In the Multicultural Center on Monday, Ernesto J. Martinez, assistant professor of women’s and gender studies and ethnic studies, led a couple of dozen students in an exercise.
“Close your eyes, but don’t fall asleep. Imagine monkey bars, kids on a playground… Go back to your childhood and think about your first experience with homophobia,” Martinez said.
Women’s Center diversity coordinator Kawa Kuller who helped form the Queers of Color student group at the University, said that Monday’s discussion was part of a series of events promoting visibility of gay students of color on campus.
During the conversation, students shared their first impressions of the words “gay” and “lesbian,” and the negative stereotypes associated with them. Stories ranged from a family’s homophobic jokes about those “funny” people and anti-gay religious beliefs to the commonplace saying “that’s gay,” among classmates and their ostracizing of other students who they perceived as “gay.”
ASUO Gender and Sexual Diversity Advocate Josué Peña-Juárez shared with the group about the time in his childhood when he was watching television and a sexually ambiguous male fortune teller came on the screen. His mother saw him react with curiosity, and she scolded him because she probably thought it would be a negative influence on him. In another instance, his grandmother locked away a movie with two gay characters that she caught him watching. However, Peña-Juárez said he found the key and watched it again.
Peña-Juárez, a member of Queers of Color, was pleased with the event and wanted to encourage the rest of the community to continue the conversation about the origins of homophobia.
“It was a good conversation, we need the space to have future conversations,” he said.
During the conversation, Martinez, who started a Queers of Color group as an undergraduate student at Stanford, emphasized the importance of knowing and understanding gays in the University community.
“I see it as a beginning,” Martinez said of the conversation. “Queers of color often fall through the gay and ethnic communities.”
Isolated by racism in the gay community and homophobia in the nonwhite community, gay people of color often move away from “violent situations” to where they feel accepted, Martinez said.
The faculty in the Ethnic Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies programs can offer students more than just information, Martinez said.
“We’re also here for real, genuine conversation,” he said. “I’m hopeful that we can be companions in social struggle, and we’re here to nurture those relationships.”