Japanese, Italian…

Hello I’m Genevieve, but I go by Gigi.

My mother is Italian, German, Irish, French and British while my father is half Japanese from my grandmother, and Hawaiian-Irish from my grandfather.

My mother has green eyes and blonde hair while my father has black hair and eyes. Both of my parents are under 5 foot 4 so its not surprise I’m about 2 inches over the 5 feet mark.

I was born in Texas and raised in Missouri. Growing up, people always assumed I was a part of their race/culture. And by people I mean everyone, I mean everyone.

This got particularly anoying when I had to fill in the little ethnicity box on standardized tests and had to leave it blank. It’s a lot like leaving a part of your identity blank, in a way.

The first time I started to connect other Hapas was when I met a Hawaiian-Japanese girl last year, who understood about not getting sunburned (Asian skin) and oval-curved eyes. Sadly, she lives in a different state.

I consider myself more Japanese than anything, mostly because of my grandmother. She came divorced and poor from Japan after World War 2 to the USA, and because of the war, the only work my grandmother could get was at a poultry plant getting below minimum wage. Even though after all of this, all three of her sons have PhDs. I inherited many of her traits.

I really want to embrace all my other race mixtures as well, and some day I hope to work for the Japanese Film Studio “Studio Ghibli” and speak Japanese, Italian and possibly French. I hope to meet other Hapas in the future, and learn about their cultures! :)