Chapter 9 notes of Helen Zia's Asian American Dreams book. One of the designated chapter books for UCI's Asian American Communities course (AsianAm52).
Chapter 9: “Out on the Front Lines”
● Highly trained Medical students don’t always make the most; Zia made 10 times more as
a construction laborer on a union scale than as a said student.
● Believed “women should not have to wait in line for our liberation,” (228) when referring
to fighting for women’s rights during the same time people of color were protesting.
Determined to challenge Confucius and her Americanized brethren who put minority civil
rights first.
● “I was an Asianam and a lesbian, but in those days I couldn’t be both in the same
space.” (230) Asianam and Black community activists could not accept her if she was
gay; said she was a threat to their ‘organizing efforts’. Reason why she moved to Detroit,
where she became an autoworker and ‘found her calling as a journalist.’
● In the 1990s when anti-gay movements were rampant, Asianam were still seen as
invisible- not a participant in the national debate. Why Zia came out nearly a decade
later, after moving back to NY. By televising her outing, she wanted to stake the claim
that Asianam were in every aspect of American national discourse.
● JACL Hawai’i was discussing their HA state Supreme Court’s May 1993 ruling
supporting gay marriage. Some JACL board members opposed taking on such an issue:
were mostly heterosexual, seen as moral not political issue, counter to some of their
religious beliefs.
● JACL VP FOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS Bill Kaneko brought HA chapter in support of same
sex marriages. Many of the national board were Sansei and products of the Baby boom.
● HA Supreme Court ruling pressured states w/ “less expansive constitutions” into
recognizing the unions of gay and lesbian couples.
● During WW2, Japanese in Hawaii were “too crucial to Hawaii’s economy” as the state’s
largest ethnic pop to incarcerate the same as the West Coast Japanese.
● As a colonized people, Asianam children of Hawaiian plantation workers valued
everyone’s equal rights. HA Court used Loving v. Virginia case (1958) on intermarriage
to also dissent same-sex marriage. Struck a cord w Hawaiians whose more than a third
pop was mixed ethnic and racial blood.
● “Asianam sometimes enforce a self-imposed silence,” in order to cope w/ centuries of
not being given a voice/chance to speak out, especially about unequal rights. Led
America to stigmatize Asianam as a passive, quiet minority- as well as instill the belief in
Asianam that their public opinions were neither requested nor expected.
● In 1994 at Salt Lake City, the JACL reaffirmed its support of same-sex marriage in
Hawaii based on vote. Swayed by Norman Mineta- JACL US representative; told the
anecdote of ‘87 representative Barney Frank, who made “redress [for Japanese
imprisonment] his top priority.” (240) An openly gay congress member who strongly
believed in equal rights, even if the “issue is difficult.” (241)
● Yet being openly gay in HA was not fully welcomed: Hawaii itself was a “heavily Christian
state,” with a “close-knit island community” where coming out could reflect badly on your
extended family.
● The Protect Our Constitution (POC) group was a coalition organized to “campaign
against the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.” (248) Linked POC
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