For Immediate Release
June 26, 2006
Press Information:
Russell Leong, Editor (rleong@ucla.edu)
Review Copies: ytu@aasc.ucla.edu
(310)825-2968
ASIAN AMERICANS ON THE SAME-SEX MARRIAGE DEBATE:
U.S. Scholars & Writers Speak Out in UCLA Amerasia Journal
UCLA Asian American Studies Center, Los Angeles--The UCLA Asian American Studies Center
announces the publication of "Asian Americans and the Marriage Equality Debate," a
special 2006 forum of Amerasia Journal that brings together for the first time the views
of Asian Americans on the same-sex marriage debate. Amerasia is the foremost national scholarly journal in Asian American Studies.
Co-editors and Professors Amy Sueyoshi and Russell C. Leong state: "By speaking out on
marriage equality for same-sex partners, Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders who have
been historically subjugated and silenced lend their unique insights and voices to this
important struggle of the first decade of the 21st century." They have gathered fifteen scholars, activists, and demographers from across the United States to present a current
picture of the same-sex marriage debate within the Asian Pacific American community.
Sueyoshi, in her introduction concludes: "As countries across the world such as the
Netherlands, Spain, Canada, and South Africa legalize same-sex marriage, marriage equality in the U.S. might be an inevitable reality of the future."
According to the demographic statistics provided by the UCLA Williams Institute on Sexual
Orientation Law and Public Policy, almost 40,000 Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
identified themselves as living with a same-sex partner. Data from U.S. Census 2000 have
been gathered and analyzed in a first-ever report, included in this issue, by researchers
Gary Gates, Holning Lau, and R. Bradley Sears. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders
comprise 3% of individuals in same-sex couples in the United States. As expected,
California ranks first, followed by Hawaii and New York with the largest number of
same-sex couples.
For the Asian Pacific American community, the debate over same-sex marriage must be
viewed within the context of immigrant rights, HIV and AIDS, economic access and parity,
and the history of anti-Asian discrimination and the history of 19th and 20th century
miscegenation laws that did not permit Asians to marry outside of their race.
Bryant Yang, in his essay, "Seeing Loving in Gay Marriages," traces the various legal and
religious ways in which "opponents of gay marriage also characterize same-sex marriages
as unions against nature and God." Yang points out that the language behind
anti-miscegenation and anti-Asian sentiments parallels the language used against same-sex marriage. In an historical analysis, Allison Varzally looks at how enforcement of the
miscegenation color line for Chinese, Japanese, Filipinos, and South Asians from the
1930s through the 1960s is reflects rationales against same-sex marriage today, in 2006.
Current support within the Asian American community around gay marriage often means
making difficult choices. Mabel Teng, the first Asian American assessor-recorder in San
Francisco, worked with Mayor Gavin Newsom during 2005 and supervised thousands of gay
marriages. In a personal account, Teng comments that:
"As a first-generation Chinese American brought up with traditional family values, and
educated in Chinese language girls school in Hong Kong, I had expected a fierce debate on
gay marriage in the Asian community. There was prejudice, biased viewpoints and plenty of
misinformation about gay lifestyles... It was a choice between standing up for the essential rights of individuals or political expediency."
National award-winning journalist Helen Zia, in her essay, "Where the Queer Zone Meets
the Asian Zone," states that there are many attempts both within and outside of the Asian
Pacific Islander community "to render us invisible and nonexistent," in other words, not
acknowledging the fact that there are Asian Americans who are both Asian--and gay,
lesbian, and/or transgendered.
Other contributors within this issue discuss political asylum and immigration rights,
access to health care, and legal battles and barriers both in Asia and the U.S. for gay,
lesbian, and transgendered persons. They include: Margaret Rhee, Jih-Fei Cheng, Mala
Nagarjan and Vega Subramaniam, Pauline Park, Willy Wilkinson, Jessi Gan, Glenn D. Magpantay, and Thanh Ngo.
