Dear Center Community,
My name is Psyche Calderon Vargas (ella/she/her), Director of Latin@x Services at The Center, and your guest author this week. As we celebrate Hispanic Latin@x Heritage Month from September 15 to October 15, I am proud to uplift our LGBTQ+ Latin@x community here in San Diego and the support The Center offers through Spanish-language services across our entire organization, as well as Latin@x Services at The Center, which now includes our new Healing Rainbows support group beginning September 19!
At The Center, we recognize that terms like Hispanic, Latino, Latina, Latinx, and Latine all carry complex histories. Some were imposed by governments and systems of power, while others were reclaimed by our communities to reflect our realities. No single word can capture the richness and diversity of our people. Instead, we must learn to decolonize our language and honor the identities that each person chooses.
As we celebrate Hispanic Latin@x Heritage Month, we say “Latina” to honor the mujeres (women); we say “Latine” to honor our nonbinary family; and we say “Latino” for those who choose that identity. Alone, each word can erase, but together, they honor our multiplicity—Indigenous, Afrodescendant, queer, trans, migrant, and more. Language is alive, and we embrace it as part of our ongoing work to decolonize, resist erasure, and affirm the full spectrum of our identities.
Supporting our diverse LGBTQ+ Latin@x community here in San Diego also requires diverse resources and support. Nearly 35% of the population in San Diego County is Latin@x or Hispanic and over 25% of people in San Diego County speak Spanish at home, according to the U.S. Census. For this reason, The Center ensures many of our programs and our signage are accessible in Spanish. We also provided dedicated services and programs through Latin@x Services at The Center, which was founded in 2004 as the first program of its kind in the nation to provide this support to the Latin@x LGBTQ+ community. Generations of community members have shaped it into a welcoming, culturally rooted space where LGBTQ+ Latin@x people can thrive, whether that’s through community celebrations and regular support groups or access to critical resources like HIV support and immigration assistance.
This month, Latin@x Services at The Center is proud to launch, Healing Rainbows, a bilingual discussion group for trans and gender-expansive adults, provided in partnership with the Transgender Health & Wellness Center. The group will meet for the first time on September 19 from 4-7pm and recur every third Friday at The Center, offering a vital new space for connection, affirmation, and healing.
This resource is especially urgent in the current political climate, where immigrants and transgender people continue to be targeted. Being near the U.S.–Mexico border, many Latin@x community members in our region are immigrants themselves or have loved ones who are. At The Center, we respond with compassion and action: providing housing, legal resources, case management, and support for LGBTQ+ asylum seekers, while strengthening cross-border partnerships to extend our reach binationally. Healing Rainbows is yet another facet of our efforts to honor intersecting identities and expand resources for our Latin@x community through meaningful partnerships with other organizations. I hope you will take advantage of this new support group and join us!
This Hispanic Latin@x Heritage Month, we celebrate not only our history but also our resilience, our culture, and our future. We will continue to uplift and protect the Latin@x LGBTQ+ community here in San Diego and beyond.
En comunidad,
Psyche Calderon Vargas (Ella/She/Her)
Director of Latin@x Services
P.S. The Center’s Community Advisory Committees (CACs) support the programs and services and advance the mission of The Center. We are now processing applications for the Project TRANS Community Advisory Committee and the Laitn@x Services Community Advisory Committee.
Visit https://thecentersd.org/cac for more information.