Around Latin America - Cuban Dissidents, Cross-Dressing, Scams, and Baseball

-Imprisoned Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo has died after an 80-day hunger strike. Tamayo, who was sentenced in 2003 to 3 years in prison for criticizing the government and whose sentence was later extended to 36 years, went on the strike to protest the conditions of and his treatment in prison.

-Pinochet may have been dead for over three years, but the legacies of his regime continue. This week, thirteen bodies of individuals killed during the Pinochet dictatorship and that had been buried in a abandoned mine were identified. The army under Pinochet executed the men, who included "a farmer and his four sons, day workers, and even a teenager caught smoking a joint."

-A group in Guyana is seeking to make cross-dressing in public legal. Currently, the act remains illegal, thanks to a colonial-era act outlawing it. argues that it is discriminatory against a social minority, and thus is unconstitutional. The Society Against Sexual Orientation Discrimination is representing gay and lesbian groups in the small country, and has filed its affidavit in the courts.

-Costa Rica likes to promote itself as a peaceful environmental paradise in Central America, an image that is central to its success as a tourist spot and an alluring site for ex-pats. However, as Peter reminds us, what's left out of that image is the presence of scammers who use that image to fleece ex-pats and foreigners.

-Finally, as the most wonderful time of the year (baseball season) approaches, The Latin Americanist points us towards this trailer for a documentary on Dominicans who hope to become professional ball-players in the MLB.

Uncovering Lesbian History, circa 1909

Larry Harnisch uncovers a real gem of a story from 1909. Two women in Los Angeles were arrested for dressing up as men. There were laws on the books against women dressing as men. One woman supposedly was going to ride the rails from LA to San Francisco to visit her husband. She figured she couldn't ride them in her dress so her and a friend dressed as men. Then they started drinking beer with some other women, made a lot of noise which caused someone to call the police, and then were discovered and arrested for violating the crossdressing ordinance.

This is an incredibly fascinating stuff. First, I don't believe the visiting the husband story for a minute. I suspect this was an alibi in case these women were caught by the police. Second, we know much more about gay history than lesbian history because gay men were harassed by police much more. Because gays and lesbians couldn't really talk about their lives publically in 1909, we don't know much about it except through police records. So to see more information uncovered about early 20th century lesbian history is fantastic. Even if these women were not lesbians and really were just dressing as men to ride the rails, we still have an anti-cross dressing law on the book that at least applied to women, if not men. The women were released by the cops, but only by promising to leave the city, which suggests that a) they were poor and b) the cops really did see them as a threat.

Great stuff, if sad as well.