A Yearning to be Hapa

A Yearning to be Hapa: How the Quest for a Multiracial Identifier Exposes Issues of Appropriation and Race

They were getting onto their feet and starting to walk away, the Black and Latin@ kids going out the door to another room, the White kids gathering on the left, and I sat stuck to the floor. I could feel the soft half-Asian eyes of the other boy with the Japanese name staring my way, seeing what choice I was going to make. We were the only ones still sitting on the floor of this conference room. The blood rushed to my face as I frantically scanned the others; the Indian woman went with the Black kids, but she had darker skin than me. Do I go with the “People of Color” group, or the “White/White passing” group? In the “People of Color” group, I would be the lightest, the one with the least stories to tell, and there weren’t any East Asians at this event who I could look to for support. But how horrible, to simply diminish my identity to be just… White. European. Long nosed and round-eyed. That wasn’t me. Even the phrase, “White passing,” felt wrong, as though I was trying to be someone I had no intention to be. Standing up, I slowly drifted toward the little group of White kids to the left, a safer go. At this diversity conference, I chose the “White passing” group. I did this activity two more times at other events, and each time I have never chosen to be with the People of Color.

Over the past few decades, the population of mixed race people in the United States has grown, and with this growth comes more young individuals like me being caught between the racial categories that seem to define our societies. In 2009, 25.2% of the two-or-more races population was under age ten, compared to 14.1% of the total population that was within this range (Literte 191). I am not the only one who has experienced this dilemma at social justice conferences, and I have found that many multiracial people I meet are searching for a group that they can confidently feel a part of. In recent years, multiracial students have formed community by founding clubs on college campuses, writing blogs, celebrating multiracial celebrities, and more. However, what I find most complex is our search for a common name. I myself have had numerous experiences with regards to how I have identified myself and how others have identified me. When I played tennis in middle school, my opponent asked if I was a “halfie,” and it took me a while before I realized she was referring to my race. While I did confirm that I was a “halfie,” and we connected for a brief moment, the word did not sit right in my stomach, as though it was too obviously drawing attention to the idea that I was some haphazard piecing together of two races. I discovered that there really was no term that I could confidently use to describe my race that wasn’t too scientific or too slang. In high school, I noticed that many biracial or multiracial Asian-Americans asserted the term hapa, but where did this term come from? After learning about its complex history and meaning in Hawai’i, is it problematic for mainlanders to use this term, and are we appropriating it? In this essay, I will be unpacking the debate that surrounds the emergence of the term hapa haole as an Asian-American identifier, why many mixed race individuals are currently drawn to the term, and exploring the reasons that could make it problematic to use in the future. With mixed-race individuals growing in population, an ever growing group of people will begin searching for an identifier that they can call their own, and with this questioning of where one fits comes the questioning of race itself.

The History of Hapa Haole in Hawaii

In order to understand the weight that the phrase hapa haole holds in Hawai’i, one must understand the history of Western colonization in Hawai’i, its racial and ethnic dynamics and imbalances, and its unique racial diversity.

Similar to mainland America, Hawai’i has a history of Western colonization, with first written evidence of White people arriving here in 1778. Later, Westerners started forming plantation systems and recruiting Native Hawaiians and Chinese, Portugese, and Japanese people as laborers (Rosa 81). Colonizers also forced many Native Hawaiians off of their land, which often resulted in violence and death, and strategically made efforts to erase the Hawaiian identity (Arvin 24). In the late 19th century, missionaries moved to Hawai’i not only with commercial interests, but with numerous diseases that killed hundreds of thousands of Native Hawaiians and led to the eventual overthrow of Queen Lili‘uokalani in 1893 (Herman 276). In 1896, the Native Hawaiian language was banned. This ban was not lifted until 1986, and as a result, today many Native Hawaiians can only speak English. The land was further taken from the Native people as sugar plantation owners gained a monopolizing foothold, which lasted until the mid 1900’s, and with World War II, Hawai’i went under martial law, where it was legal to destroy land for military means (Haunaki-Kay). Even today, Native Hawaiian communities fight to preserve cultural landmarks, and their land is often overpopulated with tourists, creating a tension between the local and the foreigner. A constant and growing problem in Hawai’i is its heavy emphasis on outdoor tourism, such as diving and snorkeling, which grew in popularity when Native Hawaiians were still banned from surfing on their own beaches. These tourist activities degraded the overall health of an ecosystem that was originally the property of the Native Hawaiians, and this can be problematic when Native Hawaiians could not enjoy their benefits for legal or financial reasons.

