When I first started college I was like, “Oh my God, I’m going to fail everything.” My writing was really bad. But it’s not that hard. I’m getting As and Bs. For next year I’m going to try to do more things with the art history association. I was in arts club at school. I’d love to talk about what the art meant and ideology. There weren’t a lot of people you could talk to about art in my high school in a really critical way.

I really want to have a gallery. Not a museum. I don’t think museums really become involved in art until it becomes mainstream or awesome. I’d like to put on a gallery of artists that are working at that time, whose art is going to end up in museums.

I’ve learned a lot being away at school. Like, I’ve always had feminist ideals but I didn’t want to be seen as super-crazy or aggressive. I never thought I could identify as a feminist, but in my sorority they had a workshop about feminism which I really liked. Once I learned I didn’t have to follow everything, now I am a feminist.

My sorority is an LGBT sorority. I went to their info session, and I really liked what they stand for. I liked how small it is. I’m not really good with big groups of people.

I identify as bisexual. When I was younger I didn’t really understand sexuality. I would just identify as straight because there were no females I strongly wanted to have a relationship with. So I would tell myself to stop thinking things. I would have the same emotions if I saw a really cute boy or cute girl. For females I’d think, “It’s probably just because I want to look like her.” In my senior year of high school, I realized I didn’t want to be them, I just really felt attracted to them.

My family and friends are really accepting people. But my family reacted really well I think because I wasn’t telling them I was going to be in a relationship. My father doesn’t want me to tell people. He thinks I’ll regret it, or someone’s going to end up hurting me.

I don’t want to date a girl now, because I don’t really know how my family or friends would react, or even how people in general would react. And I don’t want to put someone through the same possible negative reactions because I want to be very courteous to the person I decide to have that type of relationship with. If that relationship doesn’t end up working I don’t want them to think it’s because I’m straight. I would rather my first relationship with a girl be serious and not just a fling.

As told to Diana Scholl
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in Los Angeles, CA, 2013
To share your story, email hello@wearetheyouth.org

Jenecis, Age 18, Los Angeles, California

I don’t think my parents know how much it meant for me to get into UCLA. They only went up to primary school. They expected me to go to community college. To them it’s the same thing. You’re going to be farther away and have to pay more. I’m like, “Yeah, but it’s a really, really good school.” They saw how big it was, and how other people’s parents were really, really excited.

When I first started college I was like, “Oh my God, I’m going to fail everything.” My writing was really bad. But it’s not that hard. I’m getting As and Bs. For next year I’m going to try to do more things with the art history association. I was in arts club at school. I’d love to talk about what the art meant and ideology. There weren’t a lot of people you could talk to about art in my high school in a really critical way.

I really want to have a gallery. Not a museum. I don’t think museums really become involved in art until it becomes mainstream or awesome. I’d like to put on a gallery of artists that are working at that time, whose art is going to end up in museums.

I’ve learned a lot being away at school. Like, I’ve always had feminist ideals but I didn’t want to be seen as super-crazy or aggressive. I never thought I could identify as a feminist, but in my sorority they had a workshop about feminism which I really liked. Once I learned I didn’t have to follow everything, now I am a feminist.

My sorority is an LGBT sorority. I went to their info session, and I really liked what they stand for. I liked how small it is. I’m not really good with big groups of people.

I identify as bisexual. When I was younger I didn’t really understand sexuality. I would just identify as straight because there were no females I strongly wanted to have a relationship with. So I would tell myself to stop thinking things. I would have the same emotions if I saw a really cute boy or cute girl. For females I’d think, “It’s probably just because I want to look like her.” In my senior year of high school, I realized I didn’t want to be them, I just really felt attracted to them.

My family and friends are really accepting people. But my family reacted really well I think because I wasn’t telling them I was going to be in a relationship. My father doesn’t want me to tell people. He thinks I’ll regret it, or someone’s going to end up hurting me.

I don’t want to date a girl now, because I don’t really know how my family or friends would react, or even how people in general would react. And I don’t want to put someone through the same possible negative reactions because I want to be very courteous to the person I decide to have that type of relationship with. If that relationship doesn’t end up working I don’t want them to think it’s because I’m straight. I would rather my first relationship with a girl be serious and not just a fling.

