This story comes from NPR’s Next Generation Radio project:
(Editorial note: We are using Moroni DeAnda/La Dede Camacho’s preferred names to correspond with their different gender identities.)
Cheers spilled from Cavas 3, a club in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico, on a warm Saturday night in August. Inside, two drag queens impersonated two famous Mexican singers, Amanda Miguel and Laura León. Their bedazzled dresses, big wigs and tall heels mesmerized the crowd, inviting them to sing along.
“It’s like a formula: you have a good wig, you have a good outfit, you have good makeup and you have a good show, and then you have a great, positive review,” said La Dede Camacho, the drag queen who impersonated Laura León that night.
Despite a drag career consisting of 7,000 shows so far, La Dede said she felt especially validated by the Cavas 3 crowd after her performance as the famous singer. Once she donned her full-length sequined gown and walked onto the stage, her confidence took the wheel.
That confidence is something that La Dede has cultivated since childhood.
La Dede, a self-described “funny, sexy, Latina,” is now a prominent LGTBQ+ figure in the El Paso and Ciudad Juárez region. The drag queen hosts events such as Drag Story Hour, in addition to performing at nightclubs, as a way to promote inclusivity amid a political climate that’s increasingly hostile toward the LGTBQ+ community.
When she’s not on stage, La Dede goes by her birth name, Moroni DeAnda, a 35-year-old man who grew up on the south side of Chicago.
