Near the main entrance, a giant bottle of Miller Genuine Draft frozen in a plastic ice block hangs above the table, as card players continue their game, the dealer shuffling the cards and dealing to seven men and a woman who sit at the table. In a few hours, the Pasa Tiempo will be rocking with rancheras, cumbias and banda, packed with people coming to dance, sweat, laugh, get drunk and get in trouble. No yuppie bar, this. Located in one of the most "unfashionable" sections of Watsonville, the Pasa Tiempo serves as a surrogate community center for hundreds of farmworkers, housewives and neighbors- a haven for the hardworking and the displaced migrants a thousand miles from home. And transvestites like Gaby, Chari and Brenda, who have nowhere else to go.
Admiring looks turn to the back entrance to follow Gaby's arrival. She's a young,
tall and slender regular at the Pasa Tiempo Club. She wears a black, fitted
dress that embellishes her figure. Her high heels make her taller, her eyeliner
and mascara make her eyes rounder, brighter. She walks with a long, defiant
stride, bouncing her long brown hair and smiling at those who stare at her.
Among the group of lone, short men, her height and sex can hardly go unnoticed.
Yet she refuses to deceive anyone.
Like several other transvestites, Gaby has found refuge at the Pasa Tiempo Club,
a more or less straight Latino bar on South Main Street, Watsonville. "It
is more fun to go to straight bars than to go to gay bars," Gaby says.
To some of her friends, however, the Pasa Tiempo is not a fun straight place
to frequent, it is their only choice.
Chari's love for the Pasa Tiempo was born out of convenience.
She does not own a car, and lives across the street from the club. "I would
like to go to a gay bar, but Franco's is too far," Chari says. Franco's
in Castroville is the only Latino gay bar in the area.
Gaby doesn't share Chari's love for Franco's. "In gay bars I'm bitched
at with looks or words," she says. "But ever since I stopped going
to gay bars, I have more fun." With her head-turning good looks, Gaby has
adopted the Pasa Tiempo as her favorite showroom for her beauty.
The Pasa Tiempo's locale marks the beginning of the gloomy side of Main Street.
This southern most point of Santa Cruz County is easily neglected by county
officials. The biggest and most popular bar of the area, the Pasa Tiempo has
become a haven for drug dealers and prostitutes, and city officials now want
to close it down.
"Pasa Tiempo, of all the south Main Street bars, has more calls that we
have to respond to, or we patrol more because we know we are going to have more
problems there," said Watsonville Police Chief Terry Medina. The police
department recorded 171 police calls to the site in 1995, compared to 119 calls
to La Frontera Club, a couple of blocks down the street, and 113 calls to Cilantro's,
a fashionable restaurant on the other side of town.
Grupo Fugaz entertains the audience and rocks them until the wee hours of the
morning every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The trumpet player delivers long,
sensual notes that entice couples to dance closer. The songs are tight, and
the repertoire includes the familiar cumbias, rancheras, and banda that make
people spring from their chairs when the first notes come out. The neatly dressed,
unassuming clientele of the club don't go to impress anybody. They are not wearing
the latest Pierre Cardin or Paco Rabanne, only beisbol caps, sombreros, cowboy
boots, jeans, tights and loose blouses.
A 21-year-old man invites a young lady to dance with him. His eyes roll back
and forth without focusing anywhere, and he seems to bite his tongue every time
he utters a word. She asks how much money he spends on beer. He stumbles a little
and responds that it's none of her business. Two hours later, he leaves the
place trying to hold on to his buddy, tripping over imaginary rocks.
Martín Rosas works in the strawberry fields and a factory in Watsonville.
He prefers the Pasa Tiempo to any other club in the area. "I like dancing,"
he says. He spends between $20-30 a night buying beer when he does not have
money, and up to $200 if he does.
"Most of the customers are farmworkers. For a lot of them, it's their only
recreation," Chief Medina said.
Despite the high percentage of regular clientele, the Pasa Tiempo is not a big
happy family. Chari, the young, aspiring transsexual who has been coming to
the club for more than five years, had to fight hard for her right to use the
bathroom of her choice. "El Chino [the security guard] used to stop us
from going to the women's bathroom," she said. Chari took her grievances
to Pete Sánchez, Sr., the former owner of the club, and she was happy
to hear his answer, "If you come dressed as a woman, use the women's bathroom,"
he told her.
And she does. Chari wears tight jeans and fitted tops that go well with her
nice, small figure. She wears her long hair loose, and her long eyelashes are
the perfect frame for her green eyes. She is ready to fight for her rights any
time she feels they are being violated, and that usually gets her in trouble.
"The waitresses don't know how to do their job," she complains, explaining
that they usually don't treat her with respect. "The customer should always
be right, why do they always want to give me a hard time? I come here to spend
my money, and I want good service for that."