As told to Diana Scholl
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in Los Angeles, CA, 2013
To share your story, email hello@wearetheyouth.org

I was raised by two people that were part of the punk scene here, so I was raised listening to the Ramones and the Clash and stuff like that. But the first band I got into on my own was the Dead Kennedys so they’re really important to me.

My dad was a drummer in a punk band, and my mom never played many instruments but she was at shows a lot. I think they’re proud of me. My mom works weekends, but my dad is usually at our shows. Sometimes he’s like, “You should do it like this!” And you know, sometimes I get weirded out by the fact that I might be following in my parent’s footsteps.

I started playing the drumset in seventh grade. We started our band ConeTrauma in March or April of last year and it’s just been going really, really fast. We started and then a few weeks after that we got our first show. We’ve had a show pretty much once a month since then.

I want us to be well known within the scene and be able to play around the country. My aspiration is to try and make it so we can start up a scene again and have high schoolers going to shows, because they don’t do that anymore. Kids don’t look at posters or know what’s going on. So that’s an aspiration that one day we can get a bunch of high school bands and get them together and form an actual scene again instead of being disjointed.

I don’t think I could date someone that’s into completely different types of music than me. If there was a gay girl that liked me and was into the same music and stuff, and maybe played an instrument I would probably be interested.

For a while I was just identifying as queer because I didn’t want to have to define a term, but then I went through the entire complication of having to explain it to every single person. Then for a while I was kind of saying that I was bi, for a while I was saying that I was a lesbian who occasionally liked guys. But now I’m kind of back to queer. But the point is I’m mostly into girls but sometimes like guys.

On the attraction level I’m way more attracted to girls. Once in awhile I will be attracted to a guy. But it would be really hard for me to date one, with the things that have happened to me and stuff like that. It’s to the point where it used to be I couldn’t even hug guys because it felt so horrible to me.

I was sort of abused by someone in an unusual way with lots of sexual overtones.

And it just makes me feel really bad that I’m just proving the people right; people always say queer girls were abused and stuff like that. It makes me feel like I’m proving a stereotype.

I am working through my feelings about this through music and stuff like that. Art and music are just usually the way that I have to deal with things that happen to me.

As told to Diana Scholl.
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in Iowa City, IA, 2012
To share your story, email hello@wearetheyouth.org

Natasha, Age 15, Iowa City, Iowa

I’m wearing high tops because I just found them again. I’m wearing fishnets because it was cold outside. And I’m wearing the skirt because my friend gave it to me. And I’m wearing a Dead Kennedys shirt because they’re a good band.

I was raised by two people that were part of the punk scene here, so I was raised listening to the Ramones and the Clash and stuff like that. But the first band I got into on my own was the Dead Kennedys so they’re really important to me.

My dad was a drummer in a punk band, and my mom never played many instruments but she was at shows a lot. I think they’re proud of me. My mom works weekends, but my dad is usually at our shows. Sometimes he’s like, “You should do it like this!” And you know, sometimes I get weirded out by the fact that I might be following in my parent’s footsteps.

I started playing the drumset in seventh grade. We started our band ConeTrauma in March or April of last year and it’s just been going really, really fast. We started and then a few weeks after that we got our first show. We’ve had a show pretty much once a month since then.

I want us to be well known within the scene and be able to play around the country. My aspiration is to try and make it so we can start up a scene again and have high schoolers going to shows, because they don’t do that anymore. Kids don’t look at posters or know what’s going on. So that’s an aspiration that one day we can get a bunch of high school bands and get them together and form an actual scene again instead of being disjointed.

I don’t think I could date someone that’s into completely different types of music than me. If there was a gay girl that liked me and was into the same music and stuff, and maybe played an instrument I would probably be interested.

For a while I was just identifying as queer because I didn’t want to have to define a term, but then I went through the entire complication of having to explain it to every single person. Then for a while I was kind of saying that I was bi, for a while I was saying that I was a lesbian who occasionally liked guys. But now I’m kind of back to queer. But the point is I’m mostly into girls but sometimes like guys.

On the attraction level I’m way more attracted to girls. Once in awhile I will be attracted to a guy. But it would be really hard for me to date one, with the things that have happened to me and stuff like that. It’s to the point where it used to be I couldn’t even hug guys because it felt so horrible to me.

