South Bay Pride is back and celebrating its 13th year of Pride at the Chula Vista Bayfront Park. After a more than a year of lockdowns, and no events, the South Bay Pride Art & Musical Festival is one of the first full outdoor LGBTQ events to be held since the pandemic in San Diego, Arizona and Nevada. With a record breaking 20,000 attendees in 2019, Mishelle Banaga, South Bay Pride Art & Musical Festival music director and lead guitarist, songwriter and keys for Ingénue, said despite the setbacks of COVID-19, they are planning for a bigger and better festival this year.
“That will entice everyone to come to South Bay Pride,” she said. “We have people that come from all over the county, from Los Angeles, Orange County. Our outreach is beyond just from Tijuana to National City. We are hoping for 40,000 people or more this year. It is the first open Pride event in San Diego, it is free, it is by the water. We are going to have paddle boarding, jumpers for the kids, food, and great music. It is going to be amazing.”
Banaga said the list of entertainers is getting better all the time, already with headliners Tori Roze and the Hot Mess, Jennifer Corday, Santana Soul, Danielle Lo Presti and the Masses, and of course Ingénue, ready to hit the main stage for a day of entertainment.
Under the umbrella of the South Bay Alliance, Banaga said COVID hit the organization hard with the inability to do its fundraisers prior to the event like in past years, but that it is not going to stop them from holding this event, so they are focusing their fundraising efforts already for next year. They are still looking for musicians, artists, and sponsors for the event.
“With everything closed and uncertain some sponsors that we have reached out to, just could not do it this last year because everyone is on a strict budget,” she said. “It is going to take us years to come out of this dip in our economy. We were doing so well. South Bay Pride was on a great trajectory.
Banaga said she is still trying to get great artists for the event that are established in San Diego, Los Angeles and California. She said having LGBT fronted bands are great, but the allied musicians are extremely important in making the festival inclusive for everyone and growing this family friendly event.
“There are many things going down at the Chula Vista Bayfront we are going to be at Bayfront Park on the south side this year,” she said. “There are so many trees, it is all grass, and the area is going to be very comfortable this year, especially since we are holding this in August instead of September. With the cool breeze coming off the ocean, it will be gorgeous. We will have areas for kids to play in, and a decompression tent because many parents will not go out because their kids are autistic and need that moment to decompress.”
Banaga said during the pandemic, SBP and the Alliance has some new young blood working, and that even in the pandemic, made some significant impacts in the South Bay community, all which are supported by the Alliance in bringing inclusivity and acceptance to South Bay.
Nadia Kean-Ayub, South Bay Alliance board secretary came onboard in 2019 right before the pandemic so she did not get experience the “joy” of SBP last year.
“Being born and raised in South Bay it is extremely important to me to show the community how inclusive, welcoming, and how loved our LGBTQ family is,” she said. “Part of Parents, Families, and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, I meet the parents, the children, and every single story touches me. Just having one inclusive environment makes a difference. I noticed many of our kids would grow up and leave because they believed anti-LGBT demonstrations like with Drag Queen Storytime, they were uncomfortable here in Chula Vista.”
Madison Beck, South Bay Pride Ride community organizer said with the Drag Queen Storytime and the backlash that it received, and then COVID, she noticed all Pride events in San Diego were not cancelled, but online.
“I felt there was not enough visibility after what occurred in our city, doing something online that was not tangible in our community was not enough,” she said. “I felt the LGBTQ+ community in Chula Vista needed to see a strong showing of loving acceptance for them after something so awful that happened that happened at an event that was so wonderful. I saw all the caravans going around for the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer, and I organized a caravan for Juneteenth in June. We called in a Pride Ride last year, and in a few weeks, we had a massive event with motorcyclists, the mayor, other representatives, and we had people cheering us on the sidewalks as we passed by. It was a cool, empowering and loving moment for our community. This year it is called South Bay Pride Ride.”
Beck said this year, they decided to host the Ride on Oct. 9, right before National Coming Out Day.
“It is going to be bigger, more inclusive,” said Beck. “Even if you are not ready to come all the way out, come out and show support for the community, and be around love and positivity and acceptance.”
Banaga said that if there would have been a Pride Ride when she was in her 20s, she would have come out to her family, friends and coworkers much sooner, but that there was nothing like this in the mid-80s.
“I am grateful that we have this now because it is wrapping our arms around all those kids that need to know that they are safe,” she said. “They need to know that they are in a safe city, and a safe space. And that is what this does. Madison and Nadia’s idea was to decorate cars as loud as we can. It was like a miniature version of San Diego Pride’s parade with cars.”
Kean-Ayub began another program under the Alliance this year after speaking to a PFLAG parent who told her that her trans daughter did not feel comfortable going out to swim in the summer. The daughter was bullied at school, and the parent felt with that there was no way to protect her at a public pool.
“Having swam all through high school, played water polo, growing up in San Diego surfing, I just could not imagine feeling uncomfortable going to the pool,” she said.
Kean-Ayub spoke with the mayors of Chula Vista and National City, several South Bay council members and representatives asking what she could do to get pool time for LGBTQ youth.
“The response was amazing,” she said. “Parks and Recreation in Chula Vista were amazing, the city of San Diego contacted me wanting to be part of this, everywhere south of Highway 94. These kids do not go into the pool thinking if someone is going to look at them because of their body but will someone ask them inappropriate questions. But with this, they just get to jump in the pool and just be kids. It is amazing to watch the amount of confidence they gain with just two hours in the pool.”
Needing funding, Kean-Ayub approached the community and raised $4,000 for private pool times at different locations in South Bay in four days. The response was so well received, she has gotten requests from San Jose and Los Angeles on how to set up the same type of program in their areas.
“These were LGBTQ adults who wished that there was something like this when they were that age. It just took off,” she said. “We are now adding the YMCA. We started out to committing to four pool times and we have more than 20 now. We have one every weekend, twice on certain weekends. We have held four all over South Bay and eight coming up in August. We post the events on our social media and emails, we ask for signups, because we do not want anyone coming out and disrupting the kids.”
Kean-Ayub is also creating an inclusive farmer’s market at Pepper Park with LGBTQ farmers, fishermen, and resources for the community.
“We are going Pepper Park where normally you would not think we could bring in this type of inclusivity and immerse it into the community in a way that it standardizes it, and kids can see that this is normal,” she said. “Who I am is normal. I do not have to justify my existence to anybody. That is my goal to make sure that every kid that grows up in South Bay wants to return to South Bay and grow our community because they know that they are loved and that we are here for them.”
Beck said the existence of the LGBTQ community should not be political or controversial.
“We are human beings and like everybody else we deserve to be happy and to live life free from judgement, and constraint. I think with all this visibility, that is my hope of what will come from this. Love is the answer and if you believe that then come out and let us love each other for who we are because we are not going anywhere,” she said.
South Bay Pride Art & Music Festival is Aug. 21 at Bayfront Park Chula Vista from noon – 10 p.m. Admission is free. Visit www.soutbaypride.org for more information.