In spite of this, Chari usually enjoys herself at the Pasa Tiempo. "The
boys treat me well, they are nice," she says. She dances well, and the
men seem to be at ease dancing with her. "People know what I am, no doubt
about it. Guys don't seem to mind; we are not doing anything wrong, we are just
dancing," she says. Strange as it seems in such a macho culture, plenty
of guys are willing to dance with her, and she says she has sometimes shared
her bed with those with whom she shares the dance floor.
Victor Manuel Íñiguez has worked at the club for more than three
and a half years as a security guard. According to Íñiguez's own
estimate, 80 or 90 percent of the clients are regulars. "People come here
to try to forget their problems. They want to have some fun after a hard week
at work," he said.
Despite Chari's and Brenda's complaints, Íñiguez insists that
he treats transvestites no different than the rest. "They're clients like
everyone else, and I earn my living off the clients. I have to treat them well,"
he said.
Elio Medina, the front-door security guard, believes that the few women who
dance at the Pasa Tiempo are key to the popularity of the place. He says, "They
don't look down on the clients who ask them to dance. They don't care what the
men wear, like in other places."
Medina thinks he has a good relationship with most of the clientele. "After
a while, you know most of the people that come here." Chari, the young
transvestite, doesn't agree with him. "He discriminates against us, and
never lets us come in," she said. Chari, Brenda, Juana and their friends
always use the back entrance kept by Íñiguez, the security guard
who allows them in.
Raúl, a club visitor, sits at the bar sipping his beer. He invites a
woman sitting next to him to have a drink, and immediately confides his troubles
to her. Originally from Jalisco, he has lived in Watsonville for five years,
and has never been able to save enough money to go back home. "I miss my
mother," he says. "I can send a couple of hundred dollars every month,
and I spend the rest here." Deep sadness emanates from his gaze, yet he
invites his attentive listener to dance with him. On the dance floor, he shakes
his troubles away to the rhythm of the loud trumpets. Raúl's story is
a common one at the Pasa Tiempo; most men come to the area trying to escape
the poverty of their hometowns. They arrive without families, and often take
a long time to form one.
Oscar Curry is 35 years old and has been coming to Pasa Tiempo since he was
15. He readily praises the club, citing the good music and atmosphere. "No
matter where you go, there's always going to be drugs and bad people,"
says Curry. "But this is the only place that's hired security, so people
feel safe here," he said.
The most popular dancers at the Pasa Tiempo are Leo and Georgina. He's a young
Lou Diamond Phillips look-alike. He is easily recognized by his gray trenchcoat,
cowboy boots and the bandanna under his cowboy hat. She is shorter than Leo,
and her long, brown curly hair is held by a couple of barrettes above her ears.
Together they barhop the clubs in Watsonville, and always spring out of their
chairs when a good banda song plays. "We've danced together for three years,"
said Georgina. And it shows. Cigarrete in hand, he bounces her up in the air,
twirls her around, leads her all over the dance floor, and they never miss a
step.
At exactly 1:45 a.m., the lights go on, the band finishes its last song, and
the dancers go back to their tables to gulp the last of their drinks and gather
their coats and purses. The patrons slowly walk towards the exits, while the
security guards and waitresses begin stacking up the chairs, sweeping the floors
and cleaning the tables. Tomorrow, they will start all over again.
Pete Sánchez Jr. took over the management of the Pasa Tiempo after his
father passed away in 1993. Opened in the 1980s, the club has been at its present
location since 1989, after moving from the 200 block of Main Street. Now, along
with several other Latino clubs in the area, the Pasa Tiempo club is in danger
of losing its license. Last Friday, March 8, the As de Oros of Gilroy was raided
by the Alcohol Beverages Control Commission and the state Employment Enforcement
Task Force. Mary V., a resident of Monterey, was furious about the way the law
enforcement groups treated the clientele. "Why are they trying to close
our places to have fun," she said. "I don't want to listen to a fundamentalist
preacher frothing at the mouth, I want to go out and have fun." The move,
according to Rosalinda López, President of the Gilroy Hispanic Chamber
of Commerce, is just part of the city's plan to rezone the downtown area. "They
are targeting Hispanic businesses," she said in a recent report by the
Mercury News.
Perhaps these really are ill-disguised efforts to make the night clubs visited
by Latinos disappear. Minorities make communities unsigthly and in these days
of hysterical xenophobia, any excuse is valid to get rid of them. Perhaps city
officials think that closing their hangouts will drive them away.
The community of Watsonville is not about to storm the City Council chambers
and the Alcoholic Beverages Control meetings to advocate for the Pasa Tiempo.
Yet hose who seek refuge in this, their surrogate community center-Gaby, Chari
and Brenda-may soon have to find another hangout. The Grupo Fugaz may have to
find another club to groove, and the farmworkers another bar to spend their
dollars at. "If this place didn't exist," Security Guard Íñiguez
said, "people would look for other places to go have a good time."
Until they are driven away, again.