I don’t want to be caught parading around in last generation’s false sense of security. I’m kicking off Autostraddle’s first Asian Pacific Islander American (APIA) Heritage month by exploring the values my own South Asian and Japanese American parents and grandparents imparted to me, to learn to carry them forward.

“And I thought how interesting is it that America can be this dark star, death star, and also at the same time this incredible shining light.”

I was a newly minted queer and everything I knew about queerness was rooted in coming out. I’d heard about the relief that came with coming out from everybody. If TV was to be believed, I would feel free even as my parents stopped looking me in the eye.

I choose her every minute of the day, and I will continue to choose her regardless of what the future brings. I choose her. For her, I will play the game and sign the papers, and ask the court to bless what we know is already true.

“I sent a short, simple message saying that although I didn’t realize it fully until recently, I was indeed bisexual, that this was an undeniable part of my identity, and I could no longer comfortably hide this fact.

He never responded.”

“I’m going to be a single, poor, gay, mom, and it’s going to be fine. It’s going to be amazing. I mean sure, I might date sometimes, but I don’t need a partner. Partners just get in the way. And what are the odds that I would meet a woman I would want to be with who would also want to have children with me? I can’t even picture it!”

“Every day since my father died has been at least a little fucked up. There is no such thing as a non-fucked up day when you are a Daddy’s girl without a father.”

“Instead, I jump back into the mind of the girlish woman I was at 28, the one who didn’t know enough about the consequences for unacceptable motherhood to plunge headfirst into the fire. It has taken me much longer than my mother to see the gift of my own naiveté.”

A road trip which happens to coincide with the occasion of Prince’s death and the release of “Lemonade.”

“My father has very few admirable qualities when it comes to our relationship: he doesn’t follow through on his promises, he doesn’t compromise, and he has a God complex. “

“Not being an asshole” to myself meant admitting that my mom’s death and her illness permeate every single part of my being, and always will.