1/14 Queer and Questioning Students of Color Discussion (Spearheaded by Stanford Students for Queer Liberation and Counseling And Psychological Services)
Title: Should Be, Could Be, But Is
Producer: Nayoung Woo
Objective: The project is a fifteen to twenty minute documentary film about the queer and Asian American experience. Its objective is to build more awareness for the queer and Asian American individuals and their particular circumstance at the intersection of two somewhat conflicting identities.
OUR COMING OUT STORIES
Three queer and Asian individuals share their coming out stories, 1) in which a parent actually had a heart attack and refused to be taken to the hospital by his child, the only person that could drive, 2) in which it did not happen because of the knowledge that the only other sibling is also gay, 3) in which a parent never again readdressed the issue.
The title of the film, “Should Be, Could Be, But Is,” appears.
HIS IDENTITY
Here is Christopher Lee, a sophomore and sociology major at Stanford University. He is going to classes, working in his sociology lab, and growing rare plants in his room as a hobby.
Chris has an American born and raised mother and holds an American passport; he identifies himself as Korean American. However, it can be said that he puts an emphasis on his ethnic background, as he was raised for a long time in Korea as well as in China.
In his interview, Chris talks about feeling comfortable in Asia because it is a place where there are people like him, and he knows and fits into its cultural norms and customs. More specifically, he looks, talks, and acts like a Korean, and the community embraces him for being of one nationality, of “one blood.” Also, he does not have to think constantly about the differences in and judgments against his race and ethnicity, not only in his physical appearence but also in his upbringing, habits, and beliefs.
THE AMERICAN DREAM
Only feet and torsos appear in the scenes in which Chris is hanging out with his friends in Korea. There is something strange about the picture. The friends are saying their farewell to Chris, as Chris has chosen to go to America to study, and eventually to live. He has made this decision because in America there is the opportunity for him to pursue a lifestyle that he would like for himself: to be accepted for being gay.
Yes, Christopher Lee is a gay man. His friends in Korea are gay as well, and hence unable to appear in this film. In his interview, Chris says that he wants a future in which he is be able to talk openly about his partner and to build a family of his own, in which he would not be the only person whose face appears in this film.
Unfortunately, such a future is currently not a viable option in Korea, not as a fault or backwardness of the country and its inhabitants, but because of its traditional beliefs based on family values, and on a macro-scale, community values. It bothers Chris that he has not come out to his family, the people that are most important to him, but that is simply the way it is.
THE PROBLEM
Often, though, his inability to come out does more than to just bother Chris. He is accused by his friends in the gay community as a hypocrite, particularly in his role as a gay-rights activist. But in his opinion, these criticisms are made without an understanding of his family’s immigrant status, their Confucian and Christian values.
Perhaps due to this reception, when Chris is participating in the mainstream gay community events, his movements and volume of voice are a little restricted, as if he is a little more careful in what he does or says. In his interview, Chris talks about his experiences working as an intern at the Lesbian Bisexual Gay and Transgender Community Resource Center at Stanford University and a gay organization in New York, as well as frequenting the Castro district in San Francisco. He remarks that he is almost always the only Asian person in these places.
Chris says that he is unable to express his ideas and be taken seriously for them, in his opinion, because he fits into the Asian stereotype of a good but quiet worker with a thick accent, who would not make much of a leader anyways. Even when he has organized an event, he takes the back seat because he tends not to be as extroverted and straight forward as his American collaborators. Chris is ultimately crowded out by them.
Chris, in his interview, says that he is frustrated because of this barrier not only to be a leader, a role that he easily occupied among his friends in Korea, but also to be one of many a kind, as he was too frequently the only Asian in the mainstream gay-rights activism events that he has been to in America. As a result, he feels isolated and has surprisingly been unable to embrace this community as his own.
HIS VISION
More importantly, Chris is interested in providing basic support for individuals who are struggling with their sexual orientation and identities but have no forum to speak about their ordeals because, to list some examples: it is taboo, linked to the provision of tuition and other livelihood, against religious beliefs, damaging to friendships and career options, and will lead to disgrace to and even disownment from family. However, he has learned the hard way that the mainstream gay-rights activism is focused extensively on providing more advanced form of rights, such as those to marriage, adoption, from rejecting military service, preventing bullying in schools, et cetera.
Chris, hoping to build a unified gay community of mutual support, realizes that his aspirations are nearly impossible to fulfill in the American society, which empowers gay people to different extents depending on their different backgrounds and circumstances. He is rather unnerved by the silence within the gay community caused by the mainstream gay activism that neglects the fact that not all members of the gay community can exercise the rights that it has secured.
OUR DISPOSITION
Chris is, in fact, not alone in his disappointment and frustration.
Other gay and Asian individuals speak about their experiences, 1) in which not being flamboyant enough makes them feel unauthentic in the mainstream gay community, 2) in which they cannot discuss their considerations about their sexual orientation and identities affecting their family’s business or honor or investment in them for the fear of being thought as crazy.
HIS VISION TAKE TWO
But there is a budding community of gay and Asian individuals. It holds weekly meetings, quarterly retreats, numerous lunch or dinner outings, movie screenings, study parties, discussions, workshops, et cetera.
It brings together exactly those individuals who have been marginalized from the Asian community for being gay, and the gay community for being stereotypically Asian, that is, being unexpressive and caring excessively for family values. It is a place of much tears and laughter, and the sense of togetherness when these emotions are shared.
Chris even has someone he looks up to as a mentor in the community, and everyone is his very close friend. The queer and Asian community has become his strength, and the new focus of his activism has become the delivery of its grievances to the queer, and separately, the Asian communities at large. Although he stumbled over it due to sheer need and accidental fortune, Chris is thankful for this community.
We are queer, and at the same time, Asian. There is what we “should be,” a man having to love and marry a woman, as prescribed by the Asian community. And there is what we “could be,” a man being able to love and marry another man, as proposed by the gay community. But in fact we are what we are: an undefined something, somewhere between what should be and could be. We are the “but is.”
3) Plans for February:
- Put together existing footages into visual treatment
- Film interview sequences of Chris during a weekend (Most likely February 25th, 26th, 27th)
Cheers, N.
