A young group of Latin American queer women are not letting the barrier of language prevent them from showcasing their pride during one of Toronto's biggest festivals.

Instead, they're turning to the universal language of art to fight barriers and address the lesbian stereotypes they've faced since immigrating to Canada.

Victoria Mata, Mariana Jerez, Liliana Chavez, and Gabby have come together to create a mural of collage paintings which are on exhibit at the Naco Gallery Caf� in hopes of giving Hispanic queer women a voice during the Pride Festival.

Working in community development with the Hispanic Council, Victoria Mata says the mural allows the other women who are all new immigrants to Canada a chance to express their struggles, because they can't get paid work as artists in Toronto.

"We come here as professionals, we're faced with the barrier of language that prevents us from advancing in our professions and we have to stay in certain fields that are more service oriented," she says.

"We end up doing construction, cleaning, painting, waitressing, a lot of volunteer work, and taking care of children,"

Mata, 27, says the women suffer through a period of depression because they can't express their art.

"We're not with our community of artists - so we start excluding and isolating ourselves more and more."

Jerez, 26, of Columbia and Chavez, 40, of Mexico immigrated to Canada about two years ago, and neither is working in their qualified professions due to their difficulties with spoken English.

Jerez, a journalist and photographer, says she wanted to participate with the group despite not being a lesbian, because it's an opportunity to be part of something more diverse.

"I'm breaking a barrier of being involved with a community, which I'm not part of," she says in Spanish. She hopes the experience will help her integrate into Toronto's multicultural hub.

Mata, who was born in Canada but spent her childhood in Venezuela, says being a lesbian with a language barrier hasn't made the challenges faced by these women any easier.

"There are many reasons that bring us to Toronto - economic and political reasons, violence -- some of which is due to our orientation. There's a lot of women that are killed and raped because of homophobia, she says.

All of the women say they've faced the stereotype of the "sexy Latina."

"When we come here and we're not that sexy Latina then .... there's very strong homophobia that exists in the Latin American community," Mata says.

"If you're a lesbian - it's automatically assumed that you're a butch woman - there's some very strong stereotyping."

The women say they hope the exhibition -- which also features photography, wood carvings, writing and paintings - will start to diminish the "invisibility" of queer Latin American women in Toronto and establish more solidarity between queer women within their community.

"You end up feeling positive, because you're sharing intimate dialogue with other people - you're giving it a message of change," Mata says.

Naco Gallery and Caf� owner Julian Calleros says he wanted to host the event in support of queer Latino women, because there isn't a lot of collaboration between the gay and lesbian Hispanic communities.

Calleros, whose caf� is hosting an array of Pride events, says his space is open to all queer people including lesbians and the transgendered.

A "Visual Arts Exhibition of Latin American Queer Artists" will premiere at the Naco Gallery Caf� at 1665 Dundas Street West this Sunday at 5 p.m.