What does "hapa" mean?

[Mahi Waina]

I wouldn't know. Hawaiians had nothing to do with the enslavement and subjugation of the African people.

That's a good thing, but we all can learn from history. My post was meant to be sarcastic. When anyone starts quantifying racial proportions, only perversions can result. In New Orleans, young mixed-race women were trotted out at Octaroon Balls to be put on display for scions of wealthy plantation owners, who would keep them in townhouses and lavish them with clothes and jewelry.

It's a biological fact that humanity is only one species. Measuring RGD (Random Genetic Drift) is meaningless, divisive and cruel.

[kimo55]

Interesting story in today's LA Times about the recognition of "hapa" culture on the Mainland.

When I first glimpsed this article i though "what a hoax!" How many people will be caught up into this cultural spinal tap practical joke?!
But then I slowly realized the cold hard depressing dirty sordid truth. It is still another example of people fully unrelated to Hawaii and its culture, in a wholesale thoughtless blatant manner, still yet again, stealing another concept, another bit of the Hawaiian identity, an aspect of Hawaiian culture, its language, and using it for their own sick pathetic selfish ends.

Through all the decades of living here, I have NEVER heard "hapa" misused in this manner.

If one happens to be a mix of Korean, Jewish and Irish, then they are Korean, Jewish and Irish. If one happens to be a mix of Korean Mexican, then they are Korean Mexican. Same with Japanese Causasian.
But they are most empahtically NOT "hapa"
The word is Hawaiian and for all my life here, it has meant to everyone here in Hawaii, that one is part Hawaiian and part something else.

This is still another of many instances where mainlanders appropriate aspects of Hawaiian culture and re-use it like an old dishtowel in a wholly other manner than what it was created for. This revisionist history, this complete wholesale manner of redefining words from a land that has been stolen from by outsiders for far too long... and using it in a foreign land for another puropse, this reprehensible habit of oustsiders taking a culture's words, concepts, religious icons and warping them, redefining them for their own use will never be justified no matter how many newspaper articles or books or self help groups promulgate this pernicious lie.

This has gone on too long and islanders are quite fed up with it.
"Mahalo" now means nothing more than a way to open and close an 0nline post or letter.
"Kama'aina" is nothing more than "spirit". (Oh, I am kama'aina because i am "Hawaiian at heart".
ugh.
Of course, kahuna, the keeper of the secrets, has, thanks to Cali Surf Culture and the american pop culture machine, been run into the ground to a depressingly cheap level. And charlatains are pushing a sham-anistic goofy thing called Huna on the fools with more money than sense.

Komai tells us in the article: "It's a history and culture we want to perpetuate..." yea. How about the true history and culture this word and its mana is being stolen from?!
Leave Hawaii alone.

"Hapa — originally a derogatory Hawaiian word for half-breed — has been embraced as a term of pride."
Yea? in what circles? Only in Kip Fulbeck's. And to promilgate this deception is another form of Polynesian piracy that has gone on far too long.
In all my years in Hawaii NObody here has regarded the term "hapa" as derrogatory. This is simply an instance of a small minority whining about their plight and gimme some sympathy because after all, we have attached an innapropriate but exotic sounding label onto our sad sack heads.
"perceptions of a multiracial group historically made to feel like outsiders." They are MADE to feel like outsiders?!?! This whiney "poor me, I am being discriminated against! " mentality is the worst form of irresponsible immaturity.
These people who commit multiple sins of blaming the world for their lot in life, approriating another unrelated far away culture's words and concepts and completely warping them beyond recognition should spend more time growing up, being more accountable and getting ahead rather than trying to get even at some mythical bully keeping them down. You would think by now they used ownership language and developed some sense of responsibility. Instead it's "look what they MAKE us feel!"
Remember Eleanor Roosevelt's words: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

There is mention of someone who decided to start the "Hapa Issues Forum", a groundbreaking group to raise awareness of mixed-race Asian American.
Fine and dandy. Then start an Asian American issues forum. Talk about the July or the january issue all ya want. But don't force your strange publication on the rest of us. (Asia?! Why not use "hafu" instead of hapa?!)
Let this be the first of the REAL "Hapa Issues Forum" wherein Hawaii takes BACK one of the many stolen concepts that are disrespecting and watering down their culture.

[Whitepoint3rchum]

I wouldn't know. Hawaiians had nothing to do with the enslavement and subjugation of the African people.

Whoa no way, NEITHER did my ethnicities! How utterly strange another fellow whose ancestors did not have anything to do with African enslavement.

