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2009 Lunar New Year Parade, LA

200 Supporters of Gay & Lesbian Community March in 2009 Los Angeles Chinatown New Year’s Parade

Contingent Organized by API Equality-LA Draws Record Participation

Los Angeles – On Saturday, January 31, 2009, a record 200 people joined the API Equality-LA contingent in the Golden Dragon Parade in Los Angeles’ Chinatown, one of the city’s most popular community event.  Saturday marked only the fourth time in the parade’s 110-year history that a contingent representing and supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) members of the Asian and Pacific Islander (API) community has participated in the parade. 
 
“We expected a strong turnout after all of the energy in our community since the November 2008 election, but we were absolutely astounded to welcome 200 participants – nearly three times as many as last year!” said Ericson Herbas, API Equality-LA steering committee member and one of the organizers of the contingent.  “Particularly meaningful for all of us, we were also joined this year by same-sex couples who had been able to legally marry before November 2008.”
 
Wearing bright red t-shirts, the large contingent marched proudly through the streets of Chinatown, carrying banners displaying the six colors of the rainbow.  The rainbow is commonly used to represent the pride of the LGBT community and was chosen by the API Equality-LA contingent to also represent the diversity of the coalition’s membership and supporters. 
 
“Our participation in the lunar new year parade each year sends a powerful message of pride, diversity and inclusion,” said Marshall Wong, API Equality-LA co-chair.  “Saturday was a wonderful way to enter the Year of the Ox.  It is said that the Ox is a sign of prosperity through fortitude and hard work.  Fortitude and hard work describe exactly what we need to win back the freedom to marry for the LGBT community.  Today we took a short stroll around Chinatown but we’re committed to the long march to full equality.”
 
The contingent was led by a drum troupe playing traditional Korean drums, comprised of volunteers from the Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA).  And bringing up the rear of the API Equality-LA contingent was Danza Méxica Cuauhtemoc, a cultural troupe performing traditional Aztec dances, accompanied by Aztec drums and dressed in traditional Aztec clothes and tall feather headdresses.   
 
“API Equality-LA was thrilled to be able to include both Korean and Aztec drums as well as Aztec dancers,” said Eileen Ma, another API Equality-LA steering committee member and organizer of the contingent.  “For us, the drummers and dancers reinforced our message of pride in our diversity as a community.”
 
The diversity of the marchers was also evident in the organizations that officially joined the API Equality-LA contingent, many of whom proudly displayed their own organizational banners as part of the contingent.  In addition to API Equality-LA, other organizations who participated in the contingent included: Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC); Asian Pacific Health Care Venture (APHCV); Asian Pacific Islander Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (API PFLAG); ); California Faith for Equality; Chinese Progressive Association (CPA) of San Gabriel Valley; Equal Roots Coalition; Gays United Network (Gays U.N.); Japanese American Citizens League (JACL); Koreatown Immigrant Workers Alliance (KIWA); Little Tokyo Service Center (LTSC); Love Honor Cherish; OCA-Greater Los Angeles; South Asian Network (SAN); and Asian Pacific Islander Pride Council, which includes Asian American Queer Women Activists (AAQWA), Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team (APAIT), Chinese Rainbow Association, Gay Asian Pacific Support Network (GAPSN), and Satrang. 

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Are you (or do you know) an API GLBT youth going to college/graduate school?  The Tang Scholarship helps API GLBT youth to proudly achieve educational pursuits and dreams with a scholarship award of up to $15,000/year.  This scholarship is renewable for a maximum of three years (a total of four years) if the student annually meets the renewal requirements.

Eligibility:

• Self-identified as Asian/Pacific Island; (at least 25% API ancestry); (Priority will be given to those self-identified as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, and involved in the GLBT community);
• Graduate from a high school in one of the nine Bay Area counties; Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara County, Napa, Sonoma or Solano;
• Scholarship will be awarded for Full-Time (minimum 12 units for all semesters/quarters) enrollment in an accredited two, four-year university or graduate institution; (college, university, community college, or vocational school);
• United States citizen or legal resident;
• Demonstrated financial hardship;
• Demonstrated academic promise;
• Minimum grade point average 3.0 (on a scale of 4.0);
• Be between the age of 17 and 25 on 30 April

Application deadline is 30 April 2009

Click here to download an application:
http://www.sbqa.com/TangScholarshipApplication2009.pdf

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Oprah invited three spiritual leaders on her January 9, 2009 show to respond to the concerns of real people as they struggled with life’s challenges. One such person was Sedrick, a gay man, who was struggling with his finances. Rev. Ed Bacon, an Episcopal priest and one of the spiritual advisors, addressed the young man’s lack of a sense of self worth by saying that, ”being gay is a gift from God, but our culture doesn’t understand that, consequently, the culture sends messages “you oughta isolate.”  “And,” he says, “isolation is the antithesis of what we all need.” Minister Bernard Beckwith, another advisor, assured Sedrick that “…he is the image and likeness of God…”

The song was written for the first ever pride parade in Hong Kong, Dec 2008.
The lyrics are in English, mostly Cantonese, little Mandarin. Translation below by T:

Pride in your eyes, stepping big steps with me to the street.
 
Getting wet with rain or hot with sunshine,
Still make sure we’ll meet on the street.
 
