"Hannah Montana" was one of my favorite childhood shows because seeing a character live dual identities was very intriguing. At school, Miley was unpopular and only had to worry about boys, but as Hannah she was one of the most famous teen idols in America. Each time she was one of these identities, she couldn’t let the other one show.
As a child, I envisioned what it would be like to be Hannah Montana. Living with two identities seemed kind of cool because if you didn’t like one, you could just be the other. However, when I moved to Chicago a year and a half ago, I found myself in a similar situation of struggling to find balance between my Hmong identity and gay identity.
Whenever I tell people that I am Hmong, they ask, “Where’s that? Like, Mongolia?” I will then proceed with, “Have you seen "Gran Torino" with Clint Eastwood?” If they say yes, I will leave it at that. If they say no, I will still leave it at that. The Hmong are hill tribe people from the mountains of Laos, originally from China (but we’re not Chinese). After helping the United States fight in the Vietnam War, we moved to Thailand and America to escape persecution from the Lao government. I am proud of the history I come from because whenever I’m feeling down, I remind myself of how my parents spent days and nights escaping the communist soldiers through the jungles of Laos just to come to America.
At a young age, my parents instilled strong cultural values in my brothers and I. They taught us to take pride in being Hmong, preserving our language, living with integrity and strong values and showing respect for authority figures (I was very bad at this). However, there are also aspects of the Hmong culture that I am not proud of. It is a very patriarchal society where women are devalued and hyper-masculinity is praised. In addition, anything about sex is a taboo and being queer is a scandal.
As a Hmong child, you must not bring shame to your family name or your entire family will lose face in the Hmong community. Growing up with parents who were well-respected and well known in the Hmong community, I felt an immense amount of pressure to never let them down. In my teenage years when I started coming to terms with the fact that I was gay, I knew I couldn’t come out because this would tarnish my family’s name. Family is the most important thing in the Hmong culture, and every family is connected like a spider’s web. Harboring this secret only fed resentment and anger toward my parents, but especially my Hmong culture. I can’t be gay because I can only be Hmong, I would tell myself.
Being Hmong had always been the very core of my being. I was a boy, an actor, and artist, a musician, but at the end of the day none of those identities mattered more than my Hmong identity. All the Hmong values my parents taught me seemed like normative ideals that I never questioned, just like how one doesn’t question breathing. When I moved to Chicago, everything I ever knew about my identity changed and I would question my culture more than ever.
I was in a brand new city where no one knew my name. Telling others I was gay wasn’t a big deal, and I could walk down the street holding hands with another man and not have to worry. I didn't feel the pressure to live in fear of bringing shame to my family. Living alone in Chicago was, and is, the best time of my life because for the very first time I am able to truly experience what it feels like to just be me. Many people move to a big city and live in seriality, whereas I met so many other queer people like me who exposed me to new ideologies that I never even fathomed before. As of now, I have a strong sense of self and have never felt more comfortable in my own skin.
As my sense of self strengthened, my Hmong identity was becoming lost and I found myself in a constant battle between figuring out who I was and what values I wanted to live by. Sense of self and identity are not the same thing. Sense of self is the perception of oneself, whereas identity is the fact of being. You may not always know who you are, but you’ll always know who you think you are. While living in Chicago and solidifying my gay identity, I felt like I was betraying my Hmong side.
I wanted to live a life of sexual freedom and positivity, be as queer as I can be and destruct heteronormative and masculine ideals. At the same time, I felt like doing so would mean I had to turn my back on my Hmong culture and abandon the ideals I was raised by. Was it possible to have more than one identity? Everyday felt like a tug-of-war game, where I was Jekyll by day and Hyde by night.
My parents would call me and I wouldn’t pick up because I didn’t want any association with home or the Hmong culture. Going back home meant going back in the closet because none of my relatives knew I was gay. Why would I want to be part of a culture that doesn't accept me for who I am? My time away from home only fed to my inner resentment toward the Hmong culture.
A couple of months ago, I went home for the first time in five months. It was a six-week winter break, and the idea of being back home was torturous. I returned to Wisconsin with a strong sense of self but still battling with my dual identities. The six weeks with my family went better than I had initially thought, and the week before I left for Chicago, my mom decided to call my relatives over so that I could come out to them. When I told my friends about this ordeal, they were confused because it wasn’t my mom’s place to make me come out.
The idea of having to formally come out to all my relatives didn’t sit well with me, but I realized that rather than my relatives hearing about me being gay and perceiving it as a scandal or taboo, it would make more sense for them to hear it directly from me. Everyone arrived at our house for dinner, and my dad started off by thanking my family for taking time to come to this important meeting. His voice trembled, and he looked over at me. I stared at all of my relatives sitting in front of me with worried looks on their faces, and then I told them I was gay. I had no idea what to expect because my aunts and uncles came from a different generation, and I wasn’t sure if they’d understand or not. However, every single one of them took it well and told me how proud they were that I was able to come out. I don’t think it came as much of a surprise to some because as a child I was obsessed with Hilary Duff and Barbies.
Coming out to my relatives was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, but it taught me a very valuable lesson. All this time, I was angry at my culture for not accepting people like me. But instead of being angry, I should create an environment for me to feel accepted and comfortable among my people. Just like how I was able to cultivate my gay identity in Chicago, I have to cultivate my gay Hmong identity back home. I can’t change my entire culture’s views in one night, but maybe dropping a pebble to start a ripple is all I can do. Even though not all of my relatives understood what being gay was, words can’t describe how thankful I am that they were still able to accept me as part of their family. This showed me that despite differences in generations and values, people will eventually come around, which gives me hope for the Hmong culture.
Identity is a never-ending creative process that changes as we go through different life experiences. Right now, I strongly identify as a queer Hmong male, but in ten years I might identify as a father and a husband. Our sense of self also changes with our identity, but it is important to note that both are not synonymous. There is no single identity that is the core essence of my being. I am just Phillipe, and the values I live by come from the different identities I’ve gone through. I can’t just be Hmong because I am also gay, and I can’t just be gay because I am also Hmong. Humans are dynamic and complex beings with multiple identities intertwined and worked together, bringing meaning to our sense of self.
In the "Hannah Montana Movie," Hannah gets up in front of her entire small town and takes her blonde wig off, revealing her true identity. It is at this point in the movie when she realizes she can harmoniously live as Miley and Hannah.
This is exactly how I feel at this point in my life, and I guess you could say I’ve got the best of both worlds. It is important to note, however, that in no way am I completely satisfied with my identity. I still question my culture and struggle to find balance, but the resentment I once had for being Hmong has now been diminished.
One night at dinner when I was telling my friend Ali about my struggle with being Hmong and gay, she said to me, “You choose the pieces of your different identities that align the most to the values you want to live by, and you use those pieces to create who you are. You don’t have to be just gay, or just Hmong. Just be Phillipe.”