About 20 listeners gathered last night in the Holmes Student Center to take part in a discussion about sexual orientation and race issues.

Alice Y. Hom, director of the Intercultural Community Center at Occidental College in California and co-editor of “Q & A: Queer in Asian America,” led the discussion.

Hom said the discussion is important because she can promote understanding while serving as a sort of role model at the same time.

Issues covered were the intersection of multiple identities, intersections of oppressions and coalition building.

Hom supported much of her discussion with personal stories. The subject of multiple identities was supported with a story about a time when Hom was in the women’s washroom and a woman tried to tell her she was in the wrong bathroom.

Hom also said she feels oppression from the Asian-American community, as well as the lesbian community.

“I don’t think I look queer,” she said. “But my friends say, ‘You look queer.”

Hom also stressed that people need to “understand that oppressions cannot be stacked up.” This means that people cannot dwell on whether or not they are more oppressed then the next person, because this thought process will not get results.

People also need to recognize their “privileges,” however, and ask what power that privilege brings to them and how they can positively use that power, she said.

She also discussed the issue of identity politics, and said that people have the responsibility to educate themselves and not expect others to teach them about their cultures.

Amy McShane, a freshman business major, said discussions like Hom’s are beneficial, but heterosexual people may be confused by the different terminology used for homosexual persons.

She added that she agrees with Hom in the sense that people need to educate themselves, but she wonders if people actually will do this.

“Most people don’t care and don’t want to learn,” she said. “How are we going to force them?”

Tara Kacmarcik, an audience member and psychologist with the Student Counseling and Development Center, agreed.

“I’d love to see more of these things,” she said. “But I think students don’t attend many of them, I don’t know why.”

Hom said she’s hopeful.

“I am optimistic,” she said. “I’m optimistic because that’s my nature; I’m optimistic because that’s my work, I see my students that I work with change over time.”