Are Hapa White Asian Americans? |
Are Hapa White Asian Americans?
Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu
2012-02-01
Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu
Stanford University
Some people seem to think hapa means white Asian American, even though it originally refers to Hawaiian mixtures and is not confined to hapa haole. I never had that impression myself, as one of my first hapa friends was Margo Okazawa-Rey and she called herself, Afro Asian or black Japanese. One of my earliest colleagues was Velina Hasu Houston, who more than anyone publicly acknowledged the blackness while asserting her Japanese identity.
But the reality is that black Asians may still feel like they do not fully belong in hapa circles. In her blog, Grits and Sushi (gritsandsushi.com), Mitzi Uehara Carter writes of how she would meet other black Asians at the gatherings of hapa organizations and “we almost always whispered that we weren’t feelin’ the hapaness.” Not that she wasn’t feeling the “commonalities between us all–but the vast majority of the folks were Asian and white American. When I met with the other black Asians in the group, that’s when I felt a real connection emerge.”…
Read the entire article here.
Tags: Christine Iijima Hall, Margo Okazawa-Rey, Mitzi Uehara-Carter, Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu, Velina Hasu Houston