María José
As I return back to this work of RAGGA NYC Features (interviews) I would like to thank the countless creatives, photographers and dreamers who believe in this mission and have made this project possible. It takes a village. When I started RAGGA I set out to find queer/ ally Caribbean icons who had been there the whole time on these dance floors and gallery openings with me in hidden, plain sight. Time and time again I kept finding out who was Puerto Rican but I never knew or who had Jamaican parents and just never spoke about it. These interviews are a way of archiving a community. Way of telling our own stories “for us by us”. It is a way of continuing to place our stake in the ground. We are here. We have been here. They will never erase us again.
For this beautiful interview Max Clemente (the talented photographer for this shoot), photo assistant Rey and I (Neon Christina founder of RAGGA NYC) meet at my studio while María was in NYC before she flew over to Paris. I connected with María many moons ago to talk about expanding the love and connection of our Caribbean queer dialogue to the actual Caribbean way before I started Connek Ja so this conversation like the others in the RAGGA Feature collection, is overdue.
Thank you for the transcript/ editing help on this Christopher Walker.
Christina: Hey boo. So what's your name and all that for the readers?
María José: My name is María José. I was born in Puerto Rico. I lived there until I was 18 and then I moved to New York. Most of my young adulthood was spent in New York. I do feel like I'm also from New York and now that I've been traveling it really feels like my “home” is my body. Even though I have strong roots in both Puerto Rico and New York, I sometimes do have the feeling of not really being from either or. In Paris, when I'm asked “êtes-vous américain?” I respond that I'm from a “colonie”.
Christina: There are two things I want to talk about before we talk about the ominous question of: what is your craft? Firstly, I'm so glad to mention the back and forth of needing to feel home in your body before you can really connect to land. These lands, our people and heritage can often carry so much baggage so it’s important to know where the boundary is between our community and ourselves if we are going to care full heartedly. I remember telling you and telling myself a while back especially this year… that “caretakers need care too”. Care and boundaries. It's tough to sow those two things into your life and build when you are working with traumatized communities, especially if you are a part of them. It's like, where is the line? Where's the line between you, yourself, your individuality, the community, this desire to help and still manifest self-care? It's not easy.
María José: It's hard. I thought Puerto Rico couldn't really contain me as an artist or as an individual when I was younger. I have always been a very creative, very feminine person. This very visibly queer person, but I didn't really have the language to describe my own experience or to define who I was. I didn't really know anything about trans identity. I only knew queer possibility within the frames of what I was witnessing in Puerto Rico. In New York I found so many realms of possibility within gender. However, in many ways, what I learned about identity in New York doesn't necessarily fit neatly with how those things operate within the island. It’s very surreal. Puerto Rico is a very surreal place. Understanding my identity has been a very strange process of having people project different identities onto me, and me trying to define myself within all of those projections. I'm certainly not rich enough to be traveling the world constantly or to easily sustain consistent and significant wealth redistribution, but I'm far from being poor. I'm not as “white” as white Americans, but I'm certainly not as “of color” as many people on my island. Then, within my transness also, it feels like I'm not necessarily very “woman”. I'm not necessarily very “man”. Not really “from New York '' or “from Puerto Rico”... It really has been a process of me, again, learning that I am at home in my own body and in my own definitions of who I am. I really have had to place the boundary. I cannot allow those projections to define me. It's up to me.
Christina: Do you feel like your craft and practice are doing the healing you need right now? Like what do you love to do? What are your passions that keep you whole?
María José: I’m a Libra! I love dreaming. I love dressing up. I love aesthetics. I love modeling. I love moving. I love photography. I love music. I love writing. I love art! I love weaving stunning audio-visuals, dreamscapes, fantasies, really - I love building worlds with my gifts.
Christina: Yes sis! That's why people gravitate to you. So many people are afraid to build the world and you aren’t. People are often afraid to dream and act on those dreams. Our own people can sometimes project limitations onto us intentionally and unintentionally. It can do damage if you don’t take time to cement yourself. To cement your practice and healing. I’ve seen that in my own life and practice. I always feel weird recounting how it will sometimes be indeed those in my own community who will make me a target but trauma has no bounds. This is why I find there never can be enough conversation around healing and self discovery. People will see you dream and sometimes that makes you an easy target. It's important that you set boundaries to protect yourself. Lord knows I’ve had to learn that the hard way. I can only imagine what that journey has been like for you as a doll in Puerto Rico.
María José: Girl. People feel so many ways about trans women, especially powerful trans women - trans women leaders. When trans women lead, subconsciously, I just feel like people try to tear us down. And when you are a doll, when you are a femme queen, a pretty bitch, many people can’t take it! But, my glamour is actually this tremendous effort that I put in to really live in my power. Trans women's beauty is oftentimes our labor. Time, sweat, tears and multiple attempts at choosing yourself when the world is telling you not to. Let me have my Kiki, because my Kiki is my dream.
And my dream is for the girls to Kiki.
Christina: Period! Plus, with everything you're saying, with everything that we do to hold on as “dreamers” or people who are making change happen: the most radical thing you can do sometimes is to just take care of your damn self. Cause you can't fight a war on zero. We are fully human and sometimes people forget that. Flawed and beautiful.
María José: Let me make mistakes. Let me just live my life. At the end of the day, I'm a Puerto Rican trans woman. I’m a target. I need to protect myself and live. And, yes, I might feel fear, but I will not run away from it. I will look at it straight in the eyes and be like, “Hello, my name is María and I'm beautiful.” / I'm here to make a difference, even if it is in my own liberation. Who was I the mother of first? Myself! I cannot forget me in the process of wanting to support others.
Christina: You have no idea how much this speaks to my soul. Thank you. So, what’s next for you in your practice and living in Puerto Rico? How do you build spiritually?
María José: I desire to build community in a more sustainable way now that I know what has to be at the center of all my relationships - authenticity, reciprocity, mutual support, and celebration. I want to nourish a space for the creation of art for the sake of creation. As a form of therapy. I want to create spaces for art making, art education and people finding their identities within art like I have.
Above all, I'm going to continue to choose to be THAT BITCH. To choose to be that girl when honestly it feels like no one's doing it for me… and, of course, I am more than willing to support others in their path of choosing to be that bitch too!
Christina: I can’t thank you enough for this talk today boo. It means a lot that you could be so vulnerable and honest with me as you enter the RAGGA family. I have so much love and respect for you. Continue to please take care of yourself for yourself and know that you are loved.
