Fall N2 Hapa Holidays

Aloha, Hip Hapa Homeez!

At last, we're in the process of setting up several online ‘stores’ where you can purchase our merch—like buttons, posters, stickers and t-shirts for your ‘hapa holiday’, hapas!

Under the banner of ‘YayoiClanArt’, there will be several designs for our films: ‘Tokyo Lily’, ‘War Brides of Japan’, and ‘Watermelon Sushi’; ‘hapa*teez’ for mixed-race folks, ’T_zing’ for the metaphysically inclined, ‘Vegan*Jin’ for those embracing the eating of plants and not animals; and finally, ‘Palm Island Tropical Tease’ which showcases island culture.

‘Tokyo Lily’…war bride. wife. mother. artist. poet. dancer. seamstress. home chef. …

‘War Brides of Japan’…Japanese women who married American military men after WWII endured many hardships including raising mixed-race children while navigating a new language and culture…

‘Watermelon Sushi’…a film about two biracial sisters that explores identity, family, love, birth and death against the backdrop of 1980’s African American hiphop and Japanese traditions…

‘hapa*teez’…for the mixed-race community, no matter how you choose to identify… 

’T_zing’…designs for spiritual folks include both Asian and Western Astrological symbols, as well as other metaphysical signs from world cultures…

‘Vegan*Jin’…art that embraces vegans and animal rights activists. the word  ‘jin’ is often used in Japanese language to denote benevolence…

‘Palm Island Tropical Tease’…a gentle ocean wave, a cooling breeze, a swaying palm; welcome to the peace & zen of caribbean & pacific islands in Tropical Tease…

YayoiClanArt is reflective of Yayoi Jidai, a period of artistic achievement in Japan. It’s believed that the Yayoi Clan crossed the Korean peninsula 2,000 years ago to settle on Honshu. Not only were they the first to cultivate rice in Japan, they were also fantastic artisans and created bronze works, especially temple bells.

Our store links below will be made clickable as soon as they become functional over the next few weeks:

RedBubble

Teepublic

Zazzle

If you made a purchase at our former Cafe Press store, then rest assured we have your donation for ‘Watermelon Sushi’ noted in our records and you will be credited on the movie. Here just a few of our generous supporters:

Andye

Teri

Cassie

Ro Lee

Carol

Eva

Julia

Ejiro

Meanwhile, in other news:

‘WAR BRIDES OF JAPAN, A DOCU*MEMORY’ can still be viewed on Gumroad. The five part series includes interviews with Japanese war brides, their husbands (and former enemies), their adult children, and their grandchildren. There’s an intro and trailer for each segment explaining the stories before you watch it.

https://watermelonsushi.gumroad.com/

War Brides of Japan website
War Brides of Japan on Youtube

War Brides of Japan on Facebook

'TOKYO LILY, A WAR BRIDE DOCU*MEMORY’ is still fundraising and still in its research stage. The story of Tokyo Lily (or Yuriko), a war bride who eventually became an artist, should be completed in 2025. Arrigatou! to all of our past donors whose names can be viewed here:

Tokyo Lily website

donor page

Tokyo Lily (left) in front of one of her paintings

‘WATERMELON SUSHI’ is in the editing stages thanks to our Executive Producer Lowell Douglas Ing. We are so proud of how the footage has held up all these years and the stellar performances of our amazing actors. The narrative will feature a vintage look with hiphop music from the mid-1980’s.

Watermelon Sushi website

Watermelon Sushi on Youtube

Watermelon Sushi on Facebook

                             selling copies of 'Watermelon Sushi' chapbook with Tokyo Lily (left) and her husband

We’re now preparing for 2025 interviews. Are you a mixie with something to say? We’re always looking for folks exploring their ethnic identity. If that describes you, drop us a note.

Have a hapa fall!

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi

Summer Sushi And Tokyo Watermelon

a normalized mixie!

Aloha, Hip Hapa Homeez!

In the 18 years that we’ve been publishing this blog, a lot has changed for us mixies. We multi-culti folks have grown from being a minority within minorities to becoming a rather large presence as more people mix and mingle outside of their own racial groups.

Unlike back in the day when I was growing up, today there are numerous commercial advertisements featuring interracial couples and sometimes their mixed kids. Wow. We’re actually becoming normalized! Hopefully, in the future, seeing mixed-race families will no longer be surprising or shocking to anyone.

Apologies for this quarter’s slim blog, but the new news we have to share continues to be the old news we’ve been sharing.

War Brides of Japan, a docu*memory

First, the ‘War Brides of Japan, a docu*memory’ series is still available for viewing on Gumroad. For less than the price of a latte with foam, you can learn all about these brave Japanese women who married their former enemies:

War Brides of Japan, a docu*memory

https://watermelonsushi.gumroad.com/

Since late last year, we’ve been crowdfunding for 'Tokyo Lily, a war bride docu*memory'. With the money we’re raised so far, we were able to get hours of super 8mm and mini DV tape footage digitized. However, we still need more donations for animation, music and for licensing WWII images.

