The stunning Gay Asian Pacific Alliance Rainbow Float in the Lunar New Year Parade, with perfect rainbow umbrellas. The theme was diversity and families with same sex parents. Photo by Rink.

The San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade was held on Saturday, Feb. 23. GAPA (Gay Asian and Pacific Islander Alliance) made its 10th appearance at the Parade honoring the Year of the Rat. The theme of GAPA’s float was “Coming Out, Coming Home: A Family Portrait.” The float featured a three-generation same-sex family, complete with grandparents and children. Accompanying the family on the float was a giant, shimmering rainbow symbolizing the diversity and multiculturalism of our San Francisco families. The rainbow also symbolized the queer community’s hopes and dreams for the future.

Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people were encouraged to be part of the parade contingent, marching with the GAPA float in this year’s parade, spending approximately from 5-9 p.m. with the float that day. GAPA provided the first 50 marchers (with a first come, first served policy) with a free red “Marriage for All” poncho to wear en route.

During the lineup process,    GAPA announced they were seeking artists and performers for “The GAPA Show 2008.”    GAPA is proud to announce “American Idyll” (The GAPA Show 2008), a queer Asian & Pacific Islander (API) arts showcase taking place on Sunday, June 1 at SOMarts Cultural Center in San Francisco. Featuring visual arts, written word, and performance, “American Idyll” is intended to be a collaborative, community-based project that explores what it means to be gay and American when one is of API heritage.

Since its founding in 1988, GAPA has been dedicated to furthering the interests of gay & bisexual APIs in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. Through their cultural efforts, GAPA hopes to promote cultural diversity within both the larger Asian Pacific American population and the mainstream LGBT community, while also allowing gay APIs to take control over how their images and identity are presented. 

Also announced was the 18th Annual Asian Pacific Islander Issues Conference (APIICON08) at UC Berkeley Student Union on March 1, 10 am–4:30 pm. Every year API students from all areas of campus and the community come together to bring underrepresented issues within their communities to the forefront. The purpose of the conference is to create awareness of issues and ethnic diversity, as well as dialogue within and among the API communities. The conference is free and entirely student-run.  

“We invite you to attend the 18th annual API Issues Conference at UC Berkeley,” says GAPA Treasurer Tarrance@gapa.org. “The Issues Conference is a place to learn, teach, and define our lives as APIs in our own words. There will be a variety of workshops open for everyone to attend.” This year’s theme of the conference is “Peeling Off the Label.” As Asian Pacific Islanders (API) in the United States, organizers say they have firsthand experience with what it means to have labels imposed on them. They point out that oftentimes labels hide realities and replace the true complexities of their communities with artificial assumptions. No singular label can summarize the experience of being API. They hope to bring visibility to their unique communities.

Workshop sessions this year will challenge, explore, and redefine what it really means to be an API today - revealing the communities underneath the label. Through presentation and discussion of current issues affecting the different API communities, they hope to illuminate these complex realities that have remained hidden and to begin the process of PEELING OFF THE LABEL.

To register, visit apiconference.Berkeley.edu. GAPA’s monthly newsletter is now also available online at gapa.org. For past issues, future themes, advertising, and to find out more about contributing or volunteering, please check out gapa.org or contact Dino Duazo at editor@gapa.org. Have a Happy Chinese New Year, and keep it gay!