Panelists

The three panelists that we had on Wednesday were able to open my eyes to the amount of involvement that one could achieve as an active AAPI individual. All three were very able and engaging individuals who truly cared about their identity as AAPIs, and obviously all sought out improvements to our community.

I had a few thoughts on some of the panelists and what they shared. To begin with, I thought that Nicole's hidden passion about pursuing sexual education for the AAPI community was really interesting seeing how generally, most AAPI parents tend not to really speak on the topic of sex. Sexual education is very important for our society, especially that of today when sexuality is something that is much more widespread and everywhere we look (be it fashion, entertainment industry, etc). I wish her the best in the pursuing that goal because I already can tell it won't be an easy one and most Asian parents will not respond very positively to such a thing.

Another thought I found interesting was Kevin and his identity as a queer AAPI. Most of the time the LGBT community is referenced to in the U.S., you never really think of an Asian individual. I could only imagine the difficulty for most LGBT members in our society today, let alone an Asian one. He is not breaking only one barrier, but two at the same time. It's going to be a struggle for him on both fronts, and it is also something I hope to see as a change in my lifetime: the acceptance of the LGBT community as well as Asians as a minority group.

All in all, the discussion we had with the panelists had opened my eyes to some things I had never really thought of before. These problems are all very important and definitely not ones that are addressed more commonly enough.