Education and Outreach through Ludo-Pedagogy and Experiential Learning. Bridging Feminist and Diversity Movements in Today's Nicaragua: An Interview with Helen Alfaro, Yova Briones, and Tannia Rizo Lazo of La Casa de los Colores

Interviewees:

Helen Alfaro, Yova Briones, and Tannia Rizo Lazo

Interviewer:

Lussiana Salazar Introduction, translation, transcription, and questions: Analisa DeGrave

La Casa de los Colores (the House of Colors) is a feminist organization dedicated to defending human rights, particularly those of the LGBTQ+ community in León, Nicaragua. In 2016 Helen Alfaro, Yova Briones, Ani Guerrero, and Tannia Rizo Lazo, four members of La Casa's leadership team, "Las Coloras,"¹ were invited to speak about Nicaragua's sexual diversity and feminist movements in Women's Lives and Experiences in Nicaragua, a class offered by the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire women's, gender, and sexuality studies program in Matagalpa, Nicaragua. The following day Lussiana Salazar and I arranged an interview with three of Las Coloras; Ani Guerrero had a previous commitment and was not available for the discussion. In this interview, Helen Alfaro, Yova Briones, and Tannia Rizo Lazo discuss the history and the objectives of La Casa de los Colores and provide an overview of the programming offered by their organization. Additionally, they explain the theoretical and pedagogical framework that informs their engagement with the people of León—a city of approximately 201,110 people—and its surrounding area. Las Coloras detail the many challenges they face: the state of democracy, freedom, and human rights under today's Sandinismo, religion, divisions within and between Nicaragua's feminist and sexual diversity movements, financial constraints, and rural and urban outreach. Among their many strengths, Las Coloras point to their solidarity with other movements and organizations, both national and international, and the fact that they have come to represent a bridge between the feminist and the sexual diversity movements in León. In addition to feminism, as I will explain in more detail below, Las Coloras identify ludo-pedagogy and experiential learning as central to the theoretical framework that guides their work. Cabaret theater, performance art, invisible theater, and subverting the lyrics of popular and oftentimes sexist songs exemplify some of the ways in which La Casa de los Colores incorporates play and creativity into activities that address the realities experienced by women and Nicaragua's LGBTQ+ community.²

Helen Alfaro notes in the interview that Las Coloras seek to "projec[t] … freedom from within [them]selves to the outside [world] by visibly and publicly identifying [themselves] as lesbians." This freedom is further bolstered by their use of inclusive language in the public sphere. The practice of using inclusive language, as Nicaraguan lexicographer and editor Doris Arlen Espinoza García maintains in "El lenguaje inclusivo en la lucha por los Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres y la Igualdad de Género" ("Inclusive Language in the Fight for Women's Human Rights and Gender Equality"), is critical to the empowerment of women. Espinoza García explains: "… despite (grammatical) standards, there has been an increased daily usage of inclusive language as a means for empowerment and attaining recognition of the rights of women in our region. Sometimes we speak and read it in a spontaneous way and are getting accustomed to this form of democratic language. Toggling the expressive norms of our language and utilizing [inclusive language] helps women to be seen as people, as active subjects, in a society in which the resource of language is increasingly necessary to evince the presence of women [my translation]" (6–7).³ The organization's name, "The House of Colors," does not alter the standard Spanish grammar one might find in a dictionary or textbook, as the word "house" remains feminine (la casa), and "colores" maintains its masculine definite article "los." The neutral suffix for words ending in a consonant (-es) is also utilized. As is apparent in the interview below, however, Las Coloras employ inclusive language in other contexts to bend the dictates of Spanish grammar. For example, the terms that members use to identify themselves illustrate a reshaping of the rules of Spanish through the feminization and alteration of the spelling of...