Are You Hapa? (Pulling Out the Race Card)

I rarely, if ever, get racial on this blog.  It's a conscious choice, and one that actually hampers a lot of what I write since race, culture and identity play huge parts in my everyday conversations.  Nate (an Ethnic Studies major) and I (a major in "Identity Construction" for lack of a better description) discuss these issues all the time and, in fact, they were one of the things we bonded over when we began dating.  To our friends, these issues are central themes in our lives, in our world views, in our discussions with one another.  They're critical in my workplace, in my part of the country, in everything.

Added to all this, I grew up in a very multicultural part of the world where one of the first questions you'll probably be asked when meeting someone is, "What are you?"  To this, I would answer: Portuguese, Native Hawaiian, Filipino, Spanish and French.  And to top it all off, from ages 12-18, I attended (and boarded at) a private school that required all admitted students to prove our Native Hawaiian ancestry -- and please don't get me started on how this admissions policy is racially discriminatory, because this is what I focused on in law school and I will argue about it until I'm blue in the face.

So in summary: I take race, ethnicity and culture pretty friggin' seriously.

But I choose not to really write about them because I know these can be contentious, if not alienating, topics.  And the last thing I want to do is alienate people, or start arguments in the comments section of this blog.

However.  I've got a cold today, and this cold has put me in a frustrated and argumentative mood.  And I don't know exactly how this word came up in conversation today, but it did, and I want to address it.

So, let's talk about the word hapa.

Some of you may have heard of the word before, either in your travels to Hawaii (and/or your talks with people from Hawaii), or in your interactions with Asian-Americans -- particularly those on the West Coast.  In recent years, it's become fairly popular for mixed or half Asian people to identify themselves as hapa.

Hapa is a Native Hawaiian word that, by definition (Pukui/Elbert Hawaiian Dictionary), means: 1. Portion, fragment, part; to be a portion, less.  2. Of mixed blood; person of mixed blood.  Please note that hapa does not, and has not ever, meant: Half Asian Part Asian.

That's definition.  In practice -- in Hawaii, and in my experience -- the word is usually used to describe people who are half Native Hawaiian and, usually, half White.  To this end, you'll often hear the term hapa haole, which really does mean "half white."  In all my years in Hawaii, with all the conversations I've ever had, and given all the time I spent at a Native Hawaiian school, never have I ever heard the word used to describe someone who is Asian and something else that isn't Hawaiian.  It just isn't done.  I've also never heard the word used to describe someone who is simply mixed -- mainly because almost everyone in Hawaii is mixed, so having a specific term for that would be pretty pointless.

Now, I'm not saying I corner the market on defining Native Hawaiian words.  I'm also not saying that using the term to describe half or mixed peoples is incorrect by definition.  But I do think it's important not to separate a language from it's culture.  And in Hawaii's culture, the word hapa does not mean half Asian and half something else, especially to the exclusion of other races/ethnicities.

I recently read an article from a woman and scholar who uses the term to describe herself (she is half or part Asian).  In this piece, she defends her use of the word when some of her commenters from Hawaii take issue with it.  In particular, she first calls it an "adoption" of the word.  Now, a couple of things here: 1) "Adoption" implies that the word was orphaned.  It wasn't.  We still use it.  And, 2) don't call something an "adoption" when what it really is is an appropriation.  The Asian American community has taken a word from another culture -- a word that, generally, has not referred to Asian Americans -- and has redefined it for their purposes and to identify themselves, even to the exclusion of the Native Hawaiian community.  That's appropriation and, let me tell you, Indigenous peoples are pretty sick of it.

To this, however, the author states (somewhat disrespectfully, in my opinion): "Using a word that evolved because of a colonialist experience seems fitting, so perhaps it isn’t a misappropriation at all. Of course, the Hawaiians will disagree, and I wish them well in their quest to reclaim all that is theirs and theirs alone."  To this, I would say that she's right, I do disagree with her colonization of my language -- just like I disagree with the United States' colonization of Hawaii (and yeah, you better believe I'm putting her in the same category) -- and I will continue to try and reclaim a word that she has stolen from me.

I'm not trying to be divisive here, I'm really not.  I have nothing against the Asian American community at all.  But, at the same time, I feel that as a community that has been oppressed, they should know better.

After all, this is language.  And without language a culture dies.

A Place To Be

Ten years ago, I graduated from high school.

