How these Latine drag kings took center stage

Backstage astatine the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre successful East Hollywood, resistance kings and queens bustled wrong the dressing room, making their transformations into glittering stars up of an April 22 revue titled “Living Legends of Drag: Stories of LGBTQ+ Artistry & Culture.”

“Five minutes to showtime,” said Lil Miss Hot Mess, resistance queen and hostess, arsenic Latine resistance kings El Daña and Manny Oakley readied themselves for the spotlight.

Elsie Saldaña — who goes by El Daña onstage — prays earlier each amusement she has performed since 1965. That day, El Daña said she was grateful to beryllium sharing the signifier with iconic legends of resistance successful Los Angeles.

But nary substance however agelong it has been, El Daña and Oakley some agreed: the nerves ne'er spell away.

“I’m 81. I anticipation my knees don’t [give] up,” said El Daña, clad successful achromatic from caput to toe. Last year, she was recognized arsenic the world’s oldest performing resistance king by the Guinness World Records.

“I’m 31 and I’m besides acrophobic of my knees,” said Oakley, close connected cue.

Manny Oakley, left, and El Daña backstage astatine the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre connected April 22.

(Ariana Drehsler / For De Los)

For resistance kings, who are usually assigned pistillate astatine commencement but play masculine characters, the creation signifier is much than conscionable a performance; it’s however they defy sex and taste norms. Once El Daña and Oakley measurement connected signifier for the show, resistance allows them to beryllium their freest selves.

“[Drag] is my escape,” said El Daña, a Mexican American girl of farmers, who is present based successful the metropolis of Clovis, Calif. “When I’m onstage, I hide everything else. I consciousness I’m a prima and I termination it each time.”

In a satellite wherever mainstream audiences look much captivated by the glitz and glam of resistance queens — take, for instance, the enduring popularity of the world TV amusement “RuPaul’s Drag Race” — arsenic a much masculine performer, El Daña has often felt pushed to the sidelines. Within the queer show scene, she said, resistance kings person often received small recognition, less opportunities and little monetary summation contempt contributing greatly to the creation signifier and the LGBTQ+ community.

But aft years of hard enactment arsenic a trailblazing “male impersonator,” and a decade-long hiatus owed to fiscal problems, the California king of resistance kings feels similar she is yet getting her flowers.

In 2024, El Daña received the Harvey Milk Community Leader Award for bringing visibility to the LGBTQ+ assemblage of the Central Valley. She co-founded the Sequoia Empire Court of Visalia and Tulare, a section of the Imperial Court System. Founded successful the Bay Area successful 1965, the enactment hosts resistance pageants to rise funds for the LGBTQ+ community, namely to assistance those contending with HIV/AIDS and homelessness.

At the tallness of the AIDS situation successful the 1980s, the enactment raised thousands of dollars for this origin done resistance shows, wherever El Daña competed and won the emperor’s rubric 3 times.

“A batch of my friends died. And astatine that time, I gave a lot. I gave a batch of my idiosyncratic time, each penny I had,” said El Daña, who worked a manufacturing occupation during the time to enactment her resistance vocation astatine the time.

After closing the amusement with her lip-synced show of “It’s Not Unusual,” by the lady-loving vocalist Tom Jones, El Daña received a lasting ovation.

That night, it seemed arsenic though El Daña’s decades of fostering pridefulness and unity wrong the LGBTQ+ assemblage were yet recognized — not lone by the queer rights organizations that hosted the event, specified arsenic the One Institute and the California LGBT Arts Alliance — but by a younger procreation of resistance kings, similar Oakley.

“To the caller kings, the young generation, I privation them the best,” El Daña said. “If anyone comes on and is trying to propulsion you aside, don’t let it. Just beryllium beardown and beryllium successful the halfway signifier and regularisation it. Be benignant to everyone. Be gentle and assistance 1 another.”

El Daña dressed arsenic Tom Jones portion lip-syncing his mentation of “Kiss.”

(Ariana Drehsler / For De Los)

At the show, Oakley graced the signifier with her flamboyant charisma and energetic creation moves during her show of “Chicken Fried” by Zac Brown Band. The Western-inspired resistance king felt compelled to execute state songs aft surviving successful Tennessee for six years.

“A batch of radical truly respond to my drag, specifically due to the fact that I americium a Latino doing state drag. Other radical of colour felt precise akin to me, [in] that they [felt similar they] weren’t allowed to similar country. After seeing my drag, [they’re] fixed a abstraction to bask it,” said Oakley, the girl of Cuban immigrants.

For Oakley, being a resistance king is astir challenging masculinity alternatively than impersonating someone, which is what older antheral impersonators person traditionally done.

Manny Oakley’s show astatine the Barnsdall Gallery Theatre connected April 22.

(Ariana Drehsler / For De Los)

With her bold bluish oculus shadiness and painted achromatic mustache, Oakley wants to not lone wage homage to the Black trans queens who brought her to the resistance country successful 2018, but besides face sex norms wrong the resistance community.

“It utilized to beryllium precise acceptable successful stone,” Oakley said. “Now a batch of radical privation self-expression retired of drag. They privation to represent their ain creator endowment done drag, alternatively than conscionable emulating someone.”

Manny Oakley puts connected constitution backstage earlier performing.

(Ariana Drehsler / For De Los)

Her enactment goes beyond the stage. As an American Library Assn. accredited librarian, Oakley founded the LA Drag Archive, a carnal and integer postulation of resistance and gender-variant performances, to grant and sphere the bequest of the creation form. Oakley believes that signaling past empowers her community.

“It’s truthful casual for the absorption to say, ‘Well, this is conscionable a caller fad. Trans radical are conscionable coming retired of nowhere. This ne'er existed before.’ We person truthful overmuch recorded past of trans radical surviving from the dawn of time. We tin constituent to that recorded past and say, ‘No, that’s not true,’” Oakley said.

During 1 of her conversations with “Mama Daña” earlier the show, Oakley assured the elder icon that her contributions to the LGBTQ+ assemblage are “not mislaid and forgotten.”

“We would not person gotten retired of the AIDS situation if it were not for lesbians similar you who truly were there, laying down the groundwork, warring that bastard Reagan,” Oakley said.

Younger resistance kings similar her are capable to look up to and larn from El Daña due to the fact that her enactment was decently recorded, she added.

With her archive, Oakley wants to papers resistance performers, particularly arsenic the creation signifier faces scrutiny nether the Trump medication and censorship connected societal media platforms. In that way, she hopes to animate the adjacent procreation of resistance kings to support dancing done hard times.