Jotxs y Recuerdos: Podcast Archives Queer History in the Rio Grande Valley

By Yvonne S. Marquez

For many queer millennials, taking selfies can be a form of resistance. In a time when queer people are still discriminated against and denied legal protections, documenting our existence is vital to controlling our own narratives.

But what was it like for LGBTQ people before photos could be readily shared and made visible on social media? Their pictures—which were often the only proof of them living their queer truths—must have meant something so much more. What were their lives like and what did it take to survive when it was dangerous to be out?

Rio Grande Valley native Alexandra Nichole Salazar Vasquez explores those questions and more in her podcast, Jotxs y Recuerdos. In Jotxs, Salazar Vasquez interviews LGBTQ people from the Valley and gives her audience a snapshot of queer life in the border region. Through her interviews, she also highlights queer spaces and social movements within the area. “I wanted to create a resource for people and to show what it’s like to be queer, gay, trans, lesbian, or bisexual in the Rio Grande Valley, and what that looks like from our view, our lens,” she says. “I hope people can latch on to this and can see themselves in it.”

Salazar Vasquez, a queer Chicana, grew up in Pharr, Texas, a small town on the Texas-Mexico border with her then lesbian-identified parents (one of her parents has since come out as a trans man). “It was beautiful in a lot of ways, but difficult too,” she says of her upbringing. She craved to see her experience of being raised by two gay Mexican parents reflected in the media, but never found such representation. That void continues to fuel her desire to bring visibility to her community.

However, it wasn’t until she moved to New York for college that Salazar Vasquez embraced her own queer identity. Her delay, she says, was out of fear that others would assume she was gay simply because she had gay parents.

During her time in New York, Salazar Vasquez attended a performance by lesbian comedian Marga Gomez. In her show, Gomez described how, back in the day, gay clubs would snap Polaroid pictures of patrons upon arrival—a little souvenir to remember the night. It was then that Salazar Vasquez remembered seeing old Polaroids of her parents lying around their home—her dad in a button-up shirt, white cowboy hat, and boots, and her mom wearing brown lipstick, hoops, and heels, both ready to dance the night away to Tejano music. Salazar Vasquez instantly knew she wanted to collect these photos, document the memories behind them, and share their stories with others.

The podcast’s name is a play on words inspired by Selena’s 1995 hit song “Fotos y Recuerdos,” which tells the story of an unrequited love and its remnants that are kept alive through photos and memories. To pay homage to the times when Polaroids were taken at gay clubs, Salazar Vasquez takes a photo with her instant camera of each person she interviews for Jotxs—immortalizing the moment in an unedited fashion.

Information about queer theory, history, or culture is not easily accessible for many LGBTQ people in the Valley. Students are not taught about queer identity in public high school, which is usually the only education attainable for most people in the region. For a variety of socioeconomic reasons, the majority of high school students who do graduate don’t continue on to attend a four-year university. Because of this, many queer youth in the Valley never learn the language to describe what they’ve always known about themselves.

With this in mind, Salazar Vasquez decided she wanted her podcast to serve as a resource for all ages in the Valley. “For me, my podcast is a way to give back to and to empower my community,” she says. In the first episode of Jotxs, she defines every letter in the LGBTQIA acronym, explains the concepts of sexuality and gender, and gives context to the title of her podcast. Just as the words “queer” and “dyke” have been transformed from slurs to reclaimed words of empowerment, Salazar Vasquez wants to reclaim the Spanish word “jotx,” which is the non-gendered spelling of “joto” or “jota,” generally meaning “faggot.”

Although they are no longer together, Salazar Vasquez also wanted to document her parents’ queer lived experiences through the podcast. She dedicates one episode to her high femme mom, and another to her trans dad. She notes that the podcast gave her an opportunity to have some deep, eye–opening conversations with her parents, and that they all learned a lot about one another. “My mom didn’t know that [when I was growing up] people would say nasty things like ‘Niki‘s parents are dykes,’ and meant it in a derogatory way,” she explains.

In her mom’s episode, Salazar Vasquez reveals that she was ashamed when her parents would attend her school events because of the dirty looks people would give her dad—a then masculine-of-center lesbian. Her mom details the homophobia she and Salazar Vasquez’s dad endured during the ‘90s, including having their marriage request denied by every Catholic church they asked.

Her dad shares a sweet moment in his episode. “One of my favorite things [my dad] told me was that when he was younger, his parents would give the girls dolls and the boys would receive toy guns,” Salazar Vasquez says. “One year, he got a toy gun and he was so happy. For him, it was like ‘Oh my god, my parents see me.’”

Salazar Vasquez now lives with her girlfriend in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She plans to pursue a PhD in Queer Chicanx studies and is looking forward to sharing even more LGBTQ stories on the podcast. “I hope to put the Valley on the map because not a lot of people know where or what the Valley is,” she says. “I love hearing our stories and our experiences and what it means to be gay, Mexican, and in a fucking border town. I don’t want anyone else to tell it. It needs to be from us.”

Jotxs y Recuerdos is under Neta, a bilingual multimedia platform based in the Rio Grande Valley. You can check out all episodes on iTunes.