Glenn D. Magpantay, a staff attorney of the Asian American Legal Defense and Education
Fund in New York views the same-sex debate in terms of legal protections and benefits for
gay Asian families. As he says: "There are more than a thousand federal statutory
benefits in which a recipient must be legally married. These provisions provide, among other things, rights, privileges,and benefits to social security, housing, taxes,
immigration, veteran's benefits, and health care."
Mala Nagarajan and Vega Subramaniam, plaintiffs in the Andersen v. Sims, King County of
Washington State, agree. They state in their essay: "it is critical that whenever we, as
queer AAPIs, promote marriage equality for same-sex couples, we must in the same breath
promote national health coverage, fair and non-racist immigration policies, safe schools,
equitable education, employment and housing practices, and sound sexual education and health."
Margaret Rhee, who analyzes Korean American attitudes in the largely Christian Korean
American community says, "generational and religious conflicts on the definition of
marriage complicate attitudes toward same-sex marriage."
A personal account on gay marriage is provided by Vietnamese American Thanh Ngo.
According to Ngo: "So why did we get married? It had less to do with love and more with
civil disobedience. What drove us to wake up early on a Saturday morning and wait in line
for four hours was the simple reason that we want our government to stop treating us as
second-class citizens."
Please contact us to order the special issue on "The Marriage Equality Debate."
The cost is $15.00 plus $5.00 for shipping and handling and 8.25% sales tax for
California residents. Make checks payable to "Regents of U.C." VISA, MASTERCARD, and
DISCOVER are also accepted;; include expiration date and phone number on correspondence. The mailing address is: UCLA Asian American Studies Center Press, 3230 Campbell Hall,
UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1546. Phone: (310)825-2968. Email: aascpress@aasc.ucla.edu. Or, click here to order a copy online through the UCLA AASC Press Publications.
Annual subscriptions for Amerasia Journal are $35.00 for individuals, and $295.00 for
libraries and other institutions. Amerasia Journal is published three times a year:
Winter, Spring, and Fall. A free subscription to the Center's Crosscurrents Newsmagazine
is included in a subscription to Amerasia Journal.
Table of Contents
To Our Readers
Sister Subjects: In the Marriage Equality Debate
Russell C. Leong
Introduction
Friday the Thirteenth-Love, Commitment, and then Catastrophe: Personal Reflections on the; Marriage Equality Movement
Amy Sueyoshi
Artist's Statement
Remigio (Jun-Jun) Sta. Ana
I. Where Equality Meets History
Where the Queer Zone Meets the Asian Zone:
Marriage Equality and Other Intersections
Helen Zia
Asians and Pacific Islanders in Same-Sex Couples inthe United States: Data from Census
2000
Gary Gates, Holning Lau, and R. Bradley Sears
Seeing Loving in Gay Marriages: Parallels of AsianAmerican History and the Same-Sex
Marriage Debates
Bryant Yang
'What the Heck, At Least He's an Oriental': What AsianAmerican Intermarriage Might Teach
Us About Gay Marriage
Allison Varzally
II. Re-speaking Communities
The Right Place at the Right Time: Cultural andPolitical Controversy of San Francisco's
Gay Marriage
Mabel Teng
Plaintiffs' Plight: Joining the Washington State Lawsuit for Marriage Equality
Mala Nagarajan and Vega Subramaniam
Towards Community: KoreAm Journal and Korean
American Cultural Attitudes on Same-Sex Marriage
Margaret Rhee
Pauline Park and Willy Wilkinson:
A Conversation about Same-Sex Marriage
Pauline Park, Willy Wilkinson, and Jessi Gan
III. Rights beyond Rites
HIV, Immigrant Rights, and Same-Sex Marriage
Jih-Fei Cheng
The Ambivalence of Queer Asian Pacific Americans Toward Same-Sex Marriage
Glenn D. Magpantay
Why We Got Married
Thanh Ngo |
