{"id":11637,"date":"2011-01-20T22:34:45","date_gmt":"2011-01-20T22:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=11637"},"modified":"2011-01-21T01:21:01","modified_gmt":"2011-01-21T01:21:01","slug":"the-other-hafu-of-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=11637","title":{"rendered":"The Other Hafu of Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Other Hafu of Japan<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Rafu Shimpo: Los Angeles Japanses Daily News<\/a>
\n2011-01-14<\/p>\n

Brett Fujioka<\/strong>, Rafu Intern<\/p>\n

A new documentary examines the lives of racially mixed individuals as they explore their own identities.<\/em><\/p>\n

Is a ship the same if you take it apart piece by piece and replace its frame? No simple answer exists, as anyone who has tackled this philosophical Rubik\u2019s cube<\/a> knows.<\/p>\n

The ethno-national equivalent to this riddle grows exceedingly more complicated with the swelling number of international unions each year. Statistics in 2004 chart that 1 in 15 marriages in Japan<\/a> were international and that 1 in 30 children born there possesses a parent of non-Japanese descent. Japan\u2019s ethnic constituency is rapidly changing and its people may need to rethink what it means to be Japanese in a country where blood and national identity are considered one and the same.<\/p>\n

The same applies for the hafu<\/a> (mixed Japanese) community. The lives for each individual half-Japanese vary from person to person and the filmmakers for the upcoming documentary, \u201cHafu<\/a>,\u201d and their subjects best represent this.<\/p>\n

\u201cHafu\u201d is the tentative title for an upcoming documentary in Japan following the lives of several half-Japanese individuals as they explore their identities.<\/p>\n

Both Megumi Nishikura and Lara Perez Takagi spent most of their lives away from Japan. Takagi is half Spanish and stayed in Madrid<\/a>, Sydney<\/a>, Washington D.C.<\/a>, and Ottowa<\/a> due to her diplomat father\u2019s itinerant career. She eventually completed her higher education at the Francisco de Vitoria, Complutense and Waseda Universities before finally returning to Japan.<\/p>\n

Nishikura, likewise, lived her childhood spread throughout the world. She stayed in Beijing<\/a>, Manila<\/a>, Honolulu<\/a>, DC<\/a>, Berlin<\/a>, London<\/a>, and Los Angeles<\/a> and graduated from New York University.<\/p>\n

\u201cLara and I have unusual stories and come from international backgrounds,\u201d said Nishikura in an interview with the Rafu. \u201cI don\u2019t know if that\u2019s representative of a lot of the mixed Japanese community.\u201d<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason why they\u2019re so hesitant to pinpoint a grand narrative for the hafu experience. There is no all-encompassing hafu story and the eclectic subjects of the documentary are indicative of this…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Other Hafu of Japan Rafu Shimpo: Los Angeles Japanses Daily News 2011-01-14 Brett Fujioka, Rafu Intern A new documentary examines the lives of racially mixed individuals as they explore their own identities. Is a ship the same if you take it apart piece by piece and replace its frame? No simple answer exists, as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,16,33,125,6,394,20,25],"tags":[5246,1793,5249,3955,3956,3957,5248,5247],"class_list":["post-11637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts","category-asia","category-census","category-identitydevelopment","category-new-media","category-socialscience","category-usa","category-women","tag-brett-fujioka","tag-japan","tag-lara-p-takagi","tag-lara-perez-takagi","tag-lara-takagi","tag-megumi-nishikura","tag-rafu-shimpo","tag-rafu-shimpo-los-angeles-japanses-daily-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}