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Gil Cuadros was a gay Latino poet, essayist, as well as a ceramist from Montebello, California known for his writing on the impact of AIDS.
Contents
City of god trailer
Biography
While Cuadros grew up in Montebello, his parents were from Northern California. He did not have a close relationship with his father. He attended Schurr High School where he met Laura Aguilar. Cuadros was 15 when he met seventeen-year-old Laura Aguilar in photography class. Laura and Gil were close friends throughout high school and remained so after highschool. After highschool, Gil Cuadros attended East Los Angeles Community College for one year before transferring to Pasadena City College. Cuadros worked at a photo lab where he met his lover, John Edward Milosch. In 1987, Cuadros' lover, John, died and Cuadros was diagnosed with AIDS the same year. After John's death, Cuadros found it difficult to bear with the reality of AIDS. Laura would encourage Cuadros by bringing flyers to attend one of Terry Wolverton's writing workshops for people with HIV at the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Center. He eventually attended a workshop and met Terry in 1988. The workshop ignited a passion to write for himself and for his lover, John. Cuadros claimed the disease influenced his artwork. Despite being told that he had 6 months to live, Cuadros lived for another 8 years. Cuadros claimed, "writing literally saved my life or at least extended my life." A few years later, Cuadros’ only book, "City of God" was published in 1994. Before his book was published in 1994, Gil Cuadros won the Brody Literature Fellowship in 1991 and he was one of the first recipients of PEN Center USA/West grants to writers with HIV. These nonprofit organizations provided Cuadros with financial and emotional support. Cuadros also received support and guidance from his teacher, Terry Wolverton, who stood by him during difficult times as well as joyful ones. Shortly after City of God (1994) was published, Cuadros died of AIDS at the age of 34 on August 29, 1996. In a dissertation that was supervised by renowned specialists in the field, Jose Esteban Muñoz and Tavia Nyong'o at NYU Performance Studies, Joshua Guzman writes that Cuadros' literature was able to make an influential impact to the history of AIDS by providing a testimonial that "explores the impact that AIDS has had on the gay Chicano community."
Themes
Cuadros' only published full-length work of fiction, "City of God", and other of his works are the first their kind to serve as testimonials for Chicanos with AIDS. Throughout his works and especially in City of God (1994), Cuadros gives visibility to two identities that are often denied within the Chicano community: homosexuality and having AIDS. Cuadros plays on the themes of sex, death, and home.
Commentaries
José Monteagudo, Rafael Ocasio, Raúl Homero Villa, and Rafael Pérez-Torres have expressed that Gil Cuadros work has yet to be recognized and valued. Raúl Homero Villa has expressed that Cuadros literary output has given readers queer insights into the changing space of East Los Angeles as well as its "fractured Chicano geography." José Monteagudo has dedicated his time in producing a review of City of God (1994). Rafael Ocasion argued that the AIDS testimonial of Cuadros' and Cuban exile writer, Reinaldo Arenas, have both provided their respective communities narratives a "foundation" served to empower. Rafael Pérez-Torres has asserted that Cuadros' work "is illustrative of the vexed intersection of race and queer sexuality."
City of God (1994)
Gil Cuadros' only published book, City of God (1994) consists of fictional short stories and poems. The title of the book derives from Saint Augustine's City of God, published in 426 AD. The book is thematically broken into three groups of three. Each group depicts different ages and phases of a single life lived by different characters. The first three stories "Indulgences", "Reynaldo", and "Chilvalry" talk about issues of origin. That is, how childhood experiences shape "sexual and gender identification". Furthermore, these first three stories depict the Chicano family and growing up queer in Los Angeles. The next group, "My Aztlan: White Place", "Unprotected", and "Holy" speak about the difficulties that arise when homosexuality intersects with the Chicano self such as familial opposition. The last three stories "Baptism", "Letting Go", and "Sight" discusses the transformation the Chicano body undergoes as it faces the effects of a ravaging disease. The book, Rafael Pérez-Torres states, that the stories trace the "development and transformation of a new mestizo subject, one forced to accommodate an ethnic identity and experience with an alienating but crucial sexual identity". Overall, City of God (1994) provides its readers a better understand of the historical background of AIDS in the United States during the 1980-1990s. Beyond that, City of God (1994) presents its readers a unique perspective of gay history through the Chicano Movement.
AIDS and Los Angeles
The book not only depicts the characters' experiences shaped by their surroundings but also readers see that characters "merge with the city." For Cuadros (fictional character), the city is his Aztlán, or Mecca. Although Aztlán refers to the mythical Aztec homeland that the Chicano Movement in the 1960-1970s to ascribed to as a place of communal belonging, Cuadros paints Aztlán, or Los Angeles, as a dystopia. In the story, any representations of Los Angeles are analogous to that of the character's AIDS-infected body. For example, "I look like the city, / only bare bones of what I used to be." Los Angeles is also portrayed through Saint Augustine's "earthly city of eternal misery." The queer community in Los Angeles is also depicted to reflect the dominant culture of the white middle class.