![](\"https:\/\/www.multiculturalfamilia.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/part-asian-100-hapa.jpg\")
<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n\u00a0is handwritten\u00a0\u201cWho am I? I am exactly the same as
every other person in 2500.\u201d<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n
\u201cWould I be considered an Asian-American actor?\u201d asked my stage-struck thespian son after we listened to an NPR story on a Filipino play\u2014notable for how few Asian-American plays (and roles) are out there.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u201cProbably\u2014do you consider yourself Asian-American?\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u201cNo, not really.\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u201cDo you consider yourself White?\u201d<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u201cNo.\u201d\n
\u201cWhat do you consider yourself?\u201d<\/p><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
He smiled a little sheepishly, \u201cHapa-Haole.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/p>\n
In Hawaii, folks of mixed ancestry are called \u201cHapa.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cHapa\u201d means half.\u00a0 \u201cHaole\u201d means \u201cwithout breath,\u201d what Hawaiians called Whites because they didn\u2019t seem to have a soul.<\/div>\n
OK, that doesn\u2019t sound good, but at this point in Hawaii, it\u2019s just what Whites are called. . . Haole.\u00a0 99.9% of Haoles call themselves Haole. \u00a0And I suspect the .1% who don\u2019t just moved from the Mainland and may be struggling with the fact that they have to call themselves anything at all.<\/div>\n
While IMHO there\u2019s no positive or negative spin to the label \u201cHaole,\u201d there\u2019s an exceedingly positive spin to the label \u201cHapa.\u201d\u00a0 In Hawaii, the more mixed your ancestry, the better you\u2019re seen \u2013 probably because there\u2019s a high chance you\u2019re more beautiful than pure-bloods.\u00a0 In school kids would brag, \u201cI\u2019m part Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese, Scottish, French, Dutch. . .\u201d\u00a0 The more nationalities mentioned, the more impressed their listeners. \u00a0(I tried to make my Han ancestry more interesting, \u201cI\u2019m a quarter Pekinese, Fukienese, Cantonese and Shanhainese with perhaps a touch of Mongolian.\u201d \u00a0But that never seemed to impress anyone.)<\/div>\n
Hapa is so cool that I\u2019ve had friends tell me I\u2019m lucky I\u2019ve borne Hapa kids, as if they\u2019re qualitatively better than pure-bloods.<\/div>\n
So when my son identified himself as Hapa-Haole, my heart felt both a pang and joy at the same time.<\/div>\n
A pang because he didn\u2019t pronounce \u201cHapa-Haole\u201d correctly. \u00a0Mainland born and bred, his Hawaiian pronunciation was atrocious.\u00a0 Yet there\u2019s no better term in Boston for who he is, and so he owns a really positive term from the islands where his mother grew up.<\/div>\n
Joy because I\u2019m relieved that thus far, he doesn\u2019t feel like he needs to reject either side of his ancestry.\u00a0 So far at least, he seems content to be both Chinese and Scottish\/English, and that feels like a good thing.<\/div>\n
Years ago, when I should have been researching interracial friendships for my dissertation, for a break I decided to look up studies on bi-racial ethnic identity.\u00a0 One study I found was sobering\u2014it claimed that there were 5 ways bi-racial kids responded to their bi-racial identity, and 4 were extremely negative.\u00a0 The only positive response wasn\u2019t really a response\u2014it was growing up in Hawaii, the only place where bi-racial or multi-racial identity is positive.<\/div>\n
My Haole brother-in-law, with 3 hapa kids of his own, also researched bi-racial identity and found that part of the challenge for bi-racial kids is that both parents are mono-ethnic and therefore don\u2019t know how to help their kids negotiate their bi-racial reality.<\/div>\n
Already, my daughters have expressed frustration that certain forms force them to choose between Asian and White. \u00a0How do they choose and why should they?\u00a0 \u00a0My son is just realizing that being Asian-American, or even more, Hapa, may shrink his already negligible chance of making it to Broadway.<\/div>\n
But these past days I\u2019m struck by how safe the racial identity question is for my kids. \u00a0That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s easy, but most probably no one will attack them because of who they perceive them to be. \u00a0At times, they might even \u201cpass\u201d as White. \u00a0Trayvon Martin, the Florida teen killed for \u201cwalking while Black\u201d carrying only Skittles and iced tea, didn\u2019t have the same option.<\/div>\n
Most Blacks are also Hapa, their ancestry mixed with White and Native blood, yet for most of American history they couldn\u2019t claim a multi-racial identity\u2013in some states one drop of African blood meant you couldn\u2019t be anything but Black.<\/div>\n
How can we train our eyes to see beyond the outside and let folks be who they are on the inside?\u00a0 Can young Hapa-Haole boys aspire to be Broadway actors?\u00a0 Or even more importantly, can all young Black men someday know they\u2019ll walk home safely,\u00a0armed only with a pack of Skittles?<\/div>\n
This first appeared on What She Said<\/i><\/div>\n
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Under this portrait in the book \u201cPart Asian, 100% Hapa\u201d\u00a0is handwritten\u00a0\u201cWho am I? I am exactly the same as every other person in 2500.\u201d \u201cWould I be considered an Asian-American actor?\u201d asked my stage-struck thespian son after we listened to an NPR story on a Filipino play\u2014notable for how few Asian-American plays (and roles) are […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1263,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n