AAPI Heritage Month News

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AAPI Heritage Month

Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls by T Kira Māhealani Madden, Your Driver Is Waiting by Priya Guns, If They Come For Us by Fatimah Asghar, The Chosen and the Beautiful by Nghi Vo, Ask the Brindles by No'u Revilla, She Is a Haunting by Trang Tranh Tran, The Truth About Me by A. Revathi, and How Far the Light Reaches by Sabrina Imbler

quizzes

Quiz: Which Queer Book Should You Read To Close Out AAPI Month?

Please enjoy a captivating queer read by an AAPI author as we move into the season of leisurely reading by the pool and generally being gay.

Em Win —

May 28, 2023

AAPI Heritage Month

autostraddle behind the scenes

af+

Editor’s Notes: On AAPI Heritage Month 2021

To exist as a queer/trans Asian/Pacific Islander means to put your stakes in the ground and to say, “I am all of these identities, and I exist, so therefore these…

himani —

May 31, 2021

AAPI Heritage Month

asian

xoai lounges on a white blanket looking blissful in a white dress, long black hair cascading over one shoulder. in the background are a series of portraits of her face in a state of tossing and movement, all in a green hue.

first person

The Right to Breathe

I think of the moment I was born, how I must not have cared at all how loud I screamed. I needed to breathe. I needed everyone to know I…

xoai pham —

May 31, 2021

AAPI Heritage Month

Asian American

A the upper torso and face of a person is in oversized portion coming out of a deep green sea against a dark, cloudy night sky.

first person

The Birth and Death of a Name

This is the story of the birth and death of my name, which means that it is a story about transition, which means that it is necessarily a story about…

S Sukardi —

May 26, 2021

AAPI Heritage Month

Asian American

A pair of brown hands scoop up water, within the dark turquoise pool gathering in the palms is the reflection of a face.

identity

Mourning the Loss of Indigenous Queer Identities

This is the legacy of colonization. It is the mass extinction of identities and languages that can no longer exist because someone else said they were bad.

Astrud Bowman —

May 24, 2021

AAPI Heritage Month

asian

Three people side by side. Sasha on the left has brown skin and a braid. Fei in the middle has hair shaved, wears a dangly orange earring. Trang on the right has hair shaved and wears a red hoodie,

visual art

These Portraits Depict the Radiance of Asian Trans Leaders

Trans Vietnamese artist, Jean Pham, shares an original portrait series, spotlighting and revering trans Asian leaders as subjects in the midst the heightened violence in both Asian and trans communities.

Jean Pham —

May 20, 2021

AAPI Heritage Month

non-binary

Brown feet walk through the bright green grass with red flowers strewn about. The person has on a green dress like fabric, but it's not shown in clear detail.

gender

What You Think A Woman Looks Like

Recognizing that I was never going to fit comfortably into my American peers’ idea of masculine or my Indian family’s idea of feminine meant freedom to throw out both scripts…

Nat Razi —

May 19, 2021

AAPI Heritage Month

asexuality

In a hand-drawn image in the colors of greens and dark navy blues, a young Asian person with short hair stares at their own image sitting against a mirror inside of a closet.

identity

How Tam Found Empowerment in the Closet

What are you to do when you are a Vietnamese asexual and aromantic woman who grew up in white, cishet, francophone-dominated Montreal in the 1980s and 1990s?

Diamond Yao —

May 17, 2021

AAPI Heritage Month

Asian American

love + sex

The Complicated Nature of Sex for Asian Women

Our trans subject editor Xoai Pham speaks to Jayda Shuavarnnasri, Thai-American sexuality educator and resident #SexPositiveAsianAuntie, about sexual violence, myths about polyamory, and what it means to take up space…

xoai pham —

May 13, 2021

AAPI Heritage Month

Asian American

a collage of three textures - a green forest, a black night sky and a royal blue lipstick mark. there is a flock of birds flying above the composition, and in the far distance, you can see the thin sliver of a crescent moon

first person

When Love Is A Matter Of Desperation

Loneliness is an old bedfellow of mine; despair, my oldest friend. If I can come to embrace those parts of myself I’ve always tried to push away — perhaps, that…

himani —

May 11, 2021

AAPI Heritage Month

death is sad

first person

Learning To Live After My Younger Brother Died

When I unexpectedly lost my little brother to cancer, I had to learn how to close out his unfinished business and live life again without him.

An Bùi —

May 26, 2020

AAPI Heritage Month

personal essay

identity

The Price I Pay For(ever) My Culture

Being a first-gen, Indigenous, queer, Samoan girl in diaspora almost cost me my Samoan culture. But one day, I’m going to be the queer Samoan elder who looks my grandchildren…

Terisa Siagatonu —

May 25, 2020

AAPI Heritage Month

Most Popular

Quiz: Which Queer Book Should You Read To Close Out AAPI Month?

Editor’s Notes: On AAPI Heritage Month 2021

The Right to Breathe

The Birth and Death of a Name

Mourning the Loss of Indigenous Queer Identities

These Portraits Depict the Radiance of Asian Trans Leaders

What You Think A Woman Looks Like

How Tam Found Empowerment in the Closet

The Complicated Nature of Sex for Asian Women

When Love Is A Matter Of Desperation

Quiz: Which Queer Book Should You Read To Close Out AAPI Month?

Editor’s Notes: On AAPI Heritage Month 2021

The Right to Breathe

The Birth and Death of a Name

Mourning the Loss of Indigenous Queer Identities

These Portraits Depict the Radiance of Asian Trans Leaders

What You Think A Woman Looks Like

How Tam Found Empowerment in the Closet

The Complicated Nature of Sex for Asian Women

When Love Is A Matter Of Desperation