I was sort of abused by someone in an unusual way with lots of sexual overtones.

And it just makes me feel really bad that I’m just proving the people right; people always say queer girls were abused and stuff like that. It makes me feel like I’m proving a stereotype.

I am working through my feelings about this through music and stuff like that. Art and music are just usually the way that I have to deal with things that happen to me.

As told to Diana Scholl.
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in Iowa City, IA, 2012
To share your story, email hello@wearetheyouth.org

Ever since I was little we were raised Methodist. Not by my mom because she’s not very church-y but people in the family were very Protestant in their beliefs. I just never really got the whole idea of one God, and why it just had to be a man and there wasn’t any feminine aspect to anything. So I researched and I talked to people that were of other religions and Paganism was the only religion that came from the heart and made sense to me.

Paganism is a very old religion; 15,000 years-old, approximately. We worship nature. There are male and female aspects of the God and the Goddess and everything on Earth. We hold the Earth sacred, and worship it as a divine being in itself.

I was in a group of people who worshiped together, but that broke up mostly because our high priestess decided that she didn’t want the thing going on at her house because her mom wasn’t accepting of it. So it was hard to arrange meetings, and barely anybody showed up half the time. It was kind of a waste. So I’ve been worshiping solitarily since middle school.

Usually if it’s the full moon I’ll meditate and do all that, and call down the moon which means you draw down energy from the moon, because it’s the celestial symbol of the goddess. You put that forth throughout the world to heal the people that need help and find cures for diseases. I don’t heal other people because I don’t want people coming into the house who I don’t know. So I usually heal myself or the cat if she’s not feeling good.

Paganism is accepting of everyone–blind, gay, deaf, straight. I’ve always known since I was little that I was gay, which I guess is really cliche and everyone says that. I guess my first real experience was when I was at camp. The shower rooms weren’t divided, I guess, I thought it just felt right to be in there. I went out with a bunch of girls from like sixth grade to eighth grade. And I realized that after I went out with my best friend Ashley that I didn’t like girls and there was nothing there. I connected, just not in that way.

I came out to my mom at the end of eighth grade. I took her to Texas Roadhouse and she was like, “I kind of already figured from your mannerisms.” And I was like “Oh wow, Mom, thanks!”

Coming out lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. Life is much easier, because hiding from who you are can only bring bad karma to yourself and others. You’re not living the way you should so your body and your mind and your soul aren’t one. You’re just basically a zombie.

When I came out at school, at first a lot of people were very rude, and said, “Oh you’re just faking it because you want to be around girls.” I got called the f word all the time and homo and queer and all that. People would always go, “Oh that’s so gay “and then apologize to me. It doesn’t really matter to me until you apologize because then I know you meant it harmfully.

There are mean people everywhere who call you names and don’t like you because you’re gay or you’re black or Asian or whatever, there’s some stupid reason that people don’t like you for everything. But I like being around the people at school even though they might not like me. I try to love everyone because we’re supposed to.

As told to Diana Scholl.
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in Lincoln, NE, 2012
To tell your story, email hello@wearetheyouth.org

Paganism is a very old religion; 15,000 years-old, approximately. We worship nature. There are male and female aspects of the God and the Goddess and everything on Earth. We hold the Earth sacred, and worship it as a divine being in itself.

I was in a group of people who worshiped together, but that broke up mostly because our high priestess decided that she didn’t want the thing going on at her house because her mom wasn’t accepting of it. So it was hard to arrange meetings, and barely anybody showed up half the time. It was kind of a waste. So I’ve been worshiping solitarily since middle school.

Usually if it’s the full moon I’ll meditate and do all that, and call down the moon which means you draw down energy from the moon, because it’s the celestial symbol of the goddess. You put that forth throughout the world to heal the people that need help and find cures for diseases. I don’t heal other people because I don’t want people coming into the house who I don’t know. So I usually heal myself or the cat if she’s not feeling good.

