S2E4 – Queer of Colour

Eileen’s got a million projects on the go, but one that is close to her heart is Queer of Colour: a storytelling platform where queer people of colour have a safe space to tell their own stories on their own terms.

In this episode of World of Stories, Margrit interviews Eileen on how the project was started and how she hopes for it to grow.

Recommendation of the episode: Queer of Colour by Eileen Liu, also on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

Question of the episode: What kind of stories do you think are missing from our culture? And what would you like to see more of?

Join the conversation on Twitter @World_OfStories or email us at worldofstoriespodcast@gmail.com.

Transcript

Eileen 0:16
Welcome to World of Stories, a podcast about how stories shapes our lives. I’m Eileen and my pronoun is she.

Margrit 0:23
I’m Margrit and my pronoun is they.

Hi, Eileen.

Eileen 0:39
Hi, Margrit. How are you today?

Margrit 0:41
I’m super excited because we’re going to talk about Eileen’s project called Queer of Colour. I could gush about it endlessly. But really, I just want to hear from you. And I’m sure our listeners do too. So what’s the origin story of Queer of Colour?

Eileen 0:55
Well, it started in January 2020, when I got involved with a project called Open Secrets, and the goal of Open Secrets was to explore lesser known stories within Toronto’s LGBTQ community. But the organization that was running the project had limited capacity to explore the stories in any expansive way. They had limited budgeting and limited time, the scope of the project was imposed by the organization’s funders. So when I got involved with the project, I thought, you know, these stories deserve more time and attention than the Open Secrets project can give to it. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of unheard stories in Toronto’s LGBTQ community, and they deserve to be told, and they deserve to be heard. So that’s how Queer of Colour was born.

Margrit 1:56
I’m always interested in other creative people’s idea generation, and I love that you wanted to give space to previously unheard voices.

Eileen 2:03
Mmhmm, yeah, I kind of took the Open Secrets idea of exploring the untold stories and personalized it, because I’m a queer person of colour, surprise, surprise. And I wanted to personally, I wanted to hear more stories about people like me. You know, people who have to navigate what it means to be a person of colour in a white dominated society, as well as being a queer person in a heteronormative society. But I think more than that, I also wanted to hear stories of people who live with disabilities, who are neurodivergent, who are trans and gender non-conforming, because, well, one, these people exist, and they deserve to be heard. And two, a lot of these identities intersect in diverse and interesting ways. You know, there are amazing similarities in the life experiences of people from marginalized communities. But there’s also a huge diversity of experience. And I think it’s really powerful to explore how we are different and yet the same.

Margrit 3:13
Absolutely. I remember the other day you posted something on your Instagram about how and I’m gonna quote this because I loved it so much. Mentors and role models for queer people of colour are rare. It’s not often that we have people who are older and wiser whom we can go to with questions. Queer of Colour is an attempt to share stories and experiences with each other to build a community, to remind ourselves that we are not alone. I love that so much. So first, listeners, go follow Eileen at Queer of Colour with the Canadian spelling. So colour spelled with a U. And second, what is the larger goal behind collecting these stories for you, Eileen?

Eileen 3:53
Well, stories are powerful. And I love saying that. Stories can shape reality and change history. And that’s what I want to do. I mean, not to be egotistical about it, but I want to change history. You know the saying that history is written by the victors? Well, it’s 100% true.

Margrit 4:17
For sure.

Eileen 4:18
And we, you know, we know that just from the history textbooks that kids use in school. And I really think it’s time that we take back the narrative. It’s time we tell our own stories on our own terms. And we create a world that we want to live in. And stories can do that.

They allow us to imagine an ideal society, a utopia. And even if we never get there, which, okay let’s be honest, we probably won’t, stories will at least give us a direction to head in. They give us a blueprint of what is possible. They inspire us to do the work, to take risks, to stand up for what we believe in, and stories help us feel less alone. They remind us that there are others like us out there who want the same thing. And we can form a community, we can find connections and build relationships.

One thing I want to be clear about is that there have always been storytellers, from all walks of life, from all cultures and all backgrounds. And there have always been people who use stories to empower their community. But their stories have been ignored and suppressed by colonialism, imperialism, white supremacy, patriarchy, all that stuff. So it’s not like these stories didn’t exist, but it’s a matter of finding the stories and getting them out there for the world to see.

Margrit 5:54
Yeah, absolutely. I’ve been nodding all throughout your explanation, because I totally agree. And actually, you know, this archaeology of uncovering stories by marginalized people has a strong academic tradition and lots of methodologies and a lot of disciplines. But I think we’re now seeing an amazing increase in both calls for representation and actual stories by marginalized people in the larger public sphere. And I personally think that’s a wonderful way to allow us to imagine better, more inclusive futures, like you’re saying, so who are the people you’re interviewing, who will help us see these brighter futures?

