As we talk in Spanish about his sexual identity, a smile spreads across Miguel’s face. He punctuates his thoughts with English and says, “I just want to be myself…”

"I am proud because I am myself…To be gay has shown me my strength, my worth and I have stood face to face to society as myself. This is my pride."

Miguel Roque Silva is 21 years old and a resident of Ciudad Sandino, Nicaragua. Like all Nicaraguans, he has grown up in a society that has sought to define itself and find its way through dictatorship, revolution, renewal, poverty and instability. The history of Nicaragua is like a dialogue that switches back and forth between inner struggle and the struggle of society as a whole. Although Miguel refers to the struggle to define his sexuality, the same words can be heard from the lips of many Nicaraguans who still want to know who they will be and how this country will find itself.

Miguel was born in Ciudad Sandino in 1983. His parents had been involved with the Sandinistas—a Nicaraguan movement that fought and succeeded in overthrowing the dictator Anastasio Somoza in 1979. He and three siblings, however, were orphaned when his parents and sister died in a car accident in 1986. With nowhere else to go, they grew up in the household of an aunt in Managua.

A photo of Miguel and Ivania's deceased parents hangs on the wall above Ivania's bed.

“They were not interested in us. They didn’t care how we were,” Miguel says. “If we had food or didn’t have food. If we had light or water. In this house, we were mistreated and abused sexually, emotionally and psychologically.”

Miguel was left to take care of himself in Managua, Nicaragua, the capital that has grown from nearly 600,000 in 1985 to over 1,100,000 today.

As a young child, he washed clothes and dishes, cleaned homes, and cooked to support himself. Gender roles in Latin America are fairly rigid, and the work that Miguel was doing is usually considered “women’s work.” He was treated accordingly and he received insults that have lasted until the present— making reference to his gender expression and sexuality— mariposa, mamón, maricón and gay. These words are derogatory words for sexual minorities in Nicaragua— mariposa is butterfly, mamón is a small fruit eaten in Nicaragua that is eaten by sucking, and maricón is a sissy.

Miguel and his nephew Brian look throuh photographs in Miguel's room in Ciudad Sandino, Nicaragua.

“My sector is very, very dangerous because there are many people without a house, without money, without food,” Silva explains. “There are no jobs. It is a municipality of Managua, but here there are much less job options, and our economy is unstable. Ciudad Sandino is a refuge. It is a place where people come who have no other options.”

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