Hood Life of Ballroom Legends by Jason Soto

This is the little boy from Paris is Burning (on the right) - she grew up to become the legendary Alyssa Laperla - a mother of a house and icon. She represents the youth of the ballroom generation and does so well. Look at those hands!

In relation to the testemonio we read for class on the life of Juanito Xtravaganza, I felt the need to chime in and enliven our class blog with the life of Alyssa LaPerla. As seen in Paris is Burning, she was the little boy in the film we saw in class stating the following when being asked about the ball room culture in New York, “They treat each other like sisters, or brothers, or mothers. You know, like I say ‘that’s my sista,’ because she’s gay and I’m gay too.” Furthermore, as seen at the age of 13 on the streets in the middle of the night I feel Alyssa LaPerla’s story is reflective of the kind of life queer youth of color experience as detailed through Juanito Xtravaganza in his testemonio. I would not be surprised if Alyssa and Juanito crossed paths at one point in their ballroom life being that they both belonged to the same night life. Regardless, I just though I’d share being that Alyssa grew to own the balls as a legendary fem vogue queen and mother of a house, one of the few girls still alive from the movie!