Category: General

Note: I am an ally to LGBTQIA+ community. As part of the Pride month celebration, I received a request to write an article on Stonewall and Marsha P. Johnson. This is their story.

It began in the early hours on June 29, 1969, nine days after the historic Moon landing.  The New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village.  While the riot that ensued ended after six days, it has left a permanent footprint in the LGBT+ community.  Without Stonewall, the current LGBT+ activism and advocacy community would not have existed at all. 

In 1960’s, for members of the LGBT+ community, doing things that a heterosexual couple take for granted — holding hands in public, going to a restaurant for a nice dinner, dancing at a club — meant risking their own personal safety.  Gay bars and clubs offered a place of refuge.  A place where they can express themselves without fear.  

Even after LGBT+ patrons were legally allowed to be served alcohol in 1966, many gay bars continued to operate without liquor license, in part because a lot of them were owned by the Mafia.  Stonewall Inn was one of the many gay bars owned by the Genovese family.  They kept the police on their payroll so the bars will be tipped off before the raid, giving the patrons enough time to relocate.  In return, the Mafia ran the establishment in a subpar condition (no fire exits, no running water behind the bar), and blackmailed the wealthiest patrons who wished to keep their identity a secret.  

Stonewall Riot, 1969

Regardless, Stonewall Inn became one of the few establishments in the Village that welcomed drag queens, including the one who was often seen with a flower crown — Marsha P. Johnson.  In the early hours of June 29, New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn.  This time, there was no tip.  The standard “raid protocol” at that time was that patrons and employees were taken to the restroom for physical examination, and anyone who was not dressed in accordance with their assigned gender at birth was arrested.  Those who were not arrested were told to leave.  Instead, a crowd of 150 people formed outside of the inn.  “We Shall Overcome” was sung at one point.  A woman in handcuffs was forcefully escorted to the police wagon.  When she got hit in the head with a baton, she yelled at the crowd to take action, to stop being bystanders.  The riot that broke out, followed by the five-day long protest are what we now know as the Stonewall Riot.   

Marsha P. Johnson

Marsha Johnson is often referred to as the one who threw the first brick, or the first shot glass.  She probably threw both, and many more things that night.  While she is often associated with the Stonewall Riot, her true accomplishments followed in the years to come.  In 1970, Marsha and Sylvia Rivera, a gay liberation and transgender rights activist, founded Street Transvestite Action Revolutionaries (STAR), an organization that provided housing and community support to homeless LGBT+ youth in Lower Manhattan.  In the 1980’s Marsha was involved with AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) as an organizer and activist working to improve the lives of people with AIDS.  

On July 6, 1992, Marsha’s body was found floating in the Hudson River.  Her death was at first ruled as a suicide; changed to murder only after many witnesses came forward.  She was 46.  

Violence against transgender women is still prevalent in 21st century, and it disproportionately affects women of color.  In 2019, at least 26 transgender women were murdered in the United States.  91% of them were black.  The term “at least” is used, because many violent crimes against transgender women goes unreported, or victims robbed of their rightful pronoun.  

In Memoriam ~ Rest In Power

June 28, 1970 marked the first year anniversary of the Stonewall Riot.  The day was celebrated by marches in New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago — the first Pride Parade.  This year marked the 50th anniversary of the Pride Parade.  While the parade itself may be canceled, the spirit of Pride is relevant now more than ever.  Be kind to each other.  Treat each other with respect and dignity.  We were Born This Way.

Stonewall Inn, Present Day

As I anxiously await the start of the TV season (please don’t cancel my soon to be favorite shows, TV network that shall remain unnamed), I have been doing some reading to do more research on The Mind (just keep scrolling, it’s there).  Me being on The Next MacGyver competition came about in the most unexpected way I had imagined.  I heard about the competition through one of those email announcements from one of the professors at University of Washington, where I used to study Aerospace Engineering.  I am one of those people who reads every random emails I get, so I read it, and it sounded cool.

The requirement for initial entry was to write a short synopsis for the TV show with female engineer as a protagonist.  I have always been drawn to storytelling – I watch every behind the scene footage for movies I own, and love good stories.  I knew I would write a story one day.  What I didn’t expect was that it would come so soon in a form of a TV pilot competition.

As a female engineer myself, I have been frustrated with the portrayal of female scientists and engineers in TV shows and movies.  Most are either fashion models in lab coats (dress code for women in STEM is a topic for another blog post), or beautiful but socially challenged.  I get that the actresses who will be playing those characters are bound to be pretty – but why so much emphasis on the looks?  and why do we have to be so weird?  and why are ALL of them geniuses?  There are really good, well-rounded characters out there – Kaylee Frye from Firefly and Special Agent Patterson from Blindspot come to mind.  Others, like Dr. Temperance Brennan fron Bones and Dr. Maura Isles from Rizzoli & Isles, while both fantastic characters I absolutely love, are described as “weird” and “socially awkward.”  All of them are unrealistically smart.

Here’s the thing.  You don’t have to be pretty, genius, and adorably challenged in the social department to be an engineer or scientist.

I felt like it was time to bring life to some realistic characters.  I wrote about the importance of being able to relate in my previous post.  By making the engineers and scientists in the media eccentric, it is sending the message that you need to be like those characters to be an engineer or scientist, intentionally or not.  After all, not everyone who goes on to study STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) grows up with a real life role model – I sure as hell didn’t have one.  I only had books and TV shows to turn to, and the struggle (especially in the biography genre) to find a female kick ass engineer/scientist was real.

