PACHACUNTI
(Pacha)I've been Pachacunti from the start and from the start, no one knew what it meant or how to understand it.
(Pacha)Yes.
(Pacha)So there's actually a whole story. So my mom's family is from Peru. And when I was brainstorming drag names, I was like, I want it to be somehow, my mom, my, so my mom's family is from Peru and my dad's family are like Pittsburgh Ashkenazi Jews.
Yes. So I was thinking about like, I wanted to be somehow connected to one of my like ethnic heritages.
(Pacha)Um, and I was really interested and continue to be really interested in like indigenous or like ancient Peruvian history. Um, because growing up, my mom's parents immigrated from Peru, but my mom was born in the, in California. Um, and so she, I didn't, I, I used to study Latin American literature and like culture and stuff.
So I was able to articulate in one of my classes that my mom is in this like halfway point between, there's this phenomenon in specifically in Latino culture, like Latino is in like us Latino culture of people who are born in the U S but they were born so close to when their family moved that they're not quite like culturally us citizens or they were like pushed too hard to be us citizens by their family. So they have an intense disconnect from there, like a country of origin. Um, and so my mom, or on the other hand, like being born in their country of origin, but then like coming to the U S at a really young age.
And so like not quite being second generation, but not quite being first generation. And my mom exists in that realm of like her, she has two siblings that are both younger than her and growing up, her parents were working all the time and were like, she, and she was at like a Catholic school for most of her life. So I don't know.
She has gotten a lot better about this too, but for a lot of my time growing up, she was not like really into being Peruvian. And like every couple of years she would go through like the process of like collecting like pan flutes and having them all over my childhood home. Um, and then like every two years everything would disappear.
And it's like, Oh, cause you, you like feel this intense shame about like being engaged with your culture, which is sad. but I got really into like the idea of reconnecting with my family. And also I didn't speak Spanish growing up because my parents would speak it so that I wouldn't understand what they were saying.
That all to say, I got really into reconnecting with my Peruvian heritage and like seventh, eighth grade. And so when it came to thinking about my drag, I was like, okay, I could be like one of like a million Jewish drag performers in the city. And like, have that be like my main branding, like, like all the Jewish performers in the city who have like Jewish themed themes.
Or I could be one of like four Peruvian drag performers. Um, I literally, I think I know of four. And I realized like, I, I, I was thinking like between putting in the effort to find like a Jewish name that has not been done before and finding something in Peruvian heritage.
I was like, I'm going to go that route just, just to play with it. And I, and in the Inca empire, like the, um, like Machu Picchu and stuff. Um, there was this guy, he was one of the emperors.
He actually was the one who unified the Inca empire from the four, like smaller groups that it was before into the Inca empire that is like known now. Um, and his name was Pachacuti.
(Pacha)And I saw, and I was thinking about it and I was like, Oh, you put an N in that name. It says cunt. Um, so that's where it comes from.
(Pacha)And it's like, no one, no one got it for like a solid year and a half, but I kept telling, and people would tell me at shows, they'd be like, I don't know how to pronounce your name and I, and you should change it. Cause I don't know how to pronounce or spell it.
And you're going to have issues with that. Like if no one can spell or pronounce your name, like no one's going to be able to spell or pronounce your name. And I kept telling myself and I kept telling the people around me that one day someone is going to come up to me and say, wait, your name is based on Pachacuti, right?
And it's going to be like the best day of my life. And in the last like six months, it's happened like four times.
((Pacha)The first time it happened, I was like, I like told the person I was like, I have been waiting for this day for literally two years.
(Pacha) It's pretty great.