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September 28’11 Chicago State University African American Studies (AFAM): Cultural Diversity Course 1020. 01 To: Professor Kim Dulaney From: LauWanzer Quince In re: Essay Report II: Critique of “Stories from the Homefront: Perspectives of Asian American Parents with Lesbian Daughters and Gay Sons” I chose to write about this topic related to LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender) because since I was 15 years old I have been able to relate and I have had many friends who are of Asian (Oriental) extract.
Also, I have also had a roommate who was from Bankcock Thailand. This critique will cover an article written by Alice Y. HOM titled, “Stories from the Homefront: Perspectives of Asian American Parents with Lesbian Daughters and Gay Sons”, that was published in the Amerasia Journal. Vol. 20 no. 1: 19 to 32. In the article the author covers mutually exclusive stores about the “emotions, feeling and attitudes” of Oriental Asian parents from the “homefront”, as the author Ms. HOM coins it, who have sons and daughters who are described as gay or lesbian.
Most of the stories describe people who mostly live on the swinging West coast in California where the largest populations of Asian Americans live including the state of Hawaii which has the largest concentration and populations of Asian Americans in the U. S. Upon either disclosure of the gender identification of the children of Asian parents or the happenstance discovery that their child may be possibly LGBT, many Asian parents just like most human being who have reared and raised their own children initially react out of parental gut instinct of shame do tend to blame their selfs for the same-sexual gender preferences of their children.
Apparently this is a subliminal psychological and defensive response to not wanting to accept that their children having anything wrong with them in accordance with established society norms of acceptable and standard sexual behavior because they are gay. For example, HOM says when describing an Amerasian mother named Liz Lee “who walked in on her daughter named Sandy in an apparent compromising position with a gay lover said, “[it was] the end of the world. Still today I cannot relate to anything that’s going on with my daughter, but I am accepting it”, in obvious discuss, hurt and shame. Debating Diversity, ’02, R. Takaki] HOM quoting Lee goes on to say: “I was hoping that it was a stage she’s going through and that she could change”. Again cognitive dissonance rears its Janus Face again in the naive thinking of Ms Lee’s believe that her daughter’s same-sexual gender travails are only superficialities that are motivated by the capricious actions that come along with youth. Life’s choices of a sexual partner are more in-depth and substantive than that.
This example serves to prove that the longstanding social values system of Amerasian parents, despite having old world views and values from back in the day, cannot necessarily be used to solve or understand the changing complexities, demands and requirements of society in western hemisphere and the individual personal choices (and even sexual ones) made by their children who live by altered standards and norms in today’s post-modern world. HOM seems to think that Ms Lee has what Alvin Toffler coined future shock and coping skills problem is evidenced by Lee saying: “I didn’t accept it for a long time.
I didn’t think that she would come in the open like that”. I thought that she would just keep it and later get married”. The larger question that HOM seems to be alluding to indirectly is that Sandy, the gay daughter of Ms Liz Lee, really maybe copying the learned latent and repressed behavior of her mother who seems to think that her daughter can as HOM quoted her as saying, “just keep it [covered] and get married”, but at the same time still be Tongue-in-cheek about all of it. Ms.
Liz Lee said nothing about talking to her daughter about her sexual orientation and freedom to choose or even the nascent origins of her homosexuality. Some times when the children of closet gay parents come out, they tend to do so with rather reckless abandon. This is clearly manifested in their children not only joining “Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Associations” (GLBA), but also becoming overtly open and vocal about it when they assume very visible and high positions within alternative organization in the way Sandy serves as the Co-chair of the GLBA.
As a similar example of such a case is one in which a famous parents’ child who is gay may possibly be acting out second generation pent in feelings and hidden nature that they saw in their parents or of someone else close to them who they looked up when growing up. This certainly appears to be the case in the resent highly published magazine articles and the TV televised exhibition of the transgender story, in-and-out of Hollywood, of the gay daughter named Chez of Cher Bono who has for a long time been suspected of being gay and lesbian.
In the same way that the articles’ author, Alice Y. HOM, pseudo name character named Liz Lee will get more than her own fair share of a few passing eye stairs and raised eye brows of suspicion about her very own dubious and suspect nature from her circle of acquaintances about her daughter Sandy’s known activist involvement in lesbian and feminist activities.
This scenario starkly parallels how the real-world star Cher Bono can be expected to receive questions about her own sexuality, for “Dancing with the Stars” primetime evening TV programs showing same-sex gender competitors like her daughter Chez in dance competitions and a slew of TV news programs interviews of upstart same-sex gender celebrities like her transgender daughter Chez has unfortunately subjected mega start Cher Bono and her family to much societal social more inspection.
HOM’s story about Amerasian parents with gay children, writing in her article that bears her apparently pseudo name, seems to want to say that the same old fashion love and carrying for their children can still be fostered “with support from their families” because of the interwoven cultural strength of the Asian Homefront.