I've been behind in updating. The weekend before last weekend, I went with my good friend, his boyfriend, and another friend to the Pride Parade in New York. I had briefly mentioned the pride parade in New Orleans in my last post. The Parade in New York blew that one out of the water, and is probably one of the largest parades I have ever seen. We didn't even finish watching it because it was so long. It began around noon, and even at 5:30 there were still floats passing through.
Pride Day in New York (or anywhere for that matter) is not just for the LGBTQ community, rather it is for everyone who supports equal rights regardless of sexual orientation, or more broadly, everyone who likes parades and glitter. The parade started off with a motocycle gang (mostly women), and then had everything from bollywood dancing to men in high heels decked in feathers. It was a lot more corporate than I thought it would be. Since there is such a large LGBTQ community in NY, I suppose every politician needs to show their support if they want to get elected. The Mayor, the Senator, and other candidates hoping for election had contingents in the parade. Meanwhile, Diet Coke, Delta, Khiel's, and other brands, including tourist floats promoting travel to the United Kingdom and Fort Lauderdale, gave out samples and played music.
What I thought was most interesting were the divisions of floats from different cultural backgrounds. There was a pan-Asian group, Indonesian group, Brazilian group, African group, Black American group, and more. We ended up not staying for the entire duration because we were hungry. My friends actually had arrived at 11 am to ensure they got a good spot, and I was fortunate enough to join later.
We went to Cafe Asean, which my Indonesian friend deemed was the best South East Asian food he had outside of South East Asia.
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| A lot of support expressed from family and friends |
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| The Asian Group |
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