Tag: aapi

I don’t read this often, but it’s still something that’s…

I don’t read this often, but it’s still something that’s travelled with me for the past eleven years. Maybe I’m just old in thinking the physicality of an actual letter gives it more emotional weight than an email. Reading this again now makes me think that my coming out experience could’ve been a lot worse. Some of that might just be age, and me forgetting the pain of living through it though. 

Below you’ll find the full letter with parts that sting and others expressing love. The grammar is awkward at times, but I’m fortunate to have an immigrant parent that was able to tell me how she felt, in a language that I understood.

– tumifer / raspelfy

July 9, 2006

Dear Tommy,
This is probably the first time that I write to you other than e-mail. I want to let you know how I feel after I found out your situations. I must tell you that I was in shock when I first found out that was why I cried. I thought that I am your mom. You are always close to me until this year. I thought I know you well. But actually I was wrong. I was the last one that couldn’t detect that you are different. That made me very sad.

I thought I was the one who knows you the most since I was always there for you and I did not work for all the years while you and Liz were growing up. I spent & devoted my last 20 years to both of you, giving up my career because your daddy traveled a lot. I had to take more responsibilities to teach & care to raise our children.

We always said it is hard to be parents, and it is even harder to be teenager parents. I have a sense of failure that I did not notice your needs & how you feel. Maybe it was the way that my culture & the way I was brought up that was something totally new to me.

After talking to grandma, she is very understanding. To my surprise grandma had detected & noticed that a long time ago. Daddy also had worries but neither of them had mentioned to me before. I thought you just have a gentle & kind personality & because you have an older sister, that was why you are more comfortable with girls & you never really had many friends are boys. Now you know why it came as a shock to me.

Grandma made me understand the nature of your situation more. So I am telling you now, I will accept you regardless who you are & what you like. My love to you is unconditional because you are my son. I love you no matter who you like & how you live your future life. I just want you to be happy. Of course being parents want the best for their children. I am no different.

Daddy & I want & hope that you will meet a girl you love & get married & have a normal life. But if your future won’t turn out the way we hoped for, we’ll still love you & stand behind you & to be supportive to you.

We probably will have 20 some more years to live. We won’t be with you & be there for you forever. You have to live the life you want to live. Your future is in your hands.

Love,

Mommy

What a Fraternity Hazing Death Revealed About the Painful Search for an Asian-American Identity

What a Fraternity Hazing Death Revealed About the Painful Search for an Asian-American Identity:

Asians are the loneliest Americans. The collective political consciousness of the ’80s has been replaced by the quiet, unaddressed isolation that comes with knowing that you can be born in this country, excel in its schools and find a comfortable place in its economy and still feel no stake in the national conversation. The current vision of solidarity among Asian-­Americans is cartoonish and blurry and relegated to conversations at family picnics, in drunken exchanges over food that reminds everyone at the table of how their mom used to make it. Everything else is the confusion of never knowing what side to choose because choosing our own side has so rarely been an option. Asian pride is a laughable concept to most Americans. Racist incidents pass without prompting any real outcry, and claims of racism are quickly dismissed. A common past can be accessed only through dusty, dug-up things: the murder of Vincent Chin, Korematsu v. United States, the Bataan Death March and the illusion that we are going through all these things together. The Asian-­American fraternity is not much more than a clumsy step toward finding an identity in a country where there are no more reference points for how we should act, how we should think about ourselves. But in its honest confrontation with being Asian and its refusal to fall into familiar silence, it can also be seen as a statement of self-­worth. 

Last Call for Gaysian Survey Participants

The University of Maryland’s survey on LGBT Asians is closing in a month, and they need 100 more participants to complete their study! Data on LGBTQ Asians is scarce, given our numbers as a double-minority, so props to UMD for this undertaking.

Every 5th completion will get a $20 Amazon gift card, and more importantly, the responses will contribute to this little-studied area of research, and help with community organizing efforts. The survey only takes about 20 minutes. http://ter.ps/LGBTQAAPI

Disaggregating the Spectrum – Advancing Justice | AAJC – Medium

Disaggregating the Spectrum – Advancing Justice | AAJC – Medium:

An excerpt:

Growing up, I often felt that you were either born privileged or not privileged, white or “other,” straight or gay. It wasn’t until I started college at UCLA, surrounded by fellow Filipino American and LGBT students, where I realized that there is a spectrum of unique identities. But many of these students had felt marginalized merely because of who they were. Furthermore, they often felt like they were part of the “model minority” myth, where our needs as Asian Americans weren’t prioritized because we were seen as doing better academically and economically compared to other minorities, and therefore didn’t need as many resources or attention. At the time, we were engaged in a campaign called “Count Me In,” which called on the University of California system to disaggregate their data into distinct ethnic subgroups beyond merely “Asian” or “Pacific Islander.”