These numerous actions instilled animosity from Native Hawaiians, as shown by Kathy Kigner’s blunt yet fiery poem, “Tell Them:” “Your presence / is a painful reminder / of U.S. colonial dispossession [...] I just quietly hate you / defenseless against my anger / because it is easier to blame the victim / than the empire.” Here, audiences can see that colonialism still impacts ethnic minorities in Hawai’i not just in economic or political ways but in the way Hawaiians of different ethnicities interact with each other.

Ethnic differences and inequality continues to remain prevalent today, and Native Hawaiians are still not given equal opportunities compared to other ethnic groups on the islands. Currently Japanese, Chinese, and White people hold more power politically and economically than Native Hawaiians, Polynesians, and other minority groups (Fojas et al. 7). Because of these specific differences, Hawaiians are more aware of differences in ethnicity, such as Japanese, Chinese, or Hawaiian, instead of race, which includes White or Asian, as the structure for societal relations. In Ethnicity and Inequality in Hawai’i, Jonathan Y. Okamura explains why tension and inequality is structured not around racial groups but ethnic ones. He points out that while ethnic inequality has lessened since World War II, there is still a considerable population of Hawaiians who are denied privileges, benefits, and resources because of their ethnicity. Unfortunately, when Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, and Korean Americans were given the opportunity to gain socioeconomic status in the 1970’s, other minority groups, such as Native Hawaiians, who made up 20% of Hawai’i’s population in the 2000 census, were not given this opportunity (3), which put them at an unfair disadvantage compared to other ethnic groups. These disadvantages can be seen in poverty and income rates in these past few decades. In 2005, Native Hawaiian families had the lowest family income of all of the other main ethnic groups in Hawai’i, and this was exacerbated by the fact that Hawai’i has an immensely high cost of living. Native Hawaiian poverty rates were also higher than the rates of other ethnic groups at 16%, with the state average at 10.7% (Kana‘iaupuni et al. 2-8).

While these numbers emphasize Native Hawaiian people’s current, disadvantaged socioeconomic status, academics have also emphasized their resilience in maintaining their cultural identity, and that building upon these community strengths will help bring more Native Hawaiians out of poverty (9). Language is also included as a cultural identity, but the Hawaiian language has also been misused by foreigners to encourage tourism, and with its history of being banned, it will be critical to observe the evolution of the language during a time when it is both being reclaimed by Native Hawaiians and becoming more relevant in the vocabulary of non-Natives.

It is within this setting that the term hapa haole emerged. Haole means foreigner, but it is generally used to describe a White person. Hapa is Native Hawaiian, meaning “part” or “mix.” When Europeans came to Hawai’i, and miscegenation began to occur, individuals combined hapa with haole to coin the term hapa haole (Bernstein and Cruz 2008). While the term at first did not have a distinctly negative or positive connotation, its first recorded definition in 1865 described it as “to diminish, make less; an indefinite part of a thing; a few; a small part,” (Ho‘omanawanui 242). Some researchers claim that the term does have a derogatory denotation because of its connection to colonialism, but others found that it has always been used with pride, because if someone is part Hawaiian, they are considered Hawaiian by that community (Akemi). In all, there is uncertainty regarding this word’s connotation, but it is still widely used in Hawai’i, and usually as a term of pride.

It makes sense that this term, hapa haole, would enter the vocabulary of Hawaiian residents because Hawai’i is regarded as one of the most diverse places on the planet, especially because its location puts it at the crossroads of Asia and mainland America. It has often been termed a “laboratory” or “experiment” by many because of its amount of multiracial people, which many people forecast will be the demographics of the rest of America in the future (Fojas et al. 2). However, with growing diversity comes new challenges in racial and social dynamics and in helping to support those whose ancestors survived colonialism.

