My name is Jenny Hoang. I'm Chinese.
I guess you could say I'm Chinese American, but generally I just say I'm Chinese.
I recognize myself as a woman. For the sexuality stuff,
I think it's a little more complicated than that.
I always try to give, "Oh, let me give you a one-word answer,"
but I think it's very hard to give a one-word answer.
So I date men, I date women, I date a lot of people.
I grew up in SoCal, and I moved to SGV in my early twenties.
I lived here for a couple of years.
So I'm a PhD candidate at USC in the American Studies and Ethnicity program.
My research is on gender and sexuality.
I focus mainly on Taiwan and U.S. relations around the figure of the tomboy.
You know, when you say "tomboy" in the U.S., you generally think of this
pre-pubescent girl who likes to roughhouse and play,
but then she'll eventually grow out of it.
But in Taiwan, in other parts of Southeast Asia,
it's an informal gender and sexuality category of people who are "female-bodied"
but present as masculine and who stay feminine women.
It's about presenting yourself in a more genderfluid way.
So you might go by "he," or you might not go by "he"
But people will still recognize you as very masculine.
So my research is on Taiwan and U.S. relations, and I'm interested in
thinking about how the tomboy sort of reflects global exchange that happens
between Taiwan and the U.S. So in my research,
I've met a lot of people who identify themselves as tomboys, right?
And generally, they're ethnic Chinese or they're Taiwanese, and in my research,
I've also met a lot of organizations that service the queer API community.
In terms of my family, I don't know if they really understand what I do.
They just know I'm going to school.
So I'm engaged to my partner right now. My partner goes by "he" most of the time,
and they've met him, and I think -
I think - so when I told my parents - when I told my family I "liked" women,
it was when I was really young, I was in high school,
and I was like, "Hey, Mom, Dad, you know, I date women, too."
and I think they took it as, "Oh, it's just you being a kid, you're just experimenting
"you're just being silly." But in this last relationship, we're engaged.
I think caused them a lot of anxiety, a lot of anger, even, right?
I think there's a generational split, too, so people who are younger than maybe 45
all my cousins, younger aunts and uncles, they're okay with it, they understand,
they're like, "OK, yeah, we accept you." But then for my parents, my grandparents,
they either see my relationship with my partner as "oh, that's your friend", or
"that's totally wrong, and you're doing the bad things."
Professionally, my value system, I have difficulty with the "coming out" narrative
and the desire for acceptance. You know, I don't know if all of us "come out"
and then want some sort of legal recognition.
Yes, me and my partner decided to become engaged and eventually will get married,
but I don't know if marriage means for us
we want the state to recognize our "love", right?
So for what do I think about the future of the queer API community,
I think I'm hopeful for just more conversation to happen,
not only within the Asian American community, but thinking about the
transnational queer community 'cause I think there's stuff for us to learn from
other models of being queer, right,
that may be don't get highlighted so much in the States.
Yeah, I hope for more dialogue not only between what does it mean to be gay
what does it mean to be queer, but what does it mean to be Asian.
SGV, I think, is such an interesting space. You walk out here and you're like,
"Oh, Asians everywhere. This is some sort of Asian utopia, right?"
But that's not how it looks everywhere.
And I've had so many interesting experiences here, where
I've talked to people who grew up here, they're like,
"I've never experienced racism."
And I'm like, "What do you mean? Who are you? Where did you grow up?"
But I think that's actually really common, maybe, in the SGV versus when I was young
and I lived in places that were predominantly non-Asian.
Racism was a daily experience in my life.
So, I think it's interesting to just ask these questions,
and I think people are doing good work to ask these questions.
I know at first, when I said, oh, I "came out" to my family,
I didn't come out. So there's no, I think, sometimes when we talk about coming out,
Oh, it's this thing where you have to prep for it, and then,
oh, I'm going to tell everyone about my innermost self.
And I didn't have that, I just -
I'm thirty-one, and I think even in my generation, it was still sort of taboo
to be gay, whatever, right? But even then I remember, I just told my parents,
"Yeah, I like girls", right? And there wasn't a sense of
oh, now that I've told my parents this, I know myself more, or I'm -
I don't know how to say this. It wasn't this big, revolutionary moment,
which sometimes I feel there is a lot of pressure for the queer community to have
this big, revolutionary "you have to come out or else you're in the closet."
I just don't think that's the case. You don't have to "come out".
You can just be you, and be like, that's not that important.
And I think at least in my interviews, and my own experience with tomboys, and
my own personal experience, that is not the first step, you know?
I don't know what the first step is, but it's definitely not announcing that
I am this special, unique sexual person.
I think if those are the inspirational words you're looking for, maybe it's just,
You don't have to do it, you don't have to come out,
You don't have to be like, "I'm gay, and I want my rights."
You don't need that to be able to say you're your "true self".
That's what I would say. Yeah.