Paganism is accepting of everyone–blind, gay, deaf, straight. I’ve always known since I was little that I was gay, which I guess is really cliche and everyone says that. I guess my first real experience was when I was at camp. The shower rooms weren’t divided, I guess, I thought it just felt right to be in there. I went out with a bunch of girls from like sixth grade to eighth grade. And I realized that after I went out with my best friend Ashley that I didn’t like girls and there was nothing there. I connected, just not in that way.

I came out to my mom at the end of eighth grade. I took her to Texas Roadhouse and she was like, “I kind of already figured from your mannerisms.” And I was like “Oh wow, Mom, thanks!”

Coming out lifted a huge weight off my shoulders. Life is much easier, because hiding from who you are can only bring bad karma to yourself and others. You’re not living the way you should so your body and your mind and your soul aren’t one. You’re just basically a zombie.

When I came out at school, at first a lot of people were very rude, and said, “Oh you’re just faking it because you want to be around girls.” I got called the f word all the time and homo and queer and all that. People would always go, “Oh that’s so gay “and then apologize to me. It doesn’t really matter to me until you apologize because then I know you meant it harmfully.

There are mean people everywhere who call you names and don’t like you because you’re gay or you’re black or Asian or whatever, there’s some stupid reason that people don’t like you for everything. But I like being around the people at school even though they might not like me. I try to love everyone because we’re supposed to.

As told to Diana Scholl.
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in Lincoln, NE, 2012
To tell your story, email hello@wearetheyouth.org

I’ve been in India for close to two months now, and I wonder how my mind can fit everything I’ve seen, experienced, and learned.  Last time I wrote to you, I was in Udaipur, which provided me with a comfortable platform to look beyond the discomforts I was feeling in Delhi and meet some young folks working on alternative education and community building.  But it wasn’t until I got to Mumbai (Bombay) that I felt like things started to get into full gear for my project.

I had a couple of contacts who are a part of LABIA (Lesbians and Bisexuals in Action) which publishes two magazines a year, runs a hotline and conducts research on members of the queer women and trans community.   I took the local train to get to the trendy neighborhood of Bandra to meet up with my contacts, getting looks the entire way since I chose not to sit in the women’s compartment.  It’s an interesting phenomenon whereby any women in the “general” compartment are hassled to go to the women’s compartment.

Once with the two members, I had a great time learning about the history of LABIA and was excited to get a few issues of their publication “Scripts” plus a queer erotica book one of them had recently edited and published called “Close, Too Close.”  Turned out there was a queer party happening that very night as well, called “Salvation”, so I decided to check it out with my new friends.  It was my first time going out to a queer party in India and although the ratio of men to women was unsurprisingly disproportionate, I had a great time watching the performance by queer artists and got to know some community members.  After the party, we all went to a popular late night snack joint close to the main promenade of Bombay, Marine Drive, where according to my friends, on weekends hoards of gay men hang out.
Bombay gave me the impression that you could be who you wanted, with the anonymity a big city provides. Never had I felt safe to go out after dark until then, and standing with three visibly queer women at 2AM eating snacks was a truly unique experience.

After the brief visit to Bombay, I took a 36 hour train ride to Kochi, Kerala in south west India.  I had been told by a friend in Delhi that there was a group of artists (some queer, the rest very open-minded) under the name of “Backyard Civilization” who were living together in a gallery, making art, doing activist work and generally being radical and awesome.  Besides, Kochi was hosting the first contemporary art festival/biennale until the 13th of March, so I was excited to be there. After visiting the gallery and some careful thought, I decided to move in with them.  I couldn’t seem to find any other remotely queer/LGBT organizations in the area, and I had been wanting to settle more in one place in India so I went for it.

To paint a picture of the setting: the climate in Kochi is hot and muggy but there are so many mosquitoes biting you that for a few days you wear long sleeves and long pants.  Of course, after that you just have to surrender, wearing barely anything but getting ruthlessly feasted on by the mosquitoes despite wearing bug repellant. The state of Kerala has such an interesting history politically, what with being the first state to democratically vote on a communist government.  Furthermore, there are people of nearly every religion there, with a Jewish population settling there in the 14th century.  There are many practicing Jews, Christians, Muslims, and Hindus coexisting in harmony in Kerala.

