The "We Are The Youth" photojournalism project

 

Meet Marina, a senior at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and daughter of a Mexican father and a Southern white woman.  She also identifies as queer and is one of the many young people profiled in a new photojournalism project by photographer Laurel Golio and journalist Diana Scholl called "We Are The Youth".

Through the project, Golio and Scholl hope to chronicle the individual stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth in the United States and capture the diversity and uniqueness of the LGBT youth population.

Here is an excerpt from Marina's profile:

I identify as queer. Depending on who I’m talking to, I’ll identify as bisexual, but I think the word bisexual, to me, sort of means two genders, which isn’t necessarily how I see things. I understand two genders exists in society, but they aren’t inherent or necessary. But I go by female pronouns. More or less, I identify as female. That’s how I was raised to identify and how people view me. I’m a linguistics major, so I’ve thought a lot about these terms.

Being queer affects many aspects of my life beyond just sexual orientation. I work at the Center for LGBT Life, and the queer community here is very supportive. Other queer students on campus ended up being a pre-made social circle for me. Through the Office of LGBT Life, I've met so many people that I've really connected with. Almost all of my close friends are queer. Emory is my first experience with any queer community. I didn’t really have that in high school.

The project is still in its infancy and 2011 will bring the launch of a project-specific website.  But I wanted to highlight
it now because I just love the idea behind the project, particularly as it lets young queer youth speak for themselves through images and words.  One of the other current profiles is that of Derrick Martin, who famously challenged his high school to let him take his then-boyfriend Richard to the prom last year.

You can read his take on the media whirlwind that his bravery elicited as well as find out what happened after his parents thew him out of his home here.

It's definitely worth your time to go to the home page and work back from there.  You will meet quite an array of amazing individuals.

RELATED:

• About "We Are The Youth"
• "We Are The Youth" on Twitter
• "We Are The Youth" on YouTube
• "We Are The Youth" on Facebook

NOTE: The photo of Marina I've used for this post has been modified from the original by photographer Laurel Golio and used by permission.

Christmas Party 2010

Like previous year and year before, we had a Christmas Party on boxing day this year, which is on 26/12/2010.

This year, we thought of planning a simple one, no BBQ but just get "lok lok" van and roast pork. I know some of my friends are looking forwards to the BBQ things, not to make them disappoint, on the very last minute we decide to have BBQ.

this is the "lok lok" van, we can have the whole van ourselves! hahahhaha

the food on the "lok lok" van......century eggs - my favorite. Too bad by the time when i had my meal, it almost finish, left only one small piece.

Beside than the "lok lok" and BBQ ribs, very last minute we boil some pasta, just in case our guest not enough food. We cook two type of pasta, this time other than our usual Bolognese sauce, my brother in law want me to try to cook Carbonara sauce. My first try, roughly know what is the ingredient, but still i called my sifu to ask for her recipe. After noted down, i start my experiment! LOL

Look! My first Carbonara Sauce with bacon and button mushroom. Not bad on my first trial, everyone said YUMMY!! *Beaming and do happy dance*

coleslaw by your truly....

roast pork....

BBQ ribs...

chef for the night.....

pork satay and ribs.....

mixed platter.....

Barb and Ashley....

This year i didn't invite a lot of my friends, since we are just do a small one, and most guest we invited are our relatives and close friends. Too bad, this year, Elaine miss out this party, she got an important dinner need to attend, and my good friend Vivian, she had food poisoning, that make her miss out this party also. So this year i only got Barb and my another good ol' friend, Penny, we used to worked in a hotel together many many years ago. I am glad that, we manage to keep in touch and keep this friendship.

Penny and her hubby and her prince.

All the kids and everyone can't wait for the most excitement moment, which is gift exchange. We told the guest that we invited, those would like to join us for the gift exchange fun, please bring a small gift.

gifts under the christmas tree, too bad, this is not for kids, but for adult gift exchange. LOL
Kids gift were way too big and too many to put it under the tree...

three born on the same day same year baby....

another picture of them....

Ok, i didn't take the picture the moment we adults gift exchange, too havoc and noisy!! Much noisier than the kids!

kids at one corner enjoy their gifts open moment....you can see most kids got Nerf guns as pressie this year, including my two boys.


i got this beautiful apron from Penny. Want me to be in the kitchen more? hahahhahahha


Pretty Ashley give me a Laura Ashley note book and Barb give me a mug, remind me to drink more water daily.

Thanks ladies for the lovely gifts. I heart them very much.

Party end about 10.30pm, since the next day is a working day. I took a day off the next day, because i got some activities with my boys. Want to know what we do the next day, please come back and check.