The story of En La Vida: How a community newspaper amplified Chicago’s queer Latino voices

In 1996, a group of queer Latino writers in Chicago launched En La Vida, a groundbreaking monthly newspaper that gave voice to a community often overlooked—even within LGBTQ+ spaces. 

Covering politics, poetry, arts and activism, En La Vida ran from 1996 to 2002 and left a legacy still felt today.

The original En La Vida newspaper covered all things queer and Latino in Chicago, and nationally and internationally. Filled with everything from arts and features to intense political Q&A’s to heartfelt poetry, the publication brought Chicago’s queer Latinos together and gave people a place to find others like them. Now it stands as a snapshot of late-1990s life in the community. 

Following the creation of BLACKlines—the newspaper for Black LGBTQ+ Chicagoans that also ran from 1996-2002—a group of LGBTQ+-identifying Latino people wanted to create a similar publication for their own community. Among them was Robert Castillo, who said there was a lot of community organizing going on at that time, which included groups like ALMA and Amigas Latinas.

“Without those organizations, the publications may not have needed to exist,” said Windy City Times co-founder and owner Tracy Baim, who edited and published the En La Vida newspaper. “There was this growth that was happening in the movement, diversifying across various identities. And it was just natural for us to have the ability to cover those groups.”

Baim said En La Vida’s creation happened organically because her publications Nightlines and Outlines were already reporting on and invested in minority communities. She said by creating BLACKlines and En La Vida, she and her colleagues were able to give more space to and take on more contributors from those communities. 

As far as the name, Castillo said they came up with En La Vida simply by translating the phrase “in the life” to Spanish, hoping to offer a look into queer Latino life in Chicago. Some others involved in the newspaper’s creation included Osvaldo del Valle, Luz Chavez and Edgar “Ziggy” Gutierrez.

Initially, Castillo worked within the advertising sector and wanted to aim for Latino advertisers. Then, after recruiting regular advertisers and contributors, he shifted to focus more on writing stories and doing interviews. For him, this meant a focus on political topics.

Castillo, a 2001 inductee to the Chicago LGBT Hall of Fame, now has decades of experience working on grassroots movements in the community. He’s been involved with various activist organizations and hosted events around the city for queer Latinos about HIV/AIDS, community history, hate crimes and more. 

“That was my focus with En La Vida,” he said. “I wanted to get Latino politicians on record, especially ones that people said were homophobic.”

As someone who’s spent much of his life engaging in the political sphere, Castillo said En La Vida provided him “another outlet” to be politically engaged. He interviewed state senators, a city treasurer and aldermen, asking them important questions on LGBT+ rights, HIV funding and more. Although some sources were harder to track down, Castillo said he was never deterred by people who resisted.

One of Castillo’s favorite interviews and memories came from trying to interview former 31st Ward Ald. Ray Suarez, he said. Castillo said Suarez kept making excuses and wouldn’t agree to do an interview with him—until Castillo showed up one night to the alderman’s open hours and interviewed Suarez. Castillo said Suarez even ended up giving him a ride home after.

Other big stories in En La vida included coverage of the Chicago conference hosted by LLEGÓ, an organization for LGBTQ+ Latinos, and the events associated with it. En La Vida also covered World AIDS Day and the Puerto Rican Cultural Center’s march through Humboldt Park.

“There’s life west of Halsted,” Castillo said. “I think that was one of the other things that I wanted to do, shine the light outside of Lakeview and say, ‘Hey, look, there’s vibrant communities existing outside of Lakeview that are doing really cool LGBTQ+ things.’” 

Del Valle, who got involved by writing for En La Vida during his senior year at University of Illinois Chicago, said being involved with the paper made him a more active participant in his community. Del Valle said once he started writing and meeting folks in the city, he joined Chicago’s Commission on Human Relations’ Advisory Council on LGBTQ+ Initiatives. 

Del Valle said the community took to En La Vida quickly. With people working in communities around the city—from Pilsen to Little Village and to the South Side—del Valle said it was nice to have a publication that connected everyone. Del Vallle said En La Vida was a “centerpiece” of the Latino queer community and something he felt created a “legitimization” of them. 

“Our voices were not heard at all,” del Valle said. “So to have a dedicated publication, [that] had not occurred before—it was something that was special for all of us.” 

Baim said she recently met a Latino immigrant who told her En La Vida helped him find a place in the community when he moved to Chicago 35 years ago.

En La Vida’s reach was deep, Baim said. The publication was read by politicians, cultural institutions and more. Mainstream media, including the Oprah Winfrey Show, would sometimes call En La Vida’s team in search of people to interview or guest on their show.

Castillo said he also enjoyed how the newspaper had something for everyone, allowing people to be engaged in the community even if they weren’t caught up with or familiar with those issues. 

“I love it, because there were so many different viewpoints in there,” Castillo said. “We had poetry, we had opinion pieces, we had political stuff, we had listings of events coming up. So it was a good way for the community to find out what was going on.” 

Del Valle wrote for the poetry section at one point and said he liked how it gave the paper a “literary slant.” He also enjoyed how the poems’ themes often covered sensitive or romantic queer topics, such as coming out, lost love or resistance. 

Baim said when it came to the actual design aspect of the newspaper, there weren’t enough resources to really move the needle with the layouts. However, she said they always tried to highlight diversity in the images and covers they chose, making sure they had representation for marginalized groups such as women and trans people.

Sometimes, those decisions led to questions or backlash from cisgender white gay men, she said. But the publication never backed down, continuing to feature all sorts of people and identities on the covers. 

Baim said the newspaper was distributed in bars, bookstores, and anywhere they could find space—reaching as many as 10,000 copies per month. They were also far-reaching, with Del Valle finding copies with people in New York City and Washington D.C. 

Now, En La Vida has returned as a monthly digital newsletter published by Windy City Times, building on the rich legacy of its original newspaper. Each monthly newsletter offers a glimpse into En La Vida’s archives, but Baim said she’s looking for other ways to honor that legacy, including potentially selling physical or digital copies of its archival stories.

“We’re going to say, ‘Own Your History,’” Baim said. “We want to disperse our history across the masses because the internet could go down at any point. Part of it is incumbent upon us, I think, with this new newsletter to make sure that new generations know there’s a decade worth of content.” 

Baim said having En La Vida to physically document shifts in the community was important because a website can now easily be lost or deleted. She said it’s special to be able to look back at those early issues and see interviews with people who are now running organizations or in higher political positions.

“We were riding the wave [of change], and we were reflecting the community back to itself,” Baim said. “Back then, you can’t underestimate the impact of actually seeing yourself reflected in the pages, either your actual person or someone like you.”