104 Amy Sueyoshi Why QueerAsian American Studies? 105 ues to be 6. Why Queer Asian American Studies? accepted by a straight mainstream as propelling a broader culture of Implications for Japanese America queer acceptability.4 Moreover, with more gay visibili ty media images of gays and lesbians appear largely white with a handful of African Americans who are coming out in professional Amy Sueyoshi sports.5 Asian Americans_as well as Latinos, Native Americans, and Pacific Islanders—remain almost In 2013 the Supreme Court ruled unconstitu completely absent. Aside from a few queer activists and actors tional the Defense of Marriage Act that had restricted marriage as a visible in the mainstream such as Helen Zia, George Takei, and B.D. union only between a man and a woman.’ The federal recognition Wong, what does queer have to do with Asian America? of same-sex marriage appeared to many as the final victory in a na Certainly, there are LGBT tional LGBT civil rights campaign that had been gaining momentum Asians in America. One gener ation of radical queer Asians outed with the earlier termination of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” a policy that themselves nationally in the l980s when they joined other queer had prohibited the participation of gays and lesbians to openly serve women of color writers in doc umenting and publishing their experiences in the military.2 In television as well, a venue that theorists such at the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality in short stories, as John Hartley claim coheres American ideals and belonging, gay poems, and polemical writings. This Bridge Called My images have surged in the twenty-first century. More than fifty les Back published in 1981 inspired countless queer women of color and continues bian and bisexual characters alone, not including gay men, appeared to be cited as a foun dational text in women of color .6 in popular dramas such as ER and NYPD Blue in 2010. Shows that Thirteen years later, the publication of The Very Inside appeared centralized being gay such as Wilt and Grace and Queer Eye for the as the first widely accessi ble collection of writings comprised entirely Straight Guy also drew tremendous numbers of viewers. Ellen De from Asian and Pacific Islander Lesbian and Bisexual Women. Generes, an openly gay comedian and TV personality, won the Day The same year, the leading scholarly serial in Asian American Studies time Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host four years in a titled Amerasia Journal published a special issue on sexuality row. While DeGeneres had suffered a major career set back shortly that featured various queer API perspectives from artists, activists, after coming out in 1997, by 2005 she had risen to become “Public and academics. Alice Hom underscored the necessity of mapping Lesbian Number One” according to cuitural critic Jennifer Reed.3 queer sexuality “as a part of Asian American family” due to the For sure, increasing queer visibility is more complicated than reality of gay and lesbian chil dren.7 Indeed, it would be ahistorical if simply a sudden loving embrace of all LGBT people. Media schol not simply naïve to imagine gays and lesbians as existing only in ars such as Suzanna Walters notes that this advancement in visibil the contemporary period or only among whites. In my own ity has come about through the assimilation of queers as something research I trace the significance of same-sex sexuality of Issei Yone commodifiable in the cultural marketplace of consumerism. Jamie Noguchi, among the first group of Japanese immigrants in the late Skerski warns that DeGeneres’ rise has taken place only through the nineteenth century. Historian Judy Wu has also traced the life of rumored sanitizafion of her queerness as she reconstituted herself as the “girl lesbian Margaret Chung, the first known American-born Chinese next door.” In politics as well, Richard Goldstein cites the rise of physician and surgeon. Chung is also the founder of the Chinese hospital “homocons,” gays and lesbians who subscribe to conservative val in San Francisco town in the early 1 920s .

