Burbank’s Annual Latin Clown Convention Made Me Embrace My Inner Payasa

I arrived at 9 a.m. as Lauren. 

By 11 a.m., I was Dottie, my newly adopted clown persona.

I made it to the Latin Clowns Evolution Congreso expecting to report on a gathering of clowns. Instead, somewhere between the face paint, rainbow suspenders, and relentless warmth of the community, I became part of it.

Every year, the collective hosts the Congreso, a multi-day gathering where clowns from across the United States and Latin America swap techniques, attend workshops, discover new products, and uplift one another, even hosting an Oscars-style awards show on the final night in one last hurrah.

I first heard about the gathering from documentarians Jacob Koestler and Michael McDermit.

“We have been documenting this world for five years,” McDermit tells L.A. TACO. “The idea began in my classroom at El Camino College, when student Melanie Moreno wrote an essay about her parents, who helped found the Latin Clowns group in South L.A.”