Tokyo Lily, a war bride docu*memory

Here’s where you can help us:

https://crowdfundr.com/tokyo-lily?ref=ab_3TBXPWE4mYE3TBXPWE4mYE

Watermelon Sushi

And, finally we’ve been editing ‘Watermelon Sushi’ which our Executive Producer (award-winning filmmaker Lowell Douglas Ing) recently had digitized. This feature narrative was first shot in 1998, and today, we have beautiful 8K vintage footage that reflects 1980’s hip hop. The story of two Japanese and black sisters searching for identity also features a deep message of acceptance.

https://watermelonsushi.com

Lowell Douglas Ing sets up his camera at Tokyo Lily's house

We’re also fundraising for that film, and you can donate to it or ‘Tokyo Lily’ at the top of this page. Family, friends and fans of ‘Tokyo Lily’, ‘War Brides of Japan’ and ‘Watermelon Sushi’, we are enterally grateful that you have helped us make these films possible.

Meanwhile, we’re back to interviewing anyone with a multicultural background, or who has projects about the subject matter. Drop us a line if that’s you!

Please check out the links below to learn more about our impactful movies.

Watermelon Sushi website

Watermelon Sushi on Youtube

Watermelon Sushi on Facebook

Tokyo Lily website

War Brides of Japan website
War Brides of Japan on Youtube

War Brides of Japan on Facebook

HAPA summer!

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi

Arriving Soon: "War Brides of Japan"

Aloha, Hip Hapa Homeez.

Yes, we know we’ve been saying it for three years. But our docu*memory series, “War Brides of Japan”, really is arriving soon.

In fact, some pieces have been arriving for the past few months. Along with numerous trailers, several of the 5 chapters have actually been entered in film festivals around the world.

On June 10, two entries won prizes. The trailer, “This Doc Rocks! (Buddha)”, and the 5th chapter (of 5 chapters) called “BFF’s; Buddhist Friends Forever” won Best Trailer and Best Concept, respectively, at the Buddha International Film Festival in Pune Maharashtra India.

Here are our banners:

https://www.warbridesofjapan.com/screenings

And, a short explanation of this complicated film project:

In September and November 2016, I interviewed 13 different individuals along with many of their family members. Thus, I was left with over 13 hours of footage. In an effort to give every single person a voice, I cut the footage into 13 short films. Then, I edited them again into 5 short films—pairing them according to similarity of subject matter.

Chapter 1.

Regina

“HERSTORY" features two historians, Lily Anne Yumi Welty-Tamai (“Dekasegi”) and the incredibly intelligent Regina F. Lark (“Japanese Brides, American Wives”) discussing the first war brides and their arrival in the U.S.

trailer: https://vimeo.com/337430653

Chapter 2.

Asako

“THE BRIDES” is war bride Asako Sakaguchi Miller Kimes (“The Best Ambassador”) with her grandson and daughter, and Fumiko Kiyamura Caine Alderman (“Kitchens and a Priest”) with her two daughters. While Asako married a white man, Fumiko married a black man—which put them on two very divergent paths in America.

trailer: https://vimeo.com/337432897

Asako and daughter

Fumiko and daughters

Chapter 3.

Roleta on right

“THE KIDS” is Roleta Fowler Vasquez (“The Entertainer’s Daughter”) talking about her war bride mother who was a talented entertainer. Andy Campbell and the three McClanahan sisters—Elaine, Naomi and Joan (“hafu") discuss their mothers and their own experiences growing up Japanese and black in the U.S. Jean Lahn (“Remembering Her Mother”), who recently lost her mother, remembers her with fondness and tears.

trailer: https://vimeo.com/337436195

Jean's mother

Jean

Chapter 4.

Diana on right

“THE CULTURE” features M Fumie Craig with her daughters ("Cactus…Cranes…Cooks…") creating origami and cooking Japanese meals. Diana Portugal and her daughter (“Tamales 4 Bon Odori”) talk about their Mexican roots and Diana’s experience of being rejected by the local Japanese community because of it. Yoshi Childs (“Bringing Japan Home") shows off her collection of Japanese souvenirs before preparing a Japanese lunch.

trailer: https://vimeo.com/337747906

Yoshi

Chapter 5.

Doris and Castora

“BFF’s; BUDDHIST FRIENDS FOREVER” links three families with Buddhist mothers. Dottie Putney (“Missing Her Mom”) talks about her late mother who practiced Buddhism daily. The Farrison’s—with mother Mihoko, father Theodore, son Kim, and daughters Doris and Castora (“Family Fortune”)—discuss their parents’ enduring marriage and their mother’s best friend and fellow Buddhist, Fumiko. Siblings Doris and Mike, children of Fumiko (“Disowned/Reclaimed”), fondly recall their parents along with Doris’ granddaughter weighing in.

trailer: https://vimeo.com/337749810

Mike, Doris and family

Here’s the pdf that further explains the chapters:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MbE7bbcxENSnN0Bq2R9ZXJZ0yGOQmz76/view

There’s something for everyone in these 5 films, so follow me on Vimeo for updates:

https://vimeo.com/watermelonsushi

Or, like our “War Brides of Japan” Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/WarBridesOfJapan/

You can also check out our website regularly for any news:

www.warbridesofjapan.com

On a sad note, we had to say goodbye to our dear friend and long-time Watermelon Sushi supporter, Nashville dramaturg Jaz Dorsey. Sweet dreams forever, Jaz! We miss you already.

Nashville dramaturg Jaz Dorsey

See you Hip Hapa Homeez on September 30, or at a theater near you!

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi