Paulina Montenegro had one goal. She spent months practicing. There were hours of sewing, stitching and gluing fantastical costumes. And thousands of dollars dropped on dresses, rhinestones, makeup, shoes, wigs and travel — all to be crowned Miss Queen Look International 2018.
The beauty pageant on Sept. 30 in Portland, Ore., was going to be Paulina’s last hurrah, her last big attempt at winning such a title before perhaps calling it quits. For the 47-year-old self-described drag queen, competing only gets harder as the participants get younger and younger.
“Viejita is what many people say to me,” Paulina says, through a translator, with tears in her eyes after an hours-long practice ahead of the competition. Itap the Spanish word for old lady.
“I just want to keep doing what I love to do. I want to follow my dreams. And that is being a drag queen and a performer,” Paulina says. “It is what I have always done.”
To Paulina, living the life of a drag queen means a world of beauty, stardom, glamour and notoriety. Take away the costumes and makeup though, Jose Antonio Illarramendi Avalos’ life is much harder.
Jose faces financial instability and job insecurity. He changed jobs three times in the last three months and lives out of one room that he rents in a house in Aurora, with no access to a kitchen or living room. He barely speaks English, largely because of a profound hearing impairment. Without hearing aids, he would not be able to dance to music or speak with clients when he works as a hairstylist.
But, even as a young boy, there was always a dream.
“When I saw myself at 14 years old in a mirror dressed up like a drag queen, I fell in love with myself,” Paulina says, reflecting on life in Mexico “I wasn’t just going to dress up as a girl — I was going to be the best drag queen I could be. I thought to myself, this is going to be my lifelong passion.”
Paulina came to the United States from Mexico like so many others — fleeing hardships and searching for a better life. But her life in Colorado can be a lonely one. Being a Mexican in the U.S. has become harder recently. So has being a gay man. But within the local Latina drag queen community, Paulina also found love, family and acceptance.
“Gender issues and identity issues make it hard to find a lifelong partner and especially love,” says Gigi, or Junior Ramirez, 21, a protégé of Paulina’s. “With our friends we have found a collective sense of acceptance for who we are and what we do.”
So Paulina embraces the beauty and pageantry — to make lives better, even if itap just for a moment.
“The reason I like doing this is because when I do this, it makes me feel good. It also makes other people feel good about themselves too,” Paulina says. “If I can play a little part in boosting someone else’s self-esteem and making them feel good about themselves and confident about themselves, I am all for it.”
But on that stage at the Dolores Winningstad Theatre in Portland in September, Paulina’s dream didn’t come true. The crown glittered on Stephanie Fonseca’s head after she won seven out of eight categories of Miss Queen Look International, practically sweeping the competition. Stephanie, also from Denver, is the drag queen who Paulina considers to be her top rival. She was the one competitor who Paulina worried and wondered about for months leading to the competition.
It was a particularly painful loss for Paulina, who didn’t place in the top three.
That won’t stop her, though. Paulina plans to take some time off but intends to continue to follow her drag queen dream.
“I do it because I love it,” she says. “This is what I love … it is in my soul.”
And although some might criticize her age, call her viejita, or suggest that she should do something else, Paulina has a retort at the ready: La esperanza muere ultimo. Mientras hay vida, siempre hay esperanza.
“Hope dies last. While there is life, there is always hope.”
