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Legendary LGBTQ activist Roland Palencia believes that “many times the role of children is to finish the unfinished business of their parents.” Roland inherited significant unfinished business from his father, who left his family to join the guerrilla resistance against the CIA-backed military government in his native Guatemala and was later assassinated when Roland was only 14. As a result, he has spent his life carrying on his father’s quest for justice in his own remarkable way.
Roland’s mother, fearing she might also be targeted by the government and that her children would become orphans, emigrated to the U.S. She later met Alfredo Garcia and Stuart Lubin, a gay couple, at her factory job. They became her beloved friends and the family’s immigration sponsors. Roland remained close with Garcia and Lubin for decades. “My immigration story is really a gay love story,” he says, “because of the love and commitment these two men had for my Mom and her family.”
Once in the U.S., Roland hit the ground running, serving as president of Los Angeles High School’s English as a Second Language (ESL) Club, earning a B.A. in History from UCLA, and later a master’s in the Humanities from Pacifica Graduate Institute.
Roland recalls the L.A. gay scene of the late 1970s as a heady mix of sexuality, politics, and disco music. He was heavily involved with Gay & Lesbian Latinos Unidos (GLLU), founded in 1981. Eventually, he became its second president. GLLU advocated for gay rights and other intersectional issues, including racism, sexism, classism, and U.S. intervention in Central America.
In the late 1980s, Roland founded VIVA!, a collective dedicated to supporting queer Latine artists and honoring those who died in the AIDS epidemic. Shortly thereafter, his fundraising prowess was showcased when he became Chief of Operations and Vice President at the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, helping expand the budget from $4 million to $40 million within six years. But the role he cherishes most from that time was serving as Executive Director at Clinica Monseñor Oscar A. Romero, which primarily served Central Americans and other immigrants, many of them political refugees, giving him once again the feeling of carrying on his father’s unfinished business. He later experienced another gratifying career shift as Greater Los Angeles Regional Director at The California Endowment, where, instead of asking for money, he was now tasked with giving away $25 million a year to worthy organizations.
By now a highly sought-after figure in philanthropic circles, Roland served as Community Benefits Director at LA Care Health Plan (the nation’s largest public health plan) and as Executive Director of Equality California. He also forged robust careers in academia and filmmaking, teaching a grant-writing course at California State University, Northridge, and serving as Executive Producer for the films TransVisible: Bamby Salcedo’s Story and Unidad: Gay & Lesbian Latinos Unidos.
Today, Roland is a celebrated elder of the Los Angeles LGBTQ+ activist movement, and his work has been cited in numerous books and publications. He believes the key to withstanding current political struggles lies in understanding our movement’s history: “How did we not only survive but also thrive in the midst of a deadly pandemic? There are a lot of lessons, especially from our history’s darkest moments.” Much like his father, Roland Palencia’s work is far from finished.