One thing I love about the streetscape in Kerala is the number of men who wear what’s called a lungi (or mundu).  They’re essentially large pieces of cloth that are wrapped around like skirts and can be folded up so that it’s easier to walk and are cooler in the heat than pants.  They come in a variety of bold colors and patterns and to a first timer in Kerala, the sight of all of these men in all the colors of the rainbow, and not wearing pants was so fantastic! Then the reality set in that none of the local women were wearing the same comfortable garb.  The imbalance shouldn’t have come to me as such a surprise, but I couldn’t help but look at these men in lungis with a mixed bag of emotions.  While I knew that wearing a lungi as a foreigner would raise issues of appropriation, I just had to see for myself how comfortable they were to wear, as my packed clothes were unbearable in the heat.  One of the queer women artists at the collective, A.,  had done some serious lungi-watching and she demonstrated the way men strutted down the streets, readjusting the cloth–untying it with a single movement of the arms, momentarily flashing passerbys, kicking one foot back to grab the hem, brusquely folding the front flaps and finally tucking in the edge so that a precarious knot formed in front of their crotches, their legs bare to the world.  A. showed me how to then walk with the lungi as men did, (and as many men do regardless of what they’re wearing) with their arms back and feet outward, taking up a lot of space.

Inspired by her lungi class, I had taken a liking to wearing lungis around the gallery and was quite comfortable in them, finally declaring that I would go out in one to get some spices we needed for dinner that night.  The streets were eerily silent due to the two day all-India strike that was happening, and only a few daring shops were open.  But like any other day, there were heaps of men loitering in groups on the streets.  Though I only had to walk a couple of blocks down one street to get to the shop, I quickly regretted my premature confidence.  In the sweltering heat, I had decided not to bind my breasts and instead try to pass as a boy with a pack of empty cigarettes in my breast pocket and a slight hunch.  Little did I know that for walks of distances greater than the interior of a gallery would require more lungi-wrapping talent than I had acquired in just a few days.  My lungi kept threatening to fall down as I frantically tried to maintain my hunched back, but I ultimately had to choose one or the other. I didn’t have the capacity to be concerned with passing as male, since I was so close to mooning everyone.  Of course then I was self-conscious because not only was I a foreigner wearing a lungi, but a female transgressing strict gender codes.  I got a fair share of laughing, some even dared to call out to me and address me as “sir” hoping to get a rise out of me.

With my cheeks flushed, I nearly turned back, but then because it was a straight street, I’d have had to deal with even more attention.  So I ignored the men and finally arrived at the shop, purchased some red chili powder, ducked into a dark corner behind a building and tied my lungi really tight, hoping it wouldn’t come undone once more.

The walk back was the same, except my heart was racing faster.  I finally reached the gallery and eased my anxiety by laughing with the other artists about my misbehaving lungi.  But deep inside, I felt anger and frustration well up.  Later on in the night, I finally discussed these feelings with the group, expressing my frustrations with the rigidity of gender roles.  Earlier that week, I had told them about the piece on masturbation I had performed while in South America, to which many of the members expressed an interest in showing at Backyard Civilization.  My reaction was one of prejudice, since I said I didn’t feel as comfortable doing that performance in India–a feeling that was further enforced after the lungi incident.

At the moment, I’m trying to put a piece together that addresses my own prejudices while trying not to belittle the reactions I’ve had towards Indian men here.   I’ve received a lot of support from the guys at the gallery, which helps, and I’m looking forward to getting their feedback after I perform it in a couple of weeks.

Last weekend, I went to Bangalore–12 hours away from Kochi–to attend the fifth Bangalore Queer Film Festival.  Not wanting to miss out on all of the large-scaled queer events in India during my stay (as I skipped queer pride in Mumbai last month), I had booked a train ticket to this fast-growing IT hub in Karnataka.  It was Such A Treat to attend the festival because A) I’d never been to an official film festival B) everyone was so fabulously dressed C) queer folks from all over India had flown/driven/taken trains to be there and so I got to meet more than a dozen amazing queer artists and activists.  Some of the films were amazing, others mediocre and then a select few, absolutely detestable.  But a group of us found ourselves discussing the horrendous films with so much passion, that I understood why the committee had chosen to accept them.  As a committee member later told me, their duty was to challenge us and make us shift in our beliefs.