Well, one thing led to another, and I ended up as a top-12 finalist in The Next MacGyver competition.  If any of you who saw me give a talk in the competition video thought the plot was a bit weak – you’re right, it was weak.  I had less than a month between finding out that I was selected as a finalist, and a deadline to deliver a 10-page “show bible.”  Oh, and I was also writing an academic paper for a conference in parallel.

“Why do you write like you’re running out of time?”

“Because I got two huge papers due and I got about 2 weeks to spend on each of them.”

I didn’t win the competition, but it gave me enough positive feedback to turn the idea into a book.  The one where I am actually doing research in the character and plot development.  In doing so, I’m reading nonfiction to draw inspiration for my fictional universe.

After all, nonfiction tells better stories than fiction.

In closing, I’d like to leave you with an exerpt from the article called Road to Zootopia (coming to Netflix this month!).  Good stories can inspire, and give people hope.  And when you’re feeling all the feels, that’s when you know it’s a good story.

 “There was a young African American man that was sharing these stories of just how difficult it was going through high school as one of two African American students in the school, and him sharing with us what that experience was like. His grandfather was always telling him you have to push through it. Then for him to say seeing Zootopia and feeling so much, feeling akin to Judy, to Nick, and how everything his grandfather had taught him, and he had kind of stride for, he was seeing our characters achieving those kinds of things and doing those things on screen, and he felt like, I feel like I’m not so alone in this world,” that, you’re speaking to me through this movie, and it’s making my struggles all for the better, and worth it.”  – Road to Zootopia

I’m not some token bunny. 😎

Aside from Science Fiction and Fantasy, I have another genre that I feel passionately about: musical.

In everyone’s life, there probably is that one thing that kept that person going through tough times. It may be sports, music, art, volunteering, etc…in my case it happened to be musical.

It’s true that I grew up watching musicals (mostly Disney), but there was a brief period in my life where I drifted away from it – I stopped getting that warm and fuzzy feeling. I can narrow the “why” down to two things. First, my middle school decided to put on a back-to-back productions of Bye Bye Birdie and Hello Dolly! Being an alto (I can do mezzosoprano now, thanks to many hours spent singing Wicked soundtrack), this meant I had no shot at any female solo parts. Since this was 15+ years ago, there was no way I could audition for male solo parts. Lame. It was around this time that I also discovered my love for rock music, and there is no guitar or drums in classical musicals. Double lame.

                        

So what was the issue here? In retrospect, I didn’t feel the connection at all. How was a middle-class awkward Asian girl supposed to relate to girls swooning over Elvis (I get that he’s the King of Rock, but I’m a fan of Queen) or an elite New York socialite matchmaker (that doesn’t sound like a fun profession).

Little did I know that in 7 years, I will discover the one musical that was on heavy repeat on every 2000’s theater geek’s iPod: RENT. The first Broadway musical to feature rock music and diverse, complicated characters. I saw a little bit of me in everyone – Mimi, Mark, Roger, Maureen, Angel, Collins, Joanne, and even Benny. Their emotions felt real. Their struggles felt real. I could relate again.

If you meet a RENTHead, I encourage you to ask them to tell you their RENT story – why that musical is so special to them. For me, it helped me finish college. I was taking a set of prerequisite courses needed to take the courses I ACTUALLY liked and wanted to take, and also trying to figure out if I wanted to do cars, airplanes, or satellites. When you have to spend 80 hours a week on something you don’t really enjoy…it’s rough. Really, really, rough. The idea of switching majors crossed my mind so many times…but I knew it was a bad idea, since those no-fun classes were just a phase that I had to get through. The message of “$hit happens, but live your life to the fullest,” for all of its cliche glory, got me through one day at a time…until the phase was over. I don’t think I listened to any music besides RENT for close to a year. Thank you, Jonathan Larson.

Fast forward 9 years and this new musical that I now am calling “My New RENT” is on heavy repeat. It’s about this guy who went from an immigrant to the first Secretary of the Treasury: Hamilton. Above everything that is awesome about this musical – the music, the lyrics, the character, the story – what makes this musical so outstanding that it resonated with so many people is that it tells the story in such a way that people in the 21st century can relate. As a storyteller, that’s something I strive to do with my characters. Hopefully, I’ll be able to deliver some snippets soon.

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your Story?

Welcome to my official website/blog!  This post is where you are going to be excited about how awesome this blog is and why you should all bookmark it and follow me on Facebook and Twitter.

I’m writing a Science Fiction novel.  It involves androids, really famous scientists, clones, and technologies from the future.  In 2015, I was selected in the top twelve finalist in the competition called The Next MacGyver.  While I didn’t place in the top five to go on to make a TV pilot, I had a lot of fun creating my Science Fiction universe for my pilot pitch.  The character backgrounds and settings were done, and all it needed was the solid plot, which was left loose at the time of the competition due to the time constraint and the target media being TV.  Since then, I had more time to do research and to come up with more ideas, that I decided to turn my TV pilot idea into a novel.  I will be posting updates on my writing, possibly in the form of exerpts and short stories.

I got inspiration from my favorite TV shows when I was creating my TV pilot idea.  I love good TV shows, especially Science Fiction/Fantasy.  I will also be posting my reviews and comments on TV shows.  It will be a good mix of ones that lasted a few seasons, and ones that lasted ten-ish episodes (if only a particular network that shall remain nameless stopped axing good shows…).  Hopefully you will find some shows that you would not otherwise thought of watching, and decide to give it a try.

LLAP🖖