{"id":30305,"date":"2013-04-11T21:33:27","date_gmt":"2013-04-11T21:33:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=30305"},"modified":"2013-04-23T20:24:28","modified_gmt":"2013-04-23T20:24:28","slug":"hafu-the-mixed-race-experience-in-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=30305","title":{"rendered":"Hafu: The Mixed-Race Experience in Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em><a href=\"http:\/\/laapff.festpro.com\/films\/detail\/hafu_2013\" target=\"_blank\">Hafu: The Mixed-Race Experience in Japan<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/asianfilmfestla.org\/2013\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival<\/a><br \/>\n29th Edition<br \/>\n2013-05-02 through 2013-05-12<\/p>\n<p>2012<br \/>\n87 minutes<br \/>\nDirected by: <strong>Megumi Nishikura<\/strong> and\u00a0<strong>Lara Perez Takagi<\/strong><br \/>\nEnglish, Japanese<\/p>\n<p><strong>Screening:<\/strong> Wednesday, 2013-05-08, 19:30 PDT (Local Time): <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ncdemocracy.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">National Center for the Preservation of Democracy<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><a href=\"http:\/\/hafufilm.com\/en\" target=\"_blank\">HAFU<\/a><\/em> is more than a mere documentary about mixed race Japanese, or so called Hafu. The film seeks to break with the \u201cone nation, one culture, one race\u201d paradigm which has shaped much of contemporary Japan&#8217;s self-image, and makes a compelling argument for the hybrid reality of Japanese identity today. At the same time, Megumi Nishikura and Lara Perez Takagi, both Hafu themselves, render visible the hardship of those subjects who do not comfortably fit into common categories of belonging, and offer them a platform to be heard. What happens if my looks do not match my nationality, or if my language does not reflect my home country? Who defines the compatibility of subjects and their identities in the first place?<\/p>\n<p>Most of the featured protagonists grew up in Japan, but cannot escape the role of the foreigner. As a Venezuelan citizen, Ed has to renew his visa every few years, despite being raised by his Japanese mother in Japan. Every time again, he is confronted with his identification as an outsider to Japanese society and the prospect of being expelled from the country he identifies both as home and hostile. Fusae is part of that same community of \u201cforeigners within.\u201d Part Korean and part Japanese, she appears with a strong sense of belonging at first, \u201cI was born in Kobe, so this is where I want to work and pay taxes.\u201d After a while, however, Fusae allows a deeper look into the traumatic experience of being mixed race in Japan and the tears she sheds reveal the inner turmoil that defines the lives of many other Hafus: of David, born to a Japanese father and Ghanaian mother, who surprised the other kids with the fact that his blood was not green, but red as theirs; of Sophia, who grew up in Australia ashamed of her bento box lunch and secretly wishing to be blond like her class mates. What all of the here depicted Hafus share, is the longing to belong. Not just to be acknowledged, as Ed puts it, but to be understood and accepted.<\/p>\n<p>\u2014<strong>Feng-Mei Heberer<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>For more information, click <a href=\"http:\/\/laapff.festpro.com\/films\/detail\/hafu_2013\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hafu: The Mixed-Race Experience in Japan Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival 29th Edition 2013-05-02 through 2013-05-12 2012 87 minutes Directed by: Megumi Nishikura and\u00a0Lara Perez Takagi English, Japanese Screening: Wednesday, 2013-05-08, 19:30 PDT (Local Time): National Center for the Preservation of Democracy HAFU is more than a mere documentary about mixed race Japanese, or [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1649,16,125,8,394,842],"tags":[14349,1793,3955,14348,3957],"class_list":["post-30305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anthropology","category-asia","category-identitydevelopment","category-media-archive","category-socialscience","category-videos","tag-feng-mei-heberer","tag-japan","tag-lara-perez-takagi","tag-los-angeles-asian-pacific-film-festival","tag-megumi-nishikura"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30305","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=30305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30305\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}