Oct 29, 2004  |  By: Yusef Najafi  | COMMENTS     

Gay activist Larry Chang found out this month that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has granted him political asylum based on persecution he faced in Jamaica due to his sexual orientation.

It marks a major step for Chang, one of Jamaica’s most outspoken gay civil rights advocates. The 55-year-old D.C. resident can now apply to live in the United States permanently, and has the right to work and freely travel outside of this country.

Chang, who works in retail at Utrecht Arts Supplies in Washington, is now preparing to apply for a permanent visa, which also is known as a green card. This will allow him to become a permanent U.S. resident and permit him to own property. It also gives him the opportunity to apply for U.S. citizenship after five years.

“I’ve crossed the first hurdle,” he says. “Sometimes I have to pinch myself, and ask ‘Did it really happen?’”

The co-founder of the Gay Freedom Movement, Jamaica’s first gay rights organization, applied for asylum to escape the danger he says he faced while living in a country notorious for its outspoken opposition to homosexuality.

Chang also was a part of Jamaica’s small Asian-Jamaican population, which began to grow in the mid 1800s. At the time, Jamaica was under British rule, which ended in 1962, and Chinese civilians and residents of East India began immigrating to that country to do plantation work that formerly had been done by slaves.

Chang’s parents migrated to Jamaica from China in the ’30s. Life for them in Jamaica was not always easy.

“I was a marked person,” he says. “Being gay and Asian in a predominantly black society makes you an easy target.”

Four years ago, Chang moved to the United States and began seeking political asylum here in 2001.

His attorney, Carolina Colin-Antonini, says his three-year wait was solely due to an asylum system being “overloaded, overburdened and understaffed.”

“Larry Chang is exactly what the asylum laws are set up to protect,” she says. “He was an advocate and leader of gay rights, and he could not count on Jamaican police for protection.”

While growing up in Jamaica, Chang visited this country frequently and studied fine arts at the California College of Arts and Crafts, in Oakland, Calif.

He came out in 1977, upon co-founding Jamaica’s Gay Freedom Movement. Since then, he says the homophobia in Jamaica has gotten worse, partly due to growing acceptance and the visibility of gays in Western culture.

A part of that backlash has influenced the content of some of the music made in Jamaica. A form of reggae known as “dance hall,” is often filled with anti-gay lyrics that suggest violence and intolerance toward gays and lesbians.

“It’s almost like a rite of passage for some dance hall artists to cut a song or record that calls for violence against gay men and lesbians,” says Chang, who has been speaking out online against performers who use anti-lyrics.

In response to such lyrics by popular reggae singer Beenie Man, Chang has been involved in the “Stop Murder Music” effort. The international campaign originated in Jamaica and has now spread to Europe and the United States. It is dedicated to organizing protests against upcoming concerts by Beenie Man and other anti-gay performers, by sharing information on personal Web sites.

“I’ve done it so that people will know what they are dancing to,” he says.

Chang says he kept a low profile as a gay rights advocate, while waiting for his asylum to be approved, but now wants to raise awareness about the persecution that gay Jamaicans continue to face.