(You do realize it was almost exclusively the English/Spanish that had to do with the North American slave trade-not the whole of caucasians right? Good, cause my folks were to busy being subjugated by the Brits themselves. In fact, it happened much earlier to them than it happened to the Africans)

[pzarquon]

Through all the decades of living here, I have NEVER heard "hapa" misused in this manner. [...] The word is Hawaiian and for all my life here, it has meant to everyone here in Hawaii, that one is part Hawaiian and part something else.

Kimo, your confidence in speaking for everyone in Hawaii, or at least in making sweeping statements of absoluteness, is part of what makes you Kimo, I know. Along with your extreme protectiveness of an indigenous culture that you've obviously adopted (but largely not claimed as your own)... but. People born and raised here have used "hapa" incorrectly, by your definition. Including people who are part Hawaiian. You can say these people are misguided or morons, but you can't say they don't exist.

I'm part Hawaiian, but freely admit to being pretty atypical (or, yes, "ignorant" or "totally subjugated by the colonizing power," depending on who you talk to). But growing up, in interactions with folks of all backgrounds, "hapa" basically meant "multi-ethnic," usually half-half mixes, and most commonly when Caucasian was part of that mix.

I'm definitely familiar with the narrow, strict, true-Hawaiian-only definition of "hapa" that some are advocating, and as I said, I see their point. But it's hardly the universal or uncontested truth. This wide-ranging discussion just one piece of evidence to that effect.

[kimo55]

Kimo, your confidence in speaking for everyone in Hawaii, or at least in making sweeping statements of absoluteness, is part of what makes you Kimo, I know. Along with your extreme protectiveness of an indigenous culture that you've obviously adopted (but largely not claimed as your own)...

well, that's just hapa true.

I adopted what I grew up with and what adopted me. I do claim it as my favorite cause célèbre.
and the absoluteness quotient is a requisite, since if ya speak meekly and carry a small stick ya rarely get heard.

People born and raised here have used "hapa" incorrectly, by your definition.

well, I don't say it is incorrect, i do support the earliest use of it that I have heard. But yea, i have heard it used to mean mixed. But mixed koko. of an islander. Which is as much to say, ok, yer living in Boston. yer Korean and Swedish. ya simply ain't hapa.

[Jonah K]

"Hapa — originally a derogatory Hawaiian word for half-breed — has been embraced as a term of pride."
Yea? in what circles? Only in Kip Fulbeck's. And to promilgate this deception is another form of Polynesian piracy that has gone on far too long.
In all my years in Hawaii NObody here has regarded the term "hapa" as derrogatory. This is simply an instance of a small minority whining about their plight and gimme some sympathy because after all, we have attached an innapropriate but exotic sounding label onto our sad sack heads.
"perceptions of a multiracial group historically made to feel like outsiders." They are MADE to feel like outsiders?!?! This whiney "poor me, I am being discriminated against! " mentality is the worst form of irresponsible immaturity.
These people who commit multiple sins of blaming the world for their lot in life, approriating another unrelated far away culture's words and concepts and completely warping them beyond recognition should spend more time growing up, being more accountable and getting ahead rather than trying to get even at some mythical bully keeping them down. You would think by now they used ownership language and developed some sense of responsibility. Instead it's "look what they MAKE us feel!"
Remember Eleanor Roosevelt's words: "No one can make you feel inferior without your consent."

There is mention of someone who decided to start the "Hapa Issues Forum", a groundbreaking group to raise awareness of mixed-race Asian American.
Fine and dandy. Then start an Asian American issues forum. Talk about the July or the january issue all ya want. But don't force your strange publication on the rest of us. (Asia?! Why not use "hafu" instead of hapa?!)
Let this be the first of the REAL "Hapa Issues Forum" wherein Hawaii takes BACK one of the many stolen concepts that are disrespecting and watering down their culture.

Back in the early 1980s, Teresa Williams-Leon (a pioneer in the push to use the term "hapa" to describe "mixed-race" Asians outside of Hawai'i) was a undergraduate student at UH Mānoa. One of Teresa's professors was Haunani-Kay Trask, who bestowed the label "hapa" on her and encouraged her to study "mixed-race" Asians in grad school. Teresa's choice of grad schools at the time -- UCLA, was particularly fortuitous in that it had a pioneering Asian American Studies Program that was in the throes of expanding its horizons to include "non-traditional" Asian and Pacific Islander groups, such as "mixed-race" Asians, Pilipinos, Vietnamese, Thais, Samoans, Chamorros, etc. After getting her master's degree in Asian American Studies, Teresa obtained in Ph.D. in sociology from UCLA and eventually became a professor at Cal State Northridge, heading its Asian American Studies program. Unfortunately, the "Hawaiian sovereignty" movement in the form of Ka Lāhui Hawai'i and other groups, preoccupied kanaka maoli scholars and intellectuals who missed an opportunity to quash the misappropriation of the term "hapa" before it was embedded in the "Asian American Studies" lexicon.

