“I’ve given up the dream of the Queer Nation. Race, class, gender, ideologies, and values will always divid us. It is ludicrous to think that since we share a common passion, we should all want the same things out of this life. We are each other’s angels, and we are each other’s demons. Beyond ourselves, there will always be those that wish for nothing more than to see us dead: They have been wishing and acting on it for centuries, but we are not vanishing. Call it sheer luck, call it divine intervention, call it tenacity. The fundamentalist Christians will call it a symptom of the end of the world as prophesied.

I have no idea what it is to be gay or queer anymore; nor do I care. I am so over being queer, and I don’t care what I call myself or what anyone else calls me; it’s all a matter of convenience these days. I believe in being unapologetic for my desires. All I know is when I wake in the night to find my lover’s body next to mine, no history—real or imagined, myth or fact, inherited or created—can make me feel any less than brilliant in his arms.”

I find this quotation bothersome for two reasons: 1. it makes me question my lasting interest in Asian American issues and political activism and 2. it reminds me of the following quotation in M Butterfly:

“Politics again? Why can’t they just hear it as a piece of beautiful music?”

Although Chin submits to surrender, his perspective appears to be one of a once politically active poet who has become jaded by the frustrating experience and lack of unity within his community. However, Helga, an ignorant White woman of high socioeconomic background speaks the latter. And while the two voices speak to two very different subjects, they both have the same implication: an encouragement to cease from constant political engagement. In reading Chin’s quotation, I cannot help but take his words as a form of advice and premonition. (While his words concern the queer community, I am applying it to the Asian American, Korean/Korean American community). And I will eventually reach the conclusion that there are too many internal differences for a marginalized community to unify and make a meaningful difference through the grassroots. And in coming to terms with this realization, raise my hands against the historically/sociologically formed structures of institutionalized racism and racial hierarchy and feel complacent. And if an individual from a community of a lesser political awareness can make the same end conclusion as one who has been politically engaged for many years, if it is worth it to try, to throw workshops and participate in protests and attempt to raise awareness. If I am being naïve and too idealistic.

However, I can’t help but suspect that agency, no matter how small and insignificant, sporatic and inconsistent, matters and can make a difference.

elisa