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In this unique oral history, gay Asian Americans talk frankly about their struggle for self-determination and independence. Despite its size, until recently the gay Asian American community in Los Angeles was fragmented and marginalized as gay Asian men separated into their own ethnic cliques and preferred whites as sexual partners. Using a cultural studies lens to interpret the rich oral narratives he collected, Eric C. Wat shows how a dominant sexual ideology can influence our desires and contradict our memories. By documenting the founding of the first gay Asian organization in Southern California (Asian/Pacific Lesbians and Gays [A/PLG]), Wat powerfully portrays the ways gay Asian men confronted these contradictions publicly and struggled to fashion a coherent identity and community based on both their race and sexuality. His analysis returns gay Asian men to the center of their lives and celebrates the power of individuals working collectively to define their desires and combat injustice.
"Geisha of a Different Kind bravely engages with the struggles and triumphs of Asian American gay men as they inhabit American society and its gay mainstream. A lucid study with anunflinching focus on the daily contingencies of these men's lives, this book isan important contribution to the scholarly understanding of contemporary U.S.sex/gender systems and their fraught links to racial formations."--Martin F. Manalansan IV, author of Global Divas: Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora.
Asian American Sexualities works to dispel the stereotype of oriental sexual decadence, as well as the "model minority" heterosexual Asian sterotype in the US. Writing from an impressive array of interdisciplinary perspectives, the contributors discuss a variety of topics, including sexuality and identity politics; community activism and gay activism; transnational aspects of love between women in Thailand; queer South Asian culture in the US; gay and lesbian filmmakers; same-sex sexuality in Pacific literature; and Asian American male homosexuality and AIDS. The relationship of the gay and lesbian experience to Asian American studies and Ethnic Studies is also explored.
What does it mean to be queer and Asian American at the turn of the century? The writers, activists, essayists, and artists who contribute to this volume consider how Asian American racial identity and queer sexuality interconnect in mutually shaping and complicating ways. Their collective aim (in the words of the editors) is "to articulate a new conception of Asian American racial identity, its heterogeneity, hybridity, and multiplicity -- concepts that after all underpinned the Asian American moniker from its very inception." Q & A approaches matters of identity from a variety of points of view and academic disciplines in order to explore the multiple crossings of race and ethnicity with s...
A View from the Bottom offers a major critical reassessment of male effeminacy and its racialization in visual culture. Examining portrayals of Asian and Asian American men in Hollywood cinema, European art film, gay pornography, and experimental documentary, Nguyen Tan Hoang explores the cultural meanings that accrue to sexual positions. He shows how cultural fantasies around the position of the sexual "bottom" overdetermine and refract the meanings of race, gender, sexuality, and nationality in American culture in ways that both enable and constrain Asian masculinity. Challenging the association of bottoming with passivity and abjection, Nguyen suggests ways of thinking about the bottom po...
In raw, poignant alternating first-person narratives, interspersed with e-mails, gay chat-room exchanges, and other fragments of a youth laid bare in the age of social media, The Lost Prayers of Ricky Graves unravels the mystery of a life in all its glory: despair and regret, humor and wonder, courage and connection. A heartbroken and humiliated Ricky Graves took the life of a classmate and himself. Five months later, the sleepy community is still in shock and mourning. Ricky's sister, Alyssa, returns to confront her shattered, withdrawn mother and her guilt over the brother she left adrift. Mark McVitry, the lone survivor of the deadly outburst sparked by his own cruelty, is tormented by vi...
In gay bars and nightclubs across America, and in gay-oriented magazines and media, the buff, macho, white gay man is exalted as the ideal—the most attractive, the most wanted, and the most emulated type of man. For gay Asian American men, often viewed by their peers as submissive or too ‘pretty,’ being sidelined in the gay community is only the latest in a long line of racially-motivated offenses they face in the United States.Repeatedly marginalized by both the white-centric queer community that values a hyper-masculine sexuality and a homophobic Asian American community that often privileges masculine heterosexuality, gay Asian American men largely have been silenced and alienated i...
Asian American Sexualities works to dispel the stereotype of oriental sexual decadence, as well as the "model minority" heterosexual Asian sterotype in the US. Writing from an impressive array of interdisciplinary perspectives, the contributors discuss a variety of topics, including sexuality and identity politics; community activism and gay activism; transnational aspects of love between women in Thailand; queer South Asian culture in the US; gay and lesbian filmmakers; same-sex sexuality in Pacific literature; and Asian American male homosexuality and AIDS. The relationship of the gay and lesbian experience to Asian American studies and Ethnic Studies is also explored.
With overview essays and more than 400 A-Z entries, this exhaustive encyclopedia documents the history of Asians in America from earliest contact to the present day. Organized topically by group, with an in-depth overview essay on each group, the encyclopedia examines the myriad ethnic groups and histories that make up the Asian American population in the United States. "Asian American History and Culture" covers the political, social, and cultural history of immigrants from East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the Pacific Islands, and their descendants, as well as the social and cultural issues faced by Asian American communities, families, and individuals in contemporary society. In addition to entries on various groups and cultures, the encyclopedia also includes articles on general topics such as parenting and child rearing, assimilation and acculturation, business, education, and literature. More than 100 images round out the set.
Restoried Selves: Autobiographies of Queer Asian / Pacific American Activists presents the first-person accounts of 20 activistslife stories that work against common stereotypes, shattering misconceptions and dispelling misinformation. These autobiographies challenge familial and cultural expectations and values that have traditionally forced queer Asian / Pacific Americans into silent shame because of their sexual orientation and/or ethnicity. Authors share not only their experiences growing up but also how those experiences led them to become social activists, speaking out against oppression. Many harmful untruthsor storiesabout queer Asian-Pacific Americans have been repeated so often, th...