LAS BIUTY QUEENS

A Latinx writer and performer shares scenes from 1990s New York.

Ojeda was born in Chile. After graduating from university, he/she (Ojeda identifies as both male and female and uses the pronoun he/she) immigrated to the United States. The stories in this collection are set in his/her new home in New York, and they are peopled by sex workers and drag performers. These stories are written in the first person, and when the narrator has a name, it’s almost always Monalisa. There’s nothing unusual, of course, about an author mining their own life for fiction. That said, these short works feel more like excerpts from a diary than stories with a narrative trajectory. What Ojeda presents, for the most part, is a series of things that happened. “In the Bote” relates the narrator’s experience the first time they are put in prison for prostitution. This account will be instructive for anyone who has never spent time at Rikers Island, and there are certainly some details that most readers are unlikely to find elsewhere. The Chilean protagonist has been advised to give the police a fake Puerto Rican name because this is less likely to lead to involvement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Another Chilean inmate takes this first-timer under his wing and…that’s about it. The narrator’s friends get bail money together, and that’s that. In “Ortiz Funeral Home,” Monalisa goes to a friend’s wake. There’s a bit of drama when an unknown someone snatches a bag of cocaine out of the dead woman’s hands, but Ojeda doesn’t develop this detail—or any other element of the story—and the piece just keeps going until it stops. This formlessness is typical of the works gathered here. There are, however, instances when the writing transcends the recitation of facts. “Biuty Queen” is a monologue by a contestant about to participate in “the most important beauty pageant for transsexuals in all the United States.” Deborah Hilton has won five crowns already, she has paid for her dresses and backup dancers with sex work, and she has zero regrets. “Obviously, it was worth it. The crown looks gorgeous on me.” It’s a pleasure to spend time inside the head of someone so emphatically herself.

Ojeda shows readers a world that will be unfamiliar to many.