After graduating from UCLA and moving to Washington, D.C., I had the privilege of working at the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs), where we sought to improve the quality of life of AAPIs by increasing their access to the federal government. We encouraged federal agencies to tackle the “model minority” myth by disaggregating their data to better identify the needs of our diverse community, including in areas like education, health, civil rights, and federal hiring. We understood that the AAPI community is not monolithic, but rather is extremely diverse: we represent over 30 ethnic groups, and speak over 100 languages and dialects.

Although diverse, the Filipino American community can also be very divided, given that the Philippines is made up of more than 7,000 islands with numerous distinct dialects. These regional, cultural, and language-based divisions often continue with factions here in the United States. The organization that I now work for — the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA) — strives to unite and empower our community’s diverse individuals and organizations by focusing on leadership development, civic engagement, and advocacy. One of NaFFAA’s initiatives, what we call our “Diverse Segments Council,” tackles this by advocating for the needs of diverse communities, including LGBT individuals, women, veterans, and young professionals.

Disaggregating the Spectrum – Advancing Justice | AAJC – Medium

An excerpt:

Growing up, I often felt that you were either born privileged or not privileged, white or “other,” straight or gay. It wasn’t until I started college at UCLA, surrounded by fellow Filipino American and LGBT students, where I realized that there is a spectrum of unique identities. But many of these students had felt marginalized merely because of who they were. Furthermore, they often felt like they were part of the “model minority” myth, where our needs as Asian Americans weren’t prioritized because we were seen as doing better academically and economically compared to other minorities, and therefore didn’t need as many resources or attention. At the time, we were engaged in a campaign called “Count Me In,” which called on the University of California system to disaggregate their data into distinct ethnic subgroups beyond merely “Asian” or “Pacific Islander.”

After graduating from UCLA and moving to Washington, D.C., I had the privilege of working at the White House Initiative on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders (AAPIs), where we sought to improve the quality of life of AAPIs by increasing their access to the federal government. We encouraged federal agencies to tackle the “model minority” myth by disaggregating their data to better identify the needs of our diverse community, including in areas like education, health, civil rights, and federal hiring. We understood that the AAPI community is not monolithic, but rather is extremely diverse: we represent over 30 ethnic groups, and speak over 100 languages and dialects.

Although diverse, the Filipino American community can also be very divided, given that the Philippines is made up of more than 7,000 islands with numerous distinct dialects. These regional, cultural, and language-based divisions often continue with factions here in the United States. The organization that I now work for — the National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA) — strives to unite and empower our community’s diverse individuals and organizations by focusing on leadership development, civic engagement, and advocacy. One of NaFFAA’s initiatives, what we call our “Diverse Segments Council,” tackles this by advocating for the needs of diverse communities, including LGBT individuals, women, veterans, and young professionals.

Disaggregating the Spectrum – Advancing Justice | AAJC – Medium

San Francisco’s Most Famous Asian Drag Family Hazed Me Hard – VICE

San Francisco’s Most Famous Asian Drag Family Hazed Me Hard – VICE:

Some excerpts:

The group’s origins lie in an Asian American HIV/AIDS outreach project called the Rice Girls, a punny homage to the Spice Girls. In the mid 90s, as HIV rates began to rise among Asian and Pacific Islander men,
the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) saw a need for culturally
competent methods to engage the community. They turned to trans Filipina
activist Tita Aida
(“Auntie AIDS” in Tagalog), who they hired to serve as a San Francisco
health ambassador for the Asian and Pacific Islander community. Her
outreach efforts often seemed more like stand-up comedy, and they
routinely packed hundreds into 150-person-capacity bars.

In 1998,
to kick it up a notch, she recruited five Asian American drag queens
and health educators to accompany her in her outreach, a group she named
the Rice Girls.
They performed at the now-shuttered San Francisco gay bar N’Touch
(short for “Asian Touch”) with shows that acted out campy safe-sex
scenarios on the stage before lip sync performances of Spice Girls
singles. The CDC supported them through grants until 2005, when funding
parameters shifted, and they were forced to disband.

