My multimedia website Dynamic Issues in Multiple Identities of Vietnamese Americans in Race, Gender, and Sexuality allows me to think about different ways that a website can be used to discuss the complexity of queer Vietnamese American identities. This includes lesbian, bisexual women, transgendered, and queer (LGBTQ) of multi-generational Vietnamese Americans and adoptee Vietnamese Americans, Chinese Vietnamese Americans, Vietnamese Amerasians, and other mixed-heritage Vietnamese in greater Seattle. As a “straight” woman of color, I do not claim this website to be representative of all queer Vietnamese Americans. Instead, it enables the exploration how queer Vietnamese Americans deal with specific homophobic issues in the Vietnamese American community in greater Seattle as well as racial discrimination in mainstream society.
In the article, “Landmarks in Literature by Asian American Lesbians,” Karin Aguilar-San Juan states:
I feel a responsibility to acknowledge the positive accomplishments of our community – a community that is harmonious as well as conflicted, cohesive as well as rife with personal animosities and petty rivalries…We need to continue developing our own specifically lesbian venues, where being lesbian is neither secret nor taboo and where we can freely explore our own experiences. In the meantime, I believe the Asian American feminist community (including our writers) is making progress against homophobia. (Juan 937 - 939)As in the case of Juan who came out in her Asian American community, many queer Vietnamese Americans - either “coming out” or “in the closet” - have actively engaged in community projects as activists to help building community, yet they still face homophobia and have difficulty asking for equality in their marginalized Vietnamese American community.
According to Joan Varney, the word queer includes gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individuals. He argues: “Queer analysis contests the operation of the normal by revealing that any sexuality, including homosexuality, is not natural or normal, but a product of discourse” (Varney 87). Like Varney, D. Eng and A. Hom assert that the term queer represents a “political practice based on transgressions of the normal and normativity rather than a straight/gay binary of heterosexual/homosexual identity” (Eng and Hom 1). In contrast, the notion of queer identities makes no sense and the term queer is inappropriate in Vietnamese language because in the Vietnamese traditional culture, heterosexual orientation is proper while other sexual experiences are considered immoral. Most Vietnamese American parents expect their children to grow up heterosexual because they have no or little revelation to queer characteristics. Often, a sense of oddity and frustration emerges when Vietnamese American children come out to their families.
This multimedia website offers opportunities for networking to bring queer Vietnamese Americans together in a positive, accepting and safe space for discussions about sexual orientation without the fear of judgment. The Internet offers a safe cyber-room and anonymity to explore queer Vietnamese American personalities, queer longings, and other aspects of complex queer identities in Seattle or elsewhere. In her article,“Head-Hunting on The Internet: Identity Tourism, Avatars, and Racial Passing in Textual and Graphic Chat Spaces,” Lisa Nakamura argues that:
Cyberspace is a place of wish fulfillments and myriad gratifications, material and otherwise, and nowhere is this more true than in chat spaces. Both textual and graphic chat spaces encourage users to build different identities, to take on new nicknames, and to describe themselves in any way they wish to appear. (32)
In my website, digital technology via the World Wide Web is utilized as an instrument to incorporate different media objects – such as images, text, video, and especially, chat-rooms –that allow users to communicate with each other in real time. For example, messages can be sent and received instantly, and users also have options for anonymous discussions. In a healthy situation, the Vietnamese American community in the greater Seattle area should be united as a strong ethnic community and queer longing should be treated courteously and equally. The contemporary Vietnamese American cultural identities including language, food, politics, art, history, dialogue, and community building should help define contemporary queer Vietnamese American identity in cyberspace and distinguish it from other queer minority identities in the mainstream capitalist U.S. culture. In reality, the sense of queer belonging in Vietnamese American community has yet to be fully explored.
My website aims to explore how queer Vietnamese Americans in Seattle and other cities resist heterosexual supremacy to lead their own liberation from the mainstream society where minor racial, ethnic, gender and sexual statuses are stigmatized by the dominant and white LGBTQ population; to address the ways that LGBTQ individuals give voice to Vietnamese marginalized minorities asking for equality; and to examine the connection between race, gender, and sexuality of queer Vietnamese American personal identity politics. In building a strong Vietnamese American ethnic community to advocate progress for social change, I believe that Vietnamese Americans in greater Seattle should fight against homophobia and that the complexity of queer Vietnamese American identities should be appreciated in order to respect the principle that everyone is born equal and deserves equal rights. The information for this project comes from email conversations, journals containing oral histories, online articles, and research theses on the subject.

