Rebirth: Asian Pacific Islander Wellness Center (San Francisco)

The Asian Pacific Islander Wellness Center in San Francisco has done a lot of good work over the years to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS in the community. Like many nonprofits, this past year has been difficult and challenging.

But now the group, leaner and meaner, is promoting a new look. It starts with a new logo representing a blooming flower to signify the rebirth of the group and a new video that gives people not familiar with its efforts an idea of what it does.

Gay Asian Youth Study Reveals Hardship

This study was reported on by United Press International

Understanding The Process Of Homosexual Identity Formation Among Asian And Pacific Islander Youth

ScienceDaily (July 14, 2009) — Young American-raised Asian and Pacific Islanders (API), who are in the sexual minority, face psychological and social stresses in dealing with their families' values and ancestral cultures that significantly impact the development of their ethnic and sexual identities.
API teens and young adults identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender face a different set of challenges than their western or Caucasian peers, which can lead to rejection from their families who emigrated to the U.S. and a stigmatization by the larger Asian community.
In a new study, Hyeouk Chris Hahm, Assistant Professor at the BU School of Social Work has developed a new intellectual framework for the development of positive ethnic/sexual identities among API gays and lesbian adolescents.
The process of homosexual identify formation among API youth, where the role of family life, personal sacrifice for family tranquility and generational clashes are central social stresses, is in addition to the external factors as racism, sexism and acculturation, that many Asian Americans face. This combination of ethnic and gender differences has led the BU researchers to develop a new model of identity formation for this group which also serves to increase understanding of the diversity of the "new gay teenager."
Their study is based on Hahm's earlier study, about 1,000 Asian American adolescents and young adults (18 to 27 years old), who said they were attracted to the same sex. This group struggled to both fit in with the prevailing American culture and also establish an authentic sexual identity that they knew was different from the norms of mainstream U.S. and their parents culture ( primarily from China, Japan and Korea).
"For instance, in South Korea, where male children have obligations to marry and create a traditional notion of family, homosexuality is considered a deviant behavior that brings family dishonor and shame," the study states, noting that this cultural barrier leaves this sexual minority with multiple oppressions and a sense of fear and inability to accept their sexual identity.
API women who are gay also face an Asian culture that requires them to stick to family values, marry men and have children or place shame on their families, neighbors and community. Researchers found that many Asian cultural norms render women invisible and silent. Thus these women compared to heterosexual API women and both heterosexual and homosexual API men had a higher prevalence of tobacco, binge drinking, marijuana and other drugs.
The reasons? The API women who were gay were less likely to adhere to traditional family-oriented gender roles, were unable or willing to gain or receive emotional support from their families and were likely to compete with men for masculine privileges so they could escape sexist oppression.
Often, the result for both young men and women is to mask homosexual behaviors and avoid alienating their family and parents' communities. In their relationships with others, they often have to decide which identity will take precedence: an ethnic or sexual identity.
"In the Western gay and lesbian community, 'coming out,' is final revelation that you are homosexual while for API in America of Korean descent, there is 'coming home,' where you want to integrate culturally and be both an American and Korean," said Professor Hahm. "This is not staying closeted but rather alluding to your sexuality to a family member, who may not challenge it, as long as the status quo within the family is maintained."
Over time, many manage the conflicts that arise from choosing one over the other and enter into a homosexual identity with many negative stereotypes and assumptions related to their ethnic identity. Still others sublimate their sexual identify and appear asexual until they are able to synthesize an identity that incorporates both ethnicity and sexuality.
The researchers developed an API sexual minority model that simultaneously explores sexual development and cultural identity development in four stages: initiation, primacy, conflict and identity synthesis. These are combined with the four strategies of acculturation – the process by which foreign-born individuals and their families learn to adopt the language, values, beliefs and behaviors of their new cultural environments. Those strategies are assimilation, integration, separation and marginalization. Together they set API sexual minorities apart from Western gays and lesbian community.
________________________________________
Journal reference:
1. Hyeouk Chris Hahm and Chris Adkins. A Model of Asian and Pacific Islander Sexual Minority Acculturation. Journal of LGBT Youth, 6:155-173, 2009
Adapted from materials provided by Boston University Medical Center, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

Dragon Boat Races - Chicago 2009

Today our Asians and Friends Board had a meeting in Chinatown where they were having the Dragon Boat Races. Here's us watching the Illinois State Troopers easily win their heat.

Go Gosselin!

We know Jon Gosselin is not gay--or at least his romps with women as reported in the tabloids seem to suggest that he's not only straight, but pleasing the ladies. The reality show father of eight who is now portrayed as a cheating spouse can give us Asian Americans a bad name. But the Asian male in America has been emasculated for so long, that it's refreshing to see in the mainstream media a man who is quite the opposite. Hopefully the message that Asian men are indeed potent will linger into the gay world.

Culture Isolates Gay Brothers

This was posted on the New America Media in May, but the information is still relevant.

The Triple Minority: Asian, Gay and HIV Positive

New America Media, News Report, Viji Sundaram, Posted: May 20, 2009

SAN FRANCISCO – When Jane and Alexander Nakatani lost their three sons – two to AIDS, and one to a bullet – they knew they had to shed their “Asian” inhibitions. They realized that they needed to educate people about how “delicate” the psyche of immigrant children is, and that parenting them should not be taken lightly.