Eileen 6:31
Everyone. Anyone who identifies as a person of colour, and a member of the LGBTQIA2S+ community. I literally want to talk to people of all ages, all ethnicities, all religious backgrounds, all levels of ability and disability, who work in all sorts of industries. Because we exist, everywhere and in all forms, and all of our stories are valuable and valid.

So at the moment, I’ve just started out the project. So I’ve been reaching out to friends and guilt tripping them into participating. But I’ve also made some contacts through the Asian artistic community in Toronto. Again, that’s through my own connections. But I would love to interview people from other walks of life who are completely not like me, who, you know, don’t have any connection to my day to day. The challenge I’m finding, though, is that, you know, it takes a lot of time to interview people and to write up their stories. Plus, there’s a pandemic, so I can’t actually meet anyone, person to person, which is what I would prefer to do.

Margrit 7:49
I totally understand that. Yeah. And actually, the stories that you’ve posted, have an intimate feel to them. And that must be hard to achieve in virtual encounters. So how did you build rapport with your interviewees?

Eileen 8:00
You know, I don’t know. I think meeting people in person is one part of it. They can see, hey, I’m a real person, rather than just a floating head on their computer screen. And another part of it is that the people who volunteer to participate in this kind of project are naturally more willing to share. You know, they know what the purpose of the project is. I’m very upfront about the types of questions I’ll be asking. And they’ve agreed to talk about these things. I make a point to never pressure anyone to talk about something they don’t want to talk about. So I want the experience to be safe and enjoyable throughout. And so I asked if there are any topics that are off limits, or if they want to share something, but off the record, that’s okay, too. If they want to remain anonymous, that’s totally cool. The whole point is that they can tell their stories on their own terms, whatever those terms happened to be.

Another thing that doesn’t come across in the stories I’ve posted, is that there’s a lot of conversation that I cut out, there’s a lot of back and forth. So I also share a lot about myself when I chat with these folks. And I mean, yes, it’s an interview, so the focus is on the storyteller, but if there’s a point of connection, or if they’re curious about me, I’m totally open to talking about myself too.

Margrit 9:32
That makes sense. Even if the focus is on your interviewee, the connection could probably not happen without you sharing parts of yourself. And there’s so much of you in this project. From what I know about you, from what your interests are, and even you know, if people know you from the podcast, they will see that your interest in equity and in diversity really fuels this, and we can see it there. So where would you like this project to evolve? How do you see it develop?

Eileen 10:02
Oh my god, so many things I would love to expand the stories into audio, into video, podcasts and films. I’d love to compile the stories into books and audio books, basically, every format under the sun and to make these as accessible to everyone as possible.

I’d love to do in-person events when we’re allowed to do that, again, where maybe I’ll interview people, or maybe they could tell stories that they’ve written themselves, or they could present workshops to young people so that they can see like, hey, queer people of colour can do some really cool stuff.

I’d love to interview people in other parts of the world. You know, like queer people don’t exist only in the West, they exist in Asia and in Latin America and in Africa. So I love to be able to travel to those places and interview queer people of colour, who are living in non-white dominated societies. Because again, my experience is so Western, that it would be really interesting to see how other people are the same or different while living in a non-Western context.

I think ultimately, the vision and the dream is to be able to touch people with these stories, to change lives. I love to find a way to not only inspire people to pursue their dreams, but help them get there. So whether that’s scholarships for education and training or mentorship from someone who looks like them, who has lived through those experiences. I want to use the power of storytelling to help queer people of colour thrive.

Margrit 11:55
I really hope you do, and how can our listeners find you and maybe support this amazing project?

Eileen 12:01
Thank you so much. You can find everything at QueerOfColour.ca and that’s colour with a U. And on all the social media, so that’s Instagram and Facebook and Twitter at @QueerOfColour again. I also have a ko-fi. So if you’d like to support in that way, you can go to ko-fi.com/QueerOfColour. And please, please, please spread the word.

Margrit 12:32
Do that spread the word. It’s a really worthwhile project to support. So our recommendation of the episode is obviously Queer of Colour. Go check out the stories and let your life be touched and enriched by them. Follow Eileen on Instagram and Twitter and spread the word to your own circles.

Eileen 12:49
And our question of the week for our listeners is: What kind of stories do you think are missing from our culture? And what would you like to see more of?

Margrit 13:02
As always, you can join the conversation on Twitter at @World_OfStories or you can email us directly at WorldOfStoriesPodcast@gmail.com and if you’d like our show, please share the podcast with your friends. You can rate and review World of Stories on Spotify, Apple podcast, Google podcasts and all the other major podcasting platforms. The more reviews we get, the easier it will be for new listeners to find us.

Eileen 13:27
And lastly, if you’d like to partner with us in producing the podcast we appreciate every contribution no matter how big or small. You can donate at ko-fi.com/WorldOfStories. Thank you so much for listening, stay safe,

Margrit 13:44
And keep on humaning.