Oral History with Andrew Alvarez, February 24, 2019 (Ms2019-001)

H: Yeah, she is. When I talked to her about this, it's like it sounds like it was a really meaningful moment in her life, so it's nice to be a part of that in some way forty years later sitting down with you. So thank you.

A: And it's a reminder to the folks that have followed us. It didn't just happen. What you see today, and the freedoms that you may enjoy--most people across the U.S. They didn't just happen, they were fought for, every inch of them frankly inside for each of us to find a safe place in ourselves and also in the world. Your aunt was very--from day one, she was on message, she was on target, she knew--she didn't suffer from a lot of that self esteem stuff that a lot of other folks who came from the South would have been dealing with, hiding, 2:00a lot of hiding.

H: In her sharing with me about you I think she would say the same. Sounded like you were always very outspoken, and comfortable with yourself, and willing to be the leader, and willing to be out there. Is that just part of you?

A: That's true. I think in my case though, it didn't come out of a healthy place. It came out of--I was raised by a military family. My father was a lifer. He was a Marine and Catholic and Cuban, and I was the first-born son. So I had a lot of baggage that I had to throw off. So for me, the whole activism thing, that period was survival. It was not an acknowledgement, it was, I'm here, I'm 3:00not gonna go away. I'm here, I'm queer, I'm not gonna go away. It was more like stepping into an identity, or stepping into my own identity. This was part of it. But I'm really convinced I would have been dead, five, seven years. If I had stayed in that mindset, that was so negative and so repressive. When I got the invite to speak to a class--it was a Sociology class in the Winter of [19]77--somebody, word of mouth, and this professor calls me, wanted me to come in and speak to his Social Deviance class. Which, on the surface, today we'd say that's a little offensive, but at the time it was more like, well I guess that's what gay lifestyles come under. My experience of that was so empowering. I 4:00didn't have to do anything. I just showed up, and I answered questions. It was a review class. A sociology review class. So it was probably about a hundred and fifty, two hundred people in the room. It was liberating because they were expecting a freak, and I wasn't a freak. I was just sorta like myself. I think just by showing up, I helped to dispel a lot of their stereotypes. For me it was acknowledging and-- it was an ego trip at first. The student group evolved around that time. It was mostly the women. Nancy had taken the lead and Sueann. There are a few people that kind of pop out at me. There were a few guys but there were more, they didn't really want to be out there. So, I identified more 5:00with the lesbians. [Laughter] I have to admit. And to this day, really, a lot of my values and where I come from and everything else. That's how it started for me. It was an invite to speak to a Sociology class that got repeated and then I would bring people with me and that kind of thing. But, my parents who had told me, nothing gay when you go off to college, we don't want to hear or see anything. My mom called me that weekend--I was trying to make my mind up about speaking to this class--she calls me, she tells me, well if you do it, I'm disowning you--and she did, for a couple years--And I said, well gosh, thanks for calling mom cause you really helped. [Laughter] That's sorta my attitude. It was like, really? So for me, it was more a psychological necessity that I get up and I speak, I be there, I be present, I be--that I exist and not stay 6:00invisible. So for me, that's what it was. I'd say with Nancy--this is total projection on my part--she was much healthier in her, in who she was. And for me, it was a journey to find myself. I was eighteen, nineteen, twenty years old. In that sense, it was extremely positive. I was gonna say something. One of the things that I was sort of of carrying was because I was from a military family, it was, you're going to ruin my security clearance, you're going to bring shame on the family. And because it was far enough away, it was 250 miles away from where I grew up, it helped me to have a little distance. I figured, well they won't know anything. Well they did, and in fact my father told me--I think 7:00probably a year into it, probably right before Denim Day, like that Christmas--that I was on a F.B.I. watchlist. And so we probably all were. And at the time I thought, oh you're just playing mind games. This is sorta what he did, and I didn't really give a whole lota credence because I didn't really know what he did. I knew he was in intelligence work, and it wasn't until the early [19]80s that I found out that he was director of counterintelligence for the Marines, so he knew. It's wasn't a good thing. It was pretty much like I was the black sheep, and they had nothing to do - and really I didn't want anything to do with them. But six months after Denim Day I left Blacksburg, and I went to San Francisco--my belongings and everything else. So for me, Denim Day was like 8:00a crescendo of my time in Blacksburg. I worked in a restaurant, people would come in to meet the fag. I'd see people on the street, and they'd be whispering to themselves, pointing at me, so for me, the whole Denim Day and everything else around that, the work we did, really--tried to stay sane--was temporary. It wasn't the final stopping point. I got very tired of the publicess of it, and I wanted to go where I could be private [Laughter], and I did, but that was a whole nother chapter.

H: I have so many questions.

A: [Laughter] Okay.

H: Okay, so let's step back a second. I wanna know all about Denim Day, but first, let's talk about your story. I just have to get on camera full name, 9:00where you were born, sort of your like--you could tell just a little bit about your story, and now what you do for a living, so just a little background.

A: Okay, and if I talk too much, just--

H: Yeah.

A: Military family.

H: First, we'll just go with name.

A: Yeah, Andrew.

H: You won't hear it, just say, I'm Andrew--

A: My name is Andrew Alverez, and when I was in school at V.P.I., Virginia Tech, I had a different name. I had my father's name. I was the first-born son, and at age twenty-five I changed my name. And I picked it. It was while I was at Berkeley. It was a gift at the end of this whole like seven year process of coming out. And, that's the name I've had. [Laughter]

10:00

H: Okay, wow.

