Las Biuty Queens

April 1, 2021
A Latinx writer and performer shares scenes from 1990s New York. Ojeda was born in Chile. After graduating from university, he/she (Ojeda identifies as both male and female and uses the pronoun he/she) immigrated to the United States. The stories in this collection are set in his/her new home in New York, and they are peopled by sex workers and drag performers. These stories are written in the first person, and when the narrator has a name, it's almost always Monalisa. There's nothing unusual, of course, about an author mining their own life for fiction. That said, these short works feel more like excerpts from a diary than stories with a narrative trajectory. What Ojeda presents, for the most part, is a series of things that happened. "In the Bote" relates the narrator's experience the first time they are put in prison for prostitution. This account will be instructive for anyone who has never spent time at Rikers Island, and there are certainly some details that most readers are unlikely to find elsewhere. The Chilean protagonist has been advised to give the police a fake Puerto Rican name because this is less likely to lead to involvement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Another Chilean inmate takes this first-timer under his wing and...that's about it. The narrator's friends get bail money together, and that's that. In "Ortiz Funeral Home," Monalisa goes to a friend's wake. There's a bit of drama when an unknown someone snatches a bag of cocaine out of the dead woman's hands, but Ojeda doesn't develop this detail--or any other element of the story--and the piece just keeps going until it stops. This formlessness is typical of the works gathered here. There are, however, instances when the writing transcends the recitation of facts. "Biuty Queen" is a monologue by a contestant about to participate in "the most important beauty pageant for transsexuals in all the United States." Deborah Hilton has won five crowns already, she has paid for her dresses and backup dancers with sex work, and she has zero regrets. "Obviously, it was worth it. The crown looks gorgeous on me." It's a pleasure to spend time inside the head of someone so emphatically herself. Ojeda shows readers a world that will be unfamiliar to many.

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April 19, 2021
Chilean American writer Ojeda (Never, Ever Ever, Coming Down) dazzles and devastates in this rich collection about a group of trans Latinx immigrants as they try to make it in New York City. Stories of drug addiction and police brutality, street queens and beauty contests portray the danger, decadence, and joy in the characters’ lives. “In the Bote” follows a sex worker arrested by the police and sent to Rikers Island (or “Las Rocas”), where their survival depends on finding a bed close to the guard’s station and befriending the right inmates. In “Emergency Room,” the protagonist goes to the emergency room when they hear voices, a result of smoking weed laced with PCP. The two-page opener “Overdose” brings ghostly images and aching spirituality to a protagonist’s visions brought on by crystal meth. While the characters face horrific hardships, usually at the hands of law enforcement and violent clients, members of their community keep them afloat. As one queen says while explaining that her father used to pay people to beat her up, “A queen is like a rubber ball. They can throw us out of moving cars, but we just bounce right back up on our feet and keep walking.” Throughout, Ojeda proves to be a captivating presence on the page.