Bangalore, I learned, was quite the hub for queer life in India.  Unlike traditional Kerala where folks with alternative genders and sexualities were harassed–at times to death–Karnataka was a state that seemed to accept outsiders, and its large number of ex-Kerala and Tamil Nadu residents indicated as such.  Thanks to an ex-Kerala, Bangalore-based queer contact, Gee, I had already been connected to a great number of queer artists and activists around India.  Finally meeting him and his three partners in action–Kaveri, Sumathi and Sunil–was truly inspiring, as they were working passionately on issues around slum eviction. They told me about how queer the slum communities were in the ways in which they formed families, how the people they worked with in the slums never slipped up on their preferred gender pronouns, and how inspired they had been by slum residents to think of their queer activism in the context of casteism and classism in India.

Outside of their work with Dalit people on slum eviction problems, they were also working on films that captured FtM (female to male) identified folks and other people with alternative sexualities.  Sumathi, who was trained in classical Indian singing was creating pieces that queered traditional rules for female singers.  Furthermore, they were working with the group LesBiT (Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans women) which unlike many other prominent LGBTQ groups in India, catered towards the non-English speaking queer community, which often tended to be from a lower class background.  They would use theater to tell stories of their genders and sexualities.

A couple days after the film festival, I also met up with the poet/performer, Joshua Muyiwa. He asked me to meet up with him at a restaurant/cafe called “Koshy’s” where I was surprised to see dozens of queer faces I had encountered at the film festival. Joshua told me that it was always like that at Koshy’s, and aside from a minor incident 12 years ago where Koshy’s tried to turn away a hijra customer (which was of course protested), members of the queer community had found the cafe to be a comfortable and welcoming environment.  Joshua and I talked about how the film festival had encouraged many queer Bangalore residents to take up film and because it had been around for five years already, it wasn’t just a film festival, but a place for people to come together and meet and support each other.

To top off my already incredible stay in Bangalore, on my last day, I visited the Alternative Law Forum, where I finally read the brilliantly written judgment made by the New Delhi High Court in 2009 decriminalizing homosexuality.  Here’s a brilliant quotation:

“Section 377 violates constitution not only because it criminalizes acts taken place within a special zone of privacy, but also because it criminalizes individual choices which are central to personal dignity.”

And on the impact of anti-sodomy laws even if they’re seldom enforced was a passage by Harvard professor Ryan Goodman:

“Individuals ultimately don’t try to conform to the law’s directive, but the disapproval communicated through it, nevertheless, substantively affects their sense of self-esteem, personal identity and their relationship to the wider society.  Sodomy laws produce regimes of surveillance that operate in a dispersed manner, and that such laws serve to embed illegality within the identity of homosexuals.”

I learned that the Indian constitution, which was written by Ambedkar and Nehru, is in complete opposition to the law that still remains from British rule.  In line with my naivety on this simple but important fact, I was captivated by the eloquence and openness of the Indian constitution.

Kendra, Age 17, St. Paul, Minnesota

I am dating a girl from North Carolina I met online. She came and visited me on July 4th. It was fun. She introduced me to her family who lives here actually. This surprised me that she introduced me to them because we are both Hmong.

This is my second time dating a Hmong girl. I mean, the first time I dated a Hmong, I didn’t think it was right because I felt like since being Hmong, we all are related, so I thought it felt weird at first. But love is love.

I came out to my friends as a lesbian between seventh and eighth grade year. Now my brothers and sisters know but my parents do not know. My dad doesn’t accept it because the Hmong culture doesn’t really accept the fact that two women or two men would get married and not have kids from their own blood. That’s the traditional way.

I have nine brothers and three sisters. I’m the youngest. My oldest sister is 41. It was really nice growing up with such a big family. We used to live in Forest Lake, and we were really known because were were one of the biggest Asian families that lived there. I didn’t like when people called us gooks and chinks. It was really hard on our family. But we just stayed strong as a family to get through it.

My grandma was like a mom to us and she took care of us all the time. My grandma always wanted us to be educated. I want to make my grandma happy and succeed, and graduate from college with a major that can get me a good job. I want to major in architecture.

When my grandma passed away it was a big tragedy for us to actually accept that she is gone. Then my siblings moved, because they had their own lives and family to take care of, and we kind of parted because of our parent’s divorce when I was in sixth grade.

