Stories of Salem: Salem's Mother of Drag
Produced by Meghan Jonas and Ashley Jackson Lawrence. Story by Meghan Jonas.
Across the United States, nearly 500 bills have been proposed that target the LGBTQ+ community, according to the ACLU. These bills frequently affect drag queens, limiting their free speech and the places they can perform. A federal judge recently overturned Tennessee’s drag ban, citing it as unconstitutional.
While there are currently no proposed drag bans in Oregon, performers like Richard Arias, also known as RiRi Calienté, Salem’s Mother of Drag, believe that being visible in their communities is more important than ever.
When RiRi Calienté graces the stage at the Infinity Room’s twice-monthly drag brunch, Makeup and Mimosas, everyone stops to watch. With dramatic eye makeup, classy dresses and a hairdo that could reach heaven, she dances between tables and across stages with the confidence of a queen.
Playing it up to cameras and her audience, RiRi’s energy welcomes people in and beckons them to come closer to her. Within minutes of her lipsyncing, people are swaying in their chairs and singing or snapping along. Audiences become enraptured, their eyes never leaving her.
“Is this anyone’s first time at a drag show?” RiRi asks her audience. When a few hands pop up, her eyes sparkle with the knowledge that this moment is an opportunity to educate and entertain.
After her performance of the Etta James classic, “The Wallflower,” RiRi tells audiences about her grandparents and their love of dancing. “The Wallflower” was one of their favorite songs to dance to, and RiRi’s love of and connection to family is palpable.
Richard Arias, the performer behind RiRi Calienté, has always been a performer. “I am a huge ham, and have always looked at humor as a way to get through things.”
He tells a story of being woken up by his parents during house parties to reenact the entirety of the “Wizard of Oz,” which he knew by heart by age 5. His favorite character? The Wicked Witch. “I mean, those shoes are pretty amazing,” he says. “So I can understand her wanting them so badly.”
Born legally blind with doctors expecting that he would be completely blind by age 5, Arias has defied expectations.
“We don’t know what happened…something, somebody had a bigger plan for me,” he says. Though he can’t legally drive, Arias does all his own hair and makeup when performing as RiRi Calienté, which he says has been his biggest hurdle as a drag performer.
Arias started performing in drag in the 1990s and is completely self-taught. He originally began performing as Regina Monet when he was 21, but Arias says that it wasn’t his time. “My skin wasn’t thick enough,” he says.
He wouldn’t feel the call to return drag until 10 years later, after losing his best friend, Dwayne, to HIV. “On his deathbed,” Arias recalls, Dwayne said, “Promise me that you'll do drag? You're meant to do drag. I need you to do drag.”
The two were best friends since middle school, and Arias leaned on him after he was forcefully outed in his small town. Dwayne kept him grounded, pulling Arias out of a deep depression. The two moved from California to Oregon together in 1993 and remained as close as brothers until his death.
Another decade passed before Arias says Dwayne’s words fully hit him. He’d been in community theater productions and choruses in Salem and knew he needed to give drag another shot. Now, Arias has been consistently performing as RiRi Calienté for 11 years.
“I took the Ri from Regina, and the Ri from Richard. And I combine them to make RiRi. So the queen I always thought I was and the man that I am today had to become my drag name in order for me to like, somehow encapsulate all the knowledge, all of the life experience to make RiRi.”
Arias’s journey to becoming more comfortable with his feminine side is one he’s been on for years. When he, his friend Dwayne, and a group of other friends tried out for their high school’s cheerleading team, Arias was the only one who remained after the others were bullied, beaten up and harassed off the team.
“[Drag] should be personal,” Arias says. “For me personally, it’s always been about finding a place to be in touch with that side of myself that doesn’t get to come out and play during the daylight.”
While there is pressure being the center of attention, Arias says performing has allowed him to become more outgoing in and out of drag.“Something about throwing the hair on and the makeup kind of just sets me free to be that person.”
Freedom of expression is often lifesaving for members of the LGBTQ+ community, many of whom have faced harassment because of who they are. Drag provides people with an outlet for creativity outside traditional gender roles and has been lifesaving for Arias.
“I've always looked at drag as a way to heal myself, and heal others by what I can bring to the table,” Arias says. While Arias may be reserved when he comes into a room, it’s a different story with RiRi, who can quickly become the center of attention and is immediately greeted with a hug.
For Arias, drag is more than a hobby - it’s the way he makes his living. “We’re not trying to convert your children. We're not trying to corrupt anyone. We are just trying to make a living entertaining the masses.”
Drag queens across the country perform in various ways, whether that’s reading to children and encouraging literacy at local libraries or raising awareness and funds for HIV prevention. To performers like Arias, it’s clear they’re trying to bring goodness into the world rather than harm.
Arias’s chosen drag family, consisting of ten queens and kings that have been mentored in the art of drag, continues to grow. When they got together to celebrate Arias’s fiancé’s birthday, they sat around the dining table and laughed and talked for hours. “It is truly a family.”
Arias has worked with and been royalty for the Imperial Sovereign Court of the Willamette Empire (ISCWE), which is part of an international drag court system that raises money for local nonprofits. Through drag, he has been able to raise thousands of dollars for the HIV Alliance, Willamette Humane Society and the St. Francis Shelter.
As the first Hispanic Empress to be nominated to ISCWE in over 20 years, RiRi Calienté worked with Mano a Mano to support the huge, often unrecognized, queer Latinx community in Salem.
When Calienté performs, she can feel the moment that an audience becomes locked into her performance. And when someone sees her dressed to the nines and educating others, all while performing a powerhouse of a ballad, it catches their attention and can open their mind to the vastness of the human experience.
“Not a lot of my brothers and sisters in some areas get to do what I do,” Calienté says at the end of the show. “And just because it’s not happening to us doesn’t mean it’s not happening. So we have to make sure that we stay vigilant, we stand together, and trust me - a little kindness and togetherness will go a long, long way.”
Folks in the audience start snapping and whooping in agreement as Calienté continues, “And it’s never been more important than ever, than right now, for us as queer people to stand together and make the change once again, just like we’ve been doing for many, many years. Our work is never done, and that’s okay.”
“Hard work builds character,” she says in a mock gruff accent, once again bringing laughter and levity to the room as audiences leave with a smile on their faces, perhaps knowing more than they did before.
To watch RiRi Calienté perform, check out Calienté at the Southside Speakeasy every 1st and 3rd Saturday and Makeup and Mimosas at the Infinity Room every 2nd and 4th Saturday.
If you’re a member of the LGBTQ+ community and need support, please call the Trevor Project’s hotline at 1-866-488-7386 or text 678-678.
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