Ten.  Years.

It probably seems like a long time to some people, and no time at all for others.  It seems like both to me.

I've been thinking a lot about the space, the distance (both literal and figurative), between who I was at 18 and who I am now, mostly because last week was my high school reunion and I missed it.  I didn't want to go for a number of reasons: I already see most of the people I really want to see from high school; a plane ticket back to Hawaii ain't cheap and, if I'm gonna spend the cash, I'd rather spend the time with my family; I honestly felt like I had better things to do last week (turns out I was right). 

Does that sound harsh?  I don't mean it to.  It really would have been amazing to get back on campus, that place that I literally lived for 7 years (I boarded there since the seventh grade...it did not take me that long to graduate from high school!  What am I, dumb?).  And it would have probably been equally great to see some of those people that I don't actively think about, but who were such a part of the canvas of my life when I was a teenager.  I'd like to know how they're doing, what they're up to, how they're making their mark on the world.

But I'm also a place in my life where I'm trying to figure out who I am right now, who I want to be, and putting myself into a situation where I'm surrounded not only by people who know me as a certain person, but also a place where I was a certain person, well, it just didn't seem like the thing to do. 

I think Emil Blunt said it best in The Jane Austen Book Club: High school is never over.

Don't get me wrong, I love Hawaii.  I love my family and my friends, my culture and heritage, my hometown, my history.  I love that I know the rhythms of that place, the sing-song of the voices, the trajectory of most stories and jokes.  I know Hawaii, you know?  That's comforting.

But I also know that it's not where I belong right now.  Maybe not ever.  It's not where I'm going to be the best version of me I can be.  I can't go there and surround myself with the kind of people I want to surround myself with (other than my family).  And I'm able to do that where I am now.  I'm able to be around friends who constantly push me to go for whatever it is I want, who inspire me to take that next step, who enjoy talking about that next step. I'm able to say, "Hey, next week I want to go on a road trip...how about Yellowstone?" and actually do that.  I have a freedom here I don't think I would have back home.  I'm able to be ambitious, to have that be realistic, and to know that I have the support I need to be successful too.

I know this all makes me sound a little selfish.  It does.  I'm aware.

But I'm okay with that.  Isn't it the time in my life when I should be selfish?

Back from the Holidays

Waipi'o Valley, Big Island, Hawaii.

Being away from home isn't easy for anyone, I don't think, especially around the holidays.  2010 was the first time I spent Christmas outside of Hawaii and away from my family, and while Nate made that Christmas beautiful and special, it just wasn't the same.  So you can bet your ass we went to Hawaii this past year, for a lovely 10 day trip that, in the end, still wasn't enough time.

My family is large.  And loud.  And in-your-business, most of the time.  Any given meal will involve no less than 15 people, and a trip to the nearest town 20 minutes away takes strategic planning and an attention and sensitivity to detail and everyone's needs and feelings.  Our household is dominated by strong women with opinions on the "right way" of doing just about everything.  At any given time, my baby nephew will be crawling around your feet, my niece will be laughing hysterically at something in the next room, and my other nephew will be running in and out of the house with his little neighborhood friends offering promises like a priest and crossing his fingers behind his back. They are the cutest kids in the world.  There are dogs milling about everywhere (the yard, the porch, the house itself), 2 cats (one of which may actually think she's a dog as well), and most likely a full-grown dead mountain boar packed away in the ice chest in our garage (I come from a family of hunters, after all).  My mother and my sisters and I get along like best friends.  We also probably annoy one another like best friends.  My father makes me laugh like no one else in the world can.  I missed my grandfather every single second I was home this year.

We are related to half of our village.  We live in a sleepy country town on the slope of a mountain.  It used to be a sugarcane plantation, and my grandma will still identify areas of our village by camp number.  There was snow on our mountain this year, and someone brought some down in a pick-up truck and built a snowman just across the street.  I think the rain melted it within a few hours.

Hawaii -- the place, the land, the air, the ocean -- it grabs at something inside you.  For all of it's problems and pitfalls (and believe me, there are many), those islands are the most alive place I've ever been.  Regardless of however long I stay away, however long I choose to live in the mainland, I will never not be intricately connected to it.  It's at the center of my history, my family's history, my ancestors histories.  It's home.

This is all just to say that I hope you all had a wonderful holiday season, and that you were where and with whomever you needed to be with this year.  I was!

Happy New Year.

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