Queer Asian and Pacific Islanders: Crossing Borders, Creating Home
By Ankita Sadaf Kelly

"Just before I die I want someone to make love to me in Cantonese" --Indigo Chih-Lien Som The Very Inside: An Anthology of Writing by Asian and Pacific Islander Lesbian & Bisexual Women, Sharon Lim-Hing, Editor (Sister Vision Press, 1994)

Last year the Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center (A&PIWC) produced the first ever Asian & Pacific Islander Pride Stage at San Francisco's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Pride 2000 Celebration. The success of the stage was one indicator of how far the queer Asian and Pacific Islander (A&PI) community has come. "It put us on the map," A&PIWC's Nikki Calma (a.k.a. Tita Aida), a Filpina immigrant, says. "It said, 'You can't ignore us.' It brought our communities to the next level and put a face to our leadership."

The San Francisco Bay Area is home to intersecting communities of Asians and Pacific Islanders that speak dozens of languages. "There is not a single identity for A&PIs," says Stan Yogi, a gay Japanese American activist. "The group consists of different ethnicities, American-born Asians, immigrants... Class, generation, religion and other factors come into play as well." A&PI identity in the U.S. is varied; defining a queer A&PI identity poses its own challenges and offers a world of possibilities.

"Our diversity is also a valuable resource," says Javid Syed, National Technical Assistance Trainer with A&PIWC. Syed, who emigrated to the U.S. from India, adds: "It brings out the idea of plurality. Because we are a diverse community, one of our core values becomes respect for differences."

Queer A&PI communities in the U.S. maintain close links with their sister groups in Asia and the Pacific. Bay Area organizations like Trikone, Asian and Pacific Islander Lesbian Bisexual Transgender Network (APILBTN), and the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance (GAPA) have supported and participated in LGBT movements in their countries of origin.

"There is a constant flow of ideas and people between the diaspora and the motherland," says Syed. "The support has taken the form of letter-writing campaigns, multi-city demonstrations, individual and grass-roots fundraising, educational trainings, awards ceremonies, as well as cultural projects--all with an eye to strengthening queer A&PI networks in the U.S. and abroad."

For example, the International Gay & Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) recently presented its Felipa de Souza award to the group Companions on a Journey, and its Women's Support Group. The organization works on behalf of people with alternative sexualities in Sri Lanka. Last year in Sri Lanka an editorial letter to a well-known newspaper, The Island, advocated unleashing a gang of convicted rapists on a national lesbian conference proposed by the Women's Support Group. Sherman de Rose, a founder of Companions on a Journey, filed a complaint over the letter to the Sri Lanka Press Council. The council issued a judgment rejecting the complaint, condemning lesbianism and fining de Rose.

Cut Sleeve: A Rich History
One afternoon, Emperor Ai of China's Han Dynasty was resting with his lover, Dong Xian, when he was called into court. Rather than wake up his beloved who was reclining across the emperor's sleeve, Ai took out a dagger and cut off the end of his garment. Writers have used the term 'cut sleeve' as a symbol of homosexuality among the Chinese ever since.

Today in China gays and lesbians often face persecution and isolation. A 1999 Beijing libel lawsuit resulted in what is believed to be the first legal decision in the People's Republic of China on the nature of homosexuality. Judge Zhang wrote in her decision, "Homosexuality in China today is considered as abnormal sexual behavior and not acceptable to the public..." The court, ruling for the plaintiff, said, "... by describing him as a homosexual without any proof, Fang Gang brought depression and psychological pain to the plaintiff and affected his life, work and reputation."

According to Chou Wah-shan, author of Tongzhi: Politics of Same-Sex Eroticism in Chinese Societies, homophobia is a by-product of Western cultural expansion. Same-sex eroticism was prevalent throughout Chinese history and class and gender were more important than sexual identity in Chinese society, Chou says.

Homosexual contact is outlawed in India, Malaysia, and Singapore--under prohibitions against 'acts against nature' inherited from British rule. In many other Asian countries a degree of ambiguity surrounds LGBT issues. The Philippines have the reputation as one of the contemporary societies most tolerant of homosexuality. Filipino criminal law is silent on the subject of consenting same-sex relations and there is little or no prosecution under other statutes.

In Japan, it was considered a landmark "first" in early 1999 when the Governor's Advisory Commission invited Tokyo gays and lesbians to testify at an official hearing. It was an even bigger "first" when the Commission's December 1999 report recommended inclusion of sexual minorities in new measures to protect human rights. While the Commission included their concerns in its report, they are omitted from the published draft.


LGBT A&PIs in America
In the United States, gay A&PIs often experience a complex blend of circumstances. In urban settings, there's often the freedom to come out and organize. But there may also be disapproval from families and mainstream communities. Then, as people of color, there is the task of relating to and within a predominantly white mainstream LGBT culture.

"In America you can develop the life you want," says GAPA historian Kek Tee Lim. Lim, who is Chinese, was born in Malaysia and moved to the United States 25 years ago. "People in San Francisco are more tolerant of gay people than other places."

