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LGBT/Pride Week

June is LGBT pride month. We have a variety of queer AAPI's, friends, families and allies posting about their experiences. Thanks to Be DeGuzman, one of APAP's 2009 Unsung Heroes, for coordinating this special week of posts.

To help with our upcoming hate crimes/Vincent Chin week (June 21) or Pacific Islander week (Aug), please let us know. If you have a topic you or your agency would like to coordinate, email us.

Home » Blogs » struong's blog

A Time for Celebration, A Time for Unity

Wed, 06/02/2010 - 09:54

This week marks a unique intersection between two very important commemorations:  May Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, a month commemorating Asian Pacific American's unique culture, history, and contribution to the United States and June LGBT Pride month, a month commemorating the 1969 Stonewall riot and a celebration of the LGBT community.  Having overcome common struggles of unfair persecution and discrimination, this week presents a unique opportunity for the two communities to come together and celebrate our common struggles, triumphs, pride and self identity.

 

A number of organizations are working to bridge the gap between APIs and LGBTs, including API Equality - Los Angeles (APIELA) and Visual Communications who had recently put on a free screening of "Saving Face," an engrossing film about a Chinese-American lesbian who struggles to go public with her secret love that conflicts with cultural norms.  Addressing the clash of traditional expectations with contemporary progressive values, the film reveals a startling truth that there is a pervading silence surrounding LGBT issues in the API community. 
 
As an activist who have done outreach at numerous community events including the Lunar New Year Festival in Alhambra, the Neisei Week festival in Little Tokyo, and the Pacific Islander Cultural Festival in Huntington Beach, I've realized that there needs to be a great deal of public education about LGBTs before we can even approach many API communities about same-sex marriage.  Many people at the festivals had never even spoken to an out gay or lesbian before. 
 
Perhaps, LGBT visibility, then,  is an important step toward breaking that silence.  For the past five years, APIELA has organized an LGBT contingent at the Chinatown Lunar New Year parade, with over 100 marchers and 25 organizations marching in this year's contingent.  As a first time marcher, it was an experience unlike any other.  Carrying signs that read "Love," "Marriage Equality," and "Community," we were met with applause, thumb ups, and an endless wave of smiles and cheers.  For a Chinese-American who had been told that gay people are abnormal, it was amazing to feel a community embrace me for who I was and what I stood for.  With reports of 110,000 parade watchers in attendance, our contingent of both LGBTs and allies made a strong statement to the community that same-sex marriage is an issue that affects everybody.
 
While it isn't necessary to join a parade for you to celebrate this special week, I urge you to engage someone in the API and/or LGBT community--a family member, friend, co-worker, or even the person standing in line with you at Starbucks--about the importance of restoring marriage equality. 
 

 

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