By Yuna Kha
The second interviewee is Nat (1). Nat (they/them) is a Vietnamese and queer activist who is organizing with other Asian American organizations in Minnesota and is also in a group that does anti-racist, transnational, queer, feminist advocacy and organizing work for migrant (2) women of color.
To Nat, understanding their queer identity is through their relationships with their family, specifically their mother. “I think it’s also been understanding how to honor my mother, the women in my family, and the women who came before her.”
Nat says that they struggle to even have the conversation of queerness with their family because everyone equates queerness with selfishness, whiteness, and imperialism. They explain that U.S. imperialism created “chasms” and “silence” in their family. Nat struggles with having these conversations with their family because of the “historical and transnational violence of U.S. intervention.”
Nat understands that their family isn’t “normative.” Nat has seen their mother support their younger brother wearing dresses while he was younger. Their mother has also continued to love their older sister even though she is unmarried. Despite these instances of support from their mother, Nat feels isolated from their family at times because of verbal policing of their queer identity. Through organizing, however, Nat has been able to find chosen family members.
Nat found their chosen family through their transnational organizing group. After years of isolation, Nat took a chance and joined the group because of the group’s dedication to diversity and self organizing. “Part of my work and the group that I am a part of is centering and honoring the lives of the migrant women.* At its core, it is positioned against white supremacy and other forms of oppression.” Although their group does not directly address queer and trans people, Nat says that it’s through their analysis where such identities are centered.
Nat’s work in centering the lives of the most marginalized populations also appears in how they organized during COVID-19. In response to the COVID-19, Nat and their group started a podcast in which they discuss their organizing around migrant women of color. During the uprising, however, performative allyship began to increase and people looked to the resources provided by Nat’s group as a means to educate themselves and their social media circles. Since the rise in performative allyship was so sudden, they do not know whether or not this growing population understands their mission and goals. Nat still remains hopeful by telling the stories of migrant women of color, they will be able to educate the masses.
From Nat, we learn that queerness is understanding how to navigate respecting our parents, ourselves, and our history. It is through this understanding where Nat is able to connect their experience to organizing around queerness and its importance in creating spaces for cultivating, continuing identity, and a sense of purpose or passion. For Nat, supporting grassroot organizing efforts means we can create and support a sense of passion, community, and hope. We must challenge ourselves to not just perform allyship, but to become accomplices.
Dear Reader, please take this time for a moment of pause, reflect, and hold space to allow yourself to just feel how you’re feeling. Think about what spoke to you, what we can learn, and next steps you will take after learning from Nat.
Footnotes:
- Nat is a pseudonym because they wanted to remain anonymous.
- This is the word that the group that Nat is a part of uses. Although it may be confusing, Nat uses this term as how Eithne Luibheid defines it as an umbrella term. She defines it as a “reference to anyone who has crossed international borders except for purposes of tourism” and “deliberately refuses the state’s efforts to taxonomize and classify migrants through shift-ing categories which are used to surveil, normalize, and/or criminalize while defining associated rights and rightlessness”.