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Queer APIs: When Communities Collide

By kevinjamesgardner

Is the API community more homophobic than other groups? This was just one of the questions raised by queer API activists who gathered in San Francisco last week to voice their practical needs and discuss policy priorities for mainstream queer communities in terms of people of color and low-income groups. The term “queer” refers to anyone whose sexual expression goes outside society’s predominate cultural framework of heterosexuality.

The community consultation meeting, hosted by Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center on May 24, brought together 20 men and women to take part in the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force’s (NGLTF) racial and economic justice initiative. The initiative focuses on racism and poverty within and around queer communities as intrinsic threats to the dignity and well-being of all sexually diverse people.

This particular forum highlighted the personal and sometimes complex intersection of API and queer identities and communities. Especially when there’s more than one API community.

“Keep in mind the extreme diversity within the API community — geographically, ethnically, and socio-economically,” John Manzon-Santos, executive director of A&PI Wellness Center, cautioned NGLTF’s Ingrid Rivera-Dessuit, a self-identified black Latina, who organized the meeting.

(left to right) Ingrid Rivera-Dessuit of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Dana Ginn Paredes from the Center for Third World Organizing, Crystal Jang from the San Francisco Unified School District, and Belinda Dronkers-Laureta of API Family Pride, share opinions about the difficult issues facing queer Asians in America. Photo by kevinjamesgardner.

“I hear you loud and clear,” Rivera-Dessuit responded. “I’m definitely aware of these issues.”

The attendees gathered represented various Asian American ethnicities — Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Filipino, Indian, hapa — as well as diverse sexual identities — gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and straight. They raised a myriad of issues, ranging from immigration, families, religion and welfare reform, to age discrimination, sexual behavior, media visibility and community education.

As an active member of her local parent teachers association (PTA), Belinda Dronkers-Laureta of API Family Pride in Fremont, Calif., knows how difficult it can be to bridge the gap between issues of ethnicity and sexuality. When she tried to bring up the latter in her PTA’s ethnic/race relations committee, she recalled, “they told us sexuality is not inclusive.”

So, what’s a good parent activist to do? “We’re thinking of changing the committee name to ‘human relations,’” Dronkers-Laureta said. “You don’t have to go national to make local change.”

She also believes increasing visibility of queer Asian Americans in the media would help people — queer and not, Asian and non-Asian — better understand and connect the different communities.

“Put Asian faces in promotional spots that reflect the make-up of our communities,” suggested Dronkers-Laureta. “Getting our faces out there will make it more positive.”

Crystal Jang, a teacher at Martin Luther King Middle School in San Francisco, agrees that people, especially young ones, need to see queer Asian Americans as a normal, integral part of larger society. “We’re here, we’re queer, and we’re Asian,” Jang stated.

Born and raised in the city, Jang now lives here with her partner and their 5-year-old daughter, and has worked for the SFUSD for 30 years. “There are very few API teachers who are willing to be out, so kids can’t connect with them.”

And API queer youth, who are coming out at younger and younger ages, would really benefit from this kind of connection and role-modeling, especially because they often don’t relate to mainstream gay culture.

“They don’t go to support groups on campus because they’re mostly white,” explained Jang, “They avoid the Castro, LYRIC [a queer youth organization], the GLBT [gay lesbian bisexual transgender] community. There’s this disconnect between GLBT and ethnic cultural issues.”

Immigrants also experience this disconnect. Before queer Asians can make it to the United States in the first place, they’re usually forced to hide their sexual identity to conform to a “heterosexist” immigration system that pushes for family reunification based on married, father-centered nuclear families. Once here, it often feels simpler for queer immigrants to maintain this split identity, according to Ignatius Bau, an immigration lawyer who works with Asian & Pacific Islander American Health Forum. “They come out as queers, but stay closeted about their immigration status.”

Intolerance toward sexual diversity within the various API communities makes it hard for all the generations — first, second, third, etc. — to reconcile their non-traditional sexualities with their cultural heritages. About a year and a half ago, for example, Korean American churches in California rallied against queer human rights in a failed attempt to push a political initiative that would have prohibited “public entities” from “endorsing, educating, recognizing or promoting homosexuality” as acceptable and from using the term “sexual orientation.” (See AsianWeek’s in-depth coverage of this issue at www.asianweek.com/2000_01_20.) These kinds of phobias and discrimination make it hard for queer people to live normal, healthy and happy lives in their communities of origin, and conversely, for these communities to band together and push for greater rights and representation of APIs in queer communities.

“We need to do our own census,” suggested Manzon-Santos. “Bodies drive dollars.” He also emphasized the importance of financial support for queer APIs, such as the scholarships his organization provides every year, and the important role of the ethnic media in this equation for change.

This group of bright activists also suggested a strategy of “regionalism”: targeting pockets of highly concentrated API communities throughout the United States to promote racial and economic justice for all. And queer APIs are key to opening people’s hearts and minds.

“When I marched in the Lunar New Year parade, the kids later came up to me and said, ‘Hey, I saw you in the parade,’ and it didn’t matter that we marched under a queer banner,” Jang said. This was the first time this parade had a queer contingent, and Jang recalls how the general crowd greeted it with silence after clapping for everyone else. “It was really eerie,” she said, “but the kids were fine.”