For decades, Juan Pablo Guti\u00e9rrez S\u00e1nchez lived by the motto \u201cnuestros muertos no se venden,\u201d which translates to \u201cour dead are not for sale.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And till the day he died, he followed this belief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guti\u00e9rrez, a trailblazing LGBTQ Latino advocate, artist and community leader who was among the first openly gay directors of the Mission Cultural Center and spearheaded San Francisco\u2019s D\u00eda de Muertos ritual and procession for decades, died on Dec. 26, 2021 in San Francisco after a two-year battle with myelodysplastic syndrome. He was 68.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gregarious, out-of-the closet and whose wits were oftentimes as sharp as his words, Guti\u00e9rrez was a master fundraiser who helped establish early AIDS education programming aimed specifically for San Francisco\u2019s Latino community in the mid 80s. Guti\u00e9rrez as the founding member and director of the Colectivo Del Rescate Cultural, defended San Francisco\u2019s D\u00eda de Muertos ritual procession from the corporate onslaught which sought to profit from the sacred pre-Colombian holiday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur whole goal has been to rescue something that has been very unique,\u201d Gutierrez told El Tecolote in 2014. \u201cIt was there before the Spaniards arrived.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Born in Monterrey, Nuevo Le\u00f3n, Mexico on Aug. 3, 1953, Guti\u00e9rrez arrived in San Francisco in 1982. That first year in the city, Guti\u00e9rrez spent it volunteering with El Tecolote, helping layout headlines and format columns all by hand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 1984, he joined the late nationally renowned poet Francisco X. Alarc\u00f3n as a staff member for La Revista Literaria, El Tecolote\u2019s quarterly literary supplement, which included everything from book reviews to poetry by local poets, such as Juan Felipe Herrera\u2014who served as the 21st United States Poet Laureate from 2015 to 2017. In addition to writing poetry for La Revista, Guti\u00e9rrez also wrote stories and translated for El Tecolote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was through his work at El Tecolote that Guti\u00e9rrez motivated his good friend and photographer Linda Wilson to start El Tecolote\u2019s photo archive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019m so used to calling him every afternoon,\u201d Wilson told El Tecolote. \u201cBut I think I knew that it was time. That he was leaving us.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Wilson, Guti\u00e9rrez relocated to San Francisco with the dream of working alongside Peter Rodr\u00edguez\u2014who Guti\u00e9rrez had heard was possibly gay. Rodr\u00edguez had opened the Mexican Museum in San Francisco in 1975. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
After volunteering at El Tecolote, Guti\u00e9rrez went on to work at the Mission Cultural Center (MCC) as their Development Director. Guti\u00e9rrez eventually became MCC\u2019s director in 1988, making him the second openly-gay man director of MCC, the first being the late Rodrigo Reyes. While at MCC, Guti\u00e9rrez worked alongside the renowned artist Michael Roman as well as with the Chilean graphic artist maestro Rene Castro. Guti\u00e9rrez served as MCC\u2019s director up until 1992. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reyes, Alarc\u00f3n and Guti\u00e9rrez\u2014all gay Latino men who embraced their identities and greatly contributed to the rich fabric of San Francisco\u2019s theater, poetry and arts and culture scene\u2014routinely gathered at Wilson\u2019s home on Harrison Street. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThey were very much out,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cMaybe it was easier in San Francisco. Then when people started getting AIDS and dying, Rodrigo was the first to die\u2026and then everything sort of changed.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reyes died in January 1992. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe minute we stepped out, the biggest fear was anyone finding out that we had HIV,\u201d Guti\u00e9rrez told El Tecolote in 2019. \u201cBecause people still were thinking that if you shook our hands you were going to get contaminated.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before Guti\u00e9rrez arrived in 1982, San Francisco did have a Day of the Dead procession and art exhibition, which was organized by the collective at Galer\u00eda de la Raza. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
During Galer\u00eda de la Raza\u2019s D\u00eda de Muerto\u2019s show in 1984, Guti\u00e9rrez created an altar highlighting the AIDS epidemic with the words \u201cwhile society turns its back, we die by the thousands and thousands and thousands.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That call for action drew both support and backlash from the Mission community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Latino community was not ready, but Ren\u00e9 Ya\u00f1ez, who curated the exhibition that year, took the chance in allowing us to do the installation,\u201d Gutierrez was quoted as saying in \u201cThe Heart of the Mission,\u201d Cary Cordova\u2019s definitive history of Latino culture, art and politics in the Mission. \u201cHe got a lot of flack from various sources who wanted it removed from the exhibit, but he decided to keep it in the exhibition after a Latino couple knelt crying in front of the installation since their young teenage son had since just died of AIDS.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Contracting HIV himself and witnessing the devastation of AIDS sweep through his community, Guti\u00e9rrez felt the urge to act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI did not cross my arms and sit back,\u201d Guti\u00e9rrez said on El Tecolote\u2019s Our Cultura Podcast in 2021. In the late 80\u2019s, Guti\u00e9rrez successfully wrote a $1 million grant for Instituto Familiar de la Raza. The grant helped establish the Latino AIDS Project, which provided educational materials in response to the lack of AIDS education and services for Latinos. A year later, Guti\u00e9rrez successfully wrote another $1 million grant for Instituto, this time helping launch their Mano a Mano project, a case-management and counseling service for Latinos with AIDS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition to grant writing, Guti\u00e9rrez auctioneered at The Farm\u2014now the site of La Raza Park\u2014raising funds for humanitarian efforts in El Salvador. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But Guti\u00e9rrez\u2019s journey began long before arriving in San Francisco. It was his abuela and godmother Sofia in Monterrey who first introduced him to the healing arts. His godmother was a cardreader who established the first homeopathic pharmacy in Monterrey. It wasn\u2019t until the age of 8, when Guti\u00e9rrez moved to the U.S. with his family, that he saw a real doctor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been around the healers and healing arts since I was a baby,\u201d Guti\u00e9rrez told El Tecolote in 2014. \u201cIt\u2019s not something that I just picked up. It\u2019s something that I was born with.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Guti\u00e9rrez\u2019s abuela, Antonia S\u00e1nchez, was born in Laredo, Texas but moved to Mexico with her father and siblings. They opened the first lecher\u00eda in Monterey, and housed horses for Pancho Villa\u2019s revolutionary forces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While a freshman at the University of Texas at Austin, he started a D\u00eda de Muertos procession in 1974. And after receiving his master’s degree, he went on to work with the U.S. Department of Education. He also had a hand in founding the California Consortium for Expansion Arts, which provided funding for nonprofits serving communities of color, and for a time served on the board of CELLspace in San Francisco.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is a man who fought to live. And this is a man who dealt with pain, who dealt with physical problems all these years and yet got so much done,\u201d Wilson said. \u201cHe\u2019s one of those people in life, who made things happen.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A memorial to Guti\u00e9rrez is being tentatively scheduled for the beginning of spring 2022. Honoring his wishes, Guti\u00e9rrez is to be cremated and interred with his deceased family members in Monterrey, Mexico. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Juan Pablo Guti\u00e9rrez: The life and legacy of a Latino gay artist, advocate <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":35,"featured_media":50707,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":false,"newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[315],"tags":[771,19034,1397],"coauthors":[18445],"class_list":["post-50706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-obituaries-en","tag-aids","tag-juan-pablo-gutierrez-2","tag-mission-cultural-center","post_format-post-format-gallery","entry"],"yoast_head":"\n