Opothleyahola

Horacio N. Roque Ramírez (November 15, 1969 – December 25, 2015)^[1] was a Salvadoran American oral historian, writer and advocate whose work focused on LGBT Latino communities and the Central American experience in the United States. He was a faculty member in the Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara.^[2]

Early life

Roque Ramírez was born in Santa Ana, El Salvador. Fleeing the Salvadoran Civil War, he immigrated to Los Angeles at age 12, in 1981.^[3] He earned a B.A. in psychology and M.A. in history at UCLA, and a Ph.D. in Ethnic Studies from the University of California, Berkeley.^[4] He came out as a gay man in 1992.^[5]

Research

Roque Ramírez began his oral history work with San Francisco's queer Latina/o community, centered in the Mission District, as a doctoral student at UC Berkeley in the 1990s,^[5] working with activists and organizations including Diane Felix and Proyecto ContraSIDA por Vida, and documenting predecessor organizations such as the Gay Latino Alliance.^[6]

At the time of his death he was working on the book Queer Latino San Francisco: An Oral History, 1960s-1990s. He also served as an expert witness on political asylum and immigration.^[4]

Publications

• Alamilla Boyd, Nan, and Horacio N. Roque Ramírez. Bodies of Evidence: The Practice of Queer Oral History. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012.

References