2023-10-27 13:00:00
Paola Abache, indigenous Warao and Venezuelan immigrant, was elected miss trans of the LGBTQIA+ 2023 parade in Roraima | Fabrício Araújo/ISA
Crossing the border was the beginning of a new life – a “rebirth”, as the new trans miss of the Roraima LGBTQIA+ parade, Paola Abache, aged 23, describes it. The indigenous woman from the Warao ethnic group, inhabitants of the Orinoco River Delta, in Northern Venezuela, saw immigration as an opportunity to begin her gender transition. But his arrival in Brazil gave him even more achievements: Paola was chosen as “cacique” of the largest indigenous shelter in Latin America and fulfilled her childhood dream of becoming a “reina” (queen, in Spanish).
Crowned in October 2023, four years after arriving in Roraima, Paola says she couldn’t believe it when her name was announced for the second time. The first announcement occurred by mistake and placed her in third place. When she had to return to her position she thought she wouldn’t take another step forward, until the event presenters said she was the state’s new Miss Trans.
“I remember I had no reaction. I thought I was going to cry, but I didn’t. I thought I was going to scream, but I didn’t. I thought I was going to jump, but I didn’t. I just thought I couldn’t believe it, even with the miss sash. I only understood it at home, where I put the belt back on and did everything I thought I was going to do. Afterwards, I just thought I wanted to hug my mother tight,” she recalled.
On the right, the winner of the LGBTQIA+ parade in Roraima | Benjamin Santiago
The difficulty in understanding that I had achieved a dream was not just because of the shock of the moment. Paola claims that she had financial difficulties to go through all the stages of the competition. Furthermore, she remembers that the competition was not easy.
“I looked at the other girls competing, they were well dressed, with makeup, and I felt like I would be embarrassed because I wasn’t as well produced as them. They were also very beautiful, none of them were ugly. A friend looked at me and said: ‘it’s your night, shine and rock’, I nodded and said: ‘ok, that’s what I’m going to do’”, he said.
At the end of the competition, Paola feels accomplished and equated with Lilith Caru, a Wapichana indigenous woman who was also crowned Miss Trans in 2020. According to Paola, Lilith became an inspiration from the first time she saw her. So, he asked her for guidance on signing up for this year’s contest. The two met during the Parade.
Inspirations and aspirations
Lilith Cairú is just one of three Wapichana women who have inspired the indigenous Warao on her journey through Brazil. Mari WapichanaRoraima’s first indigenous miss, is also an example that Paola wants to follow.
However, she is the president of the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples (Funai), Joania Wapichana, which makes Paola sigh and dream about the future. She is currently attending high school through Youth and Adult Education (EJA) and plans to study Law.
“I want to study Law so I can work in defense of Human Rights, just like Joenia does. I want to be like her, I want to fight like her, because she is strong. It’s beautiful to see how she defends her community,” she says.
In addition to EJA, Paola has also dedicated herself to learning the Portuguese language. This will be her third language as she communicates in Warao and Spanish. After almost five years in Brazil, she says that she can now understand Brazilians.
Rebirth
In January 2019, when she was 19 years old, Paola decided it was time to be who she knew she was since she was 6 years old. She followed the movement of Venezuelans who, since 2014, have been seeking better living conditions in other countries.
“In my case, immigration was not due to hunger or lack of medicine. I immigrated to be reborn”, says the 23-year-old, who arrived in Roraima in January 2019. For the first two years, she lived in a shelter in the municipality of Pacaraima.
“In my case, immigration was not due to hunger or lack of medicine. I immigrated to be reborn”, says Paola, born in Araguabisi, Venezuela|Fabrício Araújo/ISA
In order to provide assistance to Venezuelans living in Roraima, the federal government established Operation Acolhida in 2017, a task force coordinated by the Brazilian Army, which guarantees shelter and guidance on legal procedures in Brazil.
When the Warao indigenous woman left the Araguabisi community, in Venezuela, the transition had not yet begun, but she was already facing problems in being accepted, including by her own family. However, she had already made up her mind and, when she began screening at the border, she asked that her name on Brazilian documents be Paola Abache.
In Roraima, her boyfriend was already waiting for her. He had arrived two years earlier and the two maintained their relationship through social media. Also through virtual media, Paola’s family discovered the transition when seeing photos of her.
“My grandmother, who raised me, was the first to accept me. I was also welcomed by my two aunts, my mother’s sisters, and two of my cousins. They supported me a lot and my grandmother said that she already knew I would be like this because she had watched me since I was a child,” she said. She said that today her identity is accepted by her family.
After two years living in Pacaraima, she decided it was time to go to the capital and was transferred to one of the shelters in Boa Vista. When she arrived, the space was still shared with non-indigenous people, but it became a specific shelter for the Warao on March 14, 2022.
The Waraotuma a Tuaranoko (“resting place until you can leave for another” in the Warao language) is the largest indigenous shelter in Latin America, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The space has already housed almost 2 thousand indigenous people and was also under the leadership of Paola Abache.
Paola in the largest indigenous shelter in Latin America, in Boa Vista, where she was chief for seven months alongside four other indigenous people | Fabrício Araújo/ISA
According to Venezuela’s most recent Census, from 2011, the Warao ethnic group is the second most populous in the country with around 49 thousand indigenous people. This people is also considered the oldest human group in Venezuela. UNHCR report states that in 2014 there were 30 Warao living in Brazilbut in 2016, when the crisis in the neighboring country worsened, the number jumped to 600 and reached 3,300 in 2020.
In the community in Venezuela, gender issues were a barrier between Paola and her people, but in the shelter her identity was not an issue. The indigenous people themselves chose her as a chief to represent them even though she didn’t want to accept it.
First, she held the position of “substitute” for one of the chiefs. However, he opted for internalization, a process of Operation Acolhida that takes Venezuelan immigrants to live in other Brazilian states in order to reduce impacts on Roraima. So, a new vote was needed to choose a new chief and the community already knew they wanted Paola, but it took two days before they convinced her to accept.
“I was already a woman and nothing ever happened to me with the indigenous people, I didn’t suffer prejudice. Still, I didn’t want to be a leader right away, I kept thinking and the others convinced me by saying that I already had experience and expressed everyone’s needs well and that I knew how to defend my people well,” she said.
Paola was chief for seven months. She shared leadership with four other indigenous people. “Being a chief is not easy. You need to know your own community, understand the problems, act in cases of conflict, be a counselor and, more than anything, you need to know how to work to bring the best to the community. And, I was afraid, because I wouldn’t know how to be any other way if I couldn’t be a chief like that,” she recalled.
After transitioning to a new country, leading her relatives in the largest indigenous shelter in Latin America and becoming Miss Trans of the LGBTQIA+ parade in Roraima, Paola knows that her achievements are the result of a struggle that needs to multiply. “For other women like me, trans and indigenous, it is necessary to work, fight and study. If you have dreams, don’t give up and don’t believe the many people who will try to make you unable to achieve your dreams!”
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