Impacts on Mainland American Culture

With the growing number of biracial and mixed race people being born all across America, it would seem natural that they would want a word to describe themselves, and this is how the term hapa haole became popular on the mainland. This term did not gain recognition until the turn of the twenty-first century, when it started appearing in academic articles. In 2006, it skyrocketed to the forefront of mainland minds when a half-Asian photographer named Kip Fulbeck published his 5 year long major project, the Hapa Project, claiming a hapa to be anyone who is part Asian in America. Fulbeck was not intending on taking the hapa haole identity from indegenous Hawaiians, but instead he was hoping to inspire community within the growing half-Asian population. In his book of portraits, he stated that this project was an “introduction to the rest of the world and an affirmation for Hapas themselves,” (Fulbeck). His focus was more on acknowledging that this group of people existed and putting them in the spotlight for who they are and not as “exotic,” as he states on the front cover flap. However, he does little to mention that Hawai’i had its own history behind the word or that his claiming the word in a book which he will probably make money off of could be problematic for some people.

Part Asian, 100% Hapa, the book of portraits by Kip Fulbeck (2006)

Kip Fulbeck’s claiming of hapa haole is an example of the critique mainlanders have received by using the term because it is trendy, thereby devaluing the Hawaiian culture. Many Natives have expressed strong opinions against the use of hapa haole by mainland Asians. Ku‘ualoha Ho‘omanawanui states in her journal article, From Captain Cook to Captain Kirk, or, From Colonial Exploration to Indigenous Exploitation: Issues of Hawaiian Land, Identity, and Nationhood in a “Postethnic” World (2012) that non-Natives have brought the term into their vocabulary as “desirable and exotic” and to claim a hapa identity is to have an “exotic status, one that is hip and trendy,” (Ho‘omanawanui 248). I have to agree that when I hear the term hapa used as a mixed race Asian-American identifier, there is the sense that it is the “in” phrase, and this might also be due to the fact that the word itself sounds slang and en vogue. Akemi Johnson, who wrote an NPR podcast about her questioning of mainland use of the phrase, also expressed this concern. She told the story of how when she went to Hawai’i and was identified by locals as hapa, she felt a thrill as though she shared a secret handshake with the insiders or was trying on a fancy gown that she could not afford. However, she then quoted Native Hawaiian disapproval of mainland use of the word and how this was considered identity theft or cultural appropriation, and ended with an unresolved sense of how she would use the word in the future. Now knowing this, I wonder if Fulbeck’s Hapa Project would receive such praise today, especially as more people are becoming aware of the problems that claiming hapa haole may bring up.

When people use hapa haole out of its original Hawaiian context, they risk disrespecting a culture and ethnicity that has historically been oppressed. In her website, Real Hapa, Lana Robbins likens this misuse of the term to a “rape” of the Hawaiian language, saying that people are implying that the Hawaiian language “means nothing and thus the Hawaiian people are nothing.” She concludes by announcing that “the misuse and misappropriation of the word ‘hapa’ must end” (258). If groups of Hawaiians are feeling similarly about mainland use of the term, then it would be only respectful to stop using it immediately. And while only some have this strong opinion, others note that it can still be considered cultural appropriation to claim a Hawaiian word when the Hawaiian culture has often been misappropriated by Westerners. This cultural appropriation is seen with businesses in Hawai’i using Hawaiian names, the commercial hula girl that people put on dashboards and windowsills, and even businesses marketing the term hapa haole without its Hawaiian context, such as selling hapa pride shirts online, which could be interpreted as problematic because they are making money off of a term from someone else’s culture.

