Yolanda Valentino: reiterating and criticizing Latina stereotypes through drag performance

Abstract

This article explores the drag performance of Yolanda Valentino, a Brazilian woman, who self-identifies herself as white before migration and as racialized post-migration. Yolanda also self-identifies as a drag queen, in Canada, and, more precisely, The Hot Room, a queer and queer-friendly bar and nightclub. I emphasize Yolanda’s drag performance as it points to the larger issues that Latinas, as women from Latin America who share racialized commonalities, may experience in the city. Moreover, my interest consists in highlighting Latina stereotypes, as they represent an element of interest for studies on Latin America. I focus on her show based on Latina stereotypes - like the idea of Latinas as women who are only good for domestic work -, to analyze how such stereotypes are taken up in the nightlife of multicultural Ottawa, even in contradictory ways. I claim that the policy of multiculturalism has helped perpetuate Latina stereotypes in Ottawa with implications for queer/non-queer Latinas. Moreover, I use Gloria Anzaldúa’s (2012) border theory to analyze Yolanda’s drag performance as a performance able to challenge specific dominant social norms related to gender, race, class, and sexuality, as well as capable of contesting specific policies like the policy of multiculturalism and Ottawa’s status quo.