A one-man show opens and closes on Friday at the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center.
Right out the gate, Dan Guerrero is pretty much impossible to dislike and his revelations run as a funny stream of consciousness. He talks about how television had begun to highlight gay characters long before they did Latino ones.
"Did I ever think that I'd see gay characters on TV before I'd see Latinos? There were more gays on; I never would've dreamed that!" he laughed. "And I started looking at those two worlds and that's when that word hit me."
That word was "Gaytino," and that's the name of his one-man show describing his identity as both a gay man and someone of Latino heritage. That show stands at the intersection of musical entertainment and history. Guerrero knows the history behind the movement. He was there for part of it.
"Cesar Chavez, who I knew well, said that gay men and lesbian women marched right alongside him in those most dangerous days of the UFW," he said, referencing the United Farm Workers movement.
Guerrero is bringing the part-historical, part-musical, part comedy show Friday night to the Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center.
"It's really fun! Don't think you're going to be lectured and I don't beat my breast and say how sad it is to be both those thing at all! It's funny. There's music, there's dancing. It's obviously all in English because that's my primary language. It's a personal look at those two worlds but in a very entertaining way," he said.
As it turns out, Guererro has a genetic pre-disposition towards the arts.
"My dad was known as the father of Chicano music — Lalo Guerrero — National Medal of the Arts recipient and so he's very much featured," he said.
Rear-screen projections and musical recordings help Dan tell his story, which also highlights a boyhood best friend, Carlos Almaraz.
"Who grew up to be one of the leaders of the Chicano Art Movement," he recalled.
He says the history in the one-man show is served up with heaping helpings of one other thing:
"It really is lots of fun!"
Find more on Gaytino here.
Find more on Dan Guerrero here.