Additionally, does this term even fill the void that mixed race people express is apparent? Hapa is actually a Hawaiianized word off of the English word, half (Ho‘omanawanui 253). If Americans say that they prefer hapa over biracial or half-Asian because it does not involve an explicit splitting of identities, then I wonder if they would still use the word with pride if they knew that it simply meant half. In actuality, are they just using the term because it has this exotic sound, discussed earlier, that makes them feel hip when they use it? Then, there is also the fact that multiracial people often try to challenge the idea that they are always “half,” but by using these phrases that are limited by the normalized racial language of the time, phrases that state that there are two “races” being mixed, then they are further emphasizing and bringing attention to the fact that they can never be “whole.” If the term hapa or half or biracial is used, then there will always be the assumption that a mixed race identity cannot be a social identity onto itself but a result of the mixing of race, a social construct. Lastly, there is always the issue that mixed race people desire a community and identifier of their own, one that does not assume they are less than a full race (such as half-Chinese, for example), but instead they claim an identifier that belongs to another ethnic group. Since only a small percentage of people who identify as hapa nowadays are actually half-Native Hawaiian, we have not solved the problem of choosing a term that we aren’t borrowing from another group.

Why Now?

Why, now, is this hapa haole debate so important? First, it is important to remember the growing number of mixed race people in America and their unique position in society. With this position comes, at least for me, a constant re-evaluation of which communities I consider myself to be a part of and what other people consider me to be a part of. This internal assessment is also influenced by how I have observed people interact around me and if they include me in their group based on how they interpret my race. Omi and Winant have referenced this feeling of encountering situations of categorizing difficulties by stating that people use race to provide “clues” about who a person is when they first meet. When someone encounters a racially ambiguous person, they cannot “conveniently racially categorize” that person, and discomfort and a momentary crisis of racial meaning ensues (126). I find pride in the fact that I am a puzzle to figure out, although sometimes I wished I looked more Asian so that I did not have to feel the need to validate my Chinese identity. I find power in the fact that I am part of a movement that claims to be a “formerly unrecognized group challenging the [racial] framework itself, as Kimberly DaCosta states (2-3). In order for racism and White power to exist, there need to be clear racial boundaries, and multiracial people defy these boundaries. As Bernstein and Cruz (2008) have stated, “Hapas are typically asked, ‘What are you?’ or are mistaken for another race [. . .] And this confusion that Hapas can induce in other Americans represents a potential crack in the traditional notion of race that could eventually shatter it altogether. Episodes of mistaken identity poignantly bring to mind the arbitrary and artificial aspects that race can have” (737). Mixed raced individuals can challenge race itself, and in their attempt to claim the identifier hapa haole, they bring attention to the history of race in Hawai’i and the fact that they are actively searching for a phrase that they can call their own, which can be difficult when race and ethnicity is currently so definitive.

I must ask you now: what should this large and ever growing population call themselves? Can racially mixed people come up with a term for themselves without creating another exclusive racial category? This is the question that I am most interested in exploring further. In 2003, the New York Times released an article stating that the new generation of humans should be titled Generation E.A. for ethnically ambiguous (La Ferla). We cannot ignore the question that will be the tipping point of our future and in race relations. How do we move forward as defiers of race?

On a late humid evening of Fall 2019 at Amherst College, I attended an affinity group meeting where for once I did not have to make any sacrifices to my identity or feel left out. It was Mixed Student Union’s inaugural gathering, and when I walked in, dozens of pairs of delicately almond shaped eyes stared my way, and hair of all colors and styles-in-between topped their heads, and their skin was all of these mixed tones, like mine.

There, everyone wanted to simply be with each other and talk about something they rarely got to talk about, not even with their parents. There, people admitted their worry about not “looking” their identity or not ever feeling qualified to represent a race. We shared common experiences of feeling uncomfortable at ASA or BSU or La Causa for fear of being seen as the White intruder. There, everyone just wanted to be together and move in solidarity in a place where they 100% belonged.

MSU 2019

When we were born biracial, our existence put into question the social constructions created by the Whites and the powerful. We live freely in a space where we are unidentifiable and unjudgeable. We have power over who we choose to be, and we share the beauty of juggling two cultural identities. We hold the secrets about race that those who were given the answers don’t get to see. We are given a challenge that we must take on independently of our parents. We get to live two lives, or maybe three or four, or maybe infinite. We were born whole, and yet we will always be split and not enough; we are a walking irony. We are the evidence that we are all simply humans.

