I am always asking everyone to share their stories because narratives are powerful, persuasive, and so that our stories don’t get lost to history.
I am guilty of never sharing my own story. And it has taken me a lot to get to this point but I don’t want this to be lost to history.
So I was asked to talk about what it was like to grow up queer in Fiji, and I can’t talk about it without sharing my ‘coming out’ story.
There’s two typical things in my story
1. I always knew I liked women
2. I fell in love with my best friend
And may I add this happened in an All-girls Catholic High School.
The year was 1998, I was around 13. I wouldn’t call it love at first sight but she was certainly the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She entered the classroom, late, and sat down beside me.
After the initial awkwardness, we became friends. Best friends.
After a month, I confessed that I was in love with her. She was confused and started crying. And that’s how news of my sexual orientation spread like wildfire. But she returned the feelings.
Our friends found out, so did our teachers, the principals, our parents, their colleagues and other schools in the area. Everyone knew about the two lesbian lovers at ______________________.
“You are an AAPI. But you are not a model minority. You talk back. And, you are queer.”
And I am also a womyn, which matters a whole lot.
Lets set aside those dry, boring intellectual blog posts for a moment.
How do you get someone to ‘obey’ norms when she has never been considered a part of what is normative? Why would a person believe in institutionalized structures and settings when they hold her down? Why is it alright for a man to hog discussion but inappropriate for a woman to be strong in her convictions? There isn’t a space for these discussions in this so-called movement for ‘immigration reform,’ which looks increasingly like ‘pro-enforcement reform.’ This is my space, hence these statements.
I want to apologize to my readers for being literally absent for the past two months. In December, I unexpectedly got invited to a ‘United We DREAM’ conference (a coalition that has been trying to pass the DREAM Act for 100 years now), and decided to go since the National Immigration Law Center paid for the trip. Looking back on it, maybe that was not the best decision but at least I got to meet friends that I had not seen in person. At the meeting–quite unexpectedly–some members of the coalition railed to make my tiny circle of friends as one of the central communications pillars. I was left wondering why they would want an open-borders, cerebral Marxist-Foucauldian, radical queer womyn of color to have anything to do with building a ‘talking points’ sheet. The only explanation was that they were trying to quell dissent and get immigrant youth like me to conform to a certain way of doing things, a certain structure to abide to. Yes, I know – warning bells!
here is a link to some questions i had asked one of my close DREAMer friends, who is also gay and hails from Iran. his answers were quite insightful, and i hope to have some more people participate in these short bio projects. something that comes through in his answers is how the issues of immigration, asylum and human rights are so intertwined and interconnected that we cannot possibly see them as separate.
someone also suggested a while ago that we should submit our stories to curve and the advocate. i plan to do that once i get the other project done after april.
I was livid when I heard that Mehdi Kazemi, a gay teenager from Iran was being denied political asylum in the UK and then by a Dutch Court even after he could prove substantial risk to his life.
"I wish to inform secretary of state that I did not come to the UK to claim asylum … But in the past few months my situation back home has changed. The Iranian authorities have found out that I am a homosexual and they are looking for me."
He continued, "I can not stop my attraction to men … If I return to Iran I will be arrested and executed like [my boyfriend]. Since this incident … I have been so scared."
Finally, today, Britain halted the move to deport the teenager and granted temporary reprieve. For now, we can all sigh in relief that the international public outcry against the folly of deporting the gay teenager to Iran has halted the order. However, I couldn't help thinking of another gay Iranian friend of mine who is in the United States, and like me, also 'out-of-status' and awaiting his DREAMs to come to life.
He goes by "Quaker" on forums, and is one of the hard-working leaders in the movement to pass our DREAMS. And unlike me, he hasn't had the privilege to attend college in his state, since colleges there are unwilling to take "undocumented" students, yet, his focus, determination and drive to make a future for himself is apparent from his participation in the movement. A while ago, I asked him some questions about how it felt to be a DREAMer as well as being gay since I was curious about comparing our experiences. Here is what he had to say to several of my questions:
Is it more frustrating to be a gay DREAMer?
Absolutely.During our calling campaigns after hanging up the phone with any, pro-Dream / immigration reform, republican's office I'd think to my self 'now would they even give me the time of day if they knew I was also gay?'I always find myself having to think a bit on how to answer certain questions and whether it is worth the risk of exposing my self to them."Do I want to risk losing them as a great ally in advocating for Dream?"Like for example with Mark, after chatting online for hours about the graduation card campaign and prior to that him giving me, out of the blue, enough money to cover the first plaque, we started to chit-chat about ourselves and at some point he asked whether I was religious.I had to think on that question for a good two or three minute, not because I didn't know the answer, but because I knew the follow-up would be why and I wasn't sure if it would be worth the risk of telling him.Here we had a great thing going, working on projects, getting something done and so is it really something I'd be willing to lose?Not something I think I would have even crossed my mind had the issue been say… my not accepting free tickets for the big OSU v UofM game because it was cold outside.
Do you think the pro-migrant or pro-DREAM community we have going is alienating towards queer immigrant issues?
At one point on the forum someone asked whether we'd be willing to volunteer for a possible DC lobbying trip, like many I immediately said yes.But then I started thinking about what story I would tell. I couldn't help but to keep going back to my being gay, being from Iran and how because of that I would probably never ever be able to go back to Iran.But then, just as with the phone calls, reality hit that it probably wouldn't be smart to share any of that as we'd drive a wedge between the much needed republicans. At the same time, without bringing that up I really don't have a story to share; I didn't spend 30 days walking across the blazing desert to get here, I don't have to take the bus for two hours everyday to get to and from school, I wasn't a 4.0 student that was denied the chance to go to an amazing school on a full ride and so on.It's frustrating because, even though you are out, you cannot share who you are. I also find it amusing how similar the "should I tell bf/gf/friend that I am illegal" is to what we have to go through when coming out.
Have you considered or been pressured into a marriage of convenience?
No, I mean it sucks not having the option and when people discuss getting legalized by doing so it always reminds me that I don't even have that option, but other than that I don't think of it much.
Have you faced any hostilities as part of the DREAM Act student movement?
I haven't had much hostility from anyone on DAP or any other pro-Dream person. We seem to be a pretty understanding bunch.
That concludes part of the experiment we are running about getting more DREAMers featured on this blog. Let us know if it is something you would be interested in seeing more of and we could probably hear other voices on this blog more frequently.
Bartender: "I wanna go scuba-diving in Fiji." Me: "Me too."Along w/ most people living in Fiji who haven't been scuba-diving #whiteprivilege [Desidyke]
