Joël Barraquiel Tan, an openly queer Filipino writer, held a reading during the Living Writers Series this past Thursday. Tan discussed his writing, his current activism, his “Filipino-ness”, and what it is he hopes to see from future generations.

UC Santa Cruz’s quarterly “Living Writers” lecture series kicked off on Jan. 13, aiming to tackle potential imbalances in history due to a previous male monopoly over the field. The lineup includes nine female writers devoted to showing history through a double lens.