The Orange County Register has an interesting article about hapa identity that discusses Kip Fulbeck's hapa project. It includes several photographs and interviews with local younger hapa individuals, as well as Kip Fulbeck, and Chris Komai of the Japanese American National Museum which will open an exhibition based on the project on June 8.
Hapa nation: Millions in America are part Asian or Pacific Islander, and now a new book celebrates their heritage
Story by VALERIE TAKAHAMA
When Ken Radomski was in Japan a couple of years ago, he got a kick out of the little kids who spotted his mohawk, thought of British soccer star David Beckham and shouted, "Beckham! Beckham!" at him.
The lanky Southern California teenager had a little fun of his own when he engaged locals in conversation and surprised them with his fluent Japanese.
"As soon as they hear me speak, they're pretty impressed. It's pretty unusual for a gaijinto speak Japanese," he says, referring to the Japanese word for "foreigner."
Radomski, 19, a UC Irvine sophomore, is accustomed to tweaking cultural expectations, challenging stereotypes and inspiring curiosity at home and abroad, and he carries it off with a self-confident nonchalance. Half-Japanese and half-Polish in heritage, he's one of a growing number of people who take pride in calling themselves "hapa."
Derived from the Hawaiian term "hapa haole," or "half white," the label was originally derogatory. Over the past decade, it's been adopted by a wide range of people whose ancestry is part Asian or Pacific Islander. They can be Eurasians or Latin Asians, African-American Asians or multi-ethnic Asians such as Filipino-Chinese or Japanese-Thais. They can also be Korean and Chinese children who are adopted and raised by white parents.
They can be as famous and talented as Keanu Reeves, Tiger Woods, Apolo Ohno, Norah Jones and Ann Curry. And they're among the 2.1 million people of mixed Asian heritage counted in the 2000 Census, the first time the U.S. Census Bureau allowed people to classify themselves into two or more racial and ethnic categories.
In Orange County, of the more than 100,000 people who reported mixed racial heritage, more than 40,500 marked Asian or Pacific Islander as one of them. The percentage - 1.42 percent of the total county population - is roughly the population of the city of Brea.
What's more, hapa-ness is spreading quickly through the culture. Young hapas post photos and share experiences on Web sites such as Hapas.com and halfkorean.com. Hapa graphic artists and entrepreneurs produce and sell multiracial and multi-ethnic wedding invitations and birth announcements.
Read the entire article...
