Summary of the Esta Noche Historical Site proposal.

1. By Ashley Hamelin

2. • Esta Noche was the first Latino Gay bar in San
Francisco.
• Founded in 1979 by two openly gay active
members of GALA (The Gay Latino Alliance).
• The duo saw the need for a safe gay Latino space
and so they sold their house to buy the bar.

3.  Recent articles found in local San Francisco newspapers and online
provided an enormous amount of information on Esta Noche over the
years as well as information on the closing of the bar.
 These articles provided me with primary sources from both patrons
and performers.
 I also relied on the Trinity College Library to find secondary sources.

4. Esta Noche was an explicitly working class Latino gay bar that catered
to a queer Latino microcosm of culture, adoration, and desires. It
carved an autonomous space that wasn’t subjected to gay white male
nightlife.
Esta Noche became a community organizing center that hosted
fundraisers for health clinics, AIDS, and lower income populations.The
bar also actively promoted safe sex by handing out free condoms to
its patrons.
Esta Noche provided its patrons with a variety of entertainment such
as Salsa dancing, Comedy shows and Drag shows.
Ramos, Iván A. "The Dirt That Haunts: Looking at Esta Noche." Studies In Gender & Sexuality 16, no. 2 (April 2015): 135-136. Academic Search
Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed April 30, 2017).

5.  The discrimination of gay Latino’s in San Francisco can be view
through the lens of intersectionality: overlapping or intersecting
social identities and related systems of oppression, domination, or
discrimination.
 In Latino/a culture, quite often people are faced with the double
oppression of not being represented in mainstream culture, and
not being accepted in their ethnic communities.
 Esta Noche was a place where being both gay and Latino was
celebrated.
Marsiglia, Flavio Francisco PhD. 1998. "Homosexuality and Latinos/as." Journal of Gay & Lesbian Social Services 8 (3): 113-125.
doi:10.1300/J041v08n03_09.

6.  Gay Latino men often faced discrimination from
within the gay community for their race.
 Gay and Latino men often faced a unique type of
discrimination from within their ethnic
communities for “violating gender roles”.
 Esta Noche provided gay Latino men with a space
to be themselves, where their sexuality and their
ethnicity could be celebrated at the same time.
 Being the first Latino Gay Bar in San Francisco, Esta
Noche should be recognized for creating a safe
space for those gay Latino men who had been
discriminated against in the “white” gay bars of
the Castro.
Marsiglia, Flavio Francisco PhD. 1998. "Homosexuality and Latinos/as." Journal of Gay &
Lesbian Social Services 8 (3): 113-125. doi:10.1300/J041v08n03_09.

7.  Esta Noche made it possible to create a Gay Latino community in the Mission, and
provided a place for organizing and fundraising, socializing and entertainment.
 "I know it got a lot of shit for being, you know,
Esta Noche and for being dive-y," says regular
performer Persia, "but that was my drag home.”
Persia called it home for over five years. And at
the height of its popularity, Esta Noche was
putting on up to six drag shows a week.
 Sadly, Esta Noche was forced to close its doors
in 2014 which has been another loss to the
LGBTQ community from gentrification.
Cramer, Laura Jaye. "Drag Queens Say Farewell to Mission Institution Esta Noche." SF Weekly. January 15, 2017. Accessed May 08, 2017.
http://archives.sfweekly.com/exhibitionist/2014/03/18/drag-queens-say-farewell-to-mission-institution-esta-noche.
Techzilla Citation: "KILL TECH ZILLA." Street Art SF. December 20, 2015. Accessed May 03, 2017. https://www.streetartsf.com/kill-tech-zilla/.