Writen and directed by Indian Canadian Deepa Mehta, “Fire” is a 1996 film, starring Shabana Azmi and Nandita Das.  A first mainstream film reveals homosexual relationship in India.  Like Vietnamese traditional culture, Indian’s supports homophobia; thus, prohibiting homosexual individuals to “come out” in public.  Two main female characters in “Fire” turn out to be expressively empty, lacking love or passion and suffer with their arranged marriages.  After “Fire” was released in 1998 in India, many audiences staged protests, setting off public discourses about homosexual identity and the rights of speech. 

In an article entitled, “Bollywood/Hollywood: Queer Cinematic Representation and the Perils of Translation,” Gayatri Gopinath examines popular Indian movies in the 1980s and 1990s and notes that they created spaces for women entertainment on the screen, which produced the possibility of choosing same sex desires between women. He argues:

Bollywood cinema is saturated with rich images of intense love and friendship between women in the context of archetypal spaces of female homo-sociality, such as brothels, women’s prisons, girls’ schools, the middle-class home, and the zenana (women’s quarters in elite Hindu and Muslim homes). As is apparent in the song and dance sequences from a series of films from the 1980s and 1990s, these women-only spaces allow numerous possibilities for female friendship to slip into queer desire. (103)

According to Gopinath, through movies during the late of twentieth century, Bollywood created a “space of resistance” for Indian women. Female audiences had an opportunity to discover their homosexual orientation within “women-only space.” “Women-only-space” is considered as a potential form of resistance to traditional, patriarchal and feudal society. Female same sex desires are portrayed as unrealistic and inconceivable to the dominant Indian culture. However, queer movements have recognized the transformation of same sex relationship between women into queer identities and the possibility of female companionship triggered queer sexuality. Similarly, many Vietnamese women who live in “women-only-space,” such as brothels, prisons, and girl’s schools can discover same sex demands in the context of female homo-sociality. Queer Vietnamese Americans need a safe space to share their queer longing and confirm both their traditional and queer identities.

The movie “Trailer: In God’s House,” demonstrates that most Asian cultures view homosexuality as an incomplete development, weakness and painful experience. For example, Asian parents like Ellen and Harold Kameya, both feel sorrow when their daughter identifies herself as a lesbian. As Ellen Kameya states, “One of the difficult things after our daughter came out was for me to sit and watch the baptism because they said the same words … and didn’t follow through and she said it was the church that caused your pain.” Likewise, Harold Kameya voices, “When our daughter came out, my dream of walking her down the aisle was blown apart.” In this sense, many Asian parents expect their children to grow up heterosexually to fit in Asian society. To these parents, watching their children growing up straight and attending their wedding ceremony at church are important expectations. In the same spiritual faith, Oneida Chi shares her cheerless feeling when she came out, “I think it is so important to be able to share about this, but I mean because I have gone through so much pain…God, if you were God, why did you have to make me this way.” Chi expresses her sadness as she sees herself as different from others because she is influenced deeply in Asian cultures. Based on different personal experiences and lifestyles, each individual expresses his/her ideas in a dissimilar way. For instance, Pastor Nobuaki Hanaoka shares his point of view: “I witness a tragedy of a gay person, who is still in a closet.” In contrast, Nancy Nguyen* states: “[W]e do not all live our lives in despair. [M]any of us are well-adjusted, despite being ‘in the closet’.”

