News :: GLBT
Documenting queer Asian history by Ethan Jacobs
staff reporterWednesday Nov 14, 2007 On Nov. 17 the Massachusetts Area South Asian Lambda Association (MASALA) and the History Project will give Bostonians a glimpse of a new online exhibit, the QueerEast Project, that will for the first time document the history of the Boston area’s LGBT Asian community. The project will feature oral histories from diverse members of the community, and the preview event for the exhibit, which will take place at the South End’s Bernard Toale Gallery, will include a viewing of videos of the first two oral histories.
Amit Dixit, a steering committee member of MASALA, said that he conceived of the QueerEast Project about two years ago shortly after joining the board of the History Project. He saw online exhibits the organization had created to mark the history of the Boston area’s black and Latino LGBT communities, and he decided to create something similar for the Asian LGBT community.
The cornerstone of the project will be videos of oral histories. The first two interview subjects are Jacob Smith Yang, executive director of Massachusetts Asians and Pacific Islanders (MAP) for Health and vice-chair of the Massachusetts Commission on GLBT Youth, and Sudarshan Belsare, a dancer and museum educator at the Peabody Essex Museum. Dixit said the long-term goal is to collect at least 12 oral histories representing a diverse range of subjects, and he hopes that the first two histories will show public the value of the project and attract funding to allow the History Project to continue collecting histories and adding them to the exhibit.
In Yang’s oral history he recounts growing up in Central Massachusetts and in Boston, coming out to his parents, and navigating Boston’s LGBT community. He said his role as one of the first two subjects was an accident; he had been involved in organizing the project, and on the day of filming one of the two participants, a woman, was unable to attend. Yang jumped in to take her place. While he did not originally intend to present his own history, he said he is pleased with the result and hopes it will help young Asian LGBT people struggling with their sexuality.
"I just remember from when I was growing up I looked for any kind of information I could get my hands on about being gay, and I see this as a resource for anyone who might be questioning or exploring their GLBT identity to see someone like them, if they’re Asian or Pacific Islander," said Yang.
Belsare’s history focuses on the centrality of art, and in particular Indian classical dance, in his life. He also talks about how when he was growing up the stories of the Hindu gods and goddesses, including stories of gods changing their gender and cross-dressing and of a male couple giving birth to offspring, showed him that love can come in many forms.
Belsare, who grew up in India and came to the United States six years ago, said through the Internet he believes the project has the potential to impact people not only in Boston but around the world.
"I see it as a legacy for those people who might not have access to resources, to information which can provide them with a positive insight into this whole phenomenon of growing up gay in the developing world and what does it mean. ... I just hope that QueerEast, because of its Internet accessibility, can be a resource for a child anywhere in the world where he or she can look at it and say, ’Wow, I would never have imagined that what I am feeling is felt by other people as well, and that they are accepted in some part of the world and that they are proud of who they are,’" said Belsare.
Dixit said despite Yang and Belsare’s different cultural backgrounds, there are common themes to their stories, particularly their drawing on their heritage as a source of strength when facing adversity because of their gay identity. He said he hopes the QueerEast Project shows some of the commonalities between the diverse elements of the LGBT Asian community.
"Being gay and lesbian, we transcend our ethnic background and cultural divides and so forth," said Dixit. "When we’re in a room, we’re gay and we have a rich heritage, and that’s something we wanted to portray."
The QueerEast Project launch will be held Nov. 17 at the Bernard Toale Gallery from 6:30-8:30 p.m. Tickets $50; proceeds will go towards funding the expansion of the exhibit. For more information visit www.historyproject.org or call 617.266.7733.
Ethan Jacobs can be reached at ejacobs@baywindows.com
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