Kaishan Wang: Week 2 Blog Entry

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

Week 2 Photography (Janine Nguyen, Anthony Tran, Paula Jung)

“A Memorial Quilt Built on Multiraciality”

Paving the way for multiracial representation in media, the three experiences of the three figureheads, Charles Melton, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, and Zendaya, encompass the struggles and tensions that come with being mixed race in society. We decided to take monochromatic portraits of the celebrities with their cultural textiles in the background to portray this.

The usage of the different textiles tells the history of memory of each figure. Charles Melton, a Korean-American actor from the hit show Riverdale, is vocal about Korean culture. In this case, an example of traditional bojagi, or Korean wrapping cloths is used. The Korean wrapping textiles are small, but they are bold in color and graphic punch. On the other hand, Zendaya has proudly adorned her natural hair and she isn’t afraid of claiming her African-American and German-Scottish heritage. The large shapes and strong colors found in African quilting essentially shows that African-American culture is built on strength and resilience. In her career, Zendaya exemplifies cultural pride. endaya is a role model for younger generations and she is a prime example of a multiracial figure whose influence is equally pervasive and compelling. Moreover, Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, cast as Maui from “Moana”, admitted that the character Maui was based on his grandfather, who was a pro-wrestler with many tattoos just like the character. Johnson self identifies as a proud Black & Somoan. The textiles are similar to how his tattoos are similar in Somoan and African-American patterns. The patterns are distinct, strong, and feature naturistic values.

Week 2 Photography (Jasmeet Dhillon, Kaining Huang, Julia McCann)

For this week's art project, we decided to blend infant pictures of our faces to represent mixed race. As we all are of different races, we feel this is a great way to see what different races combined may look like. As the human population is becoming more and more mixed, the average human face is beginning to look more ethnic.
Inspired by the apps that combine two faces to see what the potential offspring of two people would look like, we used this tool to see what Chinese, Indian, and mixed Chinese-White would look like.
We all have experienced people guessing what races we are: people tend to guess Jasmeet is Hispanic, Persian, or Egyptian, that Julia is Hispanic or fully Asian, and that Kenny is Korean or other Asian races.
All of us have experienced an identity crisis, having to explain to others what our ethnic background is, and while growing up we became more proud of our heritage.
Below is an example of what most future humans may potentially look like.

“Mask” created by Hilton Kam, Julian Mel Leus, Julian Demegillo, and Seira Narita. ASA 115: Week Two Art Project

This piece was inspired by the provocative and vulnerable testimonies of Hapa people in the article “Part Asian, 100% Hapa: A Retrospective.” written by Kip Fulbeck. We display the splits within one’s identity with the use of flags as symbols of ethnicity and culture. We also utilize the image of a face to highlight society’s pattern of profiling someone based upon their appearance and features and confront this practice by exhibiting that there is more to people than what is taken at face value.

By fitting the U.S. flag on his face like a mask, we wanted to show how nationality and citizenship force us to claim allegiance to one nation or the other, even if we may identify as multicultural. The model also identifies as Chinese-American, was born in the U.S., and was raised culturally Chinese. This relates to the term “situational identity” where one’s identity shifts depending on the situational benefits or privileges they may receive.

This was shot on an iPhone 10 on Portrait Mode and edited using Adobe Photoshop.

Jasmeet Dhillon Week 2 blog

Jasmeet Dhillon
07/03/19
Week 2

In the first reading, "Part Asian, 100% Hapa: A Retrospective," it focuses on the idea of hapa. Hapa means half in Hawaiian. It was first used initially used as a derogatory term to describe someone as half Hawaiian and half white. Now it is often used as a phrase to describe anyone part Asian. Many onlookers assume you are only of the race that has the dominant phenotype. As a parent, some assume you are unrelated to your children. 

Being mixed or any race other than white can be challenging. Even though I am not mixed, I can still relate to the feeling of having an identity crisis or having to verbally explain to others what race I am. I am full Punjabi, Indian, but from my looks, I tend to get many other races other than Indian. People usually think that I am Mexican, Persian, or Egyptian. I have had Spanish speaking individuals come up to me and start talking to me in their language. I think it is funny, because they simply assume I am Spanish or Mexican from my looks.  Ever since I was little, I always had to correct and explain to others about my race. Growing up in Wisconsin, and being the only Indian student at my elementary school was hard. I always felt different. But now, just like Shane from the reading, I am proud to be the race that I am.

Why has the meaning of the term "hapa" changed throughout the years?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob-qmfvnQVo 

Julian Leus - ASA 115 - Week 1 and 2 readings

Cynthia Nakashima’s An Invisible Monster explores the historical background behind social stigma against mixed race individuals, specifically those who identify as “Hapa”, or half-Asian and half-European (162). The history behind social stigma against mixed-race people dates back to scientific racism, which provided a authoritative and academic discourse to justify anti-miscegenation laws, white supremacy, and “hybrid degeneracy”.

Hybrid degeneracy, the notion that people of multiracial heritage are genetically inferior to both (or all) of their parent races, was a popular subject of scientific research beginning after the Civil War and ending sometime in the mid-1930s (165). I found it interesting how Nakashima pointed out that, while historically the theory of hybrid degeneracy posited mixed race individuals as “unnatural” and contaminating to the “biologically superior White race,” contemporary views of multiracial individuals as particularly attractive, beautiful and “extra exotic” directly contradict this idea of hybrid degeneracy (165, 170). This contradiction reveals the racial biases of scientific research against people of color, its dominance by white supremacists, and most importantly, the inadequacies of science in providing the absolute authority of natural law that it claims to wield.

Overall, this reading reinforces the theme that race, racial purity, and racial hierarchies are essentially social constructions. As we discussed on the first day of class, racial science was created by white imperialists to morally justify colonial rule and violence against their imperial subjects. In deconstructing this dangerous and false ideology of race, Nakashima invites her readers to conceptualize race as an artificial concept affecting our state of mind, rather than rather than rendering ourselves into an absolute state of being.

Question: How do we cope with and heal with these emotionally difficult readings?

Diane Lee ~ ASA 115 ~ Week 2 Readings

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/f3/d9/c1/f3d9c109d7ccefb072c3ef25a2bed9ac.jpg

The readings for week two displays a platform to embrace being mixed race and sheds positive light on the mixing of races. This week’s readings connects to the theme: Race Translators, Traitors, Cultural Intermediaries, and Mixed Race Makers by making others more aware of the mixed race individuals and more accepting of races coming together as one. In week one’s reading blog, I mentioned that there were times when I felt that I could not embrace being mixed. I had the notion that I had to be one or the other, but I would never feel like that was enough. From the Mixed Race Box, “The Hapa Project—10 years after” by Kip Fulbeck was one of our readings that I was amazed by. I did not know that such a project existed! I truly admire how Fulbeck did something small, but left a big impact. Those individuals seem to be gaining a great confidence about who they are to themselves which is inspiring. In addition, Fulbeck’s work is a wonderful way to allow for reflection and growth for the participants; it is also an engaging way for others to hear the voices of those who are mixed race. I wonder if the parents of mixed race children feel pressure to help their child embrace being mixed?