{"id":14288,"date":"2012-05-15T21:37:54","date_gmt":"2012-05-15T21:37:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=14288"},"modified":"2014-01-19T21:35:28","modified_gmt":"2014-01-19T21:35:28","slug":"in-mixed-company-multiracial-academics-advocates-and-artists-gather-for-hapa-japan-conference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=14288","title":{"rendered":"In Mixed Company: Multiracial academics, advocates and artists gather for Hapa Japan Conference"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Mixed Company: Multiracial academics, advocates and artists gather for Hapa Japan Conference<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Nichi Bei: A mixed plate of Japanese American News & Culture<\/a>
\n2011-05-26<\/p>\n

Alec Yoshio MacDonald<\/strong>, Nichi Bei Weekly Contributor<\/p>\n

As a graduate student in UCLA\u2019s psychology department during the late 1970s, Christine Iijima Hall<\/a> absorbed scathing criticism about her dissertation. Fellow academics dismissed her project as \u201ca ridiculous piece of research,\u201d she said, and newspapers declined to publicize her need for study participants based on the belief that she was covering a \u201cstupid topic.\u201d Few people, apparently, saw any worth in exploring the identity formation of individuals from mixed black and Japanese backgrounds.
\n\u00a0
\nComing 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\u2014in essence, that \u201cwe were insane, that there was something wrong with us, we never knew what we wanted, and we killed ourselves.\u201d 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.
\n\u00a0
\nIn 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 \u201c\u2018multiracial\u2019 was not a word yet,\u201d she recalled, but thanks in no small measure to her perseverance, the field of multiracial studies exists today.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>. Held primarily on the campus of UC Berkeley and hosted by the university\u2019s 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 \u201cA Changing Japanese-American Community,\u201d the conference also served as \u201ca reunion for many of us who have done mixed race research.\u201d…<\/p>\n

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

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\u2019s psychology department during the late 1970s, Christine Iijima Hall absorbed scathing criticism about her dissertation. Fellow academics […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,16,125,8,20],"tags":[6582,6581,6580,6583,6584,5619,5618,6586,6587,412,6585,5604,5671,5515,512],"class_list":["post-14288","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-asia","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-usa","tag-alec-macdonald","tag-alec-y-macdonald","tag-alec-yoshio-macdonald","tag-christine-hall","tag-christine-i-hall","tag-christine-iijima-hall","tag-cynthia-nakashima","tag-george-k-kich","tag-george-kich","tag-george-kitahara-kich","tag-hapa-japan-conference","tag-jero","tag-jerome-charles-white","tag-nichi-bei","tag-stephen-murphy-shigematsu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14288","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=14288"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14288\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=14288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=14288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=14288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}