GLLU Archives
The History Behind the Movement
Post Stonewall, Los Angeles saw the rise of many LGBTQ+ people of color organizations such as Gay & Lesbian Latinos Unidos (GLLU). GLLU’s members fully claimed their rich ethnic, gender, gender identity, multi-racial, and multi-geographic heritage, leaving none of it behind.
GLLU filled the void left by its Queer Anglo-focused counterparts, who mostly rallied around sexual orientation identity, with little attention to the dynamic and mushrooming diversity within its ranks and the diverse concerns that later shaped both the equality, women’s, and civil rights movements.
With a few exceptions, GLLU’s constituents at that time were also categorically marginalized by Latin/Chicano liberation movements and organizations, and frequently by their own birth families, having no place of their own to call home
The impact that its hundreds of members, now in their late 50s and 60s, have made in various fields including philanthropy, higher education, the arts, non-profit, healthcare, and the equality and civil rights movements to name a few.
The trajectory of this Latine Pride movement—a story that has never been told before in film and rarely mentioned in literature such as history books—left a rich leadership legacy that has barely been explored that included the founding of statewide and nationwide organizations, vibrant multi-gender artist collectives, the largest Latine HIV/AIDS provider in the nation.
Equally important, GLLU created a dynamic synthesis that was revolutionary for its time that not only affirmed but synergized the multiple identities of being LGBTQ+, Latino, immigrant and undocumented, class and color diversity, Latin American and Chicano nationalities, and trailblazing pioneers in empowering the blossoming Latine and Queer movements.