The survey itself has been completed and transferred on to Google Forms (because SurveyMonkey costs money, which we don't have). Although I would love to show you the survey, I can't because viewing the questions beforehand may influence the results of those who will take the survey, but have also read my blog.
I'm really excited that I'm finally going to see the results of all those hours of reading through previous studies, planning the variables, discussing logistics, sorting through different measures, and changing the entire project multiple times because of funding issues. Finally. I never realized how much work went in to planning a research project, not just the data collection/experiment itself. Although my SRP presentation will (hopefully) include more preliminary trends from our data, my professor intends to continue analyzing it for different relationships between different combinations of variables for the rest of the year.
Now for the more exciting part of my posts: what I've learned in class. Last week, we discussed how race crosses with gender and sexual orientation. More specifically, how the LGBT experience is unique for Asian Americans. To be honest, I don't as much about the LGBT community as I do about the Asian American community, so please excuse me if I accidentally use incorrect wording to describe something and feel free to add any comments/thoughts below.
Our class split up into four groups and took turns writing on the whiteboard all the stereotypes, associated words, and famous examples of lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders. Although I don't have a picture of the whiteboard that we filled up, here's a picture of some of the things we wrote down for stereotypes of gay people:
I want to make it clear that a) I am in no way trying to promote these stereotypes through this picture, rather trying to raise awareness about the fact that they are simply stereotypes and b) I did not choose a gay example as an act of discrimination against lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders (there seems to be a social hierarchy within the LGBT community, too).
After we complied the lists, we realized that race had a very prominent intersection with sexual orientation. Most of the famous examples of people who came out were White, such as Sam Smith, Ellen DeGeneres, and Anderson Cooper. This may be due to the fact that minorities are still underrepresented in the media and entertainment industry, but for Asian Americans, it also has to do with the idea of the Model Minority Myth, the idea that Asian Americans are "perfect." In terms of sexual orientation and sexuality in our society today, "perfect" means heterosexual. It's almost as if Asian Americans aren't allowed to come out because it would dishonor their family and make them less Asian, or so society says.
Regardless of what background and values you have, I want to hear anything you have to say about heterosexism in the United States, more specifically, what you think about the clash between stereotypical Asian American values and sexual orientation. Thanks for reading my extra-long post, and more updates on the project soon to come!
I think I get part of what you mean by a social hierarchy within the LGBTQ+ community. I know asexuals for example (which I think is the Q), often feel they are underrepresented in the community.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, I spend a good amount of time reading about social issues and social justice through comic books and that media. One comment I saw on facebook from a gay man was that he felt like lesbian couples in comics were less... impressive? because in a media form that is often written for a male audience (although it is changing pretty well), there is an appeal for lesbian couples over gay couples because... dudes like that. Collegehumor even did a parody of Brokeback Mountain (a movie about the struggles a gay couple faces in a conservative, rural setting) with it being a lesbian couple instead, and the joke was that noone in the community had a problem with them. In fact, the community was begging for them to stay together. So that must play an interesting part into the mindset of that.
I find your extension of the Model Minority Myth into sexual orientation expectations pretty interesting. It would make sense in a society where people still have problems with homosexuality, an ideal person would be straight.
But I wanted to ask something else. I feel that you've said before Asian Americans have this difficult clash of Asian identity and American identity (if not feel free to say I'm wrong. I'm not Asian American after all). So do you feel homophobia in both Asian and American cultures compound the problem? I found this pew research poll (http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/04/the-global-divide-on-homosexuality/) which reports that a majority in Asian countries (China, South Korea, Indonesia) do not feel homosexuality should be accepted. Although Japan and the Philippines are a lot more positive about it. And in America, 33% of Americans say society should not accept homosexuality, so there is a big problem here too. So anyway, would for example, a Chinese American, whose both cultures have problems with homosexuality, have a doubly hard time in coming out to his family? Certainly a racial identity can mean a lot of things, and there is a wide spectrum, but on the average, wouldn't there still be an issue? I guess I'm asking about is: Are sentiments from the culture back in its original country carried over and mixed into the country the person now resides in?
Hopefully that made sense and contributed meaningfully to your conversation. Best of luck with your survey results!
Honestly, it all depends on the person. In class, we learned about different ways foreigners react when they are encountered with a new culture. Some choose to strongly hold on to their native culture, some choose to assimilate themselves into the new culture, and some decide to keep both or neither cultures.
DeleteI'm assuming that if the person self-identifies as an Asian American, he/she relates to both cultures (although to what degree, I don't know). I don't think the problem necessarily doubles, but rather would be buffered by the fact that he/she identifies with American culture because as you've said, America is definitely more accepting of homosexuality than most Asian countries. Although most Asians are against homosexuality, the individual may find it more comfortable to open up around American friends? Maybe.
But, there's also the parent factor. If the parents are more traditional and first-gen immigrants, they are more likely to stick to the Asian majority aka not accepting of homosexuality. This would definitely give their child a harder time of coming out than if the child had more open(?) parents?