Category: Asian Diaspora

  • The Race of Birth: Systemic Racism Again? Racism Review 2013-05-05 Sharon Chang, Guest blogger Multiracial Asian Families The other day I was reading and came across this: Prior to 1989, the race on a newborn’s birth certificate was determined by the race of the parents. An infant with one White parent was assigned the race…

  • FILM: Mixed-Race People Tell Their Stories in ‘Hafu’ The Rafu Shimpo: Los Angeles Japanese Daily News 2013-05-03 J.K. Yamamoto, Rafu Staff Writer “Hafu,” a new documentary about mixed-race people in Japan, will be screened Wednesday, May 8, at 7:30 p.m. at the Japanese American National Museum, First and Central in Little Tokyo, as part of…

  • “Chinese Cubans” shows how Chinese migration, intermarriage, and assimilation are central to Cuban history and national identity during a key period of transition from slave to wage labor and from colony to nation. On a broader level, López draws out implications for issues of race, national identity, and transnational migration, especially along the Pacific rim.

  • Black and Bengali In These Times 2013-03-02 Fatima Shaik A new book traces the hidden story of a mixed-race community. The federal census taker comes every 10 years and, for most people in the United States, this has little consequence. But not where I lived, in New Orleans, just outside the historic district of Tremé.…

  • Excursus on “Hapa”; or the Fate of Identity Asian American Literature: Discourses & Pedagogies Volume 3 (2012): Special Issue: Mixed Heritage Asian American Literature 11 pages Nicole Myoshi Rabin University of Hawai‘i, Manoa When I was growing up the license plate on my mom’s Dodge minivan read: R3HAPAS. My mom explained to my sister, brother,…

  • AM NOT WHITE. I am not Black. I am mixed. I am one half Polish, one quarter Russian, and one-quarter Japanese. I was born, raised, and educated in public schools in the suburbs of Chicago, and then abruptly transitioned to public schools located in north Alabama when I was an adolescent.

  • Sheila K. Johnson on Yokohama Yankee Los Angeles Review of Books 2013-03-13 Sheila K. Johnson, Anthropologist, Gerontologist, and Freelance Writer Oh, To Be Japanese! MANY FOREIGNERS have fallen in love with Japan — its physical beauty, its culture, its people. Most of these foreigners have been men, and some have married Japanese women or taken…

  • Brown Man and Fiancee Can Not Get Knot Tied San Francisco Call Volume 107, Number 106 (1910-03-16) page 3, column 5 Source: California Digital Newspaper Collection Unfeeling Goldfield Sheriff Suggests a Hurried Departure GOLDFIELD, Nev., March 15.—George Masaki, a Japanese gardener, and Juliette S. Schwann, both of Los Angeles, were unable to get a judge…

  • Leslie Helm’s decision to adopt Japanese children launches him on a personal journey through his family’s 140 years in Japan, beginning with his German great grandfather, who worked as a military adviser in 1870 and defied custom to marry his Japanese mistress. The family’s poignant experiences of love and war help Helm learn to embrace…

  • “I’m not half, I’m whole!” Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu 2013-04-27 Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu Stanford University “I hate the word ‘half,’ which is used to designate people like me. I always wanted to be someone who is ‘whole.’” The young man raised his eyes to the evening sky and gazed upon the rising moon. It suddenly struck me that…