Watermelon Sushi World

Tuesday, June 30, 2026

HAPA Summer!

Aloha, Hip Hapa Homeez!

Can you believe that it’s been 20 years since we launched this blog?

In the beginning, there was so much HAPA-ning!

In 2020, for the first time in history, the U.S. Census allowed its citizens to choose more than one racial category to identify themselves. Those of you old enough to remember will recall previous nail-biting days filling out forms and trying to decide whether you were the same race as your mother or your father.

Up to that point, most of us had been told all of our lives what we were by other people who were nothing like us.

A few of us reluctantly chose the parent we most resembled in appearance which made no sense if you embraced both parents and their cultures. And, if you had one Black parent, you were considered Black, period, due to the One Drop Rule. It didn’t matter whether or not you were accepted or recognized as being Black by the Black Community.

Even if your parents shared the same culture, i.e., being American, they still had different backgrounds due to their ethnicities. So, how to choose?

In those early days, we began rebelling and calling ourselves mixed-race, multiracial, multicultural, hapa, blasian, wasian and some even referred to themselves as being mulatto—a word that was once synonymous with mix-bred animals.

Based on our personal experiences of being mixed, we wrote books, made films and organized conferences and festivals all honoring the mixed-race agenda.

Our film, Watermelon Sushi, has been in the works now for 28 years. Well, it’s been in existence, but only worked on sporadically. That is, until we acquired our executive producer, Doug Ing, who a few years ago, had all of our footage digitized. Now, we’re editing and utilizing AI for enhancements.

Please stand by.

Juggling three films (including Tokyo Lily and Vegan Jin) seriously cuts down on our time. Therefore, we are directing you to our Hip Hapa Homeez group page on Facebook to discuss any issues surrounding multiculturalism.

Hip Hapa Homeez

We won’t be updating this blog until the end of 2026.

You can also check out these links for any news:

https://watermelonsushi.com/

https://www.youtube.com/c/WatermelonSushi/videos

https://yayoiclanart.com/

https://www.redbubble.com/people/yayoiclanart/shop

https://www.teepublic.com/user/yayoiclanart

Here are our Facebook links:

https://www.facebook.com/watermelonsushi

https://www.facebook.com/hapateez

Enjoy a HAPA summer!

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi

Wednesday, December 31, 2025

New Year Hapa-ness

Aloha, Hip Hapa Homeez!

Hau’oli Makahiki Hou! Akemashite Omedettou Gozaimasu! Happy New Year!

I know we all say it every year, but next year’s gotta be better than this one was, right?

I guess that remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, in the 12/31/2024 post, this question was posed: Do you think that the mixed-race agenda has become obsolete?

Recently, this clip of Dr. Frances Cress Welsing surfaced. Here, she breaks down what she feels is the main impetus of racism. According to her, the more mixed people there are, the fewer so-called ‘pure whites’ who will then be toppled from their positions of power.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c06FshgK0bU

How do you feel about that? Do you think the sister was too radical in her thinking? Or, does what she says make absolute sense to you?

Please enjoy these photos from blog posts past.

Moving on, here’s a reminder that we are only publishing on June 30 and December 31 going forward. After a long arduous change in residence, we have finally settled enough to finish editing our Watermelon Sushi film.

Please check out our website links:

https://watermelonsushi.com/

https://www.youtube.com/c/WatermelonSushi/videos

https://yayoiclanart.com/

https://www.redbubble.com/people/yayoiclanart/shop

https://www.teepublic.com/user/yayoiclanart

https://yourhiphapa.wixsite.com/starwheels

And, join us on Facebook:

Watermelon Sushi
Hip Hapa Homeez
Hapa Teez T-shirts

Here's to happy HAPAS!

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi

Monday, June 30, 2025

Oops! Upside Our Heads

boy, are we red-faced

Aloha, Hip Hapa Homeez!

While not publishing our quarterly blog in March was inadvertent (we were traveling), we also recognize that our film work is overtaking our time. Therefore, we’re adapting a new schedule for awhile—at least until our movie is completed.

As of now, we’ll only be publishing a December and June blog post each year.

This spring in Japan, we visited dozens of shrines and temples to view memorials that honored victims of tragedy. Many Japanese died during WWII, and the memorials reminded us that we are here because our ancestors survived.

Yokoamicho Park

Yokoamicho Park houses a memorial that honors both victims of the Great Kanto Earthquake that killed 100,000 citizens, as we all as the Tokyo firebombing of 1945 that killed over 100,000 civilians.

Although we experienced some somber moments, our travels also encompassed some joyful times. For one, we were able to visit with many good friends; and, one tomodachi even drove us to his Kyoto mountain village home where we fed his goats.

Meanwhile, we’re still diligently editing our Watermelon Sushi narrative, and currently have a short trailer that will post soon on Youtube.

Please check out our website for the link as we will upload it soon: Watermelon Sushi

And, we have t-shirts!

Red Bubble

TeePublic

Please join us on Facebook:

Watermelon Sushi
Hip Hapa Homeez
Hapa Teez T-shirts

Until December 31, we remain

Your Hip Hapa

Yayoi

Tuesday, December 31, 2024

HAPA New Year

Aloha, Hip Hapa Homeez!

your hip hapa

A serious question: Do you think that the mixed-race agenda has become obsolete?

Recently, a Moderator posted an article on Hip Hapa Homeez, a Facebook group that is for “…anyone who is biracial, blended, mestizo, mixed-race, multiethnic, transracially adopted, or who crosses cultures…”

The posted video featured a young mixed Asian-white man complaining about not being accepted by both sides of his family.

Yawn.

Seriously. I wondered how long this particular complaint has been around because about 25 years ago, I began writing for a plethora of publications that featured stories about the so-called “mixed-race experience”.

You might remember some of them—the pioneering Mavin magazine started by a young Korean-Irish American man in Seattle.

There was also a fabulous internet website out of New York called SWIRL.

Additionally, there were group get togethers galore on campuses, museums and other venues.

I believe the first mixed-race conference I attended was Hapa Issues Forum in Northridge. What an eye opener!

Later, I organized a panel for one of the annual Mixed Chicks Film and Literary Festivals in Los Angeles. That event featured numerous books and movies by and about mixed-race folks.

One year, I traveled to Berkeley for the Hapa Japan Conference festivities where nearly every participant was half Japanese.

There seemed to be so much electricity in the air back in those days. We were all exploring our newly discovered mixed-race identities, and we were excited to share them with the world.

But over the years, it seems that we have moved on. Perhaps most mixed-race people no longer feel the need to search for validation of their identity. In fact, the young man in the video referenced above struck me as being outdated. It’s as if being mixed-race now is so common that it’s no longer a "thing".

Soon this blog, which was started in 2007, will also go the way of the dinosaur—which is not a bad thing. It just shows that we’ve progressed to no longer needing to proclaim our mixed-race heritages now that there are so many of us.

If you check out previous blog posts, you will note that there were many interviews with mixed-race actors, artists, authors, chefs, dancers, filmmakers, musicians and more. But these days, not many are promoting products exclusively for the mixed-race community.

Yayoi Clan Art banner

However, we at Watermelon Sushi World are still promoting ours. You can check us out on Redbubble and TeePublic where we offer buttons, mouse pads, phone covers posters, stickers and t-shirts.

Redbubble

Teepublic