Mixed Race Studies

Definitive Hapa Japan Books To Launch In LA

Kaya Press
Los Angeles, California
2017-02-15

Kaya Press is thrilled to announce the official publication of Hapa Japan: History Vol. 1 and Hapa Japan: History Vol. 2 edited by Duncan Ryūken Williams.

Described by Ruth Ozeki as “essential reading for all citizens of our transcultural, transnational, boundless, borderless, beautifully mixed-up world,” these volumes bring together scholarship on the rich historical and contemporary experiences and representations of global Hapa Japanese…

Read the entire press release here.

Hapa Japan: History (Volume 1)

Kaya Press
2017-02-28
500 pages
Paperback ISBN: 9781885030535

Edited by:

Duncan Ryūken Williams, Associate Professor of Religion and East Asian Languages and Cultures
University of Southern California

The history and experiences of mixed-race Japan have long remained almost invisible in a country that believes in its own myths of homogeneity, despite a history that extends backwards to the 8th-century emperor Kammu Tenno (who was part Korean) through to Japan’s first female physician (part German) during the 19th century, and forward to the present day, when 1 of every 30 Japanese babies are born to families with one non-Japanese parent. Hapa Japan: History (Volume 1) is the first substantial collection of essays to survey the history of global mixed-race identities of persons of Japanese descent. Edited by Duncan Ryuken Williams, the founder of the Hapa Japan Database Project, this groundbreaking work unsettles binary and simplistic notions of race by making visible the complex lives of individuals often written out of history.

In Mixed Company: Multiracial academics, advocates and artists gather for Hapa Japan Conference

Nichi Bei: A mixed plate of Japanese American News & Culture
2011-05-26

Alec Yoshio MacDonald, Nichi Bei Weekly Contributor

As a graduate student in UCLA’s psychology department during the late 1970s, Christine Iijima Hall absorbed scathing criticism about her dissertation. Fellow academics dismissed her project as “a ridiculous piece of research,” she said, and newspapers declined to publicize her need for study participants based on the belief that she was covering a “stupid topic.” Few people, apparently, saw any worth in exploring the identity formation of individuals from mixed black and Japanese backgrounds.
 
Coming from such a background herself, Hall remained undeterred in pursuing the subject. In part, she was motivated to counteract existing literature that painted a disturbing portrait of those like her—in essence, that “we were insane, that there was something wrong with us, we never knew what we wanted, and we killed ourselves.” The studies that yielded these alarming conclusions were flawed, she explained, because they tended to focus on institutionalized patients instead of average folks. By delving into the everyday mixed race experience, she knew she could reveal a more compelling story deserving of attention.
 
In her effort to reframe an issue so widely ignored and narrowly interpreted, Hall ended up producing one of the pioneering works of an emerging discipline. At that time “‘multiracial’ was not a word yet,” she recalled, but thanks in no small measure to her perseverance, the field of multiracial studies exists today.

Scholars in the field recently had the chance to reflect on the past, present and future of their discipline when they came together April 8 and 9 for the Hapa Japan Conference. Held primarily on the campus of UC Berkeley and hosted by the university’s Center for Japanese Studies, it showcased a range of both foundational and current projects concerning multiraciality. As Hall pointed out while revisiting her dissertation for a session called “A Changing Japanese-American Community,” the conference also served as “a reunion for many of us who have done mixed race research.”…

Read the entire article here.

Hapa Japan Conference

Center for Japanese Studies
Institute of East Asian Studies
University of California, Berkeley
2011-04-08 through 2011-04-09

• Introduction
• Agenda
• Registration
• Tickets: New Vision Award Recipient Jero, A Conversation & Mini-Concert

Introduction

Hapa is a Hawaiian term that is now widely used to describe someone of mixed racial or ethnic heritage. A New York Times article cites that just within the United States, one in seven marriages are now between people from different racial/ethnic backgrounds.

The Center for Japanese Studies, along with the Hapa Japan Database Project and All Nippon Airways, will host the Hapa Japan Conference on April 8th and 9th, featuring specialists in the study of mixed-race Japanese history, identity, and representation. Topics range from the history of mixed-race Japanese in the 1500s, part-Japanese communities in Australia, to the exploration of identity and representation through story-telling, films, and a photo-exhibit. For more information, please reference the conference agenda or contact cjs-events@berkeley.edu.