Association for Asian American Studies

Exciting news...just heard from the Association for Asian American Studies (AAAS) that my paper proposal has been accepted for this year's conference in Atlanta, GA. While I've presented at Women's Studies, Sociological, Gender Advocacy, and Queer conferences before, this is my first ever presentation at an Asian American Studies conference.

I will appear on a panel entitled "Queering Asian America."


What I proposed:

"Latins Are Lovers, but What About (Filipino) Me?:
On Still Looking For My Penis, Constructions of Racialized Queer Masculinities"
In the attempt to contribute to the growing body of scholarship aimed at understanding the complexities of racial differences as they intersect with sexual identities, this paper investigates constructions of Asian (American) masculinities within drag king culture. Influenced by Richard Fung’s essay, “Looking for My Penis,” my project considers the role of pleasure within king performances in influencing constructions of racialized masculinities. While Fung noted that in dominant representations Asian men “have been consigned to one of two categories: the egghead/wimp, or…the kung fu master,” I have observed representations of Asian men largely consigned to roles of kung fu fighters or Latin lovers.

I am especially interested in the significance of the role of Latino lover for Filipino kings. Although we could easily look at the role of Latino lover as an opportunity to pass, in the attempt to be more sexy and desirable to audiences looking to be (sexually) satisfied, another way of understanding the role of Latino lover for Filipino kings is as a means towards shifting the focus of kinging analyses from the centrality of gender to an intersectional focus that highlights performances of race. In addition, although problematic for the way in which it appears to reinforce the popular stereotype of Asian men as anus, asexual, and/or invisible, the role of Latino lover for Filipino kings effectively disrupts the popular imagination of kings of color as exclusively black kings, and fruitfully opens wider the boundaries of racialized king performances.