A: So my name was George then, but now it's Andrew or Drew. I'm eldest of five kids, military family. I was born in North Carolina. In New Bern, North Carolina, which just flooded last Winter. When I get off the plane to Virginia I'd slip into the accent, but generally I don't have much of it anymore.

H: What do you do for a living?

A: Hmm?

H: What do you do for a living?

A: I have a B.A. in Cultural Anthropology from [University of California] Berkeley, and then I worked for a few years for physicians, all health care, and eventually went back and got a masters in public health, and thought to put the two together, but never got quite overseas. This is as far overseas--and Hawaii is like a foriegn land sometimes, but less so everyday. Like with everybody's 11:00life, changes happen and whatnot, recalibrations and whatnot, but I think initially I was gonna go be a part of--I got accepted to the Peace Corps, and then I realized, oh this is just free labor. They said, oh you design a prevention program--this is back in the early days of H.I.V.--yet all they wanted me to do was go do H.I.V. tests, so it wasn't really the opportunity I saw it was going to be, so I didn't actually go that route. I work currently for the state hospital system. I'm a senior contracts person. I do procurement. Because it's state, it's regulated by the state law in terms of how you buy stuff--gotta be transparent 'cause everybody's related to everybody here. [Laughter] We have to do it by the book, so it can get a little complicated, but 12:00it's a great job. I'm very lucky to be here. I'm thankful. Actually I'm very lucky to be alive, frankly, compared to my cohort, especially the male cohort. Okay, so that's what I do for a living. I'm 60 today. Right now I'm 60 years old. What was I gonna say there. I've lived a number of lives. That was just one chapter.

H: That's great, thank you. Maybe we could say, just in case, I don't know what exactly they need for this. Maybe we'll try it name, I was born in North Carolina. I live in Hawaii now, and I work in health care.

A: Okay, so my name is Drew Alverez, most people know me as Drew. I'm sorry. I 13:00was born in New Bern, North Carolina, military family, left Virginia in 1979, went to California, lived there for thirty years, and ended up in Hawaii about fifteen years ago. That's my journey. I keep going west I guess.

H: Perfect.

A: Yeah.

H: Okay, great. I guess everyone will know when you were at Virginia Tech. I wanna know more about--so your parents--you came out in high school or when you when you were younger or it was always just something they knew, and then they just said keep it D.L. [down low] in college. Like how did that play out?

A: Yeah, definitely my parents wanted me to keep it D.L.

H: You won't hear my question, so maybe you could say--give me a little of that background again.

A: Okay, yeah. So my experience was that I came out in all the wrong ways during 14:00high school. A letter that my brother found, wrong thing to do. Threw it at my mother, probably in a very degrading way. And my father, the way he found out was he met my paramore at the time who was roughly his age when he showed up to pick me up at the door. Lou Montel, big red cadillac. Dad, being the Marine, met him, was pleasant, and then all hell broke loose that evening. So it was not a very--from that point on, I was 16, I just lied to get through high school because they were just so horrible about it, and I thought they were gonna be cool.

A: So it was a big awakening for me. But my parents did send me to a 15:00psychiatrist to fix me. First session I said, I don't think I need to be fixed. Can you help me to deal with my parents? He said, great, that's what we'll do. That's what we did for a year. So in a sense I had already some built in defenses because I would have been just railroaded. Years later when I worked in San Francisco in nonprofit sector we learned fifty percent of the kids on the streets were kids that had been thrown out of thier own homes for being gay. Easily fifty percent, probably more. This is San Francisco, 'cause that's a gay mecca, so I could see where a lot of kids would go there, but at the same time I was just shocked at the numbers. And I was probably one of those kids who, I wanted an education, so I was gonna stick it out, where as a lot of kids don't. 16:00They're just run out of their own homes. So I've actually done some volunteer work and whatnot with the kids that come from that insecure beginning, if you will.

H: Yeah, well that's great, I'd love to hear more about that. So that helps on your high school experience. And then why'd you decide to go to Virginia Tech? And I guess how was your early experience there, kind of pre-Denim Day. And if you could share where you were 'cause I think that might be kinda fun for folks. I don't know if the restaurant's still there.

A: Oh, yeah, I'm trying to think what the name of it is. I know where it is or where it was. I could describe that.

H: Yeah, why'd you go or why'd you choose Virginia Tech?

A: So Virginia Tech was picked by my father. I got accepted to Northeastern [University] and Virginia Tech and it was a couple other schools I applied for, 17:00but my father took me to Virginia Tech. We were on our way back. I thought it was just a visit to check it out. We're at the gas station, he turns, he was talking to someone across the aisle, and the guy said, oh your son gonna go to Virginia Tech? And he goes, yup, that's where he's going. I'm like, wow. That's the kind of upbringing I had. It was very patriarchal and very much dictated and whatnot, and I was not the most--and I was a good kid, but up to that point. Then I started getting a little outraged frankly. So I didn't really choose Virginia Tech, and I found it to be, at first, very alienating because it was mostly a lot of farm kids, but I quickly learned to love it because it was sort of a bubble, and I was able to sort of, what you're supposed to do your freshman 18:00year away from home, spread your wings a little bit. Get to know yourself a little better.

