Mixed Race Studies

The Hapa Project: How multiracial identity crosses oceans

UH Today
University of Hawai`i
Spring 2007

Alana Folen and Tina Ng

Hawai`i—often overlooked as nothing more than a scenic paradise—recently started to live up to its “melting pot” reputation when a U.S. senator representing Illinois formally announced his presidential candidacy. With personal ties to Hawai`i, Sen. Barack Obama inadvertently put Hawai`i in the spotlight.   

It was his physical appearance that separated Obama from his competitors. Obama is hapa. His father was black and from Kenya; his mother was white and from Kansas. His unique look brought attention to the hapa population in Hawai`i.

Although the growing population of hapa people is beginning to get recognized, their experiences in Hawai`i and the continental United States vary from each individual. The cultural implications of having multiple identities have surfaced and more hapa people have needed to defend who and what they are…

Read the entire article here.

Hapas: Emerging Identity, Emerging Terms and Labels & the Social Construction of Race

Stanford Journal of Asian American Studies
Volume II (October 2009)
20 pages

Adriane E. Gamble

Adriane E. Gamble presents part of her honors thesis in her paper “Hapas: Emerging Identity, Emerging Terms and Labels, and the Social Construction of Race.” Her paper shows how emerging trends in community, terms and labels, and role models are seen in the growing population in the United States. She writes of how this can be observed both in the development of individuals’ identities and communities as well as a new racial category that offers a contemporary example of the social construction of race.

The first time I heard hapa, I went to this club fair [on campus]… I heard this voice, “We’re cool, cause we check the other box!” … I realized, oh my god, there are more people like me.

Originally a Native Hawaiian word, “hapa” is defined as “part” or “mixed,” with no racial or ethnic meaning. The current use of hapa stems from the phrase hapa haole, meaning “half foreigner” or “half White” (Dariotis, 2003). Today, the term is commonly used to describe Asian Pacific Islanders of mixed race heritage.

Conducted in 2004, this research studies how hapa has become a racial identity of its own, distinct from the classically recognized American racial categories of Asian or White. Based on the premise that racial identity is significantly informed by a racial community, and given the historical absence of a hapa community, the question emerges: how does one develop a hapa identity, without a hapa community with which to identify? Trends from the turn of the millennium show the racial landscape has changed, as a community emerged in American society of individuals self-identifying as hapa. Student and community groups have provided communities for hapas, which in turn inform racial identity, leading to an increased population of individuals self-identifying as hapa. The construction of hapa communities and hapa identity as a new racial category offer a contemporary example of the social construction of race…

Read the entire article here.

The role of Japanese as a heritage language in constructing ethnic identity among Hapa Japanese Canadian children

Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development
Volume 30, Issue 1 (February 2009)
pages 1-18
DOI: 10.1080/01434630802307874

Hiroko Noro, Professor of Pacific and Asian Studies
University of Victoria, Canada

Today, Japanese Canadians are marrying outside of their ethnic community at an unprecedented rate, resulting in the creation of a newly identifiable group of ‘Japanese Canadians’ borne from these interracial unions. Members of this emergent group are increasingly being referred to both by social scientists and self-referentially as Hapa. This term, originally a Hawaiian term, is now a common and empowering tool of self-identification for people of mixed ethnic heritage. Recent sociological research argues that, while the notion of a shared Hapa identity exists, it is less rooted in individual members’ physical appearance or cultural identification and more rooted in their experiences, parental upbringing, and the locality/environment in which they grew up.

Read or purchase the article here.

Nikkei Heritage: Intermarriages and Hapas: An Overview – Parts 1 and 2

Discover Nikkei (Japanese Migrans and Their Descendants)
Republished from Nikkei Heritage (The quarterly journal of the National Japanese American Historical Society)
2007-05-11

George Kitahara Kich, Senior Trial Consultant
Bonora D’Andrea

Rebecca Chiyoko King-O’Riain, Lecturer in Sociology
National University of Ireland, Maynooth

Larry Hajime Shinagawa, Associate Professor Director of Asian American Studies
University of Maryland

Shizue Seigel

To be biracial and Japanese American means having many different labels from which to choose. For this historical overview, we will use “Hapa”, a term popularized by the Hapa Issues Forum, to mean people who have an Asian/Asian Pacific Islander parent and a parent of any other race. Our focus here is on those with a Japanese or a Japanese American parent.

