Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

December 30, 2011

It Was A Good Year. The Next Will Be Even Better

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

For our last blog of 2011 we decided to share two stories—by now you know how much we love stories—that illustrate both how far away we are from where we want to be, but also the reason for our optimism that we will get there.

Wayne

During an impromptu dinner on our last evening in Minneapolis, when the mood was friendly and talk free flowing, Karin Aguilar-San Juan told Wayne’s story. Karin is a member of St. Paul’s Clouds in Water Soto Zen Community. One Sunday she was at the Zen Center when a call came in. On the line was a lonely man staying at a Motel 6 on his way back to Washington DC where he lived. They got to talking and Wayne, that is the man’s name, related how he came to be in St. Paul.

When Wayne was young and realized he was gay, he told his parents. The parents rejected him. He left and created a life for himself with a partner. Recently his partner died, and he himself is dying of AIDS. After all these years, Wayne is around 50, he wanted to go home for a last meeting with his parents and perhaps reconcile. He took the train to Alaska, but the journey was in vain for his parents rejected him again. They said that AIDS is what God wanted for him because of his gay lifestyle.

Wayne had little money and began hitchhiking home, stopping along the way at hospitals for treatment and so arrived in St. Paul. He called to make human contact and said that the Buddhist community is his only family. Members of the Zen Center collected money so Wayne could stay one more night at the motel and have dinner at a nearby restaurant. Karin ended her story by saying that Wayne’s DC friends FedEx’ed him a train ticket and she hopes he is back in DC with people who know and love him. After all this, Wayne still hopes that his parents may change their minds.

“CeCe” McDonald

On the resource table at the BOLD conference was a stack of flyers with “Drop The Charges” across the top and “Support CeCe” across the bottom, both in large, capitalized, bold letters. Chrishaun McDonald, CeCe, is an African American transgender woman charged with stabbing to death a white man just after midnight on June 5, 2011, outside a bar in Minneapolis, but the story is a little more involved than just that.

On that early morning, CeCe and a couple of her friends, all black, went to an all-night grocery store. On the way they passed a bar where a man and two women, all white, began to yell racial and transphobic epithets at them. A fight broke out and CeCe’s cheek was slashed all the way through with a piece of glass. Subsequent events are not clear, but CeCe either stabbed the white male with a pair of scissors or he walked into scissors CeCe was holding. At ay rate, CeCe was arrested and charged with second-degree murder. She maintains her innocence and claims self-defense against a racist and transphobic attack that turned violent. She was kept waiting for three hours before her initial interrogation and, while in prison, spent a month in solitary confinement. Throughout her ordeal the district attorney never even recognized the hate crime committed against her and both the media and district attorney referred to her by the wrong pronoun. CeCe’s community sprang into action: constructing a website, holding fundraisers, writing media alerts and doing all those things necessary to agitate against this injustice. They raised enough money to post bail and in October CeCe was finally released from jail, but remains under house arrest. Her trial date is set for April 30^th, 2012.

Wishing All Of You An Amazing 2012! And Keep Up The Good Work

      Work remains to be done. We must educate parents who believe in a God who exacts terrible vengeance when one of is His rules is broken (are they even His rules?). We must teach people that it is not all right to hate people who don’t conform to roles assigned to them, but who otherwise don’t do any harm. Thankfully, all around us, in ways immeasurable, communities spontaneously spring up doing just that.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

December 24, 2010

T’is the Season of Hope

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

Merry Christmas everyone! Yes, we know, we should be saying Happy Holidays, but here we refuse to be PC. Happy Holidays just doesn’t do it, so bland, so vanilla. Merry Christmas conveys much better the mood that comes over many people this time of year: that slowing down of the pace of life, that feeling that everyone is just a tad closer together, that peaceful and joyous mood. Even if you do not believe in Christmas and what it celebrates, we are convinced you cannot escape that festive, warm glow that the season brings. This is the time to go home and be with family and friends enjoying small talk, exchanging gifts, and eating good food, especially if it is food you grew up with, food from the old country. Did you know that food is the last thing to fade for people who come to this country? Six generations after your ancestors settled here searching for a better opportunity, their descendants still eat and talk about food from back home.

We have heard so many heartbreaking stories over the years that we know for some of you this happy talk is not real. Some of you cannot go home. Your family has rejected you because you are LGBT. Some of you can go home as long as you do not bring your partner. Your family knows you are LGBT, but doesn’t want to deal with that reality, does not want to talk out loud about it, wants to keep things quiet. Or, you haven’t told your family. There are also awful images of young LGBT APIs out on the street, huddled in doorways, hungry, trying to stay warm and dry and not even thinking of Christmas at all. These are APIs who are without any support. It is beyond sad, because APIs are famous for their strong family bonds and here those bonds are shattered.