Lim, however, encountered problems within his own community of origin. "The Chinese community does not understand gay issues. They think being gay is a social choice and not biological. The community may not accept you. But if your family accepts you, others don't matter. I had a large family. I had many other brothers and sisters. So my father did not demand that I had to get married and have kids to carry on the family name."

Another example of LGBT experience is that of Noelle, an immigrant who escaped abuse in the Philippines because of her transgender identity and has sought asylum in the U.S. "Being in the U.S. has its pros and cons," Noelle says. "The mainstream community ignores us and perceives us as outsiders. I am ignored and denied services when I go to stores. It brings back memories of the abuse I received in the Philippines. Many people lack the sensitivity in how to address me. It is very hard."

Different groupings of A&PI LGBT communities and their allies are making an impact and resisting the homo genizing tendency of a mainstream queer nation. Groups like Asian/Pacific Islander Parents, Families & Friends of Lesbians & Gays (API PFLAG), established in 1995, is a peer-led community effort to increase understanding of LGBT issues. Their groundbreaking video Coming Out, Coming Home , featured four in-depth interviews with Asian and Pacific Islander queers and their parents. Inspired by the success of API PFLAG's initiative, A&PIWC produced in 1997 There Is No Name for This, a tri-lingual video targeting homophobia and heterosexism in the Chinese community through a broad spectrum of interviews with activists, family members and community leaders, straight and gay.

In May 1999, the Mandarin Asian Pacific Lesbian/Bisexual Network published the first edition of Beloved Daughter , the culmination of its five-year Family Letters Project. Written in both Chinese and English, the book's goal was to help "our parents accept and understand their lesbian/bisexual daughters." Members of the group asked their parents to write about their experiences so they could be shared with other parents.

Song That (Be True) is a queer Vietnamese radio program. Director Vuong Nguyen sees her program as a way to educate her community about LGBT issues. "Most Vietnamese families think lesbians are under the influence of Western culture," Nguyen says. "Vietnam has been under foreign control for centuries. Others have always taken advantage of us. We tend to stick together and try to keep our culture, language and traditions alive. This is why Vietnamese families are afraid to let American culture influence them. The radio program in Vietnamese is a great tool in educating our families about lesbian issues. Our stories have more influence in our own language."

"We have more opportunities and freedom in America," says Nguyen. "In Vietnam one has to struggle more. However, the mainstream American lesbian community is very different from the Vietnamese lesbian community. Our culture, our language is totally different."

"Today, young gay A&PIs have many options," says Yogi. "They have the option to take their ethnicity in a positive way. They have resources like GAPA and A&PIWC available to them. This is not to say they don't have any issues to face. There may be problems within the context of traditional families and such. But it is better than it was 20 years ago."

"On the whole A&PIs are gaining greater visibility with a marked increase at Japantown's Cherry Blossom Festival, Chinatown's Lunar New Year Parade, in addition to LGBT Pride," says Zoon Nguyen, a long-time lesbian advocate of Vietnamese descent and director of external affairs at Pacific Bell. "This crossover presence demonstrates more of a social and political awareness in the community." Nguyen observes "a new wave of energy from younger A&PI dykes" connecting with their "big sisters" as well as stepping up to orchestrate more of the demonstrations and opportunities for visibility.

Seeing the value of supporting the organizing initiative of young queer A&PI lesbians, Nguyen spearheaded at Pacific Bell an effort that yielded grant funding for QUACK--Queer A&PI Chicks--one of A&PIWC's newest programs.


Creating Community Responses
A&PIs have always been a part of social justice movements. Kiyoshi Kuromiya, who died of AIDS in 2000, participated in the first protest for gay and lesbian rights in Philadelphia in July 1965. However, it is only recently that a queer A&PI movement has emerged in the American consciousness. The San Francisco Bay Area has been home to significant efforts in the queer A&PI movement.

The emergence of the HIV/AIDS crisis put an extra urgency in the need for organizing. "When my generation was coming out in the 1970s and '80s it was the time of the AIDS epidemic. That's how GAPA came about," says Tee Lim. From the beginning, GAPA held support groups for gay and bisexual A&PI men who were HIV-positive.

Providing HIV services to the Asian and Pacific Islander community provides special challenges. For example, in order to serve the community, Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center must recruit a staff able to offer free and confidential oral HIV/STD testing in Cantonese, Cambodian/Khmer, Ilokano, Japanese, Lao, Mandarin, Tagalog, Thai and Vietnamese as well as English. A&PIWC offers a comprehensive mix of programming ranging from sexual health education with women in massage parlors to HIV testing at Thai temples, from promoting safer hormone use with transgender persons to piloting community-based HIV research.

"Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center embraces a vision where we find community and make wellness a constant goal in our lives," says John Manzon-Santos, A&PIWC's executive director. "Increasingly this organization is seen as a resource for diverse groups--a community center for LGBT Asians and Pacific Islanders, our families and allies."

This article first appeared in San Francisco Frontiers News magazine special issue
Asian Pacific Islanders Make Their Mark on Queer Culture published on March 22, 2001
(Volume 18, Issue 24)


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