“And what has been the result of becoming a part of America? Our children were punished for speaking our native language, taught to be ashamed of our culture, our names, our skin. Our home became Americans’ playground, their battleground, their 50th state, their real estate. And in our own homeland, we are the homeless, we are the poor, we have the shortest life expectancy, we are the uneducated, we fill the prisons. But, after more than a century of dispossession, we are still here.”

Hawai’i has a complex history of colonialism and racial tension that lasts to this day, as shown by this narration from the movie, An Act of War (1993) about the overthrow of the Hawaiian Kingdom in 1893 (An Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation). This narrator speaks of the time when the Hawaiian language was banned, when the American military took control, and when tourism grew, all of which put Native Hawaiians at a disadvantage. It is within this context that mainland Asian-Americans are claiming hapa haole. Knowing this history and reminding ourselves that hapa still denotes an incomplete racial identity, should mixed race individuals risk hurting another minority group at the expense of our desires to use the phrase, or should we come up with a whole new way of identifying ourselves?

Ultimately, multiracial people are searching for a space on the floor that they can call their own. I no longer wanted to straddle my two identities the way I did on the floor of the conference room, and I, along with others, yearn to find my own racial identifier. But now it is the moment when we must re-evaluate race in general. What is the meaning of race when a growing population of individuals do not fit its rules? Maybe it is not the term hapa haole that individuals with racial multiplicities are seeking, but it is a general societal reconfiguration of the idea of race in general that will be the new quest for the future.

Project Roots, a program I attended twice where I participated in the race privilege walk, mentioned above. While at many times I was uncomfortable, the program changed my life for the better.

Works Cited

“An Act of War: The Overthrow of the Hawaiian Nation.” Independent Television Service, 1993.

Bernstein, Mary, and Marcie De La Cruz. “‘What Are You?": Explaining Identity as a Goal of the Multiracial Hapa Movement.” Social Problems, vol. 56, no. 4, 2009, pp. 722–745., doi:10.1525/sp.2009.56.4.722.

“‘Eh! Where You From?’ Questions of Place, Race and Identity in Contemporary Hawai’i.” Beyond Ethnicity: New Politics of Race in Hawaiʻi, by Camilla Fojas et al., University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2018.

Fojas, Camilla, and Rudy P. Guevarra. Transnational Crossroads: Remapping the Americas and the Pacific. University of Nebraska Press, 2012. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ddr6mv.12.

Fojas, Camilla, et al. Beyond Ethnicity: New Politics of Race in Hawaiʻi. University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2018.

Fulbeck, Kip. Part Asian, 100% Hapa. Chronicle Books LLC, 2006.

Herman, RDK. “Out of Sight, out of Mind, out of Power: Leprosy, Race and Colonization in Hawai’i.” Multidisciplinary Research on Hawaiian Weil-Being, vol. 6, 2010, pp. 265–291.

Johnson, Akemi. “Who Gets To Be 'Hapa'?” NPR, NPR, 8 Aug. 2016, www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/08/08/487821049/who-gets-to-be-hapa.

Kana‘iaupuni, Shawn Malia, et al. “Income and Poverty Among Native Hawaiians.” Ksbe.edu, Policy Analysis & System Evaluation (PASE), 2005, www.ksbe.edu/_assets/spi/pdfs/reports/demography_well-being/05_06_5.pdf.

La Ferla, Ruth. “Generation E.A.: Ethnically Ambiguous.” The New York Times, 28 Dec. 2003, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/28/style/generation-ea-ethnically-ambiguous.html.

Literte, Patricia E. “‘We Have Created Our Own Meaning for Hapa Identity’: The Mobilization of Self-Proclaimed Hapas within Institutions of Higher Education.” Amerasia Journal, vol. 35, no. 2, 2009, pp. 191–212., doi:10.17953/amer.35.2.983647568174q020.

Okamura, Jonathan Y. Ethnicity and Inequality in Hawaiʻi. Temple Univ. Press, 2008.

Omi, Michael, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States. 3rd ed., Routledge, 2015.

Trask, and Haunani-Kay. “The Struggle For Hawaiian Sovereignty.” Cultural Survival Quarterly Magazine, Cultural Survival, 1 Mar. 2000, www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/struggle-hawaiian-sovereignty-introduction.

This blog post was taken and edited from a school paper.