November 15, 1969 �" December 25, 2015
Horacio's expertise in dancing cumbias was a proud reflection of his immigrant Salvadorian background �" he loved to party and loved his men brown. Often he was seen collaborating with the queer Latina/o HIV agency Proyecto ContraSIDA Por Vida. He distinguished himself as an expert witness fighting for asylum-seeking LGBT Central Americans, was a founding member of La Colectiva, a SF Bay Area LGBT Latina/o History Collective; winner of various scholarly prizes, including those of the National Association of Chicana and Chicano Studies; taught at San Jose State University and at UC Berkeley (where he received his doctorate), became a tenured professor in ethnic studies at UC Santa Barbara; and was renowned as a SF Bay Area multigender queer Latina/o oral historian and archivist. He contributed to the Encyclopedia of American Immigration (M.E. Sharpe 2001), Civil Rights in the United States (Gale 2000), Virgins, Guerrillas & Locas (Cleis 1999), and co-edited Bodies of Evidence (Oxford University Press 2012 ). Horacio is survived by many in San Francisco and Los Angeles that loved him and by his mother, Lydia Roque Ramirez, and sisters Violeta, Nubia, and Norma Roque and their respective families.
A remembrance event is being held in his honor Saturday, December 10, from 2 to 5 p.m. at Galería de la Raza, 2857 24th Street, San Francisco.