CNN’s (2011) “Growing Old Openly Gay,” reveals personal stories of first-generation Black and White gays and lesbians.  A married couple, Black and White gays reveal their stories, “I am Michael and I am 82.  I’m Michael, I’m 52 and we are married.  We were the first known couple to be married in the state of New York.”  The ‘Black’ Michael did not realize the word “gay” when he was 15 years old, “my mother asked me ‘Are you gay?’ and I said ‘No;’  I didn’t know that word ‘gay’ meant.” 

Sandy, a 78 years old lesbian, realized her real identity until later in her life, after she was divorced in her 40s.   Sandy reveals that “I work for the city and when you work for the city in the 1970s, one kept one’s identity hidden.  It was only seven years after; I actually came out and had my first relationship that I’d exposed to the fact that there was the whole lesbian and gay, bisexual, transgendered community.”  

Watching CNN and listen to the stories of first-generation American gays and lesbians, it reminds me about a difficult lifestyle of a Vietnamese lesbian, who struggle all her life living in a small village in Viet Nam.  In the 1980s, while many villagers tried to ignore her real identity, I witnessed how she faced sexual discrimination and gender inequality.  Although she was portrayed as a dishonor image because of her homosexual identity, I viewed her as a hard working woman who was completely isolated.  In Viet Nam, the notion of queer identities made no sense because in the Vietnamese traditional culture, heterosexual orientation is proper while other sexual experiences were considered immoral.  

While hankmorgan (2010) shares his issues of how a white male gay struggles with the term “don’t ask don’t tell” in the military, Apichaymsm (2008) shows how homosexual Asian Americans who have been facing a “double minority,” or facing “double stereotypes” for their identities in mainstream culture.  While in military services, being a white gay is not easy, being an Asian American gay is more difficult because it is hard for a gay Asian American to come out in Asian communities.  A gay Asian American reveals his difficult circumstance: “I was scare of getting HIV and I wasn’t sure how to talk to my boyfriend.”  Their voices and concerns should be heard and taken into consideration.  More community and Asian organizations, such as Apicha, a non-profit organization in New York city, should be established to provide HIV/AIDs related services to help homosexual Asian Americans and treat them as equal as other citizens.

hankmorgan (2010) shares his thoughts about how John McCain ignored gay vets’ frustration about their identities’ issues.  As hankorgan emphasizes, “Senator McCain on the campaign for the 2008 presidential election, you told America that “Don’t Ask Don’t Tell” words.  I am here to tell you that it does not.  Here are several reasons why…” hankorgan’s voice represents for the voice of homosexual Americans who have been silenced in mainstream discourses.

An exceptional case among young Asian Americans, Evan Low in “Evan Low Young, Gay, Asian Mayor of Campbell, CA,” is the first Asian American gay who is in his mid 20s, the youngest Asian American and openly gay mayor in mainstream culture.  Low still cannot be a representative for all homosexual Asian Americans.

As with Chinese American communities, Vietnamese American communities contend with the various hardships such as language barriers, cultural conflicts, and financial and survival issues.  Accepting queer identity is a big challenge for many Vietnamese American parents and the Vietnamese American communities nationwide.  In “Vietnamese Health and Illness Topics,” Huy Nguyen points out that Vietnamese culture is exemplified by sturdy taboos against either open conversations or about showing evidence of sexuality.  For this reason, appropriate terminologies for translating sexuality in the Vietnamese language are also practically nonexistent.  He further explains:

In contrast to what is popularly portrayed in American movies and television shows, in Vietnamese culture there is no tradition of a coming-of-age “birds and the bees” talk between parents and their children. Because explicit discussions about sex are taboo even within close-knit Vietnamese families, most Vietnamese adults learned about sex when they were growing up from peers and not from their parents, school, or the media. For this reason, parents who are less acculturated may be more resistant to public school-based sexual education. (1)

Although in the past queers existed in the Vietnamese society and homosexuality was part of the Vietnamese cultural heritage, traditional Vietnamese culture still ignores this issue.  In this context, queer Vietnamese Americans have been and are still mostly invisible within and beyond the Vietnamese American communities including Seattle. The lives of many queer Vietnamese Americans living in silence remain dismal.  They face multiple dimensions of inequality based on race, class, gender, and sexuality and thus exist as peripheral identities within the marginalized Vietnamese American community.  Changing this situation involves providing encouragement and a support network for queer Vietnamese Americans within the Vietnamese American community as well as within the mainstream society. Building on efforts that have been occurring in Seattle, it is clear that not every queer Vietnamese American or Chinese American is marginalized.  Some have achieved advanced degrees and become activists, who not only organize events and call for action.

