I am the bouncing baby boy of two wonderful Hapa parents.
My mom is Korean and English and my dad is Chinese, Hawaiian, Scottish and French.
Despite my parents both having brown eyes and dark hair, I inherited genes that go back quite a few generations on both my parent’s sides. Isn’t that cool.
Being that my parents are both proud Hapas I know I will be raised to appreciate all the cultures that make up my wonderful ethnic background.
Hi everyone! My name is Julie Taeko Gramlich, and I have always associated more with my Asian side.
I am proud to be Hapa because I represent more than one culture — bringing the countries of Japan, Germany and England into a beautiful blend. Before, these countries were at war. Now they have created me, among many other half-Japanese, half-White people.
I love the fact that I can break the barrier of race purely with my appearance. I have no idea how many times I have been asked the question “What are you?” or the more politically correct “What is your ethnicity?” I love it. I thrive on it. I almost beg to be asked.
Hi my name is Taylor Hurst and I am from Southern California. My Father is English/German and my mother is Japanese, born and raised in Hawaii.
Growing up I was “colorblind” as I identified peers due to personality traits rather than race. It was not until I had to complete an assignment in elementary school requiring me to ask my parents about our culture, that I gained knowledge about my ancestors.
After realizing my ethnicity, I embraced it to its fullest extent. As a young child, school lunches would vary from peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, to rice with furikake and spam musubi. I was never ashamed of being a mix of ethnicities. I felt unique, confident, and excited to be me. I learned early on that I was the “other race” on school forms and checked the box proudly.
I am of Chinese, Japanese, Italian, French, German, English and Spanish descent!
My Japanese grandma met a US merchant marine while stationed in Yokohama and the rest was history! My European mixed grandpa’s nickname was “chico” because he was a 6 foot 5 giant!
My Chinese mother initially met my dad while she was waitressing at her dad’s restaurant in Portland, and they started dating 5 years later when they both ran into each other at a sushi bar.
My Chinese grandpa was a Japanese POW, so it was difficult for him to accept my Hapa-Japanese dad but he eventually grew to accept him as part of the family.
My mother is South Indian with a trace of English blood, and my father is 1/4 Irish with the rest being a mixture of French, German, English and Welsh.
I’ve grown up in a very, very liberal city in the Bay Area. Even so, when my mother would walk me in my stroller as an infant, passers by would assume she was my nanny simply because I had such fair skin as a child.
No one can even come close to guessing my ethnicity — I’ve heard Greek, Spanish, Portuguese, and Middle Eastern, although my liberal sprinkling of freckles most likely plays a large role in throwing people off track. I inherited frizzy, capricious hair and most of my facial features from my dad and my dark hair and eyes from my mom, but the rest is a strange amalgam that cannot be traced to either parent or their lineage.
I am Japanese-Hawaiian (mom’s side) and English-French (dad’s side).
I never knew the term Hapa until recently, but it has liberated me from trying to fit into the box that others have tried to cram me into.
It wasn’t easy being Hapa when I was younger. Kids can be cruel when you look/speak/act differently. All I wanted to do was to fit in and look like all the other white kids in my school. I hated my appearance for many years because it was a constant reminder of what I was not.
But over the years I have come to embrace my unique attributes and I’ve been able to shed my self-loathing and replace it with pride in my Hapa-Kepani-Haole identity!
Hello everyone! I’m Brian, and I have Japanese, Danish, Irish and English roots.
As with the stories of others, my relationship with race has brought confusion, frustration and pride.
My white father married my now-deceased, full-Japanese mother (she died of lung cancer when I was six years old), and later remarried to my Japanese step-mom. She has little attachment to community or culture.
Growing up in the suburban Chicagoland area brought enough exposure to Asian-Americans, but my high school had mostly white students where race had yet to be discussed seriously.
Continue reading
Hello all. I am Josephine and despite my French sounding name, I have the stereotypical Hapa background (Asian mum, White dad).
I have had the good fortune of (until recently) living in a part of Australia that is highly influenced by its South East Asian surroundings.
It wasn’t that big a deal growing up, although I did occasionally hear racist comments in the schoolyard. None of my friends mind my racial background (we went to a school that had a large international student population) and I have quite a few Hapa friends.
The unfortunate thing is that my Chinese grandparents are highly traditional and don’t really accept my father as part of the family. Continue reading
I was born in Vietnam and lived there until I was 5.
My dad is English, Irish, and Scottish. My mum is full Thai.
I moved to England and am still living there and I hope to move to Thailand when im older.
As I grew up people joked around about my race and found it funny, including my friends. Continue reading
