UCLA

My project focuses on the Viet Rainbow of Orange County (VROC), a community-based and volunteer-run 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded by an intergenerational group of LGBTQ and allied Vietnamese Americans. Through an ethnographic approach (semi-structured interviews and participant-observation), I explore how VROC members reconfigure and reimagine the concept of a Vietnamese family as the basis for their community organizing efforts to create an equitable Vietnamese diaspora. How might we view this familial mode of organizing as a potential protective health factor for these traditionally abject bodies? My work aims to examine how VROC as an organization fosters a culture of health through members’ queering of family and kinship. Furthermore, I look at how participation in VROC impacts LGBTQ and allied Vietnamese Americans’ sức khỏe (translated as health).