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ri) I C,, riD 116 Amy Sueyoshi Why Queer Asian American Studies? 117 more than simply acknowledging their existence and negotiating 6. Cheme Moraga and Gloria Anzaldüa, ed., This Bridge their identities. It serves more defiantly as a site of radical change Called my Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color (Watertown, for domestic issues but more for international not just urgently MA: Persephone Press, 1981). For texts on its significance see M. unrest and global imperialism. Queerness can then be understood Jacqui Alexander, Pedagogies ofCrossing: Meditations on Feminism, “part love-letter past future” the words José as to the and in of Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred (Durham, NC: Duke Uni Esteban Mufloz, filled with surprise to aim towards a utopia and versity Press, 2005); Grace Hong, The Ruptures ofAmerican Capital: imagination.29 Women ofColor Feminism and the Cultures ofImmigrant Labor (Uni versity of Minnesota Press, 2006). For additional queerAsian work in Notes the 1980s see Kitty Tsui, The Words of a Woman who Breathes Fire 1. Ryan Reilly and Sabrina Sidiqqui, “Supreme Court J. (New York: Spinsters Ink, 1983); Willyce Kim, Dancer Dawkins and DOMA Decision Rules Federal Same-Sex Marriage Ban Unconsti the California Kid (Boston: Alyson Publications, 1985). tutional,” Huffington accessed Post, June 26, 2014, July 6, 2014, 7. Sharon Lim-Hing, ed., The Very Inside: An Anthology of http://www.huffingtonpost.corn/20 13/06/26/supreme-court-do- Writing by Asian and Pacific Islander Lesbian and Bisexual Women ma-decision_n_34548 11 .html. (Toronto: Sister Vision Press, 1994); Ainerasia Journal 20, no. 1 (Los 2. Elisabeth Bumiller, “Obama Ends ‘Don’tAsk, Don’t Tell’ Angeles: UCLA Asian American Studies Press, 1994); Alice Horn, Policy,” , July 22,2011, accessed July 6,2014, “Stories from the Homefront: Perspectives ofAsian American Parents http://www.nytimes .comI2O 1 1/07/23!us/23military.html?_r0. with Lesbian Daughters and Gay Sons,” Amerasia Journal 20, no. I 3. John Hartley, Uses Television (New York: Routledge, of (Los Angeles: UCLA Asian American Studies Press, 1994), 32. 1999); “AfterEllen.com’s lop 50 lesbian and bisexual characters,” 8. Amy Sueyoshi, Queer Compulsions: Race, Nation, and AfterEllen .com, accessed July 19, 2014, http://www.afterellen.com/ Sexttality in the Affairs of Yone Noguchi (Honolulu: University of afterellencomstop50lesbian-and-biseXUal-characterS1’O3/2O 10!; Hawai’i Press, 2012); Judy Tzu-Chun Wu, Doctor Mom Chung of Jennifer Reed, “Ellen DeGeneres: Public Lesbian Number One,” the Fair-Haired Bastards — The Life ofa Wartime Celebrity (Berke Feminist Media Studies 5 (2005): 23-36. Accessed July 6,2014, doi: ley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005). 10.1080/14680770500058165. 9. AnnaMarie Jagose, Queer Theory: An Introduction (New 4. Suzanna Walters, Alt the Rage: The Story Gay Visibil of York: New York University Press, 1996). For works constructing Af ity in America (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001); rican Americans and the disabled as queer see Siobhan Somerville, Domestication Jaime Skerski, “From Prime-Time to Day Time: The Queering the Color Line: Race and the Invention of Homosexuality Communication of Ellen DeGeneres,” and Critical/Cultural Studies in American Culture (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000); Homocons: 4, no.4 (December 2007): 363-38 1; Richard Goldstein, Robert McRuer, Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Dis The Rise of the Gay Right (New York: Verso, 2003). ability (New York: New York University Press, 2006). For critiques athletes see Eric Anderson, 5. For more on openly gay on queer theory and queer studies broadly as white see Cathy J. Co “Openly Gay Athletes: Contesting Hegemonic Masculinity in a Ho hen, “Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential Environment,” (December mophobic Gender and Society 16, no. 6 of Queer Politics?,” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 3 2002): 860-877. (1997): 437465; David Eng, Judith Halberstam, and José Esteban

Pan-Japan, Vol. 12, Nos. I & 2 Springl faIl, 2016 118 Amy Sueyoshi Why Queer Asian American Studies? 119 MuIoz, eds., “What’s Queer About Queer Studies Now?,” special is 1983); Roger Daniels, The Japanese American Cases: The Rule ofLaw sue, Social Text 23, no. 3-4 84-85 (Fall-Winter 2005). in Thne of War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013); Diane 10. Robert Lee, Orientats: in Popular Culture Fujino, Heartbeat ofStruggle: The Revotutionarv Life of Yuri Kochiya (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999); David L. Eng, Racial ma (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005); Diane Fujino, Castration: Managing Masculinity in Asian America (Durham, NC: Samurai Among Panthers: Richard Aoki on Race, Resistance, and a Duke University press, 2001); Nayan Shah, Contagious Divides: Epi Paradoxical Life (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012). demnics and Race in San Francisco Chinatown (Berkeley: University 16. Harold Kameya, “Asian American LGBT Pioneers of California press, 2001); Eric Wat, The Making ofa Gay Asian Coin- Recognized,” San Fernando JACL, accessed 14 July 2014, http:// inanity: An Oral History ofPre-MDS Los Angeles (Lanham: Rowman sfvjacl .weebly.com/ 1 /post/20 1 2/07/apa-l gbt-pioneers-recog and Littlefield Publishers, 2002); Martin Manalansan, Global Divas: nized.html; “Tak Yamamoto, Pioneer Nikkei Gay Activist,” The Filipino Gay Men in the Diaspora (Durham: Duke University Press, Raft Shimpo, November 19, 2012, accessed July 14, 2014, http:// 2003); Gayatri Gopinath, Impossible Desires: Queer Diasporas and www.rafu.com/20 12/1 1/tak-yamamoto-pioneer-nikkei-gay-activ- South Asian Public Cultures (Durham: Duke University Press, 2005); ist-dies-at-74/. Jasbir Puar, Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalismn in Queer Times 17. “ATimeline ofAIDS,” AIDS.gov, accessed July 14,2014, (Durham: Duke University Press,2007); Eng-Beng Lim, Brown Boys http://www.aids .gov/hiv-aids-basicsfhiv-aids-101/aids-timeline/; “Pine and Rice Queens: Spellbinding Performance in the Asias (New York: is Proud to be a Reconciling Church,” Pine United Methodist Church, New York University Press, 2013). accessed July 14, 2014, http://www.pineumc.org/?p=reconciling. 11. Interview with Kiyoshi Kuromiya conducted by Marc 18. Linh H. Pham, “Another First: Lesbian and Gay Asian Stein, June 17, 1997. Available at http://outhistory.org/exhibits/ Americans to March in Cherry Blossom Parade,” Google Groups, show/philadelphia-I gbtinterviews/interviews/kiyOShikUromiya. accessed July 14, 2014, https://groups.google.com/foruml#!topic/ Accessed July 14, 2014. bitiistserv.gaynet!On2kPOFp7_s; Elisa Lee, “Lavender Godzilla,” 12. Interview with Crystal Jang conducted by author, Janu Third Force 2, no. 2 (June 30, 1994): 7; Crystal Jang, text message ary 31,2012, San Francisco, CA. to author, July 14, 2014. 13. Daniel C. Tsang, “Third World Lesbians and Gay Men: 19. Diane Anderwon-Minshall, “Mark Takano Becomes First Challenges for the Eighties,” Gay Community News 9: 31 (February LGBT Person of Color in Congress,” Advocate.com., November 7, 27, 1982), 5. 2012, accessed July 14, 2014, http://www.advocate.com/poIitics/elec 14. Trinity Ordona, “Coming Out Together: An Ethnohisto tion/20 12/1 1/07/mark-takano-becomes-first--person-color-con- ry of the Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women’s and Transgdered gress; Shane Goldmacher, National Journal, March 10, 2012, 10. People’s Movement of San Francisco” (Ph.D. diss., University of p. “Okaeri: A Nikkei LGBT Gathering,” Okaeri-LA.org, accessed July California at Santa Cruz, 2000), 134-135. 20,2014, http://www.okaeti-la.org/. 15. Tomás Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines: The Historical Or 20. Molly Fumia. Honor Thy Children: One Family Jour igins of White Supremacy in Cattfornia (Berkeley: University of Cal ney to Wholeness (Berkeley: Conan Press, 1997); Harold Kameya, ifornia Press, 1994); Ronald Takaki, Pati Hana: Plantation Life and “Our Journey,” Network on Religion and Justice, accessed July Labor in Hawaii, 1835-1920 (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 19, 2014, http:!/www.netrj.org/?p=library&id=2; In Godc House:

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