There is no single Hapa experience. Over the decades, Hapas have had widely different experiences based on individual circumstance and background, as well as the time period and environment into which they were born. The history of people of mixed-race has been deeply influenced by the evolving social and legal contexts for interracial relationships and marriages, along with community attitudes about culture, tradition and belongingness. Legal barriers against mixed marriages have fallen; however, discrimination, prejudice, community fears and stereotyping still affect interracial marriages and interracial people today. Nonetheless, about half* of all Japanese American marriages since 1970 have been to non-JAs, and the birthrate of interracial and interethnic children with some Japanese ancestry now exceeds that of JA/JA children. The Japanese American community has been gradually welcoming Hapas as a significant and growing part of the Japanese American community…

Read the entire Part 1 of the article here.
Read Part 2 here.

Part Asian, 100% Hapa: Portraits by Kip Fulbeck

Chronicle Books
February, 2006
264 pages
7 x 7 in; 125 color photographs
ISBN 0811849597
ISBN13 9780811849593

Kip Fulbeck, Professor of Performative Studies, Video
University of California, Santa Barbara

Foreword by Sean Lennon

Afterword by Paul Spickard, Professor of History
University of California, Santa Barbara

Part Asian, 100% Hapa — Originally a derogatory label derived from the Hawaiian word for half, Hapa is now being embraced as a term of pride by many people of Asian or Pacific Rim mixed-race heritage. Award-winning film producer and artist Kip Fulbeck has created a forum in word and image for Hapas to answer the question they’re nearly always asked: “What are you?” Fulbeck’s frank, head-on portraits are paired with the sitters’ own statements of identity. A work of intimacy, beauty, and powerful self-expression, Part Asian, 100% Hapa is the book Fulbeck says he wishes he had growing up. An introduction to the rest of the world and an affirmation for Hapas themselves—who now number in the millions—it offers a new perspective on a rapidly growing population.

Fence Sitters, Switch Hitters, and Bi-Bi Girls: An Exploration of “Hapa” and Bisexual Identities

Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies
Vol. 21, No. 1/2 (2000)
Asian American Women
pp. 171-180.

Beverly Yuen Thompson, Assistant Professor of Women’s Studies
Texas Woman’s College

I had been wondering about taking part in a student theatre project about being Asian American, and I said to Tommy, “The thing is, I don’t feel as though I’ve really lived the . . . Asian American experience.” (Whatever I thought that was.)

Tommy kind of looked at me. And he said, “But, Claire, you are Asian American. So whatever experience you have lived, that is the Asian American experience.”

I have never forgotten that.

-Claire Huang Kinsley, “Questions People Have Asked Me. Questions I Have Asked Myself.”

Claire Huang Kinsley articulates a common sentiment among multiracial Asian Americans regarding their racial and ethnic identity. She describes the reaction that her mixed heritage has provoked from Asians and Anglos, both of whom frequently view her as the “other.” In response to these reactions, her faith in her racial identity has been shaken, and she feels unable to identify herself-fearful of being alienated for choosing either her Chinese or Anglo heritage, or both. Although she knows that she is mixed race, the question that still plagues her is whether or not she is included in the term “Asian American.”‘

When I first read Kinsley’s article, I was elated to find recognition of a biracial Asian American experience that resembled my own. I have a Chinese mother and an Anglo-American father, as does she, and I am constantly confronted with questions about my ethnic background from curious individuals. Like Kinsley, I also question my ability to call myself Asian American because of my mixed heritage. However, in addition to my mixed heritage, I am also bisexual, which brings with it additional complications and permutations around my identity formation and self-understanding. The process of identity formation, especially of multiple identities, is complex and lifelong, and my experiences have been no exception.

Though I have always understood that I was mixed race, a true understanding of what this meant in terms of my self-understanding and my relation to the dominant culture and Asian American communities did not develop until I was much older. My first exposure to the political side of identity politics came at the ages of fourteen and fifteen when I began to develop a feminist understanding of the world around me. Then, at seventeen, I first began to call myself bisexual after two years of questioning my sexuality and believing that the only options that were available were either a lesbian or straight identity. Finally at the age of nineteen I began to uncover the history of Asians in America through my college course work and developed a newfound understanding of my racial identity and its political implications. Yet, as is usually the case, this process was never as linear as it may sound…

Read the entire article here.

