This week we focus on the reading, “Part Asian, 100% Hapa: A Retrospective” by Kip Fulbeck. The article is rather interesting and catches my attention, and I really love its concepts of being mixed, and how mixed individuals embrace themselves in today’s society. The hardship of being mixed is not easy, since being mixed, generally speaking, means that their identities are not easily defined, which therefore have been questioned and challenged. Typical question for them is: are you white or Hapa? From the reading, we know that self-identification or self-embracement is very essential for mixed individuals, and no matter how mixed we are, we first need to embrace ourselves and should be more confident in who we really are.
Such a reading provides me with a great opportunity of reflecting myself. I am not a Hapa or white, but I am a mixed individual with half Chinese and half Uyghur, a minority group in China. More importantly, I don’t look like a 100% Uyghur or 100% Chinese. Therefore, even since I was born, many people question my identify, especially the races shown on my government issued ID. I was really confused when I was a little boy and I didn’t which race or group that I should belong to. Many people also question me whether I should marry a Chinese girl or a Uyghur girl when I grow up. So many questions and so many confusions lie beside me, but for now, I deeply realize that I am mixed, and I am proud of who I am.
Hapa Haole(No.206) by Grace Hudson, 1901
No comments:
Post a Comment