Celebrating Latinx Art and Activism with Laya Monarez

In honor of Latinx Heritage Month in the United States, I interviewed Laya Monarez, a Latinx, Chicana, transgender bisexual artist and activist from Washington, DC. Amongst other achievements, she spoke at the White House in 2016, has painted several public murals in DC, and has been working with DC City Council members to pass a sex work decriminalization bill.

Laya has been a longtime friend, and has inspired me as a Latinx transgender woman myself. We have worked alongside each other advocating for social justice, painted together, and even skated on the same roller derby league, the DC Rollergirls. In this interview, we talked about her activism, her heritage, and her artwork — which can be found on her site LayaMonarez.com.

So why do you use the term Latinx?

For me using Latinx [instead of Hispanic] is a way to celebrate my heritage in a way that de-centers colonization, and allows me to celebrate my indigenous roots and not just my Spanish heritage. I know my father’s side of my family is Tarahumara, and my mother’s side is Tepehuán.

I often feel disconnected from their cultures because their histories were destroyed from genocide, their statues being melted for gold, and all the other effects of colonization. The “x” is Latinx is also a way to de-gender the language, and make it open to non-binary people. To me I also like how it is reminiscent of how Malcolm X used “X” in his name to signify how he felt disconnected to his origins through slavery.

You also identify as Chicana; what does that mean to you?

Well, Latinx is an umbrella term, but Chicana recognizes how my family is from the region known as Mexico. It originally referred to Mexican Americans of mixed race, which is true for me. My father also used the term, as part of the Chicano activist movement in El Paso Texas in the 1970s. For example, they fought to stop professors from beating students when they spoke Spanish. Many African-American activists also joined the fight with the Chicano activists.

Do you have any Latinx/Chicano role models?

Frida Kahlo big influence on my life, as she is a Mexican artist from the capital and she is bisexual like me. I liked that she would wear suits and was somewhat non-binary. She’s someone who makes me feel I’m not alone. In the present I’d say Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the youngest senators ever elected. She makes me feel like I’m not too young to become a politician, gives me hope that the future of politics can be Brown.

Does your Latinx/Chicana heritage influence your art?

When I was a teen and studying art history, I noticed most was western European art. And I realized there wasn’t a lot of Meso-American or African art. So I wanted to make a point as an artist to reference indigenous Mexican art in my art.

I have painted several murals in Washington, DC, including at the ParkView Rec Center, the Pinch nightclub, the Smithsonian National Zoo, and the Latin-American Youth Center — although the last two are no longer there. I also restored a mural by a Salvadorean artist Jorge Sam on Klingle Road. Whenever I’ve worked on these murals, I think of the famous Mexican muralists including Diego Rivera, who was married to Frida Kahlo.

What would you like to change for the Latinx community?

I wish we had more cultural representation in TV and movies. I just re-watched Rambo, and there are more Mexicans in that movie than most I’ve ever seen! But one thing I noticed in Rambo was that all the “good” Mexican characters in Rambo were lighter skin, whereas Mexicans with darker skin like me are always portrayed as the villains. I’m tired of Mexicans in general being portrayed as violent gangsters, like drug cartels. Hollywood needs to hire more real Latinx characters, especially brown and indigenous characters. That said, two movies I think that were really good for our community were Coco and the Book of Life.

As for what I’d change politically, I’d like more positive attention the issues of immigration. The process should be made easier and more just.  Many immigrant families struggle because it’s hard to have enough money, and to have the proper documents. While I support any and all immigrants. I also hope that we can work with Mexico and other Latin American countries to better their economies. I don’t want families from neighboring countries to feel they have to come to the United States for jobs and security.

You believe in decriminalizing sex work, especially from your experience as a former sex worker; can you talk about that?

I’ve spoken many times publicly about decriminalizing sex work here in DC. In particular I have been working to pass the bill introduced by David Grosso. Decriminalizing sex work will particularly affect trans women, as many face workplace discrimination and/or are unemployed, so they do sex work to pay the bills. This is particularly true for Latinx trans women and immigrants.

This is a personal subject for me because I’d faced violence a lot while doing sex work, which I did when I was financially struggling. I often felt unsafe, and several times my clients tried to harm me (Laya described in an interview with WTOP being stabbed several times, beaten and chased by a car). Laya described in an interview that she has been. Because sex work is criminalized, I could never report the people who tried to harm me, which means they can harm others. The police are supposed to keep people safe, but that’s not true for sex workers.

A lot of people also don’t distinguish between sex work and sex trafficking. If I ever saw someone being trafficked, I couldn’t report it to the police. Sex work decriminalization would help stop trafficking. It would also help people leave “pimps” who might be bullying and harassing them, which they deal with because they’re afraid they won’t have any protection from violence.

What gives you hope for the future for the Latinx community?

Well, recently I went to visit my family in El Paso Texas for a Quinceañera. A week before I arrived, there was a mass shooting there — someone drove 12 hours just to kill Latinx people in a Wal-mart.

While this was horrible, what came from that tragedy was a feeling of hope from people backing my community. A lot of non-Latinx people went to their funerals. I was really moved by the support that came from other communities.

What also gives me hope is seeing a lot of Latinx people and Native American/Indigenous people rise to political positions in recent elections. As a transgender person, I also was really excited by the National Trans march on the mall on Saturday September 18, 2019. I was really proud to help represent Trans Latinx people there!

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You can see more of Laya Monarez’s art at LayaMonarez.com