Raphel Chatelain is a director, photographer, visual artist, and activist who grew up in France and currently lives in Los Angeles.
His latest photo series “Casa de Luz” (“House of Light”) documents Central American LGBTQ refugees who traveled with the Migrant Caravan and took shelter in an abandoned house in Tijuana, Mexico while waiting for asylum in the United States earlier this year.
Chatelain provided Queerty with a few images from his series along with exclusive captions describing each of the subjects and their stories.
Scroll down to for the images…
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Negro
Negro is 17 from Honduras and came in the Migrant Caravan that left Central America in January. He understood very quickly that the ones like him weren’t seen as a priority but instead as a “danger.”
“I’m being told we are the future,” he told me. “So why have we been abandoned and where is the compassion?”
Here he is having a cigarette break on the terrace of Casa de Luz, the abandoned house in Tijuana that the group found while waiting for their asylum papers.
Sharon
Sharon is a Garifuna trans woman from Honduras. She has been rejected by her family for being trans. In her Garifuna community, she is condemned to death. She was being harassed on a daily basis. This is why she is fleeing. Life has taught her to be strong.
Editor’s note: The Garifuna, or Garinagu, are descendants of an Afro-indigenous population from the Caribbean island of St. Vincent who were exiled to Honduras in the eighteenth century.
Melvin
The LGBTQ refugees group have been celebrating each other’s birthdays since they met in the Migrant Caravan. Here I captured a rare moment of joy that makes them forget the misery they are fleeing.
They are celebrating this young man’s birthday in Casa de Luz just before his uncertain departure. They are all singing together as one of his close friends who he met on the road smashes cake in his face. He was very moved and told the group that he hadn’t celebrated his birthday in years.
Tony and Guato
Tony (right) is 22. He made the decision to flee his country in order to finally be free. Free to express himself and live without feeling like he is in constant danger. His dream is to be an artist. Guato (left) is 18. His father was murdered four years ago and he doesn’t want the same to happen to him.
They met along the Migrant Caravan. Here they are in the bedroom they share in Casa de Luz while waiting for their asylum papers. Tony has a ritual of putting on headphones when he comes out of the shower and doing a full dance routine in front of the mirror. Guato saw I was about to take a picture so he struck a pose.
See more of Chatelain’s work on his website or by following him on Instagram. And learn more about his efforts to raise money to help the LGBTQ refugees now waiting in US detention centers for their cases to be approved HERE.
mulletkitty
I don’t even know where to start. Sad!
Juanjo
Wow, just wow. That is a shitload of hatred you have in your heart there, Mick.
Beachman
I had no idea Stephen Miller read Queerty….you learn something new everyday, huh?
And I suggest you keep your hate to Fox News….its a much better fit, and your ignorant homophobia is not welcome here.
Mr-DJ
Mick406 brings his INHOSPITALITY here, because apparently you cannot report/flag his comments here. By the way Mick406, according to the Bible, the Sin of Sodom was INHOSPITALITY.
(So….. Looks we have a bonafide SODOMITE here folks.)
Larry
We should all just unsubscribe until they allow blocks. BTW I just screen captured the comment and its a reply to this story on Twitter. They dont care however. All they care about is ad dollars here.
Jon in Canada
@Mick406
IP address identified: 2.17.156.017. How is anti-gay Poland these days?
Pay him no mind kids, just another troll.
Jon in Canada
@Mick406
IP address identified: 2.17.156.027. How is anti-gay Poland these days?
Pay him no mind kids, just another troll.
truthseeker
@Aires the Ram
They don’t want you to understand that simple concept. Instead, “Here are 14 sad photos and stories to make you say f— laws”
iamru2
Make that Detroit!
RevJames
Mick is what Irish immigrants were called as a pejorative once they arrived illegally in the USA. They were often treated little better than slaves and thought of as diseased unwanted queue jumping lay abouts. They came out of fear and desperation, poverty and starvation created by climate forces and political forces combined. And now you proudly go by that name. But you knew that already didn’t you Mick.
