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Welcome!

API Equality-LA is a coalition of organizations and individuals working in the local Asian and Pacific Islander (API) community to build support for the right of same-sex couples to marry. From its founding in 2005, API Equality-LA has uniquely bridged the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community with the civil rights and other social justice communities, united by a common understanding of the parallels between past anti-miscegenation and current marriage equality struggles.

API Equality-LA is a partner with many other statewide and local coalitions, including API Equality and API Equality-San Francisco.

To learn more about API Equality-LA, click here.

Activist of the Month: Steven Truong

API Equality-LA's Activist of the Month: Steven Truong We're proud to present Steven as our February Activist of the Month!

What is one sound that characterizes you?
Crackle. He's the good-hearted, fun and smartest of the three Rice Krispies characters (Snap, Crackle, and Pop!). I also think he's the most handsome :P

Where are you right now?
Physically, I'm in my office. But my mind is on vacation on a white sandy beach with a bottomless pitcher of margarita.

What is one thing about you that surprises people?
I hate coffee. The smell of coffee nauseates me so much that I usually can't be in a coffee shop for more than a few minutes before I start feeling queezy. But I finally had my first cup of joe last year when I traveled to Seattle and decided it was time for me to give it a shot. That was also my last cup of coffee.

What committee are you involved with in API Equality?
I am involved with (in no particular order) the Outreach and Recruitment, Fundraising, and Media/Website committee. It was too difficult for me to choose just one!

How did you get involved?
I first learned of API Equality-LA when I heard Marshall Wong speak at a town hall meeting hosted by the LA LGBT Center.

Why is it important to continue this fight for marriage equality?
Discrimination should never be accepted--especially institutionalized discrimination. Same-sex relationships are just as real and beautiful as opposite-sex relationships and should be recognized as such. Marriage equality is one of many steps towards equal treatment for the LGBT community.

Hometown?
Monterey Park, CA

Occupation?
Paralegal

Heritage?
I'm a Monterey Park Dude, but grandparents are from Shantou in southern China.

Facebook or Twitter?
I love both websites for changing the way people stay connected and share information. But if I had to choose one, I would choose Twitter since it's a lot less incriminating than Facebook...

Coffee or tea?
Tea! I absolutely cannot stand coffee.

Click here for a link to this article.

API Equality-LA General Coalition Meeting

GET READY TO WORK: For the fifth year in a row, API Equality-LA is mobilizing supporters to march in the lunar new year parade in Chinatown on Saturday, February 20. During part of our meeting we will roll up our sleeves and prepare some of the rainbow-colored decorations we will carry in the parade as well as call our supporters and invite them to march. We will also discuss and finalize details for our annual post-parade celebration, the Lunar New Banquet!

Furthermore, we will screen a short film documenting the National API Queer Alliance conference that took place last August in Seattle. The conference was organized by The National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA), whose co-director Mala Nagaraja was a litigant in the Andersen v. King County, a landmark case seeking the right to marry for same-sex couples in Washington State!

When: Tuesday, February 9th | Dinner at 6:45pm followed by the meeting from 7:00pm - 8:30pm

Where: Asian Pacific American Legal Center (The Community Room) | 1145 Wilshire Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90017 | (ROOF parking accessible on Lucas Ave.) | [View on Google Maps]

Questions/Comments: contact@apiequalityla.org | (323) 860-7348

Please note new starting time: Arrive by 6:45 PM for a light dinner.

Click here for a link to this article.

Mia Adriano (Ida Atencio)

Mia Adriano With a heavy heart, we want to let friends of Mia know of her passing on January 25, 2010. She was 42 years old. She is survived by her spouse, Kathleen McGregor, her younger twin sister, Irene, her two brothers, Ian and Ivan, her two nephews and her aunt. We are all deeply saddened by the premature loss of our dearest friend, Mia. We have all been touched by Mia's big heart, her unrelenting advocacy, and her deep love and friendship over the years.

Mia was a lifelong community activist and devoted much of her time and energy to many organizations that represented the Asian Pacific Islander lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer community, including Los Angeles Asian Pacific Islander Sisters (LAAPIS), Lotus, Asian Pacific Islander Queer Women and Transgender Activists (AQWA), and API Equality-LA. She played an instrumental role in many of the organizations that she participated in and helped each grow stronger with her leadership, commitment, and tireless energy. She also cared deeply about the environment and actively lived her life to lessen her carbon footprint on earth. She was a good friend to many of us and will be sorely missed. We remember her most for her big smile, loving spirit, and warm heart. May her smile and love guide us in our processing of her passing Let's take this opportunity to show Mia how much she meant to us and try to bring our community together.

For more information on memorial services, please contact aqwala@gmail.com

Click here for a link to this article.

Unite The Fight

For the latest in the Prop 8 Trials, click here:
http://unitethefight.blogspot.com

Save the Date: February 20, Chinatown Golden Dragon Lunar New Year Parade & API Equality-LA Annual Banquet

Chinatown Golden Dragon Lunar New Year Parade & API Equality-LA Annual Banquet

Join us on Saturday, February 20, 2010, at the 109th Annual Golden Dragon Parade to welcome the Year of the Tiger and provide an LGBT presence at Chinatown's largest celebration API Equality-LA invites all our friends--both LGBT and straight--to join us in marching for equality and fair treatment for LGBT people. Click here for more information.