H: You grew up in Virginia, in Alexandria?

A: Virginia. Mostly. Ten years.

H: Did you feel like in Alexandria, or where you would consider your hometown, people were more accepting than they were in Blacksburg?

A: Well my experience in high school was that, I was older than the kids, so I had a small group of friends, and we would get in my Karmann Ghia, kind of rope together, and we would, with our fake I.D., go across the border from Virginia into D.C. where the drinking age was 18, and we'd go to gay clubs. Actually, one of the people that was in that group in my high school, junior and senior years, 19:00went to Virginia Tech. She's part of this group that was involved, so I actually had that advantage that I don't know that everybody else had. And I'm still in touch with her. She's in North Carolina, and she'll probably be speaking as well. Olga Acosta. So I had that sort of basis, and she and I, our relationship got closer because of it. Her dorm was right near mine.

H: So you said you had an older group of friends, or you were older rather than your friends?

A: Well I was older in the sense that I had a job, I had a car.

H: So you felt like you had autonomy in high school, and then you went to college, and it was like, oh.

A: Well it was good because I wasn't beholden to my parents I guess is the way 20:00to put it. But high school was a lot of lying to get around. My father didn't know we were going to bars in the city, but at one point he must of figured it out because he warned me about knifings, and of course that night we saw a knifing. We had two worlds. We had our highschool life, and then the four of us usually once a week or so, go into the city, Southeast, and find a club and go dancing. As a matter of fact, it was in one of those events, I was probably a senior in high school, there was a group of guys in the corner they were performing on stage--on the dance floor--and they were tan and buff, and they were like real men, you know. And it was like, oh where are they from? And 21:00someone said, oh they're from California. I'm like, I'm going there. And I did. 1979, six months after Denim Day, I sold my belongings and got on a plane and never looked back.

H: Wow, wanna hear more about that, but let's stick with your experience at Virginia Tech just so we go through the line here. So were you a member of the Gay Student Alliance? I'm gonna go with yes.

A: Yes, I was a member of the Gay Student Alliance. I think I was one of the founding members I guess.

H: Yeah. Can you kind of describe how that organization or its membership impacted you and your experience at Virginia Tech? Maybe your sense of community on campus or like personal identity within the community? You won't hear my question.

A: Yeah, for me, my experience at Virginia Tech was that it was a continuation of the environment I had come from in the sense that it was still very 22:00repressive to be gay. You weren't really out, and if you were with a group, and you were a little bit too loud there was definitely this sort of negative putdown for guys. I don't think the women really experienced it the same way. They could get away with a lot more than the guys could get away with. I also remember us--Nancy doesn't remember this--but I remember at one point a group of us going to a country western bar that was empty. It was Wednesday nights, and we took over the bar. It was probably ten, twelve of us. We'd start out dancing guy-girls, and then before you knew it, it was sort of same sex dancing. But they didn't care 'cause it was business coming in. This was on the edge of town, not a whole lot of people knew about it. And just from the outroar of Denim Day, 23:00and once we had Denim Day, the sort of push back from the community, students especially, suggested there was a lot of prejudice and intolerance.

H: Yeah. Could you, just in case they need it, just say, I was one of the founding memebers of the Gay Student Alliance if that's true?

A: Sure, yeah. I forgot how we got the group together. I forget how we formed the Gay Student Alliance. I think I was a founding member, I don't really know at this point. It all happened at the same time. I remember we had sweatshirts made, G.S.A., and people would stop us and go, What fraternity is that? We had a lot of fun with that.

H: What would you say?

A: Well we'd tell 'em, Gamma Sigma Alpha. [Laughter] And I'm thinking of one of 24:00our friends in particular who would just love that. He loved watching their face as he would say it and them going, that's not a fraternity.. what's that? Ohh. This kind of thing, but he loved playing that game with people. I just wanted to do my life and to do it in a way that was self-affirming and not self denigrating, and I think that's what changed after those years for me because I was still apologizing for being there, and of course I had nothing to apologize for, but at the time I felt I did.

H: So as a college student, how much of an emphasis did you place on acting as 25:00an advocate or activist for LGBQ rights? Like was that a big part of your experience or was that sort of like, oh this is an organization I'm a part of on the side?

A: My experience was a little different than a lot of people's in that--I think I was in Lee Hall, which is one of the dorms there, eleven stories I think--the whole time I lived on campus, different places in that building. My first roommate was a country boy. I would have pegged him as gay any day of the week, but he was appalled that he had someone--once he figured it out--living in the same room with him. He changed, and then the next roommate I got was one that I picked, it was our friend, Leroy. So I lived in that building at different 26:00points. Then also I think I had a roommate that was an actor, and he could do Ethel Merman, and he would do it at the top of his lungs in the room. So I was sort of pushed out in the sense that by my associations I was pigeon holed, and that was fine. But I do think if I didn't have friends that were so out then I probably would have blended with the woodwork, but I had fun with it. He got me to do stage work. He was in this production freshman year, first quarter even. We would do all-night--rehearsal, and then we'd have to study, and we would go to IHOP, four o'clock in the morning. Couldn't do that today, but then it was 27:00sorta fun. So I kinda feel like I was sort of shoved out. When the teacher called me about speaking to the class, my first question was, how did you find me? I don't know that I ever got that answer, but there was a word of mouth I guess. So I think the environment presented certain opportunities, and if you saw yourself as someone who was entitled to happiness and entitled to live free--'cause for me it was throwing off these psychological mental models that I'd grown up with about what guys did and didn't do and that kinda thing. There was a lot of that going on for me, but I think it was the environment presented 28:00this opportunity and was screaming for it, really, because there was no place for gay people be, to let their hair down, and I think that was the first thing that the group tried to establish, was a way to build a community, and we did, very quickly. And Nancy was a major piece of that, major piece of that just because of who she is, and I imagine she hasn't changed that much. She was just so inviting. She kind of pulled people into the circle, if you will. We did potlucks, and eventually we had a telephone line that was in my house, so I got to talk to the first--people as they were taking their first steps out of the closet to explain what the group was and whatnot.

