When people ask me why I moved to Reading, Pennsylvania, from Queretaro Mexico, four years ago, my answer used to be: “Reading is the right place for me. It is affordable and if you are good at what you do, it is easy to stand out.” While that might be true, this is also true: I am a White-passing, skinny queer, white-collar, bilingual, Mexican immigrant, who loves community, culture, service, and the arts. And I am meant to be in Reading, Pennsylvania.
Although I’ve been blessed to let many people get to know me through the community work that I’ve done here in Reading, there are a lot of things that many people don’t know about my journey.
To begin with, for 18 years I was a Jehovah’s Witness. This background and upbringing have always given me a different perspective on how I should spend my free time. Growing up I volunteered for around 30 hours per month. I was also trained as a public speaker. By the age of fifteen, I was speaking to audiences of up to 15,000 people.
Here’s something else. While I like to laugh and enjoy hula hooping in my free time, I’m also practical and factual and good at math and managing projects. In 2011, while still in Mexico, these skills helped me get hired by Santander Group. After being trained for two years I was transferred to Reading, Pa. And it has been my journey in Reading that has allowed me to use my queerness to discover who I am, what I love to do, and how to use my voice.
This is kind of where it got started. Four years ago, around March, while in Reading, I saw an advertisement for a planning meeting for a pride celebration. So I went, and I brought my friend DJ Luis with me (I was wearing a gorgeous vintage wool tunic that my friend Susan Golembiski upcycled for me by adding pockets).
When we arrived at the meeting the possibility of canceling Pride Celebrations that year was on the table for a vote. I remember telling them: “You can’t cancel gay Christmas!” They replied: “We haven’t had a successful festival for five years; the attendance is going down and there’s no money or sponsors nor volunteers. We are tired.”
Then something clicked for me. I became determined to help with these pride celebrations with fundraising, advertising, PR, and marketing. I set up a photo shoot, video commercial and got to work as the social media manager for the organization. Then I got offered the volunteer chair position, a time-consuming position that I needed to be voted into. Unfortunately, my candidacy was canceled the night before the election after the board of directors realized that I hadn’t been part of the organization for the 180 days required by the organization’s by-laws. I had been a part of the organization for 179 days. This made me one day short of being eligible to be considered as a candidate.
Despite this, volunteering for the celebrations was a fun and exciting learning experience. I got the opportunity to be a backup dancer for one of my all-time favorite singers, Crystal Waters at the 2019 Pride Festival (Although it was a process that made me almost leave the organization. At that time, I thought it was just a lack of consideration for other people’s opinions; now I call it White Supremacy).
During this time, I was being introduced to and confronted with several new realities having to do with racial inequality and politics. Due to my religious background, I never had an interest in politics and hadn’t even voted in Mexico. And let’s be honest, many of us from Latin communities don’t have enough education and awareness about racism in our home countries, and sometimes even within our own families. But once you see it, you can’t turn your back to it.
Here are some of the things that I saw with pride celebrations in Reading: I brought it to the attention of the board that for the first fifteen years of the organization’s life, 80% of the executive board was made up of people belonging to the same gender, color, and age range. In addition, the organization didn’t represent the city of Reading. For me it was simple, I started to approach people in the community to add people of color to the executive board. However, most of them declined due to previous unpleasant experiences they had with pride celebrations in Reading in the past.
So, I tried to diversify the executive board. When elections for executive positions were up for vote, I ran unopposed for Vice President. Then, on the day of the election, advised by a Berks County-based consultant, the executive committee revoked the by-law requiring that members be in the organization for 180 days in order to be eligible to be voted on to the executive board. This was the same by-law that stopped me from gaining the volunteer chair position two years prior. Now instead of running unopposed, a second candidate with only thirty days in the organization was brought in and voted the new Vice President of the organization. After that, I delivered a very melodramatic exit from the organization (We live for a dramatic exit).
Before this organization, I made the first contact that allowed me to merge fashion and politics when I met Annarose Ingarra-Milch at the Stirling Mansion Pride Fundraiser, and she asked me to plan her mayoral campaign’s fashion show. This opportunity kept me busy with fashion and politics for a while.
The year 2020 had a slow start, but by June the temperatures were at a boiling point because of topics like social justice and politics (and we can’t forget Miss Corona). It was a confusing time, and the news wasn’t any help. Everyone was confused. Then I got a message from Angel Venty and Yaj Derick that made sense. They were looking to organize a protest for Black Lives Matter. Something clicked for me again. We could use this protest to reclaim Pride and also remind the community that all lives can’t matter until Black trans lives matter.
So, on Saturday, June 6th, our protest for Black trans lives turned into the first Pride march that downtown Reading has ever seen; and we did it for the same reasons Marsha P. Johnson – one of the prominent figures of the Stonewall Riots – did it in New York City, 50 years ago. We also used the protest to crown the one and only Majestee as Miss Reading Pride 2020, after she slayed a powerful performance of Beyonce’s “Listen.” (Fun fact: This protest and march was also the start of a local queer community group, One Love Project).
By this time, I had already started volunteering with other organizations, like Berks Democratic Women too. They allowed me to produce a few fashion shows for them, one of which you can find on YouTube by searching “Normandy Alberti Fashion Show at the Reading Distilling Guild.”
And I guess it was my love for music and my continuous search for LGBTQ+ friendly bars in the city that took me on a journey of hosting parties and helping to create safe spaces for the queer community in Reading, Pa. Most recently I partnered with Lola Cha-Cha Amor to produce ‘Brunch on Penn is a Real Drag,’ a monthly drag brunch that turns one year old in June of 2021.
And although we haven’t spoken much about fashion, I love it, and promoting sustainable fashion is one of my purposes in life, and also one of the reasons why I am here in Reading, Pa, the former fashion capital of the world.
But that’s enough for now. I know it’s a lot. And I couldn’t do it without the amazing local support system that I have, and my family and friends around the world. Thank you all!
Written by Natan Pulido
Revised and Edited by David Nazario
Styling & Creative Direction Credits to both Natan and David.
