Bad Comcast, Insults, Interracial Alien Abductees, And HAPA B-day!

Thanks to Comcast, my post is a day late. I don't know why they started messing around with their servers at the exact time I was finishing up, but they did and now I have to start all over. Apologies.

Yo! Hip Hapa Homeez,

It's been another busy week of dismantling misinformation about multiracial people, and I'm exhausted. Sometimes, I get so tired of preaching and teaching that I just let stuff slide. How about you?

A couple of days ago while out walking, I ran into the bus driver with whom I had shared my woes about a difficult class I took last quarter. Since he drove the bus to the campus daily, I often complained to him about the homework that I struggled over. Coincidentally, he was familiar with the subject and tried to encourage me. When I had last seen him, I was sweating a bad grade. Surprisingly, I ended up doing better than I anticipated. Spotting him on my walk, I expressed my delight at earning a decent grade. Laughing, the driver replied, "Well, that's the Asian half of you." I was speechless. Since he's Asian himself, I wasn't sure if he was just attempting to create a bond through our cultural connection. I wanted to ask, but didn't, if he thought it possible that my black relatives might value education more than my Japanese ones. I'm sure he meant no harm by his statement. After all, Asian immigrants in America do have a reputation for being academically inclined. However, I've read articles that indicate the true model minorities are Haitians. That's right; those refugees that arrived packed in rickety boats off the shores of Florida are considered to be the most achievement-oriented in this country--counting numerous doctors, nurses and lawyers among them.

Awhile back, a Caucasian man made a similar remark when I mentioned some academic accomplishment I'd realized. "You're so smart," he said. "It must be the Asian in you." Of course, I was stunned. Was he saying that the black in me was not as bright as the Japanese? I wanted to ask if he knew who invented the traffic signal light, or who came up with the idea of blood transfusions that saves millions of lives worldwide. Hint: Neither were Asians.

And, what about Obama then? Do you think world leaders sit around thinking, "That guy is so smart. It must be the white in him." Is it a good thing then, that Obama identifies himself as an African American?

I suppose there are worse things that monoracial people can say to us mixies. Yet, I find myself often thinking that as a whole (pun intended), we humans have a long way to go.

Recently, I ran into a former classmate who is half white and half black. As we discussed being biracial, he revealed that he and his brother were treated differently as they grew up. My friend is "high yella"--golden skinned with green eyes and "good" hair. His brother, he told me, had darker skin and tighter hair. I explained that my film, Watermelon Sushi, is about this very issue--how people are perceived to possess certain traits based on nothing more than their appearance. Just when did having a darker shade of skin become an open invitation for scorn, anyway?

Earlier in the week, I was at a local copy shop when I began conversing with a young African American woman who was assisting me. Reading her name tag, I mentioned that I had a friend who shared her unusual name, but who lived back East. The young women then shared with me her complicated family history and all the places where they had resided. Then, very casually, she explained that her father had not been raised by his own mother (her grandmother), but by his grandmother (her great-grandmother) because--here the young woman lightly brushed the back of her arm with her fingers--his skin was too dark.

Can you imagine being rejected by your own mother because of something so irrelevant as the shade of your skin? If your own mother won't accept you, what hope is there for the rest of the world embracing you? Folks, we just suck.

On another note: Thanks to the quick eye of Rachel Herault, I had to revisit my March 19th blog post titled "Where Are the Extraterrestrials of Color?" If you recall, I was in a tizzy after viewing the Hollywood film Knowing, starring Nicholas Cage as an MIT prof who unravels a series of numbers that add up to doom for planet Earth. While he's busy figuring out that we're on a collision course with the Sun, several aliens (all monoracial Caucasians) intervene. I was miffed that none of the aliens were of color, and posed the question; how come the future is so white when there are more Chinese on the planet right now than anyone else? I even insinuated that Hollywood is sending a subtle message that aliens can only be Caucasian because they possess a superior intelligence proven by their ability to travel all the way to our planet. Anyway, Rachel reminded me that a couple who was actually abducted by aliens in the 1950's was interracial. Barney Hill was black and his wife, Betty, was white. In the TV movie based on their story, they were played by actors James Earl Jones and Estelle Parsons. The fact that I remember the most about the Hills' adventure is Betty's drawing of where the aliens had come from. Although she drew stars that didn't exist at the time of her kidnapping, years later scientists discovered them in the sky.

