Drawing on 6 years of ethnography with Viet Rainbow of Orange County (VROC), an LGBTQ advocacy organization, this talk argues that kinship and organizing are determinants of community health. The talk uses a transdisciplinary approach that brings together Asian American studies, public health, and queer of color critique to gesture towards intergenerational forms of organizing and healing in movement spaces. Amidst the collision of anti-communist Vietnamese nationalism and queer leftist politics, this talk explores how VROC members practice chosen kinship and how that shapes their health.
James Huynh (he/him/his) is the son of Vietnamese refugees who come from Hue, Viet Nam. James is an incoming assistant professor of anti-racist health policy in the Department of Health Management & Policy at the University of Michigan and currently a PhD candidate in Community Health Sciences at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. His scholarly and activist commitments focuses on community well-being, family and kinship, and social movements as paths to transforming systems of power.