Personal Narrative on Compton's Cafeteria and Military Service

Felicia Elizondo's writing on her experiences frequenting Compton's Cafeteria in the 1960s and serving in the US Navy during the Vietnam War. Like many autobiographical fragments in Elizondo's collection, it consists of isolated pages from published and unpublished sources which were found together. This item comes from the Felicia “Flames” Elizondo papers (#2021-06) at the GLBT Historical Society. Felicia Elizondo, who performed as Felicia Flames, was a Chicana trans woman and drag queen associated with San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood. She was a regular at Gene Compton's Cafeteria at the time of the Compton's Cafeteria Riot, a historic 1966 uprising by trans and queer people. Elizondo performed for many years at Aunt Charlie's Lounge alongside her close friend Vicki Marlane. This collection contains Elizondo's writings, photographs of her and her community, ephemera she collected about local drag and queer topics, and materials about Marlane and her legacy.

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Item Information:

Identifier: dv13zt75h
Collection: Felicia Elizondo/Felicia Flames Collection
Institution: GLBT Historical Society
Creator(s): Elizondo, Felicia
Date Created: circa 2010 to circa 2020
Genre: Autobiographies
Subject(s): Compton's Cafeteria Riots
Places: California > San Francisco County > San Francisco
Da Nang City > Da Nang
Topic(s): Chicano/a/x LGBTQ+ people
Chicano/a/x transgender people
Latino/a/x LGBTQ+ people
Latino/a/x transgender people
LGBTQ+ people
LGBTQ+ people in the military
Transgender people
Vietnam War, 1961-1975
Resource Type: Text
Language: English
Rights: In copyright
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