H: That's nice. Took on the call center duties.

29:00

A: [Laughter] Oh yeah. It was rough.

H: I'm sure it was very meaningful. It's probably a big part of a lot of people's experience.

A: I met a lot of great people [Laughter].

H: Yeah. So Let's talk Denim Day. So what was the motivation? You guys are having potlucks, you guys are kind of doing your thing. What was the motivation to do something a little bigger, or maybe you didn't even think it was a bigger thing? It was just going to be this small thing.

A: Yeah, I'm not sure who brought it to the group. But I remember there was a few schools had done it up to that point in the U.S. and so we were not the first but at the same time we thought, oh, that's a great idea. It's something easy to do, and I think we had a whole week of activities. It wasn't just Denim Day. I think there was a round table. So there was a number of different things that happened in a week, but that was sorta the [gestures pointing upward] big 30:00piece of it, if you will.

A: I think it mighta been on Monday or Tuesday, and it was--For me the day itself was less dramatic than the night before when we had to put the flyers underneath the doors. For me, when I remember that day, that's what I remember. I remember starting at the top of Lee Hall, and I believe it was with Steve Free. I believe he was the other person, we were teamed up. And I don't remember many of the names. We put flyers under the door, and I fully expected to be verbally accosted, maybe physically. I had all these ideas, and when I stepped outta that building after twenty, twenty-five minutes of putting these flyers 31:00under the doors I was a different person because I was so afraid--we all were really, we didn't know what to expect--that as we were putting these flyers un--I just fully expected these doors to fly open and guys to come at us but they didn't do that. They were a few guys that would open up their doors--this was an all male dorm--they would open doors and look out to see, oh yeah, okay, that's a gay g--a fag, or that's a gay person. But none of this shouting or threatening or--and the few that did stick their head out and make themselves known, I just storta turned around and stopped like, okay, what're you gonna do, and I was bigger, I mean I was a big--I'm bigger now but--I mean, I was a big guy, and people didn't mess with me. I think that had something to do with it. But I gotta tell you, the person that walked outta that building was a different 32:00person than started that process. And I took that with me. To this day, I don't stand for any--if we're in a mixed group and someone makes a off color remark, 'cause they don't really know, I make sure they know. I don't shy away from just stating your own truth. But there was quite a bit of outrage the next day. For me, it was the night before. Whatever happened that week was sort of anticlimactic because I felt so empowered by the act of just being out and letting people know about this event that, of course, pissed off everybody because they only had jeans.--I wore jeans today in honor of that event.--They really resented not having the choice to wear their usual costume which was 33:00jeans. [Laughter] Yeah.

H: The ask was to wear jeans and a jean jacket or was it just like, wear jeans tomorrow to support?

A: The flyer, I believe, said something like, wear jeans, show your support for gay rights. Something like that. I haven't seen the flyer in years, but I understand Nancy now has a copy of it which is great. It was just a small piece of paper, I'm not really sure. I'm not even sure who produ--probably Nancy who produced them. We just divided up and walked to all the dorm rooms and stuck them underneath the doors. We did them in teams and probably did a debrief afterwards, but I have never forgotten that. It was just that twenty, twenty-five minutes and just how I felt when I left the building, like I would 34:00never ever again feel like I had to apologize. That I had every right to be there. So what happened subsequently, in terms of the pushback from the community and whatnot, to me it was like, well live in my shoes for a day, the games we have to play just to survive. I've heard people talk about fear of violence or whatnot, but I think very quickly a lot of that kind of got tapped down for me. I never felt unsafe after that point.

H: I wanna know more about why you felt like you were a different person. It's just that you stood up, 'cause you had already done the speech, right, at this 35:00point? So you had already verbally communicated your experience and your truth, so you felt maybe empowered because people didn't come at you, and it was in some way okay to be you?

A: Well I think for me, the fact that it was my dorm, these were the guys I saw all the time, most of them probably didn't know, number one. But when I spoke to the class--'cause I think I did it a few times, at least a few times--they were sporadic events--and I think, it was 30,000 people in Blacksburg at the time, maybe 20,000 students. Could have even been 30,000 students, so it was large 36:00enough so that you didn't feel like you saw the same people all the time, but small enough that you did. So for me, the dorm was much more personal, much more homebase, and therefore fraught because they were gonna know from that point on 'cause they saw me, but you have to also remember I had a roommate who sang Ethel Merman at the top of his lungs. We lived near the elevators, and I'd open the door, and people were like, look. So it wasn't that much of a change I guess, but for me, personally, it felt like a big step. When I say a different person I mean inside. Something had shifted--thank God--such that I didn't feel, like I said, apologetic. I felt empowered. I felt stronger. I felt like I could 37:00do what I needed to do without being afraid. In other words, I could go about my life. Six months later I got on a plane and went to San Francisco, and had to come out all over again, very different kind of community. The Virginia Tech community was tight-knit. There were so few of us that it was very tight-knit. It was mixed. It was a nice blend of women and men which is not what I experienced when I went to San Francisco. It was very much lesbians hated the men, and the men had nothing to do with the lesbians. It was very weird for me. So during that time it felt like we were taking care of each other, very much so, and that was healthy. That was good. Does that answer your question?

