Queering Asian Canada: Troubling Family, Generation, and Community

Abstract

This article argues that a queer perspective on Asian Canadian studies can open new inquiries and simultaneously trouble the centrality of family, generation, and community in documenting and examining racialized minority and diasporic groups. By rethinking these analytical concepts through queer possibilities and interventions, research into Asian Canada can become more inclusive and transgressive, and can foreground alternative queer kinships which exceed heteropatriarchal bloodlines, filial relations, and co-ethnic singularities. Putting forth counter-histories of racialized and diasporic sexualities, this article builds upon and complements archival research on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Asian Canadians, and turns to artists and cultural workers who offer rich historical and contemporary representations of queer Asian Canada. In particular, it examines the 2015 filmIt Runs in the Familyby Joella Cabalu, the 2016 filmRe:Orientationsby Richard Fung, and the 2016 exhibitionNot a Place on a Map: The Desh Pardesh Projectcurated by Anna Malla.