Within the CVS receipt-length list of things I do at the University of Connecticut is a little organization called Queer Asians and Allies (QAA). Consisting of cultural celebrations, game nights, PowerPoint parties and the occasional diaspora kid vent session (catered by Hello Kitty grilled cheese sandwiches), this tier-II club gives me much needed respite from nonstop writing or heckling university administrators. It is incredibly refreshing to connect with people who share the intersecting identities of being Asian and a member of the LGBTQIA+ community over the (sometimes clichéd) idiosyncrasies of our upbringing: cut fruit, plastic bags inside another plastic bag, no-shoe households, learning that your childhood nickname was actually a curse word and so forth.
I even welcome the legwork involved in running a student organization. The group’s social media, which I manage with other members of the executive board, is, for the most part, light-hearted and doesn’t grab you by the shoulders to scream about the societal grievances of Asian people who are members of the LGBTQIA+ community. Tearing it up on Canva a few times a month to make presentations for our meetings is the highlight of my Thursday afternoon. Coming up with and participating in silly activities (“Chat GPT Mad Libs” and “Stupid Shark Tank” being the ones I’m most proud of) requires no small amount of brain power, but it can be preferable to contemplating man-made horrors beyond our comprehension — see previous installments of “Mass Mood.” In sum, much of QAA and other cultural organizations’ activities have the outward appearance of being apolitical.
But as a cultural organization, QAA is inextricably tied to our identities as — you guessed it — queer and Asian people. This is readily apparent in most of our meetings, where discussions about these intersecting positionalities also reveal how they clash. Although Asians and Asian Americans are diverse with respect to their views on LGBTQIA+ issues, there is no doubt a conservative tinge to older generations. For example, polling by Pew Research Center in 2022 indicates that about one-third of Asian adults in the United States feel views on gender identity are “changing too quickly.” Considering this, it’s easy to understand the calculus a queer or trans Asian youth has to do when considering coming out and how common this experience must be. Our cultural values, being formed by histories of power and economic relations, are utterly political.
These identities are additionally impacted by policies that try to govern queer and trans bodies; by economic factors that enable wealthy Asians to migrate where poor Asians cannot; and by foreign policy hostile to Asian countries that result in racialized hatred and violence. We certainly can’t ignore how Black people have shaped queer culture and resistance and how assimilation in a country founded on white supremacy necessarily means participating in, capitulating to and struggling against it at different times for different people.
Additionally, some of our national backgrounds only exist because of colonialism, which serves to unite peoples in a shared struggle in some instances and divide them with artificial, political borders in others. Politics are unavoidable in cultural organizations. Making room for political education and action optimizes our ability to do good in and beyond our communities.
On Thursday, March 28, QAA hosted an open discussion on pinkwashing and how it relates to the queer, Asian community. Pinkwashing refers to the appropriation of LGBTQIA+ struggles, or an appeal to our rights, in order to justify state violence. The term was coined by scholar Sarah Schulman to explain how the state of Israel “[conceals] the continuing violations of Palestinians’ human rights behind an image of modernity signified by Israeli gay life.”
During the discussion, we projected this phenomenon onto our own observations as Asian people, debating how the United States employs pinkwashing in its military and against foreign policy adversaries, as well as how Asian countries like Thailand may appropriate queerness in other ways to spur tourism without challenging homophobia in Thai society more broadly.
QAA has had other discussions on getting involved in activism, confronting anti-Black racism in the Asian community and even gentrification. Implicit in many of these conversations is the desire to recognize the privileges we have as Asian people in a wealthy, militarily hegemonic country. Similarly, we tend to moderate these discussions with the desire to uplift those in and outside of our student organization bubble with the least power. Often, connecting the dots between our national-ethnic backgrounds and politics is more energizing than if we ignored the latter altogether.
Of course, politics can be divisive. Rather than shying away from politics on that account, cultural organizations should provide opportunities for friendly debate. Individual members may walk away with their biases challenged and more knowledge on a subject that is relevant to their community. Build consensus where consensus exists. Make community agreements where the community agrees. QAA doesn’t intend to be the vanguard party of queer Asian people (yet); our goal is to build community.
Not insulating ourselves from politics makes us more resilient to political developments that happen in our lifetimes. Knowledge and discussion empower us to confront oppression, and the struggle against oppression is ultimately the reason many of these organizations exist in the first place.