Growing up queer is rarely easy. Throw on a heaping load of immigrant family sacrifice, cultural conflict, and language barriers, and you have something that starts to approximate how I felt coming of age in a very white suburb of Chicago.
I didn't know whom to talk to or confide in; I didn't even really know why I felt so different from other people around me. I just knew that I didn't see myself in any of my friends or classmates.
But now I know I'm not alone: As an adult, I moved to New York and started seeking out community. I met a handful of queer and trans Asian Pacific Americans, and then another handful, and then another. Our experiences are never the same; our families all unique. But we share some common threads and frustrations, and for the first time in my life, I felt like someone was hearing me.
I decided to make a film to document some of the stories of our community, and the struggles we have communicating with our immigrant parents about queerness, gender identity, and sexuality.
