Being featured in Time magazine changed the life of gay rights activist Urvashi Vaid.
| Vaid |
For one thing, her parents were pretty impressed.
"It sort of legitimized me and my political work in the eyes of my parents," Vaid said last night, speaking to more than 100 people gathered in the Michigan League as part of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month.
Vaid, the author of the 1995 book "Virtual Equality: The mainstreaming of gay and lesbian liberation," said she called her parents in New Delhi, India, to share her success with them. Afterward, they were more accepting of her controversial political activism.
Currently the head of the Policy Institute of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, Vaid spoke eloquently on the connection between political responsibility and personal identity, and called for greater political activism among young people.
Reading an essay she wrote for a South Asia gay and lesbian publication, Vaid gave a personal account of how political activism helped her find her identity.
"The place where I defined my identity was inside grassroots political organizations," she said. "I've learned so much in the process of developing a racial and sexual and gender identity."
But Vaid said she also worried about the consequences of using her racial and sexual identities to define her political viewpoints. "Would I somehow lose myself to gain the world?" she said she asked herself.
Vaid, who calls herself a progressive activist, said the progressive gay and lesbian movement is often fractured. "Can we all come together as a progressive movement in the next couple of decades?" she asked, pounding the table for emphasis.
Vaid raised a number of political issues in her presentation, including immigrant backlash and the current controversy over fundraising for the Democratic Party. "Undocumented workers are being exploited in the United States in sweatshops," she said.
"What do we do as Asian American progressives ... about the fact that U.S. companies are going overseas and exploiting labor there?" she asked the crowd.
Students said they found Vaid's remarks insightful. "I think she touched on a lot of important issues in the Indian American community and also in the Asian American community," said LSA sophomore Rahul Shah. "One of the biggest (issues) was getting the community politically aware and politically active. I'm glad I was connected with that."
"I'm really impressed by her," said LSA junior Tricia Bagamasbad.
Vaid ended by suggesting ways to get more young people involved in politics, including using cultural events to organize politically.
She noted that cultural events, rather than political rallies, are often more popular with college students.
"More of you come out to cultural events than come out to hear me speak," she said.