API Equality-LA and the 2010 Effort to Overturn Prop. 8

Recently, there have been some on-line accusations that there is a campaign underway to sabotage efforts to place a measure on the ballot in 2010 to repeal Prop 8. API Equality-LA wants to clarify our position, which has never changed.

Despite our disagreement on when we should try to overturn Prop 8, we are part of the same civil rights movement as the proponents of a 2010 initiative and we view them as our sisters and brothers in our common struggle for marriage equality. We respect the views of 2010 proponents and support their right to gather signatures for an initiative. We are not taking any action to interfere with or undermine this effort.

Click here for a link to this article.

API Equality-LA Reacts to Results in Maine and Washington Affecting Same Sex Couples

Voters supported Maine's Question 1, repealing marriage equality, but voters appear to approve Washington State's Referendum 71, affirming extended domestic partnership protections

Los Angeles - On Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009, voters in Maine repealed a law that allowed marriage between same-sex partners. Doreena Wong, co-chair of API Equality - LA stated, "We are deeply disappointed that the voters in Maine have chosen to reject the rights of same sex couples and have cast their vote for inequality over fairness."

However, Washington State provided a glimmer of hope for the gay marriage movement. Voters seemed to affirm the importance of extended domestic partnership protections, which closely resembles marriage. Reverend Dr. Jonipher Kwong, who heads the Faith committee of API Equality-LA, said, "We are happy that the voters in Washington stood up for gays and lesbians -- but domestic partnership is not marriage and we look forward to the day that Washington grants gays and lesbians full equality under the law."

Click here for a link to this article.

Congrats, Karin!

Congrats are in order to our own Karin Wang who received a Lambda Liberty Awards for her work with API Equality-LA. Below is her acceptance speech.

As a straight ally in the fight for marriage equality, I am often asked why I work on the issue of marriage equality and why I am still committed to this work after such a difficult ride.

It was not something that I planned, and--honestly--it was not even something that I chose. As a civil rights lawyer, I have learned that our battles often choose us. And five years ago, when hundreds of Chinese Americans protested gay marriage in Los Angeles, in the San Gabriel Valley which is the heart of the Asian American community, I was drawn into this particular battle.

The Chinese American protest was striking to me because 100 years ago, California had anti-miscegenation laws, banning marriage between different races.

At that time, Asian immigrants were the largest minority population in the state--brought here to work on the railroads and in the fields--so California, unlike other states, singled out Asian immigrants in its interracial marriage ban. At the same time, the U.S. government passed laws that made it impossible for Asian women to immigrate to the U.S., and even went as far as to strip U.S. citizenship from any American citizen who dared to marry an Asian immigrant.

For me, knowing this history of discrimination against Asian Americans, it was difficult to watch members of my own community advocate discrimination against gays and lesbians--especially when the arguments used against gay marriage are nearly identical, word for word, as the arguments used against marriage to Asians not that long ago.

But perhaps more important is why I am still committed to this work, five years later, with no clear end in sight.

For public interest lawyers the common theme running through much of what we work on is "how difficult is it to win"--the more difficult the issue, the more likely we are to work on it. On November 5th, after Prop 8 passed, I would have put marriage equality at the top of the list of "really, really hard issues to win."

But amazingly, the same election results that are so difficult to accept--because we really should have won--also offer a great lesson of hope and progress.

A few days after the election, the data researcher at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center showed me the exit poll data we had gathered from the November election. The Legal Center has polled voters in Southern California for more than 15 years, tracking Asian American voting trends. In 2000, we polled Asian American voters on Prop 22, the ballot measure that created a statutory--instead of constitutional--ban on marriage equality.

The results were so abysmal--Asian Americans were split roughly 70/30 in favor of Prop 22, significantly worse than the general voters who were split 60/40--that we promptly buried the data and hoped no one would remember that we asked that question.

Last year, California voters narrowed the gap between those that support and those that oppose marriage equality to 52-48, a significant shift in 8 years. That's pretty good, right?

Well, imagine our shock when we looked at our Prop 8 data and saw that Asian Americans voted 54/46 or nearly equal with all other voters--dramatically down from the 70/30 split in 2000. We quickly dug up our "forgotten" data to draw a comparison.

For the non-math majors, here's what happened: California voters narrowed the gap by 14 points in eight years--but Asian Americans narrowed the gap by 30 points in the same period of time.

It's hard to pinpoint all of the causes for the dramatic shift, but it's not a coincidence that during that 2000 to 2008 period, API Equality-LA, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center and dozens of Asian American community groups were engaged in a public education campaign to change hearts and minds in our community.

Every time I am disheartened by the setbacks on the road to equality--not just for LGBTs but in other social justice struggles, I look at the data and I think about the work over the past five years, and I realize that not only is change possible, but that together we can make change.

Click here for a link to this article.

Resource: Let California Ring

Let California Ring, a public education campaign on the freedom to marry for same-sex couples in California, is "reinvigorating." The LCR coalition numbers 50 organizations (including API Equality-LA) working toward marriage equality. Read more by clicking here.

Our Stories

Jean Melesaine

Polynesians are always seen as being big people in small groups -- minorities on campus or in the community. As in any group, there's a good number of Polynesians who are gay, so even being seen as a small group of people, to be gay within that group makes you even smaller. Feeling like a minority at times gets overwhelming because I'm usually the token Polynesian, or if I'm not the token Polynesian, I'm usually the token queer. From my perspective being gay has made me a stronger person because I have to make visible the invisible and give voice to the voiceless for the future to come.

[Read the full story at New American Media]

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