College Student Finds His Queer Voice Studying Abroad in Rome. “It’s Been Incredibly Liberating.” [Video]

[Music]

hey i’m paulo lee and i am from glendora

new jersey i’ve always been a musician

music is in my family i’ve been a

singer-songwriter i’ve learned how to

play piano but when i was in college i

was kind of met with this decision of

like being more practical so i did

nursing for a while um didn’t fail out

or anything i was really good but i just

decided to transition into studying

media and communications i was given the

opportunity to take a course in queer

representation it was specifically

called lgbtq representation in media

being in this course and kind of being

presented with queer representation in

queer culture in radio and film and tv

and in zines i was like enamored with

what i was learning and so it came to

this point um later on in the semester

where i just felt like everything that i

was learning

it kind of had a disconnect within

myself of i didn’t see myself

capable or really worthy of like

representing myself or finding where i

fit in this kind of

collection of queer artistry it was

probably towards the end of the semester

maybe like may of 2019 my professor dr

adrian shaw was doing a project on queer

history and gaming and virtual spaces

i’ve read this catalog and i was so

enamored with the idea of like agency

and queer and anonymity and like how

people were finding these spaces

regardless of like their physical or

geographical location and so when we

were talking at the end of the class my

professor made the joke of like if

anybody makes it to

berlin germany which is where they were

having an exhibition of this catalog um

make sure you send me a picture of like

when you’re there the exhibition was

being held at the shules museum which

was the oldest like queer history museum

in berlin germany and so i was kind of

like uh let me look into this and so i

looked into it and i decided to study

abroad at temple rome because this was

the kind of closest option in europe to

being near berlin i would say maybe like

july of 2019

we were getting ready to go and i was

brought up with the first challenge in

my like decision to study abroad with

housing i knew that i

wanted to stay near campus because it

was a five-month study abroad trip but i

was a little bit hesitant of staying in

a dorm because it was predominantly

straight cis men in the end of july

august getting ready to study abroad we

were actually supposed to be like all

joining a facebook group message and i

just saw everybody talking about where

they’re gonna stay who they’re rooming

with

so excited like all of this great um

energy i saw one post who

her name was dorianna and she said like

hey i’m looking to do independent

housing because the

like student dorms aren’t the most

gender diverse or gender inclusive so i

sent her a direct message and i was like

hey um

i’m queer and my mom is boriqua and like

i want to do independent housing

what’s good

and it was so funny because immediately

she responded and was like hey i’m also

boricua i’m also an artist and i’m queer

identifying and we should room together

so we study abroad we get to rome we

create um truly a great partnership a

love a safe and brave space in our

apartment i

remember one night we were like hey like

we want to do something queer we went

out on one saturday night to it was

called coming out and this bar was

located basically like behind the

coliseum you can see it from the street

in the front of the bar

and yeah we went it was a great time

we’re drinking everybody’s smoking in

the street that same night we were

leaving the bar going doing our thing

and i was wearing these huge like huge

heels i had this long peak hood on like

i was dressed ready to go and i was

clacking down the street feeling myself

and i remember i walked past these two

guys that were just smoking a cigarette

um and when i walked past them and i

looked they were both like okay bello

after the fact i found out that like

saying quebec to another man is kind of

more of a slur or derogatory way of um

you know kind of just like jabbing at

their femininity even in school we were

still faced with this level of

displacement and so we were both taking

a course in international communications

and i remember vividly my professor one

time was like oh i want to introduce you

to our political science professor i

think you would really enjoy their work

when i got there it immediately came to

this point of my professor being like oh

you need to meet paulo because of his

nails and his fashion and his hair and

his makeup and all these things that he

does

but not for the work that i was doing or

for my commitment to the class or the

projects that we were working on i had

to come to grips with the fact that you

know i came here to really free myself

from that experience that i had before i

left and i’m still faced with that in

school

in the city at the gay bars still faced

with that internally as well so as part

of the study abroad experience we were

asked to

represent ourselves and our identities

through blog posts we

were ambassadors we were writing about

our experiences

and really reflecting on how our

identities influence our time in rome

but at the same time how

um collectively our experiences were

shared right i remember the first blog

post that i wrote was about my name my

name is paulo but people in italy were

calling me paolo so it was this whole

understanding for myself to reflect on

why

i really felt so discouraged because the

way that people perceived me was not the

way that i wanted to express or

represent myself

and so yes i was writing about my name

but we also wrote other blog posts about

food and culture being in rome right

this understanding of gender

of language of everything that i was

writing

my queerness was intertwined with it

like in everything that i was doing and

by the end of this blog storytelling

project i had a whole repertoire of my

own writing and also just video and film

as well and so i think that when i

understood that that i had created my

own representation and found my voice

and

navigated this space from my own terms

it was this full circle moment of i

completed you know

my intention from going to rome in the

first place so when i got back i was in

my junior year now and

i was still studying media and

production

but we had this course or this kind of

programming where you had to really pick

your track

and i knew in that moment that it had to

be music because

studying how queer representation in

music was really not even explored

it made me understand that my purpose

was to

you know add to that so i immediately

started to

write music i wrote my first song

recorded my first song performed it and

since then it’s kind of just

completely altered the trajectory of my

life as an artist i continue to write

music i’m working on producing my first

ep and everything that i produce now is

coming from this queer perspective right

of

who i am and how i want to express

myself is

inextricably like infused in everything

that i do and everything that i want to

be and so i feel confident in the work

that i’m doing because it’s continuously

informed by yes my queer experiences but

at the same time of my identity and how

it relates to the culture around me so i

think that i’m really understanding now

how

my creative expression my representation

my visibility is

through my own means it’s through my own

agency and has been incredibly

liberating

[Music]

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