Another Year Here

Aloha, Hip Hapa Homeez.

As we say in Hawai’i, ‘Hau’oli Makahiki Hou’ for Happy Year New. Here’s wishing the best for you and yours in 2013.

Since this is Your Hip Hapa’s first blog post of the New Year, I'd like to make this month one of intermittent silence in honor of Hip Hapa Homeez that are no longer in our Watermelon Sushi World. During your busy days ahead, please take a few minutes to remember the following good folks:

Yuriko-san's first passport

First and foremost is my Mom, Yuriko-san. A Japanese war bride, she is the primary subject for the War Brides of Japan documentary. For those of you familiar with my media work spanning some 13 years now, you know that no one has had a more profound effect on my life than she did. Please join me in a sweet salute and a kind kiss skyward to the incredibly multi-talented Yuriko-san. 

Here’s one of my fave blogs about her:

http://www.watermelonsushiworld.blogspot.com/2008/02/remembering-racial-moments.html

Yuriko-san, left, with friend Emiko-san

Derrick-san in Tokyo

Also in November, we bid adieu to our astonishingly creative Director of Marketing and Publicity, Far East, Derrick Michael Holmes. A dancer, model, actor publicist and all-around great guy, Derrick will be missed not only for his extraordinary input as a promoter, but also for his kind-hearted generosity.

Here’s Derrick’s Facebook page: 

https://www.facebook.com/derrick.m.holmes

Ms. Muffin

On New Year’s Eve, Yuriko-san’s dog of 11 years joined her Mom on the other side of Watermelon Sushi World. Please say goodbye to our mixed-race mutt, Muffin:

http://www.watermelonsushiworld.blogspot.com/2008/10/chill-pill-week-and-mixed-race-pets.html

http://www.watermelonsushiworld.blogspot.com/2008/04/mixed-race-animals-proclaimed-inferior.html

http://www.watermelonsushiworld.blogspot.com/2008/04/muffins-twin.html

Several years ago, I was dismayed to learn of the passing of a great filmmaker friend in Hawai’i. Here’s the blog I wrote about Sergio Goes, a cross-cultural Brazilian living in Honolulu, in 2008.

http://www.watermelonsushiworld.blogspot.com/2008/09/aloha-no-straightened-hair-and.html

Since we’re taking this month to honor those who’ve left us, let’s also remember those still here who helped pioneer the mixed-race agenda.

Folks like author Teri LaFlesh:

http://www.watermelonsushiworld.blogspot.com/2010/05/curly-like-me-in-da-houze-and.html

author Teri LaFlesh

Arana and her Topaz Sisterhood:

http://www.watermelonsushiworld.blogspot.com/2010/07/perfectly-precious-topaz.html

Arana sitting in center

Nikki and son, Daniel

Euphoria Luv (now Asian Black Community):

http://watermelonsushiworld.blogspot.com/2010/01/blasian-baby-blogging.html

Jen Chau of Swirlinc.org:

http://www.watermelonsushiworld.blogspot.com/2008/04/new-york-times-punks-out-hot-hapa-mess.html

The Mixed Chicks and their Mixed Roots Film and Literary Festival:

http://www.watermelonsushiworld.blogspot.com/2008/07/mixed-chicks-chat-rules.html

If you know a mixed-race pioneer, or anyone forwarding our Hip Hapa Homeez agenda, drop us an email so we can interview them for our next month’s blog.

Meanwhile, watch our Hapa*Teez video and buy a t-shirt, like our Hapa*Teez fan page, check out our Watermelon Sushi film, like our Watermelon Sushi fan page, check out our War Brides of Japan videos, like our War Brides of Japan fan page, and join our Hip Hapa Homeez group page on Facebook to participate in discussions about being biracial, blended, interracially involved, mestizo, mixed race, multicultural and/or transracially adopted.

100 poems cards read for New Year's

Here’s to a HAPA New Year from…

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi

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.

Happy Hapa Leap Year!

In celebration of Leap Year, and the end of February, I've decided to cut back on blogging from nightly to maybe 2 or 3 times a week. Yeah, you heard that right. The Biracial Bloggerette is giving her fingers (and her mind, believe it or not) a much-needed break.

For one thing, I really could use the extra time to focus on creating more designs for the Hapa*Teez line of t-shirts that I'm getting tremendous response for--thank you, Watermelon Sushi fans!