Please keep your cards and letters coming, Hip Hapa Homeez. I love hearing from you! And, don't forget to sign up to join our Facebook group--Hip Hapa Homeez. Remember our Hapa*Teez t-shirts and our open call casting for Watermelon Sushi, too.

Last, but not least, here's a shout-out to Moms. HAPA b-day! I tried to wish it on your special day, but see 'bad Comcast', above. Omedetto gozaimasu! The photo above is one of Moms at the earliest age we could find. Here (bottom left), she's a 16 year-old nanny, out boating with her employer's family.

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi

Where Are The Extraterrestrials Of Color?

This week I attended a press screening for the film Knowing starring Nicholas Cage as an MIT professor with a young son. Because his wife died recently, the prof has taken to drinking a lot while pondering the meaning of life. He even lectures his students about the randomness of it all.

The movie opens fifty years earlier as elementary school children each contribute a piece of artwork to a time capsule. All the students are happily coloring and drawing, but one girl is obsessively writing rows and rows of numbers. What does it mean? I'm not going to give away the plot in case you plan to see this movie, but I will reveal that it involves the world coming to an end and "good" aliens rescuing "the chosen". And, just who are these chosen? Out of the billions of folks on planet earth, the lucky two that the aliens save happen to be the granddaughter of the little girl who wrote all those crazy numbers fifty years previous, and the professor's son.

Of course, the two children (who we assume will be the Adam and Eve of the new world) are mono-racial Caucasians. And, so are the aliens. In the scenes that take place 50 years earlier, it's historically accurate to show an all-white school. And later, most of the crowd scenes correctly feature various ethnicities. But as far as the aliens being portrayed by four white actors, three of them male, all I can say is why? This lack of colored folks as extraterrestrials bothered me so much that I posted the question on Facebook: Why are there no aliens of color in American films? Besides Brother From Another Planet, I couldn't think of any others. Several of my friends, however, came up with names like Damon Wayans in Earth Girls Are Easy and Louis Gossett, Jr. in Enemy Mine. There was mention of Billy Dee Williams and James Earl Jones in Star Wars, and Whoopi Goldberg in Star Trek, too. Still, the names of actors of color were rare. Besides, all the ones mentioned were black, and my question was meant to address all people of color including Asians, Indigenous folks, Latinos, and even biracial people.

Are we to assume, based on the film Knowing, that there are no people of color in the future? How does that compute when people of color dominate the world population right now? What happens to all of us then? If anything, futuristic films should heavily feature the Chinese.

One thought that persists in engaging my mind is that extraterrestrials are, in Hollywood's eyes, synonymous with superior intelligence. After all, they manage to find their way to Earth while earthlings haven't, so far, visited other planets. Is there some subtle message emitting from Tinsel Town that says people of color aren't smart enough to be a part of the future? Of course, a progressive director like John Sayles, often flips the script. Thus, the irreverent Brother From Another Planet.

I've been so disturbed by this lack of colored aliens issue that I vow to write a script about space creates of various hues, especially biracial ones. That's how I see the future, don't you? With so much race mixing going on these days, multiracial people are bound to be the dominant majority some day. So, why not aliens?

Meanwhile, friends, fans and family, we're still casting for Watermelon Sushi, we're still selling Hapa*Teez t-shirts to finance the film, and we're still recruiting members for our Facebook group called Hip Hapa Homeez. Join us today. Where else can you have rapper Kool Mo Dee as your Veep and group members like MC Lyte and Patti LaBelle?

Speaking of aliens, that's my sister and me in the pix above on a subway train in Tokyo. Note the flash of light around my head. Could it be my aura, or my alien antennae emerging?

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi