Hapa Japas, That's Ja As In "Jah"

Today, I met yet another half Japanese person! It just amazes me how many of us there are because gazing from a distance it appears that Japanese society is highly homogenized with very little race-mixing. Yet, at times, I feel like I know a ton of biracial Japanese people.

Hapa Japas, I like to call us. That's Ja as in Jah Rastafari!

From all the kids I grew up with on Army bases (with their Japanese warbride mothers and fathers that were either black or white Americans) to the woman I met in yoga class today, we are many.

The woman from yoga class, Cathy, has an Irish father and was born and reared in Yokohama. Her daughter's father is also Japanese. I'm really curious to know how growing up in Japan affected her. She has a very European look so maybe life wasn't as traumatic for her as it was for someone like my friend Eriko who is half Okinawan and half black. For Eriko, Okinawa instills both a sense of pride and shame because of the way she was treated for having an African American father.

Interesting, isn't it? That a country (either Japan or Okinawa) that boasts no NATIVE black people quickly built a prejudice against them...based on what, exactly? When you've never had a certain people embedded in your country, how would you know what they're capable of or not? By the same token, whites weren't always treated well by the Japanese either. But, as in most places on planet earth, they fared better than blacks.

It's been a long time since I visited Japan, but back in the 1980's when I did with my mother and sister, we were well received. But, then again, the Japanese tend to put politeness ahead of opinion, so how do I know what others really thought? Obviously, too, because my sister and I were with my mother, we were afforded a certain respect by default. Since my mom was one of "them", my sister and I were give a wide margin for error by the locals.

Because of my advocacy for mixed-race folks, over the years I've been contacted by many half Japanese people. Recently, two sisters, Cassie and Doris befriended me. It's been a real treat to share stories of our similar experiences. And, I'm looking forward to knowing more Hapa Japas, so hollah if you're out there, cuz.

Can you name some Hapa Japas? I just visited a website called Alec In Japan that showcased a dozen half Japanese celebrities--none of whom I had ever heard of.

Here's my very small list because I'm tired and it's late:

Anzu Lawson, actress/comedienne, Japanese mother

Laura Kina, painter/professor, Japanese father

Stewart David Ikeda, writer/professor, Japanese father

Terra Paley, business consultant, Japanese mother

Velina Hasu Houston, playwright/professor, Japanese mother

George Johnston, writer/publisher, Japanese mother

Add more?

That's me in a pic taken by Doug Ing right after I won third place in a citywide art contest in Seattle one year. I cut myself in half to go with my illustration's theme.

Your Hip Hapa and Hapa Japa,

Yayoi

Marvelous Miwa Lyric

Can you stand to read yet another hapa birthday blog? Among my many friends and acquaintances, it seems, I can count lots of spring babies.

One special child is the marvelous Miwa Lyric who shares my birthday--only she was born several decades after me. In spite of her tender age, Miwa is wise and filled with the kind of compassion that is available to others only as they grow older. But Miwa seems to have been born that way. She's a writer, a rapper, a social activist and, she even designs clothes. Wait! Am I talking about her or me? Actually, my social activism is limited to talking a lot about what should be done, and my rapping--well, let's not discuss. But when it comes to demonstrating concern for those who suffer from injustice, with Miwa, there's the walk and the talk, and the two of them go together.

I was first introduced to Miwa, several years ago, via email blasts sent to me about her performance dates. I later found out that Miwa, herself, was sending them. How she stumbled upon my email address I don't know, nor do I care, because I became so entranced by what she had to say about art and politics. Although I haven't been able to see as many of her shows as I would like to, what I have seen has impressed me as they have others. Miwa has a HUGE fan base, mostly in LA, but also internationally. Right now, she's in Japan.

A few weeks after Miwa began emailing me, I received another email from a young woman named Asani Winfrey who wondered if we were related. That's legit. Even Oprah's cousins have contacted me about that possibility. Asani, who is of duel heritage (Chickasaw and black), has a famous father, a musician named Toddy, who ended up living in Japan. As for Asani (here's the irony of all ironies)--her husband is a music producer who produced Miwa's first CD's when she was still with a group! None of the three of us knew any of these connections existed until we continued to communicate with each other and it all came out.