Also, I'm currently producing several documentaries focused on the biracial and bicultural communities. Ever since I met the wonderful ladies of the WWII War Brides Association, I've been hearing that having two Caucasian parents from different countries was as much a traumatic experience for them as being of two ethnicities was for some of us mixed-race folks. I've been told about religious differences, language barriers, and hostile in-laws who refused to accept that their sons had married and brought home foreigners considered enemies of America. I think exploring the whole war brides phenomenon could be a monumental undertaking.

Along with the first hints of Spring, the weeks to come promise more interesting topics so don't stop reading my blog. Try these on for size:

1. Dealing With Tight Hair When Your Entire Life Experience Consists Of Handling Only Your Own Straight Locks: My mom used to blow dry our hair with an inverted vacuum cleaner hose, then rub sticky Alberto VO 5 petroleum jelly throughout it. My sister and I hated having our hair combed by her rough, pulling hands!

2. Asians And Toilet Paper: What's the deal with that? Why does my mom have rolls of that stuff laying around all over her house, and why do Asians prefer it over boxes of tissue to stick underneath their rear car windows?

3. Hapa, Puhleez! Why some hapa folks just get on my nerves. I may even name names. Well, at least in code.

4. Seven v. Seven: There are seven Japanese gods called kamisama takarabune and there are Seven African Powers with beginnings in Benin. What's up with that number 7, and how are the deities alike?

5. Hip v. Dork. Why are blacks considered hip and Asians dorks? I've met folks of both races that were just the opposite, so let's explore that.

6. "Yo!" in Ebonics means one thing. "Yo!" in Japanese means, well, it can mean several things.

7. Speaking of slang, what is up with the phrase "da kine"? People in Hawai'i love to use it, and I suspect that it has origins with the first Japanese that settled on the islands.

8. Hapa Friends Feature: There are some strong supporters of the hapa agenda out there that I'd like acknowledge. Whenever I can, I'll get them to write a Guest Blog. Otherwise, I'll talk about them myself. People like Chicago artist Laura Kina and her Hapa Soap Opera series and the fabulous Jen Chau of http://www.swirlinc.org in NYC deserve kudos for keepin' it real. That's Jen in the pix above, on the right with my friend Doris Wong, taken when I visited NYC a few years ago. There's more, like high school teacher Paulette Q. Thompson, but I'll shout-out the rest next time.

Meanwhile, oyasuminasai.

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi

Hapa*Teez Hits Cyberspace!

At last! After months of delays, my Watermelon Sushi store is finally opened for business and my Hapa*Teez t-shirts are for sale. Just for you, I've created three designs splayed across the top of several styles of t's all using the word hapa.

Now, about that word that some communities like to claim as their own. Personally, I feel that it belongs to all of us blendies. Originally, the Hawai'ians used it to mean "half" as in a measurement. And, it was traditionally linked with the word haole--a combination of ha (life's breath) and ole (nothing); literally, "he without breath". You see, the first Europeans arriving on the scene looked much too pale to the Natives to contain any ha or life's breath, and because they didn't prostrate themselves before the King and expel their last ha as was the custom, the Hawai'ians figured they had none. Thus, haole. And, please, don't mispronounce it by saying howlie as if you're referring to a wolf or something. Instead, try "hah" "oh" "leh". Ah, much better.

As Europeans began marrying Hawai'ians, their offspring were called hapa haole--half European. Then, with the arrival of East Asians, even more intermarrying occurred. Soon, Native Hawai'ians could boast few among them as being pure blood. The hapa haole phrase then became more applicable to those who were half Asian and half white.

Like I said, I use hapa to describe anyone who is biracial. Half is half of any race as far as I'm concerned.

So, please check out my store at: http://www.cafepress.com/hapateez

I know some of the prices are a bit much, but believe me my commission is not. On a serious tip, I hope my Hapa*Teez t's grow so huge in popularity that I'll be able to finance my feature film this year. If that's the case, I'll give an onscreen credit to all of you who buy them.

Another project I'm currently working on is a short documentary about hapas. So, if you're biracial and have a story to share onscreen, contact me at watermelonsushi@comcast.net

And, here's a shout-out to my SWIRL girl, Jen Chau. You can read her blog at jenchau.typepad.com/thetimeisalwaysright or check out www.swirlinc.org to connect with the largest mixed-race organization on Planet Earth!

Next up, Mia G updates the www.watermelonsushi.com website with new photos of Kool Mo Dee and Chuck D at Studio 52 in LA where we watched Mo Dee tape his new TV pilot, iamhiphop.com this past November.

And, I'll keep you posted about that newspaper article featuring hapas (including yours truly) that should be published this weekend.

Alafia!

Your Hip Hapa,

Yayoi