38:00

H: Yeah. It's really powerful, so I wanted to make sure we got it. So did you have expectations? You obviously had expectations that people were gonna have a more physical reaction to you, but did you have expectations for Denim Day more broadly, or Denim Week, if it was like a series of events? Like what were your expectations, and then did the event meet those?

A: The event absolutely did meet my expectations, but my expectations were more, okay, here we go. It was more like, this is gonna crack somethin' open, and it did. I was surprised the level of animosity that showed up in the press in the local newspaper and in the student newspaper. I, of course, wore jeans that day, 39:00and I didn't feel while I was walking around on campus that people were looking at me any different because there were a lot of people wearing jeans because that's all they had. That was the whole idea. [Laughter] That was one of the ideas. It was genius because I think most people would have been accepting, but they needed this reminder, I think, that walk a mile in somebody else's shoes and you'll have more compassion towards their circumstance. I think that didn't come until later, for me, personally. The community seemed pretty angry, not towards me personally, but in general.

H: Will you talk a bit more about that? The press and not necessarily the students you interacted at that day, but just the general reaction.

A: From what I've heard, in subsequent years the press got worse as the years 40:00went on for a while. So for us, we were sort of a blip. The first year, which is all I participated in, it came out of nowhere. Wasn't a whole lot of schools that had done that, so that year, 1979, was not, I think, as dramatic as some of the years I heard came subsequent because they were ready for it then, the folks that were really opposed by it. [Laughter] So for that year, it was more we had the advantage of surprise, and we did. There was definitely a lot of people surprised.

H: Great. My battery is about to die.

A: Is it already going?

H: Yeah, but I have another, so it's all good. Just take a quick pause.

A: I'm a talker, obviously.

[Break]

H: Yeah, well, I don't know if Nan told you. She was like going to some meeting 41:00with the Dean, and she wore this like, Fuck Trump button like really big on her shirt. She's like so unapologetically her. I love it, so good. So good. She's like, yeah, I'll come to your meeting, but she wants you to know how I feel about that. So anyway, Okay. Back in action. Oh yeah, thank you. Okay, so we were talking about Denim Day, expectations. We were talking about the press a bit and how that went. When you look back on that time, could you provide any 42:00context to what else was happening in the world or country or even in LGBQ? Like what was kind of happening to give students today a sense of the context of this event?

A: My memories of the two years I was at Virginia Tech was we were being barraged with the Anita Bryant campaign to--it just seemed like everywhere you looked, in the newspaper, in the news, whatnot, it was this message that you weren't good enough, let's put it that way. That gay was not cool. If we wanted 43:00to go to a bar, other than that bar experience we had early on that was close to home, which quickly went away because once people found out about it you couldn't do it, but to go to Roanoke was a forty-five minute drive, and that's where the few clubs were. But other than that, our group, we were kind of a closed circuit, we took care of each other, we did social events to bring people together. It did seem like it was constant barrage in terms of the media of these messages, you're not good enough. You had this former beauty queen making it a cause of her life, and then I think I heard later that one of her children was gay, so the Lord works through all of us. [Laughter] I believe that was the 44:00story I heard. Anyway, it wasn't good. This was pre-H.I.V. That sort of hit two years down the road, three years down the road, which brought a whole nother level of shame to the experience of being gay, but I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to it, frankly. It was so over the top, so ridiculous. Some of the stuff you'd hear was, all gay men are sexual predators and they're converting children and just bizarre stuff that you'd hear, and you kind of go, wow, I can't relate to that. I think that's one of the reasons why I left Virginia was really to go to California where all the cool people are. People that didn't 45:00care, and that was part of what I was looking for, an environment where it was accepting, and you could express your affection in public openly just like your straight friends and family did without fear of negative consequence. When I was there I don't think we ever, maybe the women did, but the men definitely there was no P.D.A. We were very careful in public about your behavior, but in private we let it loose. We called things as we saw them, but there was, in general, this overriding kind of social mores that you were in an outcasted class all 46:00together, and you felt that. You internalized that. I think most people did, most gay men, especially the men. I did definitely feel, like I said, the women seemed to have a little easier time of it because people didn't assume the same way.

H: Was there something that triggered the move? Denim Day happens, you feel like this sort of new sense of self and confidence and more empowered. Then was it like, alright, with that new feeling, it's like, alright, I gotta get outta here, and then it just took six months, or was there another trigger point in six months that really moved you?

