The aspects of my identity are fueled by tension and otherness. The battles of tension and otherness shout at each other, debate each other, lie to each other, chase each other. They torment me, define me, limit me.  

They tell me: I am not queer enough. I am not Korean enough. I am not American enough. I am not feminine enough. I have heard it all from society, even from my own community.

As we knelt and as the orchestral recording blasted on, I thought of my parents; I thought of how they had spontaneously dropped off a beautiful bouquet of flowers before this game, before they knew what we were planning to do,

Like packing lunches, there are many things parents do for their children every day that seem mundane and go unnoticed. And unpaid. Here are just a few:

A young boy you know well cautiously walks into a classroom. Arranging his pencils, he glances over at the card positioned on the corner of his desk. He thinks his name looks a bit strange in cursive. Some of the kids look inquisitively at his last name. A few think it’s funny, and a few think it’s really cool. Most don’t seem to care.

There is a diversity within our racial category that defies naming (AAPI/AANHPI/APIDA, etc). What assortment of letters fits who we are?

Umma embraced her role as Samonim, serving with a luminous smile. I never bought it. I judged it the face an Umma puts to protect her child from worries, even when her child became an adult and knows that life forces roles on you. Come Sunday morning, she was smiling.

I’ve made peace with the tenuous understanding that we have. I’m scared of imagining a relationship with my family that’s not fraught with shame and misunderstandings.

This weekend, we celebrated the second birthday of Nemo, the child of two women who are giants in our community, who has grown up in and with the community. I saw this child who is filled with all of the different emotions we experience in human life, and his parents affirming each one with love and grace, holding space for those feelings. In the children of PAAC, including my own, I saw so much hope. These are children growing up knowing their families will love them for exactly who they are and will be, unconstricted by the restraints I grew up with (a world full of strict gender conformity and restrictive, toxic theology).