Lila Kitaeff’s “Evolving Identities,” demonstrates similar coming out stories of two lesbians, Kathie and Kaitling, from different racial backgrounds and times. Kathie represents an older black lesbian generation with more than twenty years of experience working with people of color in community services to lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders. While Kathie has experienced social changes from the Civil Rights movements up to the present, Kaitlin, is a young white lesbian activist with little historical background involved in Seattle’s LGBTQ youth community. By sharing their imaginary stories, and by involving community and volunteering, Kathie and Kaitlin powerfully portray their complete identities. In the same context, Nancy Nguyen’s and Thanh-Truc Nguyen’s queer Vietnamese American stories demonstrate their strong personalities while portraying their true identities and enthusiastically participating in social and volunteer work to help support organizing strategies and community building in Seattle. In reporting: “all of our stories are the same; they are just in different times,” Kaitlin asserts that white and lesbians of color from diverse ethnic groups in Seattle share similar issues of queer longing among their members – such as engaging in politically charged issues against sexual discrimination and inequality as well as supporting the desires for cultural queer belonging - in order to identify their queer complex identities in various periods in the homophobic mainstream society.

My website utilizes new media technology via the World Wide Web to fully demonstrate the differences among the queer communities in Seattle, including the ignorance of the dominant white queer community towards queers of color. In exploring the exclusion and isolation of queers of color, the movie PinkPlanet Seattle, showcases only white male voices describing Seattle as a culturally diverse city that consists of an established gay and lesbian community in the Capitol Hill District. The queers of color are notably absent in this movie. Privileged white queer voices dominate the media and frequently ignore marginalized queer issues. Mainstream queer organizations consist principally of white males, which reinforce racial discrimination and gendered inequality in the U.S. capitalist system. Vietnamese lesbians, bisexual women and FTM transgenders are made aware of the fact that they are minorities within queer dominant organizations where they have encountered violence, racism and sexism. Like other immigrants who have faced language barriers and cultural conflicts, queer Vietnamese Americans in Seattle need strong support from ethnic Vietnamese American organizations. In this sense, queer Vietnamese Americans should be recognized in order to reserve their rights and opportunities to promote their cultural heritage.

Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center in San Francisco (API Wellness Center in SF) is an excellent model to support the health of women of color who identify as queer Vietnamese Americans in every community. In the context of encouraging the visibility of queer Asian identities, the earliest non-profit HIV/AIDS organization in North America, API Wellness Center in SF provides services to diverse groups in Asian languages including Cantonese, Hawaiian, Hindi, Ilokano, Japanese, Malay, Mandarin, Tagalog, Vietnamese and Visayan. The center empowers youth and queer identities to fortify their emotional, health, social, and educational needs. In supporting youth to make positive changes in their lives and developing fundamental skills to facilitate their comprehension of their health and well-being, the center provides free and confidential HIV treatment, mental health, and other counseling services to individuals living with HIV/AIDS. The center is a safe and friendly space for socializing and networking. LGBTQ young Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) frequently experience feelings of segregation. They mostly feel isolated in Asian communities. In the case of Chinese youth, Varney points out that queer Chinese do not have terminology in their native tongue to explain their coming out to their parents and relatives . Mandarin, for example, lacks a sufficient translation for the terms gay or lesbian. In the normative discourse on race, queer Asian-Americans turn the “model minority” stereotypes into non-normative devices and that being queer challenges the traditional “straight” family. Queer Asian-Americans are typically stereotyped as alienated. Varney reports: In Asian communities where heterosexuality is assumed and in queer communities that are predominantly White, queer Asian-American youth have often felt as if they do not quite fit. This sense of alienation has led to the formation of community groups such as Asian Queers Under 25 Altogether. (87) As with Chinese-American communities, Vietnamese American communities contend with the various hardships such as language barriers, cultural conflicts, and financial and survival issues. Accepting queer identity is a big challenge for many Vietnamese American parents and the Vietnamese American communities nationwide. In “Vietnamese Health and Illness Topics,” Huy Nguyen points out that Vietnamese culture is exemplified by sturdy taboos against either open conversations or about showing evidence of sexuality. For this reason, appropriate terminologies for translating sexuality in the Vietnamese language are also practically nonexistent. He further explains: In contrast to what is popularly portrayed in American movies and television shows, in Vietnamese culture there is no tradition of a coming-of-age “birds and the bees” talk between parents and their children. Because explicit discussions about sex are taboo even within close-knit Vietnamese families, most Vietnamese adults learned about sex when they were growing up from peers and not from their parents, school, or the media. For this reason, parents who are less acculturated may be more resistant to public school-based sexual education. (1) Although in the past queers existed in the Vietnamese society and homosexuality was part of the Vietnamese cultural heritage, traditional Vietnamese culture still ignores this issue. In this context, queer Vietnamese Americans have been and are still mostly invisible within and beyond the Vietnamese American communities including Seattle. The lives of many queer Vietnamese Americans living in silence remain dismal. They face multiple dimensions of inequality based on race, class, gender, and sexuality and thus exist as peripheral identities within the marginalized Vietnamese American community. Changing this situation involves providing encouragement and a support network for queer Vietnamese Americans within the Vietnamese American community as well as within the mainstream society. Building on efforts that have been occurring in Seattle, it is clear that not every queer Vietnamese American is marginalized. Some have achieved advanced degrees and become activists, who not only organize events and call for action. For example, some help Vietnamese American immigrants who face detention in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention centers and deportation. Some collaborate with the Asian and Pacific Islander and Women and Family Safety Center (APIWFSC) in Seattle to create a zine called “A Breath of Fresh Air.” This project aims to support queer Vietnamese and Asian-American survivors of domestic violence to feel supported, remain secure and heal from mistreatment. Queer Network Program and its liberation project of AIPWFSC is a model to demonstrate the existence of queer Vietnamese Americans in community building, empowering queer longing, sharing stories, and resisting intersect oppressions. In an online article, “AIPWFSC Queer Network Program - QPOC Liberation Project,” Joanne Alcantara, the manager for the Queer Network Project, challenges the mainstream society where minor racial, ethnic, gender and sexual statuses are stigmatized by the dominant and white LGBTQ population. He states: We find that white LGBTQ communities often ignore the experiences and concerns of queer communities of color in performances, politics, and social agendas. Communities of color, although loving at times, can sometimes be unsupportive, hostile, and silencing towards queers. While we negotiate through both communities and attempt to form alliances, we as queer people of color will not wait for others to bridge the cultural divide. (1) Alcantara addresses the fact that AIPWFSC will lead its own organization for liberation and visibility through dynamic performances of Seattle-based artists, organizers, and activists to inspire, and underline their complicated identities as queer diasporas.

Asian and Pacific Islander Wellness Center in San Francisco (API Wellness Center in SF) is an excellent model to support the health of women of color who identify as queer Vietnamese Americans in every community. In the context of encouraging the visibility of queer Asian identities, the earliest non-profit HIV/AIDS organization in North America, API Wellness Center in SF provides services to diverse groups in Asian languages including Cantonese, Hawaiian, Hindi, Ilokano, Japanese, Malay, Mandarin, Tagalog, Vietnamese and Visayan. The center empowers youth and queer identities to fortify their emotional, health, social, and educational needs. In supporting youth to make positive changes in their lives and developing fundamental skills to facilitate their comprehension of their health and well-being, the center provides free and confidential HIV treatment, mental health, and other counseling services to individuals living with HIV/AIDS. The center is a safe and friendly space for socializing and networking.

