home     news     bio     gallery     interesting     links     Go back to bio section. Feeling Invisible I think the worst feeling in life is not being noticed. By that, I mean really feeling like one can see you. It's like people can't see you; you are invisible in their eyes. When I feel like that, I know that I, myself must change things in order to make people see me again. You can't expect people to change by themselves; they can't suddenly decide to be able to see you. Why am I making such a big deal about this? This phenomenon sometimes defines what it means to be Asian or Pacific Islander in the US. You are technically invisible in the eyes of white people and society in general. They don't see us, because they think we are such a small population. Technically, they are correct. Asians and Pacific Islanders are around 10 million people in the United States as compared to 220 million white people. Then can you imagine how it feels to be a gay Asian or Pacific Islander in the gay male community? Let's do the math, so you can see just how invisible you or I can be: ~10 million Asians and Pacific Islanders ~220 million white people If 10% of Asians and Pacific Islanders are non-heterosexual (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, etc.), then you will have a population of 1 million Asians and Pacific Islanders. That's roughly the number of Asians and Pacific Islanders living in Los Angeles County. If we use the same 10%, then there would be 22 million non-heterosexual white people. That's roughly 2/3 (two-thirds) the number of people living in California! If you can then imagine that there are approximately 22 non-heterosexual white guys for every 1 non-heterosexual Asian or Pacific Islander, then you can see how invisible you might feel.        1 | 2 | 3 Go back to bio section.

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