Juliana Delgado Lopera

Juliana Delgado Lopera (born June 4, 1988) is a queer writer and performer. They are the author of ¡Cuéntamelo! an illustrated collection of queer immigrant histories in the United States during the 1980s. They use creative expressions like, writing, queer literary performance, and bilingual poetry to advance LGBT activism projects across the Bay Area. Delgado Lopera serves as the Executive/ Artistic director for the Nonprofit organization Radar Productions since 2015.

Early life and education
Juliana Delgado Lopera was born in Bogotá, Colombia and immigrated with their family to the United States in 2003 when they were fifteen-years-old. They first moved to Miami, Florida then relocated to the Bay Area to find their queer home.

Delgado Lopera attended the University of California Berkeley where they earned a Bachelor's degree in Women and Gender Studies in 2011. They continued their education at San Francisco State University and graduated with a Master's of Fine Arts in Creative Writing in 2015.

Radar Productions
Juliana Delgado Lopera became the Executive/ Artistic director role of the Nonprofit organization Radar Productions in 2015. Writer, Michelle Tea, founded Radar Productions back in 2003, its mission is to commission and offer queer performers, from diverse backgrounds, spaces to tell their LGBTQA experience. Radar Productions is based in San Francisco and organizes queer literature performances around the Bay Area that are open freely to the public.

Juliana Delgado Lopera initiated "Queering the Castro" soon after becoming Executive and Artistic Direction of Radar Productions. "Queering the Castro" was a yearlong project with a mission to revive the Castro's queerness through a series of panel discussions, poetry readings, queer intimacy, drag queen storytelling, and bilingual performance. Under Delgado Lopera's leadership, Radar Productions received $25,000 from San Francisco's Grants for the Arts. Their mission for "Queering the Castro" sought to revive the queer culture and to make it more inclusive of communities of color through art exhibitions, poetry readings, and literary awards. They collaborated with Magnet, the gay men's health center in the Castro, the San Francisco Public Library's Eureka, Valley/ Harvey Milk Memorial Branch Library, and the GLBT History Museum run by the GLBT Historical Society.

Artistic contributions
As a Queer, Transgender, People of Color (QTPOC) activist, Delgado Lopera collaborated in "Noche de Ambiente" (night of atmosphere) a multimedia exhibition available to the public from October 2016 to February 2017 at the GLBT History Museum. "Noche de Ambiente" offered a glimpse into the life of LGBT Latinx identities in San Francisco from the 1970s to the 1990s. Delgado Lopera volunteered at the GLBT History Museum, and during their time there, they were asked to participate in the "ambiente" exhibition. The term "ambiente" has been informally used as code for Latinx queerness/ resistance and as an introduction to the Latinx LGBT social scene. Delgado Lopera collaborated in the exhibition to use art as a tool to educate the public about Queer Latinx History in the Bay Area, particularly in San Francisco. They recognize the importance of making room for multi-national and inter-generational Queer Latinx History and the need to extend the term Latinidad in the U.S.

Awards
The San Francisco Foundation named Delgado Lopera the winner of the Joseph Henry Jackson Award in 2014. They also received an award from the Regen Ginaa Artist Fund from Galería de la Raza in 2013 and the National Queer Arts Festival Grant from the Queer Cultural Center in 2014.

Press
Delgado Lopera has been published by Four Way Review, The Bold Italic, Weird Sister, Revista Canto, Transfer Magazine, Raspa Magazine, Black Girl Dangerous, and SF Weekly.