Dartmouth Events

Las Hermanas: Brown Lesbian World Making focuses on the queer women’s social movement within the larger San Diego borderlands history. My project specifically centers around Las Hermanas Women’s Cultural Center and Coffeehouse, a space created by Chicana lesbians who were looking to escape abusive relationships. The center attracted young women, some with children, who sought a safe space to create women’s culture. Las Hermanas eventually expanded into a women-only haven in the 1970s and operated as a nonprofit that hosted concerts, cultural events, law seminars, film showings, and other events that focused on the well-being of women in San Diego. Las Hermanas closed in 1980 because of rent inflation, the inclusion of men, and a wave of white middle-class women seeking membership. Las Hermanas helped create a record of lesbian women of color embodied knowledge, identity practices, and community building. Although this physical space closed in early 1980, the knowledge and practices created within this space do not have an expiration date, and this queer historical memory must be (re)membered. Las Hermanas Center continues to illustrate how vital physical urban spaces are to queer world-making and queer culture.