Image of the former home of Guitar Bar, courtesy of Yamil Avivi. 

Yamil Avivi highlights his years-long ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with queer Brazilian men in the Ironbound neighborhood of Newark in Chapter 9, “‘Temos Muitas Coisas Pra Fazer’: Market Identities and Queer Community-Building in the Brazilian Ironbound and Greater Queer Newark.” He demonstrates that while queer visibility in the Ironbound has risen over the course of his study, new difficulties have emerged as the economic development of the Ironbound has led to an increase in neoliberal policies and practices.

Avivi highlights an interview conducted with a queer Brazilian resident, Bairon, from 2019, when he asked for reflections on the Ironbound since 2009, when he first interviewed Bairon. Bairon reflected that while the dominant culture in the Ironbound, influenced by Brazilian residents, remained heteronormative, queer visibility had risen in the past decade.

Bairon: “You can see gays holding hands. Like a couple of months ago, they had the Portuguese festival, I see two girls holding hands and I saw two guys holding hands. In 2009, I don’t think we saw that.”

Avivi also discusses Guitar Bar, a venue that was frequented by an ethnically diverse queer audience. He also demonstrates how, despite efforts from the Newark Pride Center and a Black promoter, neoliberalism in the Ironbound prevented the formation and maintanance of a coalition of queer ethnic groups. There are also no images of Guitar Bar, demonstrating that even in the digital age, queer and Latinx nightlife still often lacks documentation.