following conditions: Attribution: You must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work). 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Oct. 2021 “The half-breed, the half-dead” Blood-Mixing, Queer Latino Cultural Production, and HIV/AIDS, 1981-1996 Victoria Elizabeth Carroll American Studies PhD 2014 1 Contents Acknowledgments 4 Abstract 6 Introduction 7 Just like AIDS Chapter One 39 Abjects in America: Spatial Transgressions and Racial Ambiguity Chapter Two 81 Acquiring Culture: Felix Gonzalez-Torres and the Art of Assimilation Chapter Three 126 Generating Degenerates: Viral Miscegenation in the Works of Gil Cuadros Chapter Four 172 Mythicising Chicano (Mixed)Blood: Narrating HIV/AIDS in Los Angeles Conclusion 218 Art after ART List of Illustrations 233 Illustrations 236 Bibliography 251 2 “All died yesterday today and will die again tomorrow.”1 1 Pedro Pietri, ‘Puerto Rican Obituary’ [1973], The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, ed. Alan Kaufman (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 1999), 175. 3 Acknowledgments I would like to begin by giving my most sincere thanks to Professor John Howard. His advice, support, and humour have been invaluable, invigorating, and very much appreciated. Thank you to Dr. Lara Shalson, who has performed many roles with great diligence, and Dr. Fiona Anderson, sounding board, ally, and friend. I am happy to be Alice to your Gertrude. Throughout my PhD, Queer@King’s has been my home and intellectual hub; thank you to all its participants and to the people who keep it going, particularly Professor Mark Turner, Dr. Bob Mills, and Dr. Hector Kollias. I would like to give special thanks to the “Johnites,” Jay Watkins, Skyler Hijazi, and Tomek Mossakowski, for The Retro Bar reading sessions and the sympathetic ears. To my good friends Jenny Essen and Sophie Lally, thanks for getting me through. In April 2012, whilst engaged in archival work in Los Angeles, I was serendipitously introduced to Laura Aguilar, photographer and lifelong friend of Gil Cuadros, the author whose writing really was the springboard for this entire project. During the course of our meeting she was remarkably candid about Cuadros’s life, her life and work, and their enduring friendship, and for this I thank her. Listening to her talk about Gilbert – she never used his diminutive – someone whom I have never met and could never meet, but with whom I feel a sense of intimacy, was very moving and inspirational, and perhaps the first time that the AIDS epidemic had truly hit home for me. I would like to thank archivist Michael Stone for arranging this meeting with Laura, and for the many humorous conversations we shared. Muchas gracias to Lizette Guerra and everyone at UCLA’s Chicano Studies Research Center and Mick and Kyle at the ONE Archives; they really are fantastic resources. That summer I was lucky enough to take part in the International Visitor Leadership Program on HIV/AIDS Awareness and LGBT Advocacy. In the three weeks I was touring the U.S. I not only met some incredible people (and enduring friends) from across Europe, I was also privileged to witness the phenomenal work carried out by charities, NGOs, clinics, doctors, journalists, social workers, outreach programmes, and dedicated individuals on behalf of LGBT welfare and HIV/AIDS prevention advocacy. A special thanks goes to John and Sherry Joyce from Little Rock, Arkansas, for their hospitality and fantastic “down home” cooking. I am most grateful for the nights spent in gay bars and clubs, talking to people (especially young gay men of colour) about their experiences with HIV and AIDS. As I sit at my keyboard I never want to forget that HIV/AIDS is a reality from which none of us are immune. Being a part of the IVLP allowed me to attend the 19th International AIDS Conference, held in America for the first time in 22 years. At such a huge event it is the smaller things that will stay with me – the personal stories, the march to the White House, and the panels of the NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt displayed in the main hall. Watching the revival of Larry Kramer’s 1985 play The Normal Heart was also truly unforgettable. I would like to give a big thank you to Cara Rodway for all her help and for wangling me an invite to the British Embassy in Washington D.C. Whilst the IVLP was a supreme highlight I have fond memories of all of the conferences I have taken part in. In particular, I will remember the ‘Queer Places, Practices, and Lives’ conference at Ohio State University, where I was introduced to some of my queer theory heroes, and the inaugural ‘Haciendo Caminos: Mapping the Futures of US Latino/a Literatures’ conference at John Jay College in New York. I was initially anxious to share my writing with a community of mostly Latino/a academics, but the general support and enthusiasm was overwhelming. Thank you to Professor Ramón Saldívar, Professor Paula Moya, and Professor Michael Hames-García for their most helpful suggestions, insights, and mostly for their encouragement. I would also like to 4 thank the DAAD for funding my participation in the 2013 International Postgraduate Programme Summer School. Thank you to all the wonderful academics, administrative staff, and my fellow student cohort in Mainz for their feedback and their hilarity, appreciated in equal measure. I have wonderful memories of my research trip to New York for which I am eternally grateful. Thank you to Daniel Gallant, Director of that venerable Loisaida institution, the Nuyorican Poet’s Cafe, for supplying me with a very interesting material history of the Cafe, regaling me with stories of its patrons, and encouraging me to attend a slam-poetry event, which turned out to be a truly sensational experience. Another huge thank you to artist, photographer, and O.P. Art founder (which has now, sadly, closed its doors), Luis Carle, for opening up his home, his artwork, and his life to my curious gaze, candidly answering my torrent of questions, and, with great sass and humour, evoking a picture of 80s New York in all its splendid and devastating vibrancy. Whilst in New York I attended a public conversation at the New School – ‘Time is Not a Line: the Anxiety of Knowing, Forgetting, History and Living’ – hosted by Pato Hebert and Ted Kerr. Naively presuming that such an event would supplement my research, and be a pleasant way to fill a Sunday afternoon, I was genuinely amazed and moved by the coming together of veteran activists and young queer people, all willing to share their experiences, stand their ground, and commit to the reinvigoration of AIDS activism in the present. I got the impression that everyone in that room passionately wanted to reignite a dwindling queer movement, and that afternoon it seemed possible. I remember one man saying emotionally that he had been searching for a group like this for years; I fervently hope it has continued. Thank you in particular to group facilitator’s Ricardo Montez and Julian de Mayo, two Latino academics doing important and exciting work. A lack of motivation is very often the scourge of the thesis writing process and for this reason I would like to thank Colin Harrison, who back in 2011 gave me my own Felix Gonzalez-Torres edition print, Untitled (Death by Gun), which has served to inspire me over the last few years. Every time I look at it, I am reminded that my acquisition of it is very much in keeping with Gonzalez-Torres’s viral ethos. One day I will pass it on… Maybe! Lastly, but never least-ly, thank you to my wonderful family, James, Jon, Jordan, Sam, Max and Ayva, to my grandmother Nancy, who has been my perpetual champion, and especially to my parents, Sue and Pete Carroll. Without their love and support none of this would have been thinkable, let alone possible. I would like to thank them for trying to understand my research; watching them attempt to explain this project to bemused friends and strangers alike has been a constant source of entertainment. I can honestly say (despite their protestations) that I am more proud of them than they could ever be of me. 5 Abstract This project examines cultural production by gay Latinos responding to the American HIV/AIDS epidemic from 1981 to the “protease moment” of 1996, when effective medical treatments emerged.