Image Description: 15 concentrating people are sitting around 3 tables, focused on their laptops.

Live Blogging from the 2nd Digital Portal Working Day

March 6, 2016 — By sammie

Our second Dragon Fruit Project Digital Portal Working day was held on March 6th! 16 volunteers joined us to transcribe, edit, code, and write narratives, all in preparation for the launch of our Dragon Fruit Project website! Throughout the day, we took photos to document the process. Meta. Check out our live photo-blog below!

9:50am — Getting set-up and ready for everyone to join us on this beautiful morning!

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Image Description: A view from the window of our event. San Francisco’s Chinatown and the Bay Bridge can be seen.

During the check-in, volunteers said that they came today to explore oral histories, to be in community with other queer and trans API people, and to learn more about the Dragon Fruit Project.

10:57am — MLin is leading us through a training on how to write narratives for the website.

 

 

11:40am — The work day is in full swing! Everyone is concentrating hard on their projects.

PortalWorkDay
Image Description: 15 concentrating people are sitting around 3 tables, focused on their laptops.

1:00pm — After lunch, it’s time to get back to work! But first, Avery leads us in a team energizer.

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1:25pm — It is time to begin our second round of work. At this point, people are deep into their interviews. Crystal, a student from USF, shares her experience transcribing an interview: 

IMG_1600“It was interesting to see, not only how the stories resonated with me personally, but also how they resonated with the people at my table group. They all had something they could connect with, whether it was the participant’s geographic location, their sexual orientation, or their experience within communities. I think, it also made me realize how isolated we can become, even within unique spaces. The person that I was listening to is a Korean-American who identified as bi, and who ended up marrying a man. There was this idea that people wanted to pigeon-hole her, and see her just as lesbian. Her friends mostly knew her as this woman who was dating women, and they felt like it was a betrayal. For me, it made me reflect on the relevancy, or the irrelevancy, of sexual orientation when you’re dating someone. Within the LGBT community we have to create spaces and dialogues, within each letter of LGBT, and be able to be open to that.”

1:45pm — Fei is working at the art table, illustrating quotes from the Dragon Fruit Project. This piece reads “Truth is Liberation”

Image Description: A person with short hair and a white sweatshirt is drawing an image with the words "Truth is Liberation"
Image Description: A person with short hair and a white sweatshirt is drawing an image with the words “Truth is Liberation”

2:03pm — As we approach the last thirty minutes of work, people are wrapping up their transcriptions and narratives. Rachael, a new volunteer, reflects on her first experience with the project: 

IMG_1603“For me, it’s been good because I’ve always been searching for other people that have had similar experiences to me. I think it’s more difficult to find queer API stories normally, so it’s nice to find a place that’s actually dedicated to both of those things. Hearing intergenerational stories is something that I love. Even if I don’t get to meet them, just hearing the stories of these people in my heard, considering them as queer PI mentors–that’s cool. Like I said, I’m from Hawaii, and so it’s funny that I got paired with the story of a couple from Hawaii. I didn’t even know that Hawaii had an open scene, so just having verbal confirmation that there was a thriving gay community… it just makes me want to find out even more.”

2:57pm — After reflecting on today’s experience, we all gathered for one last group selfie.