“Three months before Guy (their youngest son) died, he told me he was a triple minority,” an emotional Alexander Nakatani told a gathering at the Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center (APIWC). “He was Asian, gay and HIV positive.”

Nakatani admitted that the struggles his sons faced were in large part because none of them turned out to be the son he and his wife wanted.

Guy died in 1997 from complications stemming from AIDS, just four years after his older brother had died from the same disease. Guy was 27.

The Nakatanis were honored by the Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center for their efforts to transform their tragedy into hope, and to create public awareness about HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in Asian American communities. The couple has embarked on a “mission” to share their story of tolerance, acceptance and healing.

Their story is told in the book and film, “Honor Thy Children,” which was screened at the center on Monday.

“It’s not a story simply about our family, but a story about children who grew up stigmatized and marginalized,” said Nakatani, after the screening of the powerful 90-minute documentary, during which his wife sat crying quietly. “It’s about how delicate and fragile children are.”

The disappointment and anger Guy and his brother Glen faced after coming out to their parents is typical of many Asian families, noted Lance Toma, executive director of the APIWC in San Francisco. The stigma that they face in their families and their communities may be one of the reasons many gay Asian Americans don’t get tested for HIV, Toma said, noting that AIDS diagnosis among Asian and Pacific Islanders is one of the highest among all minority communities. And among those diagnosed, young men having sex with men are the most impacted.

“We knew this could happen,” he said. “We are not getting tested.”

Honor Thy Children was made over the course of 12 years. It shows how the stern and emotionless older Nakatanis drove their two gay sons, Glen and Guy, into a cocoon of isolation by not accepting their sexual orientation.

“Maybe you’re not gay, Guy. A lot of young people experiment,” Alexander awkwardly told the young teenager, when he announced he was gay.

Unable to cope with his overbearing and unsympathetic parents, Glen left their California home when he was 15. Livid, Nakatani took down all the pictures of his first-born and declared, “I have no son.”

Later that night, Guy and his other brother, Greg, made a pact never to do anything to cause their parents pain.

It was probably this pact that kept the once playful, charming and affable Guy from telling his parents that he was raped when he was 15 by a male acquaintance twice his age. When Guy reached adulthood, he dated women, confiding to one of them that he was gay.

Meanwhile, after a short stint in the military, a very sick Glen returned to his parents’ home. He was diagnosed with full-blown AIDS. He died shortly afterward, with his parents lovingly at his side.

Four years later, Guy, weakened by AIDS, which had robbed him of vision in one eye and kept him in a wheelchair, died surrounded by his friends and family. He had spent the last three years of his life going from school to school in the San Francisco Bay Area advocating against casual sex.

Nakatani told the gathering Wednesday, "Know that there are those of us who cherish and love ‘diversity’ in its total and complete sense … and that there always will be voices that will speak for dignity, honor, acceptance and unconditional love for all children."



May 19 marked the fifth annual National Asian & Pacific Islander HIV/AIDS Awareness Day.

Gay Asian Men Don't Like Black Guys

Apparently, gay Asian men don't like black guys. This may not be universal, but a news report about a recent study on mixed-race dating puts black men on the bottom of their sexual-partner pool.

Though the study focused on black men, of the Asian men in the study, 74% were less likely to have had a black sexual partner, compared to white men, who were 34% less likely and Latinos, who were 65% less likely.

Here's more info about the study:

They asked 1,142 gay men about their own ethnicity and the number and ethnicity of their sexual partners in the previous six months. They also asked about the ethnicity of the men’s friends as well as their sexual partners, the preferred ethnicity of their sexual partners, the perceived ‘riskiness’ of men of different ethnicities in terms of their likelihood of passing on HIV, and whether they found it easy or difficult to meet partners of different ethnicities.

Of the sample, 56% were white, 21% Latino, 14% Asian and 9% black. The average number of partners in the previous six months was three, and this did not differ significantly between ethnic groups.

Call for Couples to be Spokespeople

The ACLU sent the following message to Asians and Friends Chicago. The call might apply to other states. The contact information is provided below:

The ACLU’s LGBT Project is advocating for relationship recognition in Illinois, and we’re looking for gay and lesbian couples who would be willing to be spokespeople for why relationship recognition matters to their families.

I wanted to see if you could forward this message to folks at Asians and Friends Chicago to see if there are any couples who might be willing to work with us. I can be reached at 212.519.7835 and I am more than willing to talk to anyone who wants to learn more about this project.



Anna Letitia Mumford

Public Education Strategist

American Civil Liberties Union

Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender & AIDS Project

(212) 519-7835

amumford@aclu.org

Chicago Gay Pride 2009

Last weekend was Chicago's Gay Pride Parade and Asians and Friends Chicago got several mentions in the media. One on local Channel 7 (about 25 mintues into the coverage) and another on Fox News (of all places). On Fox, they are about 2 minutes and 20 seconds in. "I'm a Queen, Get Me Out of Here" wasn't the most masculine of themes, but when the tide is rising, one has to set sail.

Below, Asians and Friends Chicago Board Pres. Angel Abcede gets interviewed by Fausto for OutTVWorld.com. Angel appears at the end of the segment.



Here are some photos!