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WEEK OF JUNE 20, 2024
VOLUME 97 | ISSUE 29
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Celebrating 50 years of Pride in Denver Colorado invests in bilingual preschool amid migrant surge BY JENNIFER BROWN THE COLORADO SUN
the first coordinator of The Center on Colfax and is the author of the visual history book “LGBTQ Denver,” which was published in April this year. In Denver, homosexuality used to be considered a major political and social problem for the city. Police would lure gay men in by advertising gay-friendly spaces, but once there, the men would find themselves being handcuffed for sodomy. LGBTQ+ individuals were always in danger, no matter where they were, Nash said. “The vice squad of the Denver Police Department was constantly harassing gay bars,” Nash said. “They set up mechanisms to entrap gay men and arrest them, and this got out to the public. They were at risk of losing their housing and their jobs and their reputations.”
Londis Ramirez knew her plan was working when a preschooler making a self-portrait asked her, “Can you help me draw my panza?” Panza means belly in Spanish, which is not the child’s first language. But a Head Start program tested last year and expanding this fall in Jefferson County is offering preschool in Spanish and English, one of many efforts in the works across Colorado as the state tries to get more Spanish-speaking students into preschool and assimilate new migrants from South America. It also comes as Gov. Jared Polis signed a new law last week to create a bilingual licensing unit within the state Department of Early Childhood, targeting $360,000 in state funds next year to help Spanishspeaking child care providers get licensed and to expand bilingual preschool options. Next fall, Jefferson County Head Start will have three bilingual classrooms in Arvada — for kids who speak Spanish at home and whose parents speak only Spanish, and for English-speaking children whose parents want them to learn Spanish. Ramirez, who supervises the county’s bilingual Head Start program, spent the past year building a plan to serve the area’s growing Spanish-speaking population. Several of the families who’ve enrolled are recent migrants from Venezuela and Colombia, she said. The nonprofit Head Start provides free preschool to low-income families. In Jefferson County, 200 children, from infants to 5 years old, are enrolled in 16 classrooms in Arvada and Wheat Ridge. Until this year,
SEE PRIDE, P2
SEE BILINGUAL, P6
PHOTO ON LEFT: The 1981 Pride Parade passes the corner of East Colfax and Lafayette. Three decades later, the vacant Metropolitan Industrial Bank would be purchased, renovated and transformed into The Center on Colfax, the first building to be PHOTO BY PHIL NASH owned by the LGBTQ+ organization.
Decades of progress toward liberation and fair treatment will be celebrated during this year’s Pride Month BY NATALIE KERR SPECIAL TO THE WASHINGTON PARK PROFILE
In 1976, Christi Layne, the stage name of renowned drag performer Christopher Sloane, stood with one of their best friends at the head of the very first Pride March in Denver, after having gone through some back-and-forth with the city and the state to get a permit. They had expected a crowd of 200 people. But as they looked back at the gathering of more than 1,200,
Layne’s friend turned to them and, with tears in his eyes, said, “now I know I’m not alone.” June is observed as national Pride month, with LGBTQ+ community celebrations taking place across the nation. Here in Denver, The Center on Colfax hosts the region’s largest annual Pride event, which has a rich history and roots going back to that first march in 1976. LGBTQ+ community members reminisced on Pride’s history and its importance to a community that had to fight to be celebrated after centuries of being forced into shame and secrecy. A history of activism
Fifty years ago, clandestine gay and lesbian bars were some of the only safe spaces for LGBTQ+ people, and even then, the threat of a police raid loomed over the patrons, said Phil Nash, who served as
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