What Are You? The Changing Face of America with Kip Fulbeck

National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS)
2010 Annual Conference
Dates: 2010-02-24 through 2010-02-26
Moscone Convention Center West
San Francisco, California, USA
Adapt, Survive, Thrive: Unleashing the Superpowers Within

Kip Fulbeck, Professor of Performative Studies, Video
University of California, Santa Barbara

Friday, 2010-02-26
13:30 – 14:30 PDT (Local Time)

A seminal artist exploring multiracial identity, Kip Fulbeck captivates audiences with his videos, performances, and writings. His words and artwork have received a landslide of attention from media as diverse as MTV and CNN. On stage his uniquely personal monologues and multimedia shows combine stand-up comedy with a powerful and politically charged edge, leading audiences to honestly consider Who Am I? Using his own Cantonese, English, Irish, and Welsh background as a springboard, Fulbeck confronts media imagery of Asian men, interracial dating patterns, and icons of race and sex in the U.S., constantly questioning where Hapas “fit in” in a country that ignores multiracial identity. His work invites and inspires viewers to explore how ethnic stereotypes and opinions on interracial dating, gender roles, and personal identity are formed. A professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, Fulbeck has performed and exhibited across the U.S. and in more than 20 countries. He has twice keynoted the National Conference on Race in Higher Education to standing ovations; directed 13 independent videos; and authored the critically acclaimed books Paper Bullets: A Fictional Autobiography and Part Asian, 100% Hapa, featuring portraits of multiracials of Asian/Pacific Islander descent, with an introduction by Sean Lennon.

Dimensions of Self-Identification among Multiracial and Multiethnic Respondents in Survey Interviews

Research supported in part by contract HHS 0009430486 from the National Center for Health Statistics.

Publication Date: 1997-12
ISSN: ISSN-0193-841X

Timothy P. Johnson
University of Illinois at Chicago

Jared B. Jobe
National Center for Health Statistics

Diane O’Rourke
University of Illinois at Urbana

Seymour Sudman
University of Illinois at Urbana

Richard Warnecke
University of Illinois at Chicago

Noel Chavez
University of Illinois at Chicago

Gloria Chapa-Resendez
University of Illinois at Chicago

Patricia Golden
National Center for Health Statistics

This paper reports findings from a laboratory study designed to investigate self identification among 69 multiracial and multiethnic women. Respondent reactions to two current questionnaire formats for collecting racial information, and a third version that includes a “multiracial” response option, were examined. Findings suggest that respondent’s racial identification varies considerably across question formats and that persons of mixed heritage prefer a racial identification question that provides them, at a minimum, with the opportunity to acknowledge their multi-cultural background. In addition, many respondents also expressed the desire to identify each of the specific groups that constitute their racial/ethnic background.

Read the entire article here.

Kip Fulbeck: Part Asian, 100% Hapa

University of North Carolina
FedEx Global Education Center
2009-07-01 through 2009-10-31
08:00 to 21:00 (ET Local Time)

For this exhibition of portraits, artist Kip Fulbeck traveled the country photographing Hapa of all ages and walks of life. Once a derogatory label derived from the Hawaiian word for “half,” the word Hapa has been embraced as a term of pride for many whose mixed-race heritage includes Asian or Pacific Rim ancestry. Fulbeck’s work seeks to address in words and images the one question that Hapa are frequently asked: What are you? By pairing portraits of Hapa unadorned by make-up, jewelry and clothing along with their handwritten statements on who they are, Fulbeck has produced powerful yet intimate expressions of beauty and identity. “kip fulbeck: part asian, 100% hapa” is organized by the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, California. It is supported in part by the James Irvine Foundation and is part of the Global Education Distinguished Speakers Series.

For more information, click here.

Miscegenating the Discourse: Mixed Race Asian American Art and Literature

Jessica Hagedorn In Conversation with Wei Ming and Laura Kina
As part of The President’s Signature Series 2009-2010

2009-10-22 at 18:00 CDT (Local Time)
DePaul University Art Museum
2350 N Kenmore

This event is co-sponsored by Asian American Studies, The Cultural Center, English, The President’s Office of Institutional Diversity and Equity, OMSA, and The Women’s Center.

What does it mean to be a Mixed Asian American Writer/Artist?

Mixed Race Studies scholar Wei Ming Dariotis, Assistant Professor Asian American Studies San Francisco State University, and Laura Kina, DePaul University Associate Professor Art, Media, & Design, Vincent dePaul Professor & Director Asian American Studies, will take on identity, categorization, and issues specific to Asian American mixed heritage populations in their dialogue with award winning writer, screenwriter and performer, Jessica Hagedorn, author of Dogeaters, Dream Jungle, The Gangster of Love, Danger And Beauty, and editor of Charlie Chan Is Dead: An Anthology of Contemporary Asian American Fiction and Charlie Chan Is Dead 2: At Home in the World. Her next novel, Toxicology, will be published by Viking Penguin in 2011.

This event is free and open to the public.