No Borders and Binaries

I take great inspiration from this quote by Jennifer Beals at an NAACP event a few years ago:

“It has been said, ‘History is written by the victors.’ I take this to mean we can make ourselves victorious by writing, and then rewriting our own stories. In a country and culture so dominated by media, by the manipulation of words and stories, telling the tales of people whose stories historically have not been told is a radical act and I believe an act that can change the world and help rewrite history. Imagine if all of our stories were told?”

Yesterday, Ilene Chaiken, producer, writer and director of the L Word wrote something she called a rant about how when the L word is over next year, we would again be relegated back into the closet. Once again, we would hop from channel to channel trying to find some representation or other of our lives, some acknowledgment of our existence. She pretty much ends with a call to action:

And for those of us in the LGBT community, I say, if history is indeed written by the victors, let’s make ourselves victorious by writing our own history… and directing it and producing it and starring in it.

I hardly have any skills in screenwriting, much less acting. My artistic skills are also sorely lacking though I can always use Photoshop. But I think I am trying to say, in my own way, how much I believe in writing our own stories, in controlling (or trying to) our own destinies. So day after day, I blog away, sometimes about exceedingly important social issues, other times about my own addictions and obsessions, but I know that I have a space, a niche on my blog. And it does reach out to some people.

Today I told a reporter interviewing me about the pro-migrant santuary sphere what purpose or objective we were trying to achieve and I told him that as an individual I am trying to change the discourse of the immigration debate; to move beyond “illegal is illegal.” Because, seriously, besides redundant, it really doesn’t do anything to reform our broken system. But I am not too bent on convincing the Minutemen (or the Neo-Nazis and whatever anti-gay groups are called)–it is the mainstream American, the working class person that we hope to win over.

I sometimes feel a sense of betrayal to some or other aspect of my identity–it cannot be helped. I cannot possibly represent every social identity that is expected of me and neither can I vouch to speak for anyone else but myself. As an immigrant who has seen some really dark days of immigration to this country, I have been part of a movement of undocumented students, to get my dear friends to start blogs, to take back the discourse in the debate over our future. My MA thesis was mostly about a country that we left behind but a culture that we have held onto. It pains me at times to read bad news about Fiji, but I trudge on. My gayness probably shames the Indian community (that I avoid like the plague) but its my pride and empowerment, no matter how silly it might sound to be proud of your sexual orientation–after all, it cannot be helped. But I indulge myself even though I am still too shy to go to Pride or other LGBT social events to which I am invited (or maybe just a homebody)!

I don’t know what sort of history I am supposed to write or be a part of at the end of the day but I know that I don’t want to give anyone the pen or paper to write my story for me. Sometimes I feel daunted by a huge responsibility, like a wounded soldier in a war for which I did not sign up; I just want to disappear into oblivion for a few days. Other times, I write for myself out of total self-absorption (maybe like right now)! I don’t know if JB would consider my incessant blogging about our stories, our lives, our troubles as a radical act. I suppose the net has created a space for the subaltern to speak in–and the subaltern is speaking out.

This is probably one of my shout-outs to my dear friends in the pro-migrant sanctuary sphere for promoting a sense of belonging, to my idols Jennifer Beals and Laurel Holloman and the entire cast/crew of the L word for helping us form a community and something to hang onto, to my professors for guiding me towards the light, and to everyone reading for encouraging me to carry on. We may call this my rant. Si, se puede.

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