Mick406
You boys don’t seem to be able to catch on to buffoonery and the ludicrous tongue-in-cheek in my message. Don’t take things so seriously. Calm down boys . . . er . . . girls.
blackhook
Negro es muy guapo…
Kangol2
“Negro” was banned in the US? When, pray tell? You just pull nonsense out of your insecure femme-and-trans fearing tuches like most people breathe, it seems. Sheesh!
Kangol2
And the racist troll @iamru2 is back, as always! Take your anti-gay, white supremacist crap somewhere else!
Cam
It’s always interesting when an anti-LGBT account exposes itself so clearly.
MICK406 attacked everyone on there, and has regularly defended anti-LGBTQ bigots on this page.
Cam
Oh look, two sockpuppet accounts are talking to each other.
It’s adorable that the anti-LGBTQ accounts are also trying to push the narrative that you can apply for asylum normally. No, those offices were shut down.
Sorry, try another lie.
Cam
Notice how ANY story with non-white people in it brings out EVERY single anti-LGBTQ account we have on this page?
Also, notice how iamru2 will always try to derail any topic thread onto black people?
Cam
Awww, sweetie, if you’re going to repeat FOX News lies you may want to try posting a link. Please define “The Left”, and please point to the major politician who has called for getting rid of the boarder.
Oooops, did I just expose your lie????
Calin
sydboy007, I bet you don’t know right from left, stop using the terms you don’t understand you silly boy!!!
Cam
@MrKnowItAll
Except instead of trying to correct my comment, you just rattled through a bunch of FOX News talking points.
If I didn’t catch your other screename in a lie, then why weren’t you able to correct it?
Ingenuity1
How many more illegal immigrants is this country obligated to accept? We welcome highly educated foreigners or immigrants who can bring lots of money or business to the US. There are many of us gays who do not want uneducated poor people to invade our country and take advantage of our system. Keep them out.
Cam
By your definition Melania Trump should never have been admitted.
yaletownman
Interesting considering that Institute for Economics and Peace did a study that showed that the more poorly educated a U.S. citizen is the more likely they are to vote conservative.
I don’t think that the problem is their lack of education it’s that the mirror they in spite of their lack of education they are actually willing to work hard and take jobs that the average conservative voters will not. They would rather work for their survival than sit around and take OxyContin while whining about how people of a different color skin are ruining their lives.
truthseeker
@yaletownman
“a study that showed that the more poorly educated a U.S. citizen is the more likely they are to vote conservative. ”
That’s a flawed an inaccurate statement from the start. Based solely on graduation rates, the black community graduates at the lowest numbers of any race, meaning they lack the most formal education of any race and they as a community vote mostly liberal / Democrat
Plus, I could cite several studies that show liberals are most likely to be psychopathic, less likely to know the meaning of life, more likely to be narcissists, less likely to be healthy and happy, or that they dumb down their language when talking to minorities. All irrelevant to the topic of immigration.
“they are actually willing to work hard and take jobs that the average conservative voters will not”
That doesn’t mean we should do away with immigration laws because it benefits big businesses by not having to pay a living wage to workers which you are supporting. During the civil war, some used the same argument when they said, “we can’t end slavery, who will pick the cotton?”. I’d rather have short term economic pain that leads to long term economic prosperity than the opposite.
truthseeker
@Cam (DCguy’s 2nd account on here)
“please point to the major politician who has called for getting rid of the boarder.”
Tons of top Democrats are calling for policies that would erode our borders. Top Democrat Keith Ellison has worn a shirt that reads “I don’t believe in borders”, many Democrats compare ICE agents to Nazis and even AOC has demanded that we abolish ICE, they even protest when the US government arrests illegals who waltz over the border.
If you keep proposing policies that erode the border and protest every time something is done to strengthen the border, it eventually won’t exist. Letting in everyone who comes to the border will make America poorer. No other country would allow the nonsense that goes on with illegal immigration like America does.
Cam
@truthseeker
My favorite part was when you said “Tons of Top Dems” and then couldn’t come up with one single top dem.
But nice try sweetie.
truthseeker
Well. Comments stating facts about the dangers of illegal immigration get removed but when the user Hdtex said that I should die in a mass shooting in the comments of the latest Jussie Smollett story, his comment stayed