Fabian Quezada’s Story is an Ode to Resilience | Living Y Ready

Before me, Fabian Quezada sits on an oversized couch overlooking the Hollywood Hills. The afternoon sun casts a warm gaze on the living room. And, as our LatiNation production crew shuffles into his apartment, I notice, on a side table, a Mexican catrina doll holding an American flag.

Quezada’s story is an ode to resilience.

He was born in Guadalajara, México, and had to grow up fast. His parents separated when he was five years old, and his mom worked several jobs to support the family. Still a child himself, he helped take care of his younger siblings.

It was during these formative years he discovered his gay identity. But when he told his mother, she refused to accept him. Instead, she sent him to the seminary.

“For the first time, I felt that the person who’s supposed to love you no matter what didn’t,” Quezada says, reflecting back on his mother’s decision.

Whether it was the emotional manipulation from his mother or the religious manipulation from the Church, Quezada felt like something was seriously wrong with him. But here he was, trying and trying to meet expectations. “I couldn’t stop those thoughts, the feelings of being gay,” he says. “I fought them for a whole year.”

Then, one day, a priest caught Quezada at a gay club in town.

When he was confronted about this ‘less-than-appropriate’ behavior, he didn’t fight it. He was done pretending to fit into the heteronormative mold that the straight, religious community has made for him. He was done with Guadalajara, too.

So, he ran away.

“I crossed the border the first time illegally. Two times. The first time I got caught. The second time, it was successful,” Quezada says.

He wound up at a continuation high school in Long Beach. That was when the health department showed up. They were conducting HIV tests. He’d never taken one and thought, why not?

Two weeks later, the health department returned. They asked him to come with them, to another room, by himself.

“[They] told me at 17-years-old that I was HIV-positive,” Quezada says.

Then they put him back in the classroom, shocked and confused.

“I had to put a face on that nothing was happening, because I was ashamed. I felt like I was going to die,” Quezada continues, teary-eyed. “I still recall that headache I had.”

Before he got better, things got worse. He broke up with his boyfriend at the time, the one who had granted him his first destination in the United States. For the next year and half, he underwent homelessness and became addicted to hard drugs. He bounced in and out of abusive relationships, making it hard to believe in himself. It was hard to get a job, too, because he was undocumented.

“I felt alone a lot of times,” Quezada says, “but I always [had] that survival-mode in me—to overcome that and let other people help me.”

Help came.

Quezada became an unofficial assistant for a hairdresser he was dating, and he was pretty good at it. Then, when a very busy Beverly Hills hairdresser needed a proper assistant, Quezada got the job. It was in this role he found purpose.

“It was the best job I could ask for,” he says. “I fell in love with the profession, and I fell in love with changing people — color-wise.”

From there, he took hold of his life. He got on HIV medication. He got his green card. He reunited with his mother. He even returned to Guadalajara and got to see his entire extended family again.

Now, sitting in his beautiful Los Angeles apartment, with floor-to-ceiling windows that perfectly frame the Hollywood sign in the distance, Quezada is hopeful for the future.

“I was homeless, and the Gay and Lesbian Center took me into their transitional living program for homeless kids—and it’s just down the street,” he says.

Now, with a home of his own, he feels lucky. On the daily, he wakes up at 6:30am, walks his dogs, has his coffee (a must), goes to the gym, and heads to work.

Living with HIV, for Quezada, is a minor detail in a full and blessed life colored by friends, work, purpose, and dogs. Check out his episode of Living y Ready for the whole story.