A little north of UCLA, UC Berkeley professor Ron Takaki (who grew up in Palolo Valley), stated that "Asian American history begins in Hawai'i" and he makes the case in his 1983 book, "Pau Hana: Plantation Life and Labor in Hawai'i." So in essence, "Asian American Studies" can be viewed as a offshoot of Hawaiian Studies. Viewed in that prism, it could be argued that the use of the term "hapa" to describe "mixed-race" Asians is permissable.

Although I used Teresa Williams-Leon, Haunani-Kay Trask, UH Mānoa, and UCLA to illustrate how the term "hapa" came to be linked to "Asian American Studies", similar things happened at other colleges and universities with other folks, such as Cynthia Nakashima. In addition, writers such as Nora Okja Keller, Jessica Hagedorn, Diana Chang, Kiana Davenport, Marie Hara, and Velina Hasu Houston, have all greatly contributed to the promulgation of the term "hapa" in "Asian American Studies."

For another take on this, here's a link to the somewhat defunct "Real Hapas" website....
http://www.realhapas.com/

[Miulang]

Mahalos for the citations and links, Jonah. I think the California "hapas" are just trying to fight against the rest of the people who think that labels (as in your ethnic origin) define who you are. People are far more "race conscious" on CONUS than in Hawai'i, especially when you look don't have the right skin tone or eye configuration with which one is familiar.

Miulang

['i'iwipolena]

Whoa no way, NEITHER did my ethnicities! How utterly strange another fellow whose ancestors did not have anything to do with African enslavement.

(You do realize it was almost exclusively the English/Spanish that had to do with the North American slave trade-not the whole of caucasians right? Good, cause my folks were to busy being subjugated by the Brits themselves. In fact, it happened much earlier to them than it happened to the Africans)

You're reading too much into what I wrote. Mahi Waina merely made a reference to the American south, asking if anyone remembered the "Octaroon Ball," and I replied with a 'nope,' so Mahi Waina clarified the subject. That was the extent of the discussion.

[Jonah K]

Mahalos for the citations and links, Jonah. I think the California "hapas" are just trying to fight against the rest of the people who think that labels (as in your ethnic origin) define who you are. People are far more "race conscious" on CONUS than in Hawai'i, especially when you look don't have the right skin tone or eye configuration with which one is familiar.

Miulang

No problem. I observed the rise of "hapa consciousness" by some of these folks first-hand and enjoyed telling some of them that although I had a few ancestors of different ethnicities, the only ones that really counted were the kanaka maoli ones and an Irishman that once worked as a carpenter. Even though I was probably more "qualified" to refer to myself as a "hapa" than someone whose ancestors only hailed from Japan and Beckley, West Virginia, I refused to be labelled as such. Somewhere down the line, someone probably assumed that the term "hapa" was derogatory because some ethnically-mixed kanaka maoli refused to use it to refer to themselves.

Of course, interesting things in the "Hawaiian sovereignty movement" were beginning to happen at the time....

[pzarquon]

So in essence, "Asian American Studies" can be viewed as a offshoot of Hawaiian Studies. Viewed in that prism, it could be argued that the use of the term "hapa" to describe "mixed-race" Asians is permissable.

Thanks so much for the history lesson, Jonah K. It does explain much, and makes perfect sense. I don't think "hapa" was stolen or misappropriated at all. It just migrated and evolved, as words and language do. It is interesting that it might have an identifiable academic basis.

As for that Real Hapas online vigilante site, I wrote about "them" (mostly one particularly miltant person) in the earlier "hapa" thread. It'd be funny, if it wasn't so scary!

I think the California "hapas" are just trying to fight against the rest of the people who think that labels (as in your ethnic origin) define who you are.

By creating another label? Well, at least it's a self-adhesive sticker, rather than slapped on by some inconsiderate skate shop punk.

[PoiBoy]

No such thing as "hapa". People like to redefine to fit in....and some redefine to exclude.

No hapa.

[Palolo Joe]

No such thing as "hapa". People like to redefine to fit in....and some redefine to exclude.

No hapa.

Bull. If you're a mix of Native Hawaiian and something else, you're hapa.

[1stwahine]

Bull. If you're a mix of Native Hawaiian and something else, you're hapa.

I agree.

No and's, if's or butt's.

Auntie Lynn