Aloha, Hip Hapa
Homeez!
Last month’s Hawai’i
International Film Festival featured some amazing movies from around the world.
Among them was a documentary directed by a local, Christen Hepuakoa
(Hepuakoamanaaheleihiehieonaonamekekapu’o’nali'iamekahanohanoamauanaia)
Marquez.
To learn more about
Christen’s film, E Haku Inoa (To Weave a Name), check out the links below. Meanwhile, here’s what
the director has to say about her mixed roots and more:
Q: Christen, who are your parents and how did they meet?
A: My mother is Native Hawaiian/Filipino and my father is
Caucasian. (French/English/German). They met through my Mom's sister.
Q: How did you grow up?
A: In Hawai’i, where I lived until I was in third grade, the
whole island is a mixed race environment. After that, it was Seattle, then as
an adult, New York and Los Angeles.
Q: What made you decide to explore your Kanaka Maoli culture and
the meaning of your Hawaiian name through your film?
A: I felt ashamed that I did not know the meaning of my own
name, but I chose to turn that into a positive curiosity instead of something
self-loathing and destructive.
 |
| photo credit: Linda Marquez Schmidt |
Q: How did your family feel about you making their lives so
public?
A: They were surprisingly okay with it. I think it was because
at first they didn’t ever believe that the film would be on television, but I
had been telling everyone in the family that it would be. So, when it finally
started to materialize, they couldn’t say that I never warned them.
 |
| photo credit: Amber McClure |
Q: What was the most important discovery in your quest to reconnect with your Hawaiian roots?
A: It was important for me to reconnect with other people who
validated the spiritual connection that I feel to the islands.
Q: You also made a film about a Cambodian woman searching for
her siblings in Two Shadows. Do you find yourself crossing cultures
often? How much of that is attributable to your being mixed yourself?
A: That is a great question! I do think it has a lot to do with
being multi-racial myself. As multi-racial people, we get glimpses of bigotry
that might otherwise be hidden to us and also get treated as insiders into
places we might not actually be from. Because of that, it is really important
for me to be as culturally educated and as sensitive as I possibly can be. All
of that paired with my personal enjoyment of new experiences, I think, leads me
to cross cultures more comfortably than some other people.
Q: Please share information about your future projects.
A: I’m currently working on a project about Hawaiian Language sovereignty
songs that I hope to begin shooting in 2014. For other information about my
projects and work, please visit me at www.paradocsproductions.com
or www.hakuinoa.com
as well as on facebook at www.facebook.com/weaveaname and twitter
@paradocsfilm
Mahalo nui loa, Christen.
Hey, Hip Hapa Homeez, please show your support by visiting
our website, YouTube links and Facebook pages listed here. Also, request membership in our Facebook group, Hip Hapa Homeez, where we discuss being mixed,
interracially involved, transracially adopted and crossing cultures.
Hapa*Teez on YouTube
Hapa*Teez on Facebook
Hapa*Teez on Café Press
War Brides of Japan v.2 on YouTube
War Brides of Japan on YouTube
War Brides of Japan on Facebook
Yayoi Lena Winfrey fan page on Facebook (sorry, but Your Hip
Hapa can’t add any more friends to her regular profile page)
Sexy Voices of Hollywood
Twitter
A hui hou.
Your Hip Hapa,
Yayoi
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