Poet Hieu Minh Nguyen on What Pride Lacks

At PBS NewsHour, Jennifer Hijazi spends time with Minneapolis-based poet and performer Hieu Minh Nguyen, who shares his experience of Pride celebrations as a person of color. Nguyen, who is Vietnamese-American, explains that after years of feeling excluded or alienated within the annual festivities, "[q]ueer people of color, and all the marginalized identities inside the queer community — besides just the cis, white gay man — we’re starting to push back." Let's pick up there: 

“There are people who are…open to the change, but then there are the folks who are actively pushing back or complaining.” (The debate over the inclusivity of social movements has also notably raised questions about the role of women of color in mainstream feminism.)

Nguyen remembers his first gay pride parade at 19, just out as a gay man, and excited to be part of a space he thought he belonged in. But he said his relationship to Pride has changed over the years as he’s become more observant of narrow-mindedness within such spaces.

According to Nguyen, certain bodies are just not as desirable as others in mainstream gay life. “[I realized] after some time that my body is not welcome in this space, even though I am queer,” he said. “The intersections of my identity also become a border between me and the ‘acceptable’ queer community.”

Learn more, and read Nguyen's poem, "White Boy Time Machine: Software," at PBS NewsHour.