On top of it all, Asani's birthday is May 6 (two days after Miwa's and mine) so one year Miwa threw the mother of all parties at the Jazz Club in J-town, L.A. Hundreds of people turned up, Miwa performed along with some of her hiphop students, her sushi chef father made fresh sushi, and I shot video of the entire event. Someday, I'll post a clip on the Internet for everyone to see.

Meanwhile, I just wanted to shout out to my special little friend, the marvelous Miwa Lyric. Here's her site:

http://www.thesoulasystem.com

And, that's her in the pix above with me and Chuck D following a Culver City studio taping of Kool Mo Dee's TV show, I Am Hiphop, last year.

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi

P.S. Thank you again to Cassie and Doris for the wonderful gifts and that yoga card. You two are something else!

New York Times Punks Out: Hot, Hapa Mess!

Well, as promised, below is the link to the New York Times "Mixed Messenger" article on hapas which was not even written by a hapa, but by the Jewish mother of a hapa daughter. After you read the article, please return to my blog to read my rebuttal which was not accepted by the New York Times' short-sighted editors.

Even if they had edited it (it was too long for both the Letters and OpEd pages), I would've been happy just to see them acknowledge an article about hapas written by a hapa. And, people wonder why race relationships in this country are so bad! If I, a Japanese-black woman, decided to write a piece on what it means to be Jewish, I'd either be laughed out of town or hideously chastised. Instead, the vice versa is perfectly acceptable.

Sign me,

Disgusted.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/23/magazine/23wwln-lede-t.html?ex=1206936000&en=a75aa4c5e7d2072f&ei=5070&emc=eta1

March 25, 2008

Editor/Op Ed, New York Times

Dear Editor,

I was very surprised to read an article in your publication about hapas written by someone who is NOT hapa. Just because a mono-racial person has a biracial child doesn't make her an expert on hapas. And, in Ms. Orenstein's case, that goes double (pun intended).

First of all, for her to write that Senator "Obama has increasingly positioned himself as a black man" is wrong. Most biracial people aren't allowed to choose their own identity, but are thrust into one by mono-racial people based on nothing more than their physical appearance. She also makes no mention of the One Drop Rule, a legacy of slavery that is still in effect today--which is substantiated by her next remark:

"White America, too, has a vested interest in seeing him as black (as) it's certainly a more exciting, more romantic and more concrete prospect than the "first biracial president"...

Please. White America wants Senator Obama identified as black in order to perpetuate the One Drop Rule, which was enforced by white slave masters seeking to ensure that their property never fell into the hands of their half-Negro slave offspring.

The anti-miscegenation laws Ms. Orenstein refers to were enacted to prevent WHITES from intermarrying. Period. Those laws were based on the concept of white supremacy and were enforced to keep white blood from being tainted by any other race. Certainly, no one would arrest a black man and an Asian woman who married, or vice versa.

Ms. Orenstein is also misdirected when she says that hapa is a Hawai'ian word meaning half. Native Hawai'ians didn't have a word for half because they had no concept of it. If Ms. Orenstein had done her homework, she would've learned that hapa is a mispronunciation of the English word half. Hawai'ian phonetics, which adds vowels to endings of words, would dictate that half comes out sounding like hapa. Half-a. Hapa.

Ms. Orenstein's article is rife with misinformation. If your paper's intent was to educate the mainstream about hapas, you should've asked a genuine one like Jen Chau, head of the largest mixed-race organization in the world--http://www.swirlinc.org--to comment.

In fact, there are dozens of well-known hapas who write, speak and promote hapa-ness that would've given a much clearer and more accurate picture of what it means to be biracial. Thanks to Ms. Orenstein, we now have a hot, hapa mess on our hands.

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi Lena Winfrey

btw, that's Jen Chau above, right, with my friend Doris when I visited both in NYC in 2000.