8.  The rapid loss of significant LGBTQ spaces is detrimental to LGBTQ history: “ since
the mirror of gentrification is representation in popular culture, increasingly only the
gentrified get their stories told in mass ways.They look in the mirror and and think
it’s a window , believing that corporate support for and inflation of their story is in
fact a neutral and accurate picture of the world.”
 That Tech-fueled gentrification is changing the mission at such a rapid rate that the
result would be fully erasing a community: “ the gentrification mentality is rooted in
the belief that obedience to consumer identity over recognition of lived experience
is actually normal, neutral and value free.”
 That the Latino Gay community is still fighting for recognition in mainstream culture.
“I’ve thought a lot about how Pulse’s Latin Night was just that: an autonomous safe
space for Latino Queers not in getting shelter from heterosexuals, but from a white
gay culture that doesn’t see them.”
Schulman, Sarah. 2012. The Gentrification of the Mind :Witness to a Lost Imagination. Berkeley: University of California Press.
http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=816157.
Johnson, E. Patrick, ed. 2016. No Tea, No Shade : NewWritings in Black Queer Studies. Durham: Duke University Press.
Thrasher, Steven W. "LGBT people of color refuse to be erased after Orlando: 'We have to elbow in'" The Guardian. June 18, 2016. Accessed
May 07, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/18/orlando-latino-lgbt-media-whitewash.

9.  “That being queer in Latino culture is hard enough as it is:“Barrio Queerness is
not a new concept or trend, it has always existed but has been silenced by
centuries of patriarchy and machismo that plague our communities.”
 “Why is the closing of Esta Noche so personal? I grew up as a first-generation
closeted gay kid stuck in an all-white Catholic school.When I first discovered
Selena, I became obsessed with her joie de vivre and her dedication to being
exactly who she was. She was proud of her heritage, a feeling I hadn’t come to yet.
I kept all of this secret from the kids at school; their mocking me for not taking the
same communion was enough.The idea that there was a place where you could be
exactly who you are and jam out to Selena was inconceivable to me.”
 Hemmelgarn, Seth. "The Bay Area Reporter Online | Gay mural defaced in SF's Mission district." Bay Area Reporter. June 25, 2015.
Accessed May 07, 2017. http://www.ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news&article=70690.
 Hapsis, Emmanuel. "KQED Public Media for Northern CA." KQED Public Media. February 27, 2014. Accessed February 27, 2017.
http://www.kqed.org/.

10.  “The venue, which for the past 33 years has catered to the queer
Latino crowd and played host to weekly drag shows, was a little
rough, for sure. Locals tell stories of walking by mid-afternoon and
catching glimpses of dudes blowing other dudes behind open
doors. But it's San Francisco.Wouldn't you be a little disappointed if
we couldn't stand some mid-day BJ action?”
Flores, Lori A. "Seeing Through Murals:The Future of Latino San Francisco." Boom California. March 28, 2017.
Accessed May 07, 2017. https://boomcalifornia.com/2017/03/06/seeing-through-murals-the-future-of-latino-san-
francisco/.

11. This was the site of the much-loved local bar Esta Noche, the longest running and most well-know
Latino/a gay men’s bar in the United States. Esta Noche was founded in 1979 by Anthony Lopez and
Manuel Ouijano, two openly gay and active members of GALA (The Gay Latino Alliance). They were
able to create a reputable safe space for gay Latino men to go. As a result, these men faced less
discrimination than many gay men of color had encountered in the white gay bars in the Castro, let
alone the discrimination within their own ethnic community. Esta Noche was well known for its
variety of vibrant entertainment, including salsa dancing, comedy bodega nights, and drag shows
featuring Persia, LuLu Rameriez, and Anna Conda. It was also a space where LGBTQ people could
gather, organize and host fundraisers for health clinics, people with AIDS, and other lower income
groups. It was a place that took great pride in caring for its Latino community and celebrated the
culture of the people in the surrounding Latino neighborhoods. In 2006, Esta Noche was nominated
as one of the organizations to be considered for the San Francisco Pride Marshals, an honor
presented to individuals or organizations within the LGBTQ community who have attempted to create
change and usually are local heroes who have fought for LGBTQ rights over the years. Although Esta
Noche was a well-loved neighborhood establishment, the bar was forced to shut its doors for good in
2014 due to gentrification in the neighborhood. While it may be difficult to commemorate this site to
the extent that it truly deserves, this plaque preserves Esta Noche’s important existence in LGBTQ
history.

12. Esta Noche should be recognized
as a historic landmark for its
contribution to the LGBTQ
community, for creating visibility to
the Latino gay community and for
creating a safe space that fostered
acceptance, creativity and love.