As Thanksgiving approaches and people gather with their families for the holiday, the Gay Straight Alliance at UH-West Oahu aims to remind people that family can come in many forms by hosting photo exhibition Hawaii Family Portraits <\/I>at its library through Nov. 27.<\/p>\nngg_shortcode_0_placeholder\n
The show features work from local photographer Mike Ang and takes a look inside the lives of families with gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members. It’s comprised of four categories – GLBT parents, GLBT couples, parents with GLBT children and extended ohana. Each portrait is accompanied by a story about the family – how they met their partners, struggles to gain acceptance or child custody issues.<\/p>\n
Hawaii Family Portraits <\/I>has toured the state, making appearances at Oahu colleges and coffee shops, as well as various venues on the outer islands.<\/p>\n
The opening of the exhibit at UH-WO marks the achievement of a longtime goal for the school’s GSA and its faculty adviser Jeanne Marie Iorio.<\/p>\n
“We have been talking about it for the past year and a half when we were out at Pearl City,” explained UH-WO GSA president Clinton Nishida, a senior studying humanities with a concentration in English.<\/p>\n
“But the campus was so small that there wasn’t really a place to house the exhibit. When we got to the new campus, we were like, ‘Hey we can do it now!’ ”<\/p>\n
The exhibit opened last week Tuesday with a reception featuring presentations by local nonprofits, including Equality Hawaii Foundation, the organization that commissioned the artwork.<\/p>\n
Equality Hawaii Foundation is dedicated to securing equality for lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-gender individuals and their families in Hawaii through education and discussion.<\/p>\n
“We thought it was very important to tell the stories of our families,” said EHF executive director Donald Bentz. “Our families are just like all of the other families in Hawaii – we go through the same triumphs and joys, trials and tribulations that any other family does.<\/p>\n
“We are just hoping to create some internal dialogue with people who may be a little uncomfortable with the concept of a family that has LGBT (members),” Bentz said of Hawaii Family Portraits<\/I>.<\/p>\n
Through hosting the exhibit, GSA also hopes to spark conversations about equality.<\/p>\n
While GSA has been on the UH-WO campus for years, its activity waned in recent times until Nishida and a group of his friends and other students took over last year looking to give the alliance a resurgence. The group is now comprised of nearly 40 students.<\/p>\n
“We felt that we had LGBT students on campus, but that there wasn’t a lot of support for them,” Nishida said.<\/p>\n
“We have been trying to really make a presence on our campus,” Nishida said of GSA. “We thought that by bringing in this exhibit, we could really continue that dialogue on equality, on acceptance.”<\/p>\n
“We are just delighted that (the exhibit) is going to be (at UH-WO),” Bentz said, “and we are thrilled that it is part of an opening of the new campus.<\/p>\n
“One of our goals – and I think it kind of worked out perfectly because it is right around the time of Thanksgiving – is helping to redefine what ohana means,” Bentz explained.<\/p>\n
“Everybody thinks that ohana is parents and children and your extended family, but it could mean anything – even just a group or collection of people. And I think this exhibit kind of shows that.”<\/p>\n
Hawaii Family Portraits <\/I>runs through Nov. 27 and is free and open to the general public during normal library hours: Monday-Thursday, 7:30 a.m. to 7 p.m.; Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. The library will be closed Nov. 22 and 23.<\/p>\n