A: There was. There was another trigger point for me personally in that Denim Day took place in January. Then, I think it was March or April, there was an 47:00event in Chapel Hill which is down the hill a bit, at the university there. It might have been a conference, a gay conference, and I met one of the speakers at that conference who lived in San Francisco. He offered me his couch for when I moved 'cause I told him, I'm thinking about moving to the city. Turned out his offer, of course, was his bed. He had roommates. They didn't really want me there, so once I showed up it was a whole different situation, but he gave me the idea that it was possible to do. I sold my car, I bought a plane ticket, cash and everything. Within a month I had a job and a place to live, and I did fine. Then within two years I went back to school. I went to Virginia Tech, I 48:00mean I went to Berkeley. For me, personally, it was so isolating to be public, to be constantly barraged with this sort of unspoken sanction. The restaurant that I worked in, I was a waiter, and it was right down on main street, right off the campus and they had live music on Saturday nights. There were no gay people that worked there, but I was out to them. People would even say, oh we wanted to come see the fag. A few people would actually--they wouldn't use that word, but they would say, we hear there's a gay waiter here. I'd be like, Yeah, that would be me, and why is that an attraction? [Laughter] But it did happen. 49:00It did happen, and at the time I guess I just felt like, already, enough. I wanna be able to blend. I also was not partnered. A lot of folks would partner up, and I hadn't done that yet, didn't feel like there was anybody I wanted to, or if I was attracted to someone they weren't attracted to me. So I was public, but at the same time my private needs weren't being met, so that was part of the reason for going to the big city, the Mecca. Got the shock of my life coming from this very tight knit community in Virginia at Virginia Tech and then going to the big city.

A: My reaction was to pull back in. I basically had to come out all over again. 50:00So in that way, Virginia Tech, those years were idyllic because you could just be a kid coming into adulthood and experiment with some of these ways of communicating and not have the same sort of consequences that you would have, say in a large city. So in that sense, to me, it was very positive. But I know my experience was a little different in that part of what motivated me to come out was a need to throw off my early life, the repressive influences of my family. As a matter of fact, I told my father, who's now eighty-five, that I was gonna do this, and it was exactly the same reaction. He has not changed one bit. 51:00It was sort of, oh, that's nice. But you knew, it was like, oh, really? His demeanor was such that he's trying to downplay it, but I know. He hasn't asked about it since, hasn't brought it up, doesn't want to know about it, didn't ask any details.

H: The, it, you're speaking of is this interview or you mean Denim Day back in the day.

A: I'm speaking of my father, just like three weeks ago I told him there was gonna be this commemorative event. I don't think he even knew about Denim Day, but he knew I was out. It was like the same, oh, well we're not gonna talk about that. We're just gonna [Andrew motions like he's pushing something to the side]. In that sense, nothing's changed and everything's changed. Me, I was trying to get a rise out of him by telling him all together, really, probably. That's just how we've learned to cope. He doesn't like that--He's cool to the degree that if 52:00you're not committing a crime or that kind of thing then he's cool, but at the same time, he's not a--I'm not gonna march in a parade for you, that kind of thing. My mother never ever--she died in 2009--never came to peace with it. Now I can say she was crazy, but always was afraid that she would be blamed for creating the gay person, so I guess my experience was very different than a lot of people's that I've met in years subsequent, too.

H: You mean that your parents never fully accepted you, whereas you found that others's do. Could you speak to, and this is something we can talk about in a 53:00few different ways, but the difference between, do you think that's generational or is this your peers growing up and in school that you met in the Bay had very different experiences than you or do you think that's from then to now people are more accepting?

A: Well I definitely think poeple are more accpeting today of gay lifestyles, and I think one of the gifts of being a gay person is that you can sort of pick and choose what you want in a way that my straight friends couldn't. They were limited by these sexually defined roles, but even that changed. I have a friend from high school who stayed in my life. She ended up living in the Bay area. She 54:00was a career woman. Her husband stayed home and took care of the two kids. I think I've always been attracted to people that want to put it together for themselves, and I think that's one of the gifts of being gay, is also can be difficult for some people to make that peace. These rigid role expectations aren't there for me, personally. That didn't sort of bubble up, if you will, the freedom around that for years. It took a while. I think when I was at Virginia Tech it was more, wow, there's people like me. Look, we can make some noise. [Laughter] It was more around that.

A: There's one experience that I have to put out there. I think of Nancy 55:00everytime I remember this, but it was a New Years Eve, and we went to this bar in Roanoke, and when the twelve o'clock hour came we were on the dance floor all in a circle dancing to, We Are Family. That's a peak experience, and I'm getting a little flushed just thinking about it. It was so different than I had experienced previously, but I think for some people like Nancy, for instance, it was like no big deal. It was like we are a family. But for me it was a new kind of welcoming, this group. I hated to leave 'cause that area of the country is very beautiful, and I've thought about going back, but it was hard to leave, but 56:00I knew I had to. It was like the next step, if you will. So I wasn't wrapped up in the whole Denim Day per se and the subsequent years. It was sort of a peak experience when it happened, and it was sort of the next thing for me, but I was so alone in my publicness that I felt like I needed to leave and create some opportunities to build different kinds of relationships.

H: I'm wondering about that song being--you remembered the song so well because-

A: We were dancing, and we were singing at the top of our lungs-

H: Do you think that's because that became a second family or a chosen family?

A: Absolutely. There was a little bit of segmentation between the women and the men and whatnot, but within our group, the small group of, I think, maybe six, 57:00seven people, it didn't feel like there was a segmentation between the men and the women.