After the
Rice Girls disbanded, Tita took to grooming another drag queen—Alex
Baty, another N’Touch performer—into the drag queen and community
organizer she is today: Estée Longah. Alex soon teamed up with a cadre
of drag collaborators to put on a performance fundraiser in 2008, and
after rave reviews, she rebranded the group the Rice Rockettes, which
today carry on the Rice Girls’ activist-performance mission.

“For me, the Rice Rockettes is all about inclusivity,” said Imelda
Glucose. “We’re celebrating a community that are often othered in the
gay world.” And since the group’s formation, it’s moved on from solely
focusing on AIDS/HIV to a larger mission: celebrating and empowering the
LGBTQ Asian American community in all respects.

For Tita
Aida, the Rice Girls and Rockettes promote more than just LGBTQ Asian
American visibility. “Six of the Rice Girls have since transitioned to
identify as trans women,” said Tita. “This family can, and has, opened
the door for young Asian American trans women to seek their authentic
selves. It’s modeling empowerment. There isn’t a whole lot of that for
Asians in the LGBTQ community.”

San Francisco’s Most Famous Asian Drag Family Hazed Me Hard – VICE

Some excerpts:

The group’s origins lie in an Asian American HIV/AIDS outreach project called the Rice Girls, a punny homage to the Spice Girls. In the mid 90s, as HIV rates began to rise among Asian and Pacific Islander men,
the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) saw a need for culturally
competent methods to engage the community. They turned to trans Filipina
activist Tita Aida
(“Auntie AIDS” in Tagalog), who they hired to serve as a San Francisco
health ambassador for the Asian and Pacific Islander community. Her
outreach efforts often seemed more like stand-up comedy, and they
routinely packed hundreds into 150-person-capacity bars.

In 1998,
to kick it up a notch, she recruited five Asian American drag queens
and health educators to accompany her in her outreach, a group she named
the Rice Girls.
They performed at the now-shuttered San Francisco gay bar N’Touch
(short for “Asian Touch”) with shows that acted out campy safe-sex
scenarios on the stage before lip sync performances of Spice Girls
singles. The CDC supported them through grants until 2005, when funding
parameters shifted, and they were forced to disband.

After the
Rice Girls disbanded, Tita took to grooming another drag queen—Alex
Baty, another N’Touch performer—into the drag queen and community
organizer she is today: Estée Longah. Alex soon teamed up with a cadre
of drag collaborators to put on a performance fundraiser in 2008, and
after rave reviews, she rebranded the group the Rice Rockettes, which
today carry on the Rice Girls’ activist-performance mission.

“For me, the Rice Rockettes is all about inclusivity,” said Imelda
Glucose. “We’re celebrating a community that are often othered in the
gay world.” And since the group’s formation, it’s moved on from solely
focusing on AIDS/HIV to a larger mission: celebrating and empowering the
LGBTQ Asian American community in all respects.

For Tita
Aida, the Rice Girls and Rockettes promote more than just LGBTQ Asian
American visibility. “Six of the Rice Girls have since transitioned to
identify as trans women,” said Tita. “This family can, and has, opened
the door for young Asian American trans women to seek their authentic
selves. It’s modeling empowerment. There isn’t a whole lot of that for
Asians in the LGBTQ community.”

San Francisco’s Most Famous Asian Drag Family Hazed Me Hard – VICE

Gaysian Study – Make Your Voice Heard!

Data on LGBTQ Asians is scarce, given our numbers as a double-minority. Props to the University of Maryland for conducting a study on the Gaysian experience!

Currently, they still need 200 participants – every 5th completion will get a $20 Amazon gift card, and more importantly, the responses will contribute to this little-studied area of research, and help with community organizing efforts.

The survey only takes about 20 minutes – make your voice heard at http://ter.ps/LGBTQAAPI

Gaysian Study – Make Your Voice Heard!

Data on LGBTQ Asians is scarce, given our numbers as a double-minority. Props to the University of Maryland for conducting a study on the Gaysian experience!

Currently, they still need 200 participants – every 5th completion will get a $20 Amazon gift card, and more importantly, the responses will contribute to this little-studied area of research, and help with community organizing efforts.

The survey only takes about 20 minutes – make your voice heard at http://ter.ps/LGBTQAAPI