Listening Room: Oral Histories
Storytelling with original Radio GLLU show hosts and contributors - discover the backstories of queer community organizers in the 1980s and 1990s.
Radio GLLU Hosts Rita Gonzales and Eduardo Archuleta Oral History | Transcript
Everybody is somebody. We all have a story.
Everybody is somebody. We all have a story.
Rita Gonzales is an activist and radio professional with decades of experience as an editor, producer, engineer, and board operator. Since her time at GLLU, she has served on Boards and committees at numerous Los Angeles-based nonprofits and received many awards for her activism. She currently chairs the Board of Directors for Bienestar and is co-producer of a new LGBT KPFK radio webcast program called “The Out Agenda.”
It really was like finding home.
It really was like finding home.
Eduardo Archuleta is an activist and community organizer who was involved in Radio GLLU from its inception. During the late 1990s, Archuleta was also part of a group of Latino Gay men who created HIV prevention programs for Spanish-speaking gay men in Long Beach, CA with support from The Center Behavioral Research and Services from California State University, Long Beach.
All of us were fearless.
All of us were fearless.
Louis Jacinto is a photographer and community organizer known for his iconic images of the late 1970’s Punk Rock music scene in Los Angeles. In 2011, Jacinto launched onodream MAGAZINE, which publishes feature issues on an artist and their work, and in 2020, he was named a 2020 Cultural Trailblazer by the City of Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.
Louis Jacinto Oral History | Transcript
We were in many ways making history.
We were in many ways making history.
Roland Palencia is one of the pioneering activists of the greater Los Angeles area’s LGBTQ Latine movement, co-founding Gay and Lesbian Latinos Unidos (GLLU) and VIVA! in the early 1980’s. Palencia serves on the Board of Directors of One Institute. Palencia is also a Professor at California State University Northridge (CSUN) and recently served as Executive Producer of two documentary Films: TransVisible: Bamby Salcedo’s Story and UNIDAD: Gay & Lesbian Latinos Unidos, which chronicles the legacy GLLU.
Roland Palencia Oral History | Transcript
“Amazingly, we're recording the history that happened before us, but we're not recording our own history, because we were in many ways making history. It was a novelty to see so many queer Latinas and Latinos and to have that reaffirmation that you're not the only one, that there were a lot of people like you.”
— Roland Palencia
Polaroid photos and video by Ángel Labarthe del Solar.
Collage image by Saphir Davis.
Oral history interviews conducted by Ángel Labarthe del Solar.
Radio GLLU Oral Histories
Produced and sound designed by Umi Hsu.
Edited by Shei Yu.