H: Could you maybe, since you won't hear my question, speak to that. Like since my family wasn't very accepting I sort of felt this--

A: Sure, so coming where I'd come from where it was you can be gay, but you can't be speaking about it. You certainly can't be acting on it. Don't want to meet any of your friends. I had a huge fight with my brother in high school for that very thing, You brought that fag to our house, kind of thing. I was like, that's my friend, Okay. At the same time he would get into it with my sister who was dating an African-American kid in the school, so he had issues, his own issues. I've lost my train of thought.

58:00

H: I'm just saying like the chosen family versus the-

A: Virginia Tech family. The experience that I'm recounting was a New Years Eve, but it was my people. It wasn't people that I had to accommodate, this small group of people. Part of what's been so hard for me personally in almost preparing myself to sit here and talk about this was reliving some of that emotion of the time. The uncertainty of the time. The fear that was there, it was constantly coming up against. The aloneness. But there was community. For 59:00me, personally, it was great strides to be a part of a community. As you get older it's harder to cultivate that sense in one's life. I just loved how the women were just--especially the women--take everybody, we're gonna dance together. It was positive in that sense. There was definitely a change from where I came from to Virginia Tech. Still because of my own stuff it took awhile for me to sort of throw that off. This idea that I could have a personal 60:00relationship as well as a public relationship with my community.

H: Have you kept up with anyone? I know it's so hard to do, but could you share a bit about that?

A: Sure, the only person I've stayed in touch with from those years was Olga Acosta. She was a year younger than me, so she came my sophomore year to Virginia Tech, and she and I still talk I'd say every couple months. It's one of those people that I knew from my high school days, there's only two that I stay in touch with, that because of her lesbianism we had a bond, and that was enough to keep us in touch, and now she's like one of my sisters. She's part of my family, my chosen family, if you will. What was I gonna say about that?

61:00

H: That's fine. I was just curious. Let's talk a little bit about this, like the revisiting of this. Not just for you, but for the group and the importance of that. For you, for the group, and then for the larger community why do you think it's important to acknowledge?

A: And remember.

H: And remember.

A: I think it's very important to remember this event, and I'm really pleased the school was receptive to it, and I think initiated it, because we have to remember where we came from. At the same time, I have a much younger partner, and I'm sort of surprised that some of the same things that I was dealing with 62:00at that age, he's much younger, he's dealing with. He's [Kauai'ian?]. He's Hawaiian and he deals with it in his community, and while it breaks my heart, I also know he has to fight that battle. He has to come to terms with it in himself, and then it won't be this internalized shame 'cause I can still see it. So I think it's important for us to remember, but I also think it's important for the people that are coming up now, the young gay people. Even though now sexuality is, I think, a lot more fluid. Back then you had to pick one way of the other or else you were lost in limbo land, and I have known some over the years that that fits. So it's changed in that regard now, but I also think they 63:00forget. They don't really know what we went through. There was a struggle. It was definitely a struggle. When I lived in San Francisco in the [19]90s when the mayor allowed two thousand couples to marry just by edict basically. He just said, Oh well, you know. It created a national--he's now the governor of California, Newsom. But at the time we were having discussions about what kind of legal things had to happen in order for there to be a quantum leap, and we didn't get that until June 2015. There were a lot of years where depending on what state you lived in, depending what your circumstances were, there was no expectation that you could get a fair deal if you wanted to adopt children, if you wanted to marry, what we consider normal life events. I didn't have the 64:00right plumbing. If I had the right plumbing I probably would of had a few kids. I know I would have, but back then you had to adopt. The options are larger now, but we had to earn this, so I think it's very important to remember if only for that reason, really. I think a lot of people just don't care if it doesn't affect them, but we each have a role, I believe, in making the world a better place to live. This is just one thing I can do. It shows up sometimes in conversation, even now where I have to remember to provide that context.

65:00

A: This didn't just happen. There were a lot of people that hated us, and we found love in spite of it and rose above it, and we're still doing that in our lives and in ourselves.

H: This is hard to do, if you could speak to your sophomore self now is there anything you would tell that person, George?

A: [Laughter] Oh gosh, what would I say to George now. I'd say, George, it gets better. I think that would probably be it. I've seen some of that messaging 66:00going on in recent years as well. But I had no idea what was gonna hit me. Within two years after Denim Day I was living in San Francisco, and every week we'd go to the gay rag and open it up and look for our friends names. They were dying so fast. Twelve thousand people died before President Regan actually spoke the word. I was there. I was in an epicenter. So for me, I think if I were to go back to that point I'd be like, You don't know what's coming, but it does get better, and hang on. It could get a little bumpy. It's not all rosy and glossed over and whatnot. I'm very thankful. I'm very grateful to have survived those 67:00years, and for me Virginia Tech was sort of just the start, but I'm very grateful to be here today, and be able to share my experience 'cause it does change over the years. You do reformulate it and whatnot. But I would probably say to that young person, it gets better, and life's a journey. [Laughter] You can't really get around that. All of us have life challenges and whatnot.

H: Again, throwing some toughies at you at the end here, but is there anything you would want when you're thinking about what you hope for Virginia Tech. It sounds like the leadership now is a little--or maybe a lot more open minded. Is 68:00there anything else you sort of hope for for the Virginia Tech community more broadly, but particularly for folks that are still advocating on these issues to this day. What do you hope for them, and is there anything you want to share just assuming that they're gonna be watching this?