API Family Pride’s missions, “to end the isolation of API families with LGBT members,” and the name of this blog, “keeping families together,” are expressions of what we do. We work to overcome the obstacles of a homophobic culture that tears families apart and keeps them apart. We educate to remove the ignorance shrouding sexuality and identity. Of course, all we have done and all we are going to do does not help you now for this Christmas going home, but if we keep on doing this and if you keep on helping us, then more and more LGBT APIs can go home for Christmas, and, before you know it, everybody can.

What else is there to say? Maybe this: As it took time for you to embrace your sexuality, so it will take time for your family to understand your sexuality. Give them that time. Coming out to your parents is scary and difficult, but you have two advantages: you are their child and you start with an API’s mutually strong family bond. Step carefully, nurture the existing bond, slowly teach them. It is not going to happen overnight, but we have also heard many stories over the years where it has happened.

 

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and success in the New Year.

 

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride apifamilypride.org

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

December 23, 2011

To All Our Friends, Our Community, And The World: A Very Joyful Christmas

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

A Christmas Story?

We have a Christmas story. Sort of. Maybe. Well, maybe not, but here it is anyway. San Francisco’s Archbishop George Niederauer nixed an invitation to three pro gay and lesbian activists by the Most Holy Redeemer catholic parish in the Castro. The three were to participate in the church’s Advent services. A spokesman for the archdiocese said: “The basic reason is that Archbishop Niederauer felt the themes for vespers should better reflect the themes of Advent.” Aside from a myopic archbishop, this story has several aspects that can be dissected.

Is Not One Theme Of The Advent Love?

Advent means “coming” or “arrival.” It starts on the fourth Sunday before Christmas and ends on Christmas Eve. Its focus is the celebration of the birth of Christ, His first coming, and the anticipation of His second coming. Advent thus celebrates the past and the future and its themes of hope, peace, joy, and love reflect that. Christians eagerly await the second coming and during this time between advents are stewards of the values their God taught them, among which is inclusive and unconditional love. Archbishop Niederauer apparently believes that God exempts LGBT people from his love and signals that his flock can do the same.

The Most Holy Redeemer Parish Is A Beacon In The Catholic Night

The three activists who were disinvited did not blame the Most Holy Redeemer parish, but placed the blame squarely on the archbishop. This is remarkable, a parish that is so different from the otherwise monolithic catholic hierarchy that it is seen as separate from it. The Castro’s catholic parish is a gem to be honored and defended. Much has been written about its gay activism and one quote says much:

Most Holy Redeemer is not a Catholic church with gay members. It is a gay spiritual institution that is willing to use Catholicism, including the sacraments, just as far as they can be made “inclusive” of the formative experience of the parish, which is homosexuality, and no farther.

The Reverend Jane Spahr, one of the persons disinvited, said that the members of the Most Holy Redeemer parish need not apologize for the archbishop’s decision and wrote: “The heart of your ministry embraces true hospitality and welcome, the kind of ministry Jesus lived.” The Reverend Spahr is a retired Presbyterian minister who defied her church by marrying same-sex couples and was convicted for this by a Presbyterian Church court. Perhaps the archbishop and the reverend ought to meet so she can teach him what it means to be a Christian.

The Catholic Church Is a Bureaucracy

Most Holy Redeemer parish may be seen as separate from the catholic hierarchy, but, alas, it is not. The Catholic Church is a bureaucracy. One of bureaucracy’s characteristics is that it is managed by rules. Over time the circumstances that led to the formulation of the rules are forgotten and the rule is all that matters. A consequence of this is that people who know the rules and are good at politics advance in the organization. No doubt the Archbishop of San Francisco knows his rules and is a successful politician. To bad that he forgotten what his God really is all about: inclusiveness, love, and compassion.

Merry Christmas Everybody!

Of course, the church is an obstacle to LGBT acceptance and respect, but as long as there are parishes like the Most Holy Redeemer there is hope. Hope is one of the themes of Advent too. Happy holidays.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

December 16, 2011

A Young Student Getting Acquainted With Her Local LGBT Community

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

We have a guest blogger this week, a high school senior who chose Belinda to be her guide for her senior project. With only the lightest of editorial touches we’ll let her tell her story.

My Week With Belinda.

Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Lynda Nguyen-Le and I am currently a senior at Irvington High School [in Fremont, CA]. Whenever students in my high school become seniors, we face one of the biggest milestones of our academic careers. We have a yearlong senior benchmark project called QUEST (QUestion Experience Service Testimony) in which we chose a topic and a social issue associated with it. I chose gay rights and discrimination because of my background with it. I connected with Belinda in what seemed like one of the most momentous events of my life, she introduced me to the GLBT community. This details the valuable experience I’ve gained with her so far.