At that age I didn’t have a house key and when I would come back from school and I’d be locked out of my house, even in the winter. Since my parents’ split, it was hard to manage house bills, we were living in a house without heat or water at times. Eventually someone close to us notified the authorities of this living situation.

The next day at school I got called down to the office. The cops were waiting for me. I was scared. I didn’t know what was going on. My counselor was terrified because he didn’t know what was going on either.

They were taking my brother and I to foster care. I was there for awhile. But it felt like a year. The foster mother didn’t let my brother and I talk at all. She didn’t let us talk to anybody or let us talk to each other. I would sit there in the bed and cry because I felt like, at that age, nobody should go through something like that.

And then my sister talked to the social workers, and the social workers said if my dad can pay for bills, and he can show that he can take care of us, then he can take us back. So he did that, and then when he got us back he went back to how he used to be.

I was on and off from my dad to my brother’s, back to my dad’s, then back to my brother’s, then to my aunt’s, and then to my dad again. I didn’t like it because I always had to start over with school, and having to be that new kid.

My dad got remarried and then we came and lived with my stepmom. I did live with my dad and my stepfamily for a while. My dad couldn’t pay for both houses so he decided to move to St. Paul because it’s closer to his job. At first I wasn’t happy to move to St. Paul because I didn’t agree with his marriage with my stepmom.

It was difficult to live with them. Now I am living with my other brother, sister and cousin.

In the end, I took these experiences and made myself stronger. Through spoken word and rap, and performing for others, I’ve found a way to deal with these things, and get them out of my system. A lot of younger kids think that not that many kids have divorced parents or have gone through that experience of not having parents around. I want them to know they’re not the only ones out there.

As told to Diana Scholl.
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in St. Paul, MN, 2012
To tell your story, email hello@wearetheyouth.org

This is my second time dating a Hmong girl. I mean, the first time I dated a Hmong, I didn’t think it was right because I felt like since being Hmong, we all are related, so I thought it felt weird at first. But love is love.

I came out to my friends as a lesbian between seventh and eighth grade year. Now my brothers and sisters know but my parents do not know. My dad doesn’t accept it because the Hmong culture doesn’t really accept the fact that two women or two men would get married and not have kids from their own blood. That’s the traditional way.

I have nine brothers and three sisters. I’m the youngest. My oldest sister is 41. It was really nice growing up with such a big family. We used to live in Forest Lake, and we were really known because were were one of the biggest Asian families that lived there. I didn’t like when people called us gooks and chinks. It was really hard on our family. But we just stayed strong as a family to get through it.

My grandma was like a mom to us and she took care of us all the time. My grandma always wanted us to be educated. I want to make my grandma happy and succeed, and graduate from college with a major that can get me a good job. I want to major in architecture.

When my grandma passed away it was a big tragedy for us to actually accept that she is gone. Then my siblings moved, because they had their own lives and family to take care of, and we kind of parted because of our parent’s divorce when I was in sixth grade.

At that age I didn’t have a house key and when I would come back from school and I’d be locked out of my house, even in the winter. Since my parents’ split, it was hard to manage house bills, we were living in a house without heat or water at times. Eventually someone close to us notified the authorities of this living situation.

The next day at school I got called down to the office. The cops were waiting for me. I was scared. I didn’t know what was going on. My counselor was terrified because he didn’t know what was going on either.

They were taking my brother and I to foster care. I was there for awhile. But it felt like a year. The foster mother didn’t let my brother and I talk at all. She didn’t let us talk to anybody or let us talk to each other. I would sit there in the bed and cry because I felt like, at that age, nobody should go through something like that.

And then my sister talked to the social workers, and the social workers said if my dad can pay for bills, and he can show that he can take care of us, then he can take us back. So he did that, and then when he got us back he went back to how he used to be.

I was on and off from my dad to my brother’s, back to my dad’s, then back to my brother’s, then to my aunt’s, and then to my dad again. I didn’t like it because I always had to start over with school, and having to be that new kid.

My dad got remarried and then we came and lived with my stepmom. I did live with my dad and my stepfamily for a while. My dad couldn’t pay for both houses so he decided to move to St. Paul because it’s closer to his job. At first I wasn’t happy to move to St. Paul because I didn’t agree with his marriage with my stepmom.