Onlookers giving us strange looks,
I don’t need to guess why.
 
If they don’t get used to seeing LGBT,  we won’t mind,
One day they will say hi.
 
See me fly, I’m proud to fly up high
Whenever seeing rainbow in front,
   I will feel your love.
   Believe me I can fly,
   I am singing in the sky.
   singing can be heard all street,
   ’cause love can make one laughing and shouting loud.
 
Pride in your eyes, still accompanying me is you.
 
Rain or shine, still follow me
Go past more and more.
 
When facing obstacles along the road,
Confidence can make one end up prouder.
 
If the whole world unaccept me,
I rely on you to sing for me.
 
See me fly, I’m proud to fly up high.
 
seeing you today accompany me
along the road,  don’t care the distance is far or close,
use love for your voice.
 
Let me fly, I’m proud to fly up high
Over the rainbow, there’s my life, my pride …

Click here to watch part 2

“What God Has Joined Together: Hope for All Families”

Join San Francisco + Oakland + Bay Area Faith Leaders for an evening of Healing, Affirmation & Hope for LGBT Families & Friends in the aftermath of the passage of Proposition 8

Come Join in an ecumenical celebration of LGBT families

Learn about resources and organizations supporting and advocating for LGBT family needs

Sunday, December 14, 4pm-7pm
Historic Sweets Ballroom
1933 Broadway, Oakland

I bless my anger. It tells me I am alive.
I bless my sadness. It reminds me I am real.
I bless my confusion. Out of it comes clarity.
I bless my tears. They heal me.

–Perry Tilleraas, 1988

No matter how they voted yesterday,
First thing in the morning, I will cast a vote for myself.

 Even if I decided against myself as child,
And thought I could never be happy,

I will begin reversing the old judgments
I harbor against myself,

I claim the power to judge for myself,
in every area of my own life.

No constitutional amendment will keep me
From meaningful, satisfying relationships.

I reach out and my needs are met.
In meditation and prayer, I find serenity.

I am more than a person being discriminated against.
I survive and persevere.

I am a being of light and love.
I am a soul – yearning, expansive, timeless.

I am free.  Amen.

 –Michael Leslie, Nov. 5, 2008

Watch this video for an introduction to Pine Church. It includes a segment with Elizabeth, Oneida & Prosper on the GRACE API LGBTQ Bible Study 

Pine is a “reconciling congregation” which means they are working toward the full participation of all people in the church regardless of sexual orientation.

Visit the church website at:
http://www.pineumc.org

Clergy Blessing of API LGBT Families

October 11, 2008 at 3:00am to 6:00am
An Interfaith Event on National Coming Out Day
hosted by the Network on Religion and Justice for API LGBTs.

In Asian & Pacific Islander cultures, family is important. And to us, family means extended family. Family is inclusive. At the Network on Religion and Justice for API LGBTs, we understand an API LGBT family to include any family in which a member is Asian or Pacific Islander and a member is lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender.

If you are an API LGBT couple, or any individual or family group that identifies as all or part of an API LGBT family – if you are a straight parent of a API LGBT child, if you are a daughter, son, sister, brother, auntie, uncle, cousin, grandparent, church-family member, longtime co-worker, or neighbor – and you love and support your LGBT family member(s), we invite you & your family to join us for a blessing and celebration of your family.

Our celebratory interfaith blessing will take place at the multidenominational chapel at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, and will be conducted by an alliance of API religious leaders of various faiths.

Come join us to bless and celebrate API LGBT families!
For more information, see www.netrj.org.

Interfaith Blessing & Celebration of LGBT Families (pdf)

On February 23, 2008, Network on Religion and Justice (NRJ-API-LGBT) participants (including members of GRACE) marched with GAPA and APIQWTC members in the San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade! Despite cold, rain, and dire storm warnings, we had 40 energetic marchers in our contingent this year. We ushered in the New Year with flair — rainbow stoles, rainbow streamers, and bright red bilingual Marriage Equality ponchos! The theme of the float this year was “Three Generations of LGBT Family Love and Acceptance” — featured on it were API LGBT grandparents, couples, and children taking a family portrait under a giant glittery rainbow. Participants showed their tangible support for Asian and Pacific Islander gays and lesbians.

See the interviews from NRJ marchers below. Note: despite the efforts to build support, some folks are wearing masks in order to protect their identities:

PRESS CONFERENCE:
ASIAN FAITH LEADERS
Announcement of Support is a Historic First

SAN FRANCISCO, THURSDAY, MAY 31, 2007 – Several prominent Asian American faith leaders in the Bay Area announce their public support of lesbian and gay families and equality at a press conference in San Francisco Chinatown on Thursday, May 31, 2007, from 10:30-11:30 am, at Chinese for Affirmative Action (17 Walter Lum Place, nearby Portsmouth Square), to coincide with end of API Heritage Month and the start of LGBT Pride Month. Confirmed speakers for the event include: Rev. Calvin Chinn, Rev. Jeffrey Kuan, Rev. John Oda, Rev. Deborah Lee, Rev. Michael Yoshii, Rev Elizabeth Leung. The event will mark the first time a coalition of Asian American faith leaders speaks out in support of lesbian and gay families and equality.