AL DÍA News got the scoop on the winners of the David Acosta Revolutionary Leader Award (DARLA), given by GALAEI to individuals who work to improve the LGBT community and which will be presented April 24. 

Ada Bello, an LGBT rights activist from migrated in 1959 from Cuba to the United States and became one of the early pioneers of the LGBT rights movement in Philadelphia, will be honored at the ceremony which will take place at Crane Arts. 

Bello was a founding member in 1967 of the local chapter of the organization known as Daughters of Bilitis (DOB), which led a year later to the creation of the Homophile Action League (HAL).

From 1966 to 1968, on the Fourth of July in front of Independence Hall, the first demonstrations for the rights of the LGBT community were held in Philadelphia. Bello participated in the last of these. A year later the Stonewall riots broke out in New York.

The DARLA organization award will be presented to Juntos.

“It’s a great honor for Juntos to be receiving the DARLA Award. It’s very momentous in the history of the organization, especially now that we recently started working more closely with the LGBT immigrant community and launched an LGBT committee,” said Miguel Andrade, youth organizer at Juntos.

The DARLA youth award will be presented to Erika Guadalupe Nuñez, a 23-year-old Mexican immigrant who was brought to the United States as a child and who self identifies as “undocumented, unafraid, queer and unashamed”. 

“I am very honored to be recognized by people in my own community,” said Nuñez to AL DÍA. “When queer Latinos tell you that you are doing a good job it is very humbling.”

For years Nuñez has been working toward immigration reform with the Migrant Power Movement, formerly known as DreamActivist Pennsylvania, and the National Immigrant Youth Alliance. 

Last year she was part of the “Bring Them Home” campaign aimed at young undocumented immigrants who would’ve qualified for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) but were deported before the announcement of the federal program in 2012. 

Nuñez, who served as coordinator for New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Connecticut, worked in a joint effort that managed to bring back six people who had been previously deported. 

Nuñez, who recently became a permanent resident, shared part of her story and what has motivated her fight:

“When I came out about my immigration status I was scared, but then I realized I was what people considered a ‘dreamer’ and the more I talked about it, the more people saw me as a sort of poster child. That made me think of people like my father or my mother who didn’t necessarily have the opportunities I had,” Nuñez said. “When I think about the immigrant rights movement, my goal is that it should go beyond poster kids, be something more revolutionary, maybe someone who doesn’t necessarily present their gender in a way that mainstream society is comfortable with, just because there is not more people advocating for that.”

The 6th Annual DARLA celebration will take place Friday, April 24, from 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. at Crane White Space (1427 N 2nd St) and will feature a silent auction, appetizers, complimentary beer & wine. For more info or tickets, visit Eventbrite.