It was difficult to live with them. Now I am living with my other brother, sister and cousin.

In the end, I took these experiences and made myself stronger. Through spoken word and rap, and performing for others, I’ve found a way to deal with these things, and get them out of my system. A lot of younger kids think that not that many kids have divorced parents or have gone through that experience of not having parents around. I want them to know they’re not the only ones out there.

As told to Diana Scholl.
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in St. Paul, MN, 2012
To tell your story, email hello@wearetheyouth.org

Kali, Age 19, Minneapolis, Minnesota

The most exciting part about associating as bisexual is that you don’t have to choose who to love. If you meet this wonderful woman and you’re  straight, it’s like “Well I’m straight, what am I gonna do?“ I don’t believe that love exists based on gender or gender roles. I already have the ability to love anyone so it’s kind of just what happens, happens. And I go with it.

The reason I associate as bisexual is not that I can’t decide. But I feel weird when I say I’m bisexual because from both sides, both the gay and straight, whatever that is, people don’t take bisexual people as seriously as they do one or the other. I think it’s because of the stereotype of young, naive girls attempting to get the wrong kind of attention from guys with that, oh let’s get drunk and kiss, I’m bicurious. It’s hard to be associated with that image when I open up and tell people about my sexuality.

I talk to my mom about almost everything so in 7th grade I was just like,  “Mom I’m pretty sure I’m bisexual,” And she did what most people do  when they hear bisexual. She was like, “Oh that’s a phase. You’ll get over it and you’ll decide which one you really want.” And I was like, “Okay, probably not.” But we’ll see. She promised her support either way.

I didn’t tell my dad at first. But I had him drive me to a date once with a girl because I didn’t have my license yet and I was like 15 or 16 years old. On the way to  Starbucks, I was like, “Dad just so you know, this is kind of a date.”  And he was like, “Okay.” It was kind of cool, he was pretty open about it.

When it comes to relationships and connecting with people in a different,  more intimate way, girls are just harder to figure out. I don’t know what they’re thinking, I’m constantly over thinking what they’re thinking. With guys I know what they’re thinking. It’s not even just that they want sex, but I know the basic tendencies of what guys think  about. I hang out with dudes more, so maybe that’s why. A good amount of my  friends growing up were girls, but I could never have that best friend until high school. I feel like I turned all my best friends bi, just by being around them. I mean that sounds weird, they were probably born that way. Regardless, all of us are able to be so close because we can understand each other, we can relate to each other on another level because each of us has that ability to love anyone.

At Minneapolis College of Art and Design I have a good percent of guy and girl friends, Everyone is so similar, just artistically and just being open-minded with things.

I’ve always been an artist. My other career pathway in tenth grade was possibly majoring in history which is the stupidest; even more worthless than an art degree. Not even art history but like, French history. In fourth grade I wanted to join the army. I got over that  pretty quickly. My uncle was in Iraq and my cousins have been in Iraq  and cousins have been in the Air Force, like flying planes and stuff which is pretty sweet.

But my uncle used to have me come to his house and he’d do Uncle Johnny’s Boot Camp where  I’d have to wear his helmet and his big vest thing and do army crawling around the house. He’d be like, “No that’s not right” and “You need to  do it this way.” He and my parents made me eat the  little meals you get that are in a little airtight brown plastic bag, like crackers and peanut butter that are disgusting. He was trying to not discourage me, but show me a little more about what it is. When he came back from Iraq and showed me pictures from the medical tents that he worked in, I never again wanted to go that path.

I think I was destined to go to art school. And Minneapolis was the one choice for me. I have older half-brothers and sisters who live here, and I see them all the time. I’ve always wanted to be close to them, but I never really had the chance until now. From what I understand, life used to be pretty tough up here, but now that things are different they love having me around, to be able to share with me a part of my family I’ve been missing out on for years. And I love having them around. Getting to know my family as people instead of shadows I happen to somewhat be related to is awesome.

As told to Diana Scholl.
Photo by Laurel Golio, taken in Minneapolis, MN, 2012
To tell your story, email hello@wearetheyouth.org