The Van Dykes is a project by photographer Devyn Galindo and writer Hope Steinman-Iacullo that documents queer life across America. | Devyn Galindo

Inspired by a group of itinerant lesbians in the 1970s, The Van Dykes Project is an oral history of queer life, love, and resilience across the U.S. It took photographer Devyn Galindo two years to find the 1978 avocado-green VW Westfalia that would eventually take her and her partner, writer Hope Steinman-Iacullo, on a three-month road trip from Los Angeles to the Florida Keys. But when she found it, she knew its spirit was right. An older lesbian woman living in Long Beach was selling one she used for road trips across the country, and she wanted it to go to someone who would love it as much as she did. ?It felt like a passing of the torch,? Galindo says of finding the camper van, which she named Sweetpea.
Galindo bought Sweetpea to use as a mobile studio and drove it across the country to document the oral histories of lesbians, transgender and gender non-conforming people, and queer elders?the stories that are often underrepresented in feminist narratives. She compiled her trip into The Van Dykes Project, a forthcoming journal that reflects a more inclusive vision of ?Van Life? through Galindo?s photographs and Steinman-Iacullo?s interviews with six people in Phoenix; New Orleans; Allen, Texas; and Palm Beach, Florida.

Devyn Galindo
Hope Steinman-Iacullo (left) and Devyn Galindo (right) travele...