Awhile back, I connected with Mark Nelson of Ohlone College [in Fremont, CA], the overseer of the GSA club at Ohlone College at Belinda’s referral. Belinda and I attended an open club meeting together on a Thursday evening. Running a bit late because I was extremely lost and wandering around the campus looking for Smith center, I finally burst into the room short breathed and flustered to meet many questioning eyes. The room was filled with about 20 people including ourselves with a diversity that befits the Bay Area.

For an hour and a half, there was a wide ranging group conversation on many issues and topics dealing with anything gay in general. We discussed anything from college papers to clubbing at gay bars to parents’ reactions to coming out to dealing with curious and offensive queries from curious people. Laughter ensued. The personalities of the people attending filled the room with a warm and light atmosphere that I thought I’d never feel regarding my own sexuality. The acceptance and open minds they gifted me with allowed me to be more open and truthful about my own sexuality to people more than I’ve ever been privileged to in my entire life. This experience was extremely cathartic and opened my eyes to the possibilities of this ever-changing world. Never in my life did I ever think that a room full of strangers will look at me with nothing but acceptance and tolerance in their eyes.

The second highlight of my week was another event that Belinda referred me to, the Youth Leadership Summit at the DeFrank center in San Jose last Friday. It was an intimate gathering with members of GSA clubs and other young gay rights activists from the Bay Area, mostly San Jose and its neighboring cities. We kicked off the evening with some icebreakers to get everyone talking and comfortable with each other, playing silly games to losing up the tension. That was followed by a presentation on starting up a gay rights club or strengthening an already existing club with a very adorable tree analogy. Then following a relaxed dinner, a brief history on a whole slew of famous people believed to be or are gay. I found the evening very inspirational and informative as well as fun.

That week for me really showed me many things. I learned that stepping out of my comfort zone is definitely worth it and that I shouldn’t have doubted the world because there are people like Belinda out there making waves and ripples of change.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org

 

Keeping Families Together

The Asian And Pacific Islander Family Pride Blog

December 2, 2011

Framing The Future In Minneapolis

By BELINDA AND JOHN DRONKERS-LAURETA

We Are In Minneapolis

We’re here attending the BOLD Gathering. BOLD is an acronym derived from Queer & Trans People of Color Building Our Liberation and Self Determination. It is part of the Racial Equity Initiative, an initiative of the Funders for Gay and Lesbian Issues (FGLI). Maybe Minneapolis was chosen as the venue because this city has the largest per capita concentration of LGBT people in the country, a statistic that surprised us.

The organizers say that this is the first time for a gathering of LGBT people of color organizations from all over the country. Some 70 organizations are on the roster of participating organizations and we estimate about 225 people in attendance. All participating organizations are recipients of infrastructure building grants issued by one of the eight foundations that make up the FGLI. It feels good being with African Americans, First Nation people, Latinos, and APIs all here to talk over ideas.

Why BOLD?

The national agenda for LGBT issues is set primarily by mainstream organizations. That agenda is focused on narrowly defined legislative issues. What happens to communities of color when those legislative campaigns are “won?” They are promptly left behind in terms of attention and funding. But “it is LGBT people of color organizations, collectives, and community groups that have been working on a wide range of intersecting issues that form the basis for the current, and next generation, of movement building (from Racial Equality Initiative (REI) Gathering Narrative).” People who advise the FGLI on funding have suggested a need to create a strong national network of LGBT people of color organizations to build up our collective political power and share ideas and programs.

BOLD is an attempt to formulate a strategic expression of how people of color organizations have changed society already and how to become a stronger voice for future changes.

What Comes After BOLD?

We joined the Gathering to learn about what other people of color organizations are doing and how they are doing it; to find out how to improve what we do now, and if there are new initiatives we should undertake to be more effective. No doubt, that in future blogs we will share what we learned, but for now there are many notes we have to digest. We also renewed existing relationships and discovered new ones with whom we will work in the future. We long ago discovered that as a small, all-volunteer organization we must collaborate with others to get the work done and if we can expand our network successfully, we will be able to do more with what we have.

A BOLD Teaser

At the Gathering a bold statement was made: “The fight for equality is over. We have won.” We are sure that this comes as a surprise to those working hard to achieve equality, but there it is. And then the question, what comes after equality? The answer offered by one speaker: liberation. Liberation is a concept of our society where people are liberated and allowed to be whole, where everyone is free to be who they are. What would that look like? A set of societal norms where sexuality, gender identification are only a part of a whole person; there is much more to him or her.

We are exited to be part of a collective that is grappling with new ideas, new concepts, and a new definition of America’s promise and how to make that real. For now, thank you to the funders, the amazing planning committee, and the helpful hotel staff that kept food and refreshments coming.

Belinda and John Dronkers-Laureta are board members of Asian & Pacific Islander Family Pride www.apifamilypride.org