Hailing from Cuba during a time of political uprising, Vázquez was one of 125,000 people who sought asylum and migrated in the Mariel Boat lifts in 1980.

She encountered a large Cuban LGBT community, eventually being baptized as "La Chica Streisandisima" at the swan fountain in Casino Campreste.

[5] Her early involvement with the LGBT community in Camagüey and emigration to the United States was the influence for Jaime Cortez's graphic novel Sexile.

After being denied, Vázquez committed herself to education and worked toward her teaching degree at Destacamento Pedagogico Manuel Ascunce Domenech.

Leaving behind family and belongings, Vázquez departed from the port of El Mosquito, a beach she recalled as unsafe and overcrowded.

Spending a month and half there, Vazquez's experience were generally positive as she recalled the center providing adequate healthcare, churches, and food for refugees.

While in California, Vazquez took jobs as a gift wrapper for Neiman Marcus, a hairdresser, and hotel clerk after she moved in 1983 to the Tenderloin district in San Francisco.

[5] Vázquez's activist work began in 1992 when she was crowned Miss Gay Latina, by Instituto Familiar De La Raza—a community based health and wellness center.

[2] Among her many efforts, Vázquez protested the employment discrimination faced by trans people and their removal from the workplace because of their gender queerness.

Together, Hector and Vázquez formed a group called Las AtreDivas (a portmanteau of the Spanish word atrevida—daring—and diva), which consisted of four drag queens.

[4] Vázquez's work was highlighted in Juana María Rodríguez book Queer Latinidad: Identity Practices, Discursive Spaces.

[9] In her chapter, "Activism and Identity," Rodríguez highlights the ways Proyecto offered a dynamic, culturally situated, queer approach to community health.