QUEER ASIAN AMERICAN ACTIVISM

WRITTEN BY SANIA SRIVASTAVA

History is constructed. The narratives we recognize today come from accounts of people who once decided them important. But unfortunately, countless communities and stories are lost to time in this struggle to record and preserve what people want to remember.

One such community was the LGBTQ+ Asians in the 19th century.

With the first immigration wave in the 1850s, many Asians — primarily men — settled on the West coast, searching for employment. Most of these immigrants came from countries where there was a widespread acceptance for same-sex sexualities and intimacy.¹ As they also brought their cultures, they often conflicted with the American heteronormative narrative of the time. A lot of being an Asian queer at the time was navigating this struggle — to voice their identity in an environment that wasn’t listening. For example, many of the Chi- nese men resided in ‘Bachelor Societies,’ where they lived in close proximity with other men. But with historians in the 19th century viewing queerness as morally wrong, these housing conditions were phrased as just “sharing the companionship and responsibilities usually dispersed across a family unit,” mislabeling their real stories and relationships.¹ Another such example was how San Francisco Chinatown’s majority of females were prostitutes. With such a high prevalence of sex workers, both females and males, Chinatown established itself as an entertainment district at the time that attracted many queer individuals from across the country.¹ However, history only remembers it on an old color-coded map: green for Chinese prostitutes, yellow for opium dens, and pink for gambling houses.² The place and the people in it were merely reduced to a ‘bad neighborhood.’ And due to this image, many historians — especially Asians — simply erased, or worse ignored their perspectives.

But even going beyond written history, and coming from a social perspective, many immigrants had to trade their identity for a ‘better life in America.’ For the Asian LGBTQ+ community, that meant a lot more to give up due to their intersectional identities. Racial and heterosexual divides became much more prominent in the late nineteenth century when the idea of ‘civilized’ families’ started emerging.¹ A perfect family became defined by the standards of a heterosexual white woman’s marriage that still plagues today.¹ And as it became the mainstream idea, immigrants started conforming to these values to be accepted in the white man’s America. Also regulations such as the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 created a sense of fear among the residents — it was scary to be ‘deviant’. As Suyeoshi and Yogi said, “As same-sex sexuality in America came to be per- ceived as deviant through the 1930s, the Japanese American press also represented queerness as troubling, creating a mirror in which Japanese in America increasingly viewed white American values about same-sex sexuality as their own.¹ Even those who opened up about their sexuality found themselves entrenched in this narrative. One example is Kosen Takahashi, which can be found in San Francisco’s earliest Japanese American newspaper. While he openly declared himself queer and in love with a man named Charles Stoddard, Takahashi was also engaged to a woman.³

But even in such circumstances, many individuals managed to define their identity through their accomplishments. Margaret Chung for example was the first American surgeon of Chinese descent. Chung is often remembered for supporting Women Army Corps, establishing the Women’s Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Services (WAVES), and more — all dressed in men’s clothing.³ Also speculated to be in a relationship with actor Sophie Tucker, she was known for both her parties and her kind spirit in serving the soldiers across the globe.³ In an otherwise oppressive society, she managed to speak volumes by choosing to lead her life the way she wanted. And just like Chung, many Asian LGBTQ+ members found themselves trying to find the best fit in the situation, and slowly making a place for themselves in history.

Sources

Final Project, 21H. Student-8-A-Brief-QueerHistory-of-Asian-Americans.pdf. Accessed March 15, 2023. https:// history.mit.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/ Student-8-A-BriefQueer-History-of-AsianAmericans.pdf.

Schulten, Susan. “This ‘Vice Map’ Shows San Francisco before the Pour-over Coffee Bars.”

The New Republic, March 16, 2023. https:// newrepublic.com/ article/118508/map-sanfranciscos-chinatown1880s-shows-brothelsopium-dens.

Sueyoshi, Amy.

“BREATHING FIRE: REMEMBERING ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN ACTIVISM IN QUEER HISTORY.” Essay.

In LGBTQ America: A Theme Study of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer History, 11–12-11–38. Washington, DC: National Park Foundation etc., 2016.