may 18

The articles for today talks about marginalized groups such as Queer south Asians. In America we are free to express our sexuality and in the most part it’s more acceptable than Asian countries. This hit me pretty hard because I, myself am gay. My mother is from Vietnam very conservative, my dad is American he has no problems with peoples’ preferences. It was hard to tell my mom that I was gay because my whole life my mom kept saying “are you sure you’re not gay” and I would lie “of course not” and it hurt to hear her say “good I don’t one of ‘those’ to be my daughter”. When I did come out to her she kept asking my question, like why, how, that’s so disgusting. I asked her why is it so hard to accept that, it’s should’ve been pretty obvious, my whole life I dressed in boy’s clothes, and had short hair. She said no it’s not right, god made man and women and that’s how you have babies. She talked about how the gay people are treated in Vietnam and feared that people will treat me like too, but I mean it’s America, no one really cares anymore. She begged me not to tell the family, that she would be embarrassed to have a daughter like me. She told me why we moved away from my family, it was because she was embarrassed already to have a cross dressing daughter. I feel like the only way my mom feels like this because of where she grew up and saw how gay people were treated back then. I hope in the future gay marriage will be legal in Asian countries too, to show my mom that times have changed.

            This documentary talks about the Laotian girls who struggled between two cultures and at same time to fit in with the others. Slah’s story of these girls talks about how they wanted to preserve their Laotian roots but live the American dream. They had the opportunity to achieve their goals that they would have a chance in their home country. One of the girls named Kelly was a teen mom that wanted to go to college, but because she was pregnant her parents wanted her to be a stay at home mom. Her family doesn’t understand why she wanted to go to school. The cultural differences between the generation shows how education for a woman is valued different. Between race and gender Asian girls are expected to assimilate to gender roles. But in American girls are exposed to greater opportunities, which can influence 2^nd generations to abandon their old traditions.