A: Well I think, first and foremost, we all have a contribution to make. One of my favorite Ghandi quotes is--'m gonna paraphrase it--It doesn't matter what you do, and you know what you need to do. It may not have any impact on the world, may not have any concrete way of expressing, but it's very important that you be yourself and be in your body and be in the world as you are without excuses. 69:00Find your joy. The environment cannot dictate that. The environment can certainly make it more difficult, but it's up to you. It's up to you to be truthful. Be honest with yourself. Be honest with the world, and make the joy you wanna create. I think thats gay, straight, polka dot, or whatever. It doesn't really matter. It's be yourself. If I had any words to pass on that's probably what I would pass on.

H: I love it. Yeah. It's simple, but it's so hard to do. Especially in an environment where it's not encouraged.

A: Yeah I haven't spent much time in Blacksburg, but even in 2013, it was the middle of winter. We ran from our cars into the different buildings and whatnot. Went to the bookstore. It had changed so much. To me, how do I say this, it 70:00seemed more antiseptic. This is probably gonna be cut out, but the school to me felt heavy to be on the campus. We saw the memorial. It felt very dark to me. Sorta similar to what I remember feeling in San Francisco when I was at school at Berkeley across the bay, and I would come into the city for different things. You could just feel this sort of dark at the beginning of the [19]80s.

H: A weight, maybe?

A: Yeah, and I definitely kind of had that feeling when I went onto the campus.

H: When were you there?

A: 2013.

H: So like two years later.

A: Yeah and the memorials were all set up there. We definitely visited a memorial.

H: Oh 2013. Okay, so like five years later.

71:00

A: Yeah, and of course I was shocked. I was already in Hawaii when I heard about that event. I couldn't imagine that happening when we were there. It was like, wow. Anyway, the environment is beautiful. It's a great place to go to school. I'm really glad I had the experience of being able to go there 'cause it was large enough so I could come out a little bit more, but at the same time is was small enough to be a community.

H: Alright, well you've been giving some incredible responses, thank you. Is there anything else you wanna say or share? Did we miss anything, any stories?

A: Let me think. I don't know. Besides the fact of remembering and wanting the 72:00young people coming up now to know the past so that they can not make the same mistakes hopefully and appreciate what they're enjoying now. I think the other piece of that would be given what's happening now in the world, and especially in the U.S., how important it is to resist in anyway that you can against these forces which I would call the deplorables, sorry. Sometimes it does feel like that. The folks that would judge you, people that would put you in a box, people that would kill you, really, for just being who you are. Not make your cake 73:00because you're gay. I mean, that is still alive, but at the same time it's important for each of us, in our own way to resist, that limitation, that reinforcement. It shows up in our environment all the time. The unspoken. So I guess I would say it's now as important or if not more to be present and resist in ways that you're comfortable in, and don't let people put you in a box. [Laughter] You're a gift. We are each a gift. In our craziness we're all a gift. 74:00I see it that way.

H: Thank you.

A: Thank you.

H: That's great. Yeah, it's really an honor to hear your story, and when my aunt Nan told me about it for the first time it was really moving for me as well, and I'm just so proud of you and her and what you guys did.

A: Oh, good. Yeah. It was a shock when I heard from her.

H: Been a long time.

A: Oh my god, yes.

H: Yeah.

A: I knew she was still there because of Olga. She said she lived nearby. I'm just so excited that she's doing this. This is great.

H: Yeah, my mom and my uncle, so three of our family members went to Virginia Tech. My mom is gonna go down there also and be a part of that and support her sister which is nice too.

A: Oh good. Good.

75:00

H: It would be nice to be there, but I can celebrate from afar.

A: Yeah, I don't even know if I'm gonna be there. This friend of mine just died, and they wanna do a celebration of his life in Oregon. I may just go do that, but I don't know. This whole thing has just sort of brought up a lot. Even having to go through my boxes of memorabilia, these pictures and these people and remembering. It's really good. I do remember a story. Is that still on?

H: Yeah.

A: Nancy, in our freshman year, she had a boyfriend in high school, and I remember telling this story how she had gone back and coming out to him, and he's like, oh, well. [Andrew waves hand] You should ask her to tell you that story.

76:00

H: Yeah, it sounds like a good one.

A: You should tell her the story. Yes, it was very good. It reminded me that we're all of us becoming--we can't say today what we're gonna become tomorrow. I just love how Nancy is willing to communicate and to put it out there, and I always appreciated her for that. That she was, is a communicator.

H: Yeah, she's pretty amazing at that. Alright well I'll let you get off the hot seat. [Laughter]

[End of interview]

Oral History with Andrew Alvarez, February 24, 2019 (Ms2019-001)

Virginia Tech Special Collections Danya Hakeem , Interviewer | Ms2019-001_ AndrewAlvarez Denim Day at Virginia Tech 40th Anniversary Oral History Collection |

Acknowledgment

Collection Link: Denim Day at Virginia Tech 40th Anniversary Oral History Collection

Contact Us: | https://digitalsc.lib.vt.edu

Virginia Tech Special Collections
Danya Hakeem , Interviewer | Ms2019-001_ AndrewAlvarez
Denim Day at Virginia Tech 40th Anniversary Oral History Collection |