On Saturday, May 24, 2025, from 6–10 pm, the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco (CCC) and Edge on the Square will present Chinatown Pride 2025: We are Immortal!, a neighborhood-wide Pride party that will build on Chinatown’s legacy as a refuge for free spirits, rebels, dreamers, and all who have fought and continue to fight for a just and inclusive world. The free evening event will feature a Pride procession led by artists from the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance (GAPA), with dance stops along the way; performances by API drag troupe The Rice Rockettes; a silent disco on the bridge over Kearny Street; hands-on art activities and activations; and much more.
“For 60 years, CCC has been a dynamic hub for art, social transformation, and community advocacy. As we celebrate this important anniversary, we recognize the urgent need to empower our increasingly marginalized LGBTQIA+ and immigrant communities,” says Jenny Leung, Executive Director, CCC. “This is such a powerful collaboration for Edge on the Square and CCC and represents an important moment for Chinatown organizations to take a stand together.”
The first Chinatown Pride was launched in 2021 by CCC, bringing together a virtual community during the height of the pandemic lockdown. Now in person for its second iteration and with expanded reach and impact through the co-presentation with Edge on the Square, the communal experience will unapologetically claim public space at this pivotal time.
“This year as we mark AAPI Heritage Month and Queer Trans Asian Pacific Islander Week, we are using our collective voice to uplift, center inclusion, and revel in radical joy. We invite the public to come resist and dance through Chinatown in soli-darity,” says Joanne Lee, Executive Director, Edge on the Square.
“In Chinatown, where every street holds the echoes of defiance and refuge, we dance,” says Candace Huey, Head Curator, Edge on the Square. “We transcend silence and oppression with vibrant aliveness and the bold, unyielding voices of a community that is resolute in its existence. ‘We are Immortal’ is not just a theme—it is a declaration that our identities, our histories, and our dreams defy the forces that seek to silence us.”
The evening party will begin at Edge on the Square (800 Grant Avenue) at 6 pm with an inaugural Chinatown Pride Procession led by artists from GAPA. Learning dance moves along the way, participants will journey on foot to several of Chinatown’s queer historical landmarks and significant spaces such as the former Rickshaw gay bar, site of a 1943 raid and riot. The Procession will culminate on the open-air Dr. Rolland and Kathryn Lowe Community Bridge (pedestrian bridge spanning Kearny Street), renamed The Immortal Runway for this event. Audiences can enjoy performances by the Bay Area’s premier API drag troupe The Rice Rockettes and GAPA runway artists from 6:30–7 pm. The bridge bash will continue with DJs and a silent disco, capping the evening from 7–10 pm.
A community resource fair and art activations will take place throughout the evening on the Runway and in the adjacent CCC galleries. Artist Bijun Liang’s Arm Day, Leg Day is a large-scale inflatable installation, commissioned by CCC, that offers a playful take on traditional Chinese guardian lions and beckoning cats. Attendees are encouraged to gently pet them for protection and luck.
The public can also participate in numerous interactive art activity stations led by queer Asian artists, as well as the Demons Yearbook Station. Demons Yearbook is a CCC art education project in collaboration with San Francisco high schools. Inky Fingers Print Collective, a local BIPOC, queer, and justice-driven collective, worked with 100 students this spring, transforming personal and collective hauntings (unseen and unspoken struggles) into zines and comics. The powerful anthology of the ghosts, demons, and spirits that define their realities will be celebrated during the evening event, and the public will get a chance to customize their very own copy of the Yearbook.
A bar will offer drinks, snacks, and nonalcoholic beverages for sale. Limited edition merch from the CCC Design Store will also be available.
CCC is additionally presenting queer programming at its 41 Ross gallery throughout the month of May to create safe, inclusive spaces that nurture artists, filmmakers, and creators who have been key to its programmatic brand. The programming is part of a refresh for the CCC Design Store, which has moved to 41 Ross from the Kearny Street galleries that are being reorganized for its next stage.
On May 31 from 1–3 pm, CCC will collaborate with the Queer Women of Color Media Arts Project for a special in-person screening of four international short films from Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Vietnam. The 90-minute screening will be followed by a community discussion about situating queer identities within Asian cultures. This event, which will take place in person at 41 Ross Alley, is free (https://bit.ly/3RLwTAX).
The online screenings, also free, will take place May 23–June 1. So that everyone can enjoy the films, all are subtitled for the Deaf & Hard-of-Hearing and audio-described for the Blind & Low Vision communities.
For more information about Chinatown Pride 2025—co-organized by the Chinese Culture Center of San Francisco and Edge on the Square—visit: https://bit.ly/4jECuoO
LGBTQ+ AAPI Trailblazers
Published on May 8, 2025
Recent Comments