LGBTQ young Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) frequently experience feelings of segregation. They mostly feel isolated in Asian communities. In the case of Chinese youth, Varney points out that queer Chinese do not have terminology in their native tongue to explain their coming out to their parents and relatives . Mandarin, for example, lacks a sufficient translation for the terms gay or lesbian. In the normative discourse on race, queer Asian-Americans turn the “model minority” stereotypes into non-normative devices and that being queer challenges the traditional “straight” family. Queer Asian-Americans are typically stereotyped as alienated. Varney reports:

In Asian communities where heterosexuality is assumed and in queer communities that are predominantly White, queer Asian-American youth have often felt as if they do not quite fit. This sense of alienation has led to the formation of community groups such as Asian Queers Under 25 Altogether. (87)

As with Chinese-American communities, Vietnamese American communities contend with the various hardships such as language barriers, cultural conflicts, and financial and survival issues. Accepting queer identity is a big challenge for many Vietnamese American parents and the Vietnamese American communities nationwide. In “Vietnamese Health and Illness Topics,” Huy Nguyen points out that Vietnamese culture is exemplified by sturdy taboos against either open conversations or about showing evidence of sexuality. For this reason, appropriate terminologies for translating sexuality in the Vietnamese language are also practically nonexistent. He further explains:

In contrast to what is popularly portrayed in American movies and television shows, in Vietnamese culture there is no tradition of a coming-of-age “birds and the bees” talk between parents and their children. Because explicit discussions about sex are taboo even within close-knit Vietnamese families, most Vietnamese adults learned about sex when they were growing up from peers and not from their parents, school, or the media. For this reason, parents who are less acculturated may be more resistant to public school-based sexual education. (1)

Although in the past queers existed in the Vietnamese society and homosexuality was part of the Vietnamese cultural heritage, traditional Vietnamese culture still ignores this issue. In this context, queer Vietnamese Americans have been and are still mostly invisible within and beyond the Vietnamese American communities including Seattle. The lives of many queer Vietnamese Americans living in silence remain dismal. They face multiple dimensions of inequality based on race, class, gender, and sexuality and thus exist as peripheral identities within the marginalized Vietnamese American community. Changing this situation involves providing encouragement and a support network for queer Vietnamese Americans within the Vietnamese American community as well as within the mainstream society.

Building on efforts that have been occurring in Seattle, it is clear that not every queer Vietnamese American is marginalized. Some have achieved advanced degrees and become activists, who not only organize events and call for action. For example, some help Vietnamese American immigrants who face detention in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Detention centers and deportation. Some collaborate with the Asian and Pacific Islander and Women and Family Safety Center (APIWFSC) in Seattle to create a zine called “A Breath of Fresh Air.” This project aims to support queer Vietnamese and Asian-American survivors of domestic violence to feel supported, remain secure and heal from mistreatment. Queer Network Program and its liberation project of AIPWFSC is a model to demonstrate the existence of queer Vietnamese Americans in community building, empowering queer longing, sharing stories, and resisting intersect oppressions. In an online article, “AIPWFSC Queer Network Program - QPOC Liberation Project,” Joanne Alcantara, the manager for the Queer Network Project, challenges the mainstream society where minor racial, ethnic, gender and sexual statuses are stigmatized by the dominant and white LGBTQ population. He states:

We find that white LGBTQ communities often ignore the experiences and concerns of queer communities of color in performances, politics, and social agendas. Communities of color, although loving at times, can sometimes be unsupportive, hostile, and silencing towards queers. While we negotiate through both communities and attempt to form alliances, we as queer people of color will not wait for others to bridge the cultural divide. (1)

Alcantara addresses the fact that AIPWFSC will lead its own organization for liberation and visibility through dynamic performances of Seattle-based artists, organizers, and activists to inspire, and underline their complicated identities as queer diasporas.