A Chat with Kat: Marissa Hui, President of HapaSCPosted in Articles, Asian Diaspora, Campus Life, Media Archive, United States, Women on 2011-03-05 05:05Z by Steven |
A Chat with Kat: Marissa Hui, President of HapaSC
Her Campus
2011-02-28
Katharine Goldman
I remember clearly the first time someone used the term “hapa”: I was a freshman, waiting for Campus Cruiser in front of New/North, when a random guy asked me if I was hapa.
Not knowing what it meant, I asked for a clarification. He told me that hapa is Hawaiian for half—it’s traditionally used as a term to refer to people who are half-Asian and half-Caucasian.
Marissa Hui, a senior communications major, knows the intricacies of this term well. She’s the president of HapaSC, an organization on-campus [University of Southen California] dedicated to exploring what it means to be of mixed race, and the exploration of identity that comes with the territory.
HC: Tell me about HapaSC.
Marissa: HapaSC has been around campus for about 10 years. It started originally as a club specifically for students that fit the traditional meaning of “hapa:” half-Asian and half-white. Since then, it’s become an all-encompassing club for students of multiracial, multiethnic, and multicultural backgrounds.
Our mission is to create a diverse community where people can explore their identity. Specifically we deal with a lot of topics about being mixed raced and try to cater to that student population. Sometimes students who are mixed race don’t identify completely with [single-culture] groups, or want to be able to explore their backgrounds within one group and not have to sacrifice one group for another…
Read the entire article here.