QT Collective: UTOPIA

QT QT Collective: Collective: UTOPIA UTOPIA 10th 10th Edition Edition

QTCollective is a zine created for artists, writers, and creatives of marginalized identities to practice taking up space. This is a work of both resistance and love.

This edition is focusing on qtpoc, with a theme of imagining utopias.

Imagining a future without certain systems in place or simply imagining a different future can help destress. This was created through BlackLivesMatter with help of professor Emily Drew.

Cover designed by Erica Meier

EDITORS Anissa Garcia

I hope this edition has encouraged folks to believe that imagining a reality without our current systems can be healing and radical. If we want queer and poc liberation we first have to theorize about what that might look like.

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this collective and those who constantly support and enrich others lives. Y’all are the utopia I’m dreaming of ;^)

Erica Meier Hi, QTies! Welcome to our 10th Edition of the QT Collective! <3 Thank you all so much and welcome to Utopia!

In a Utopia, we are sensual (we embrace the senses), we experience. we all create, we all dream, we all are our best selves and see tht possibility in each other.

In this Edition In my utopia i’d never have to hear that fucking question again

1-2 Meg Chary I want a world

3 Ash Alunan Q

4 Qinyi He American Gothics

5-7

María I S. and Photos by Olivia Orosco

Utopia

8

anonymous

da pilipino dat speaks pidgin

9-10 Utopia

for

the

Kānaka

11-13

James Mamuad Maoli

of

Hawai’i

James Mamuad

Utopia

14 Anissa Garcia

1 I guess my version of a utopia would be a society in which people really think before they ask insensitive or deeply personal questions regarding gender.

Most of the time, people don’t mean to be hurtful, but it’s not cool to ask someone about their genitalia, or about whether they are a boy or a girl, or really anything like that just because you are curious. Questions like these really screwed with me as a young trans* kid growing up, because I felt like I had to explain my existence to people I barely knew.

Not to mention, I didn’t even have concrete answers for them at that age, I was (and still am) in the process of figuring it all out myself.

So, I hope that everyone in my vision of a utopia would be super considerate and let go of preconceived notions, stop assuming gender (or lack thereof), as well as being mindful of the type of questions they ask others.

–Meg Chary

2

(Original photo by VISHAL, found in a magazine, edits by Meg Chary)

3 I want a world where humans listen.

(No, like really listen) I want a world where respect is given upon first meeting.

Then, once true colors reveal themselves,

Respect can be taken away I want a world where the most vulnerable are centered. (loved and cherished) I want a world where coming out is not a big deal.

Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s just how it is

Where folks are accepted

And given resources and support I want a world where transformation is embracedâ&#x20AC;Ś Let us start building these worlds because I no longer accept this world. ~ Ash M.V.A.

4

5

‘American Gothics’ Photographs by Olivia Orosco Words by Maria I S. “Queerness is not yet here. Queerness is an ideality. We may never touch queerness but we can feel it as the warm illumination of a horizon imbued with potentiality… the here and now is a prison house…

Queerness is a longing that propels us onward, beyond romances of the negative and toiling in the present. Queerness is that thing that lets us feel that this world is not enough, that indeed something is missing.

Both the ornamental and the quotidian can contain a map of the utopia that is queerness.”

José Esteban Muñoz from Cruising Utopia Whenever I know it will be a difficult day, or that I might face difficult people/situations/words I make sure to feel good about my outfit before I leave the door.

Lately its been every day. On the day pictured I dressed for a different reason. On this day I dressed for the life of the queers. On this day I dressed for those I love*. Que vivan los queers. Que viva la Virgen de Guadalupe. *not all depicted in these photographs

6 6

7

8 El mundo da vueltas Algunos dirán que es una fantasía. Camino por los pasillos pensando cuándo será mi turno -- quien alguien bajara esas estrellas pequeñas que solo brillan en una noche fresca como hoy. Hasta cierto punto creo que la Virgen te eligió para que estuviéramos unidos en algo muy complicado pero con solo una risa callada, me hace dudar en buscar una buena razón porque no puede ser algo tan sencillo.

Ese suspiro en cuando siento ese abrazo que tanto le suplique a la Virgen-- al fin se me cumplio. El universo quiere apostar cual acepta esta fantasía para crearla como nuestra realidad.

Espere mucho tiempo para que termináramos así-- en este preciso momento. En esta noche particular para sacar las penas, las dudas, los malos entendidos, y más que nada que me llevaras al cielo para observar las estrellas y la luna contigo.

Con Amor, Rosalba Maria de los Ángeles

9

James

da pilipino dat speaks pidgin no speak da kine ilocano small kine speak it you know braddah not all pilipino talk da land if can can good if no can, its ok but i speak great pidgin not da kine ilocano still iâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;m pilipino still i speak da pidgin i no hate ilocano i no hate being pilipino wen i was a small keiki mah parents stay busy workin eeva day workin in da plantations tired all da time cause they stay busy, dass why i no speak ilocano but some pilipinos like mah family like mah braddahs

10 they can talk but i speak pidgin wen i speak i talk like no kine haole i talk like no kine moke i talk like no kine ilocano i talk like no english english i talk of da migration i talk of da plantations i talk like da immigrant workers i talk like da sugarcane workers i talk like da pineapple workers i talk like mah parents wen i speak pidgin i speak der mouths i speak der struggles if my mouth shut foreva they stay lost foreva no speak da kine ilocano but i speak pidgin to find dem.

11 Utopia for The Kānaka Maoli of Hawai’i they sailed da slow seas--voyagers they flown da blue skies--myna birds they were born from red lava--Pele da Kānaka Maoli sailed here livin’ on da islands--Hawaiian land Hawai’i is der home--Ohana da da da is

livin’ land breathin’ skies sleepin’ seas der Utopia.

The Kānaka Maoli are the children of Hawai’i. The Kānaka Maoli, like Hawaii, came from the skies, the ground and the ocean. The Kānaka Maoli are Hawai’i. Hawai’i is more than a home, more than a birthplace; Hawai’i is within them. The Kānaka Maoli live with the land, the Kānaka Maoli breathe with the skies, the Kānaka Maoli swim with the ocean. The Kānaka Maoli are Hawai’i.

12 Where is Utopia?

1795: King Kamehameha the Great united the all the islands into the Kingdom of Hawai’i.

1887: King Kalākaua was forced to signed the Bayonet Constitution, which gave power to rich white businessmen, white lawyers and white landowners.

1891: King Kalākaua’s sister Lili’uokalani became the first and last queen of the Hawaiian monarchy.

1893: Queen Lili’uokalani was illegally overthrown by a coup de’état, masterminded by john l. stevens and the us marine.

1898-1959: The american government illegally annexed Hawai’i into a territory.

1940s: Japanese, Asians and the Kānaka Maoli were mass incarcerated into internment camps in Hawai’i.

13 1959: Hawai’i illegally became a state with the votes of Asians, whites and immigrants while the Kānaka Maoli were barred from voting against it.

1959-now: Hawai’i is a neo-settler colony under the control of an Asian-led government.

Post-racial multiculturalism is a settlercolonial plantation hierarchy.

A history of immigration and immigrants masks the history of the Kānaka Maoli.

The tourist industry exploits Hawai’i as a paradise, and fetishes the indigenous culture of the Kānaka Maoli.

The american imperial military controls, displaces and abuses the native land.

There is a diaspora of the Kānaka Maoli happening around the world.

There is a Hawaiian Nationalist movement, since the overthrow of the Queen, happening to reclaim self-determination for the Kānaka Maoli and sovereignty for Hawai’i.

Anissa Garcia

14

Erica Meier