Mixed Race Studies

Hapa-palooza 2014 is coming: Mark Your Calendars!

Vancouver, Canada
2014-09-24 through 2014-09-28

Hapa-palooza is Canada’s biggest festival celebrating mixed-roots identity, scheduled for every September in Vancouver, Canada.

This year, Hapa-palooza takes place September 24-28, 2014, marking our four year anniversary.

Hapa-palooza Festival is organized by the Hybrid Ancestry Public Arts Society, a non-profit society dedicated to bringing public programming that explores and celebrates mixed ancestry.

For details on 2014 programming, click here!

Don’t miss Hapa-Palooza 2013: Celebrate mixed ethnicity and third culture in Vancouver

Vancouver Observer
Vancouver, British Columbia
2013-09-13

Jordan Yerman

Celebrate the whole you with literature, film, art, and dance. This is Hapa-Palooza.

The third annual Hapa-Palooza Festival kicks off on September 18, once again bringing three days of art and culture to Vancouver. Focusing on mixed-race identity, this is a celebration of what makes us… us.

Anna Ling Kaye, Hapa-Palooza’s Artistic Director, says, “The big thing that’s different this year is that we’re incorporated as our own society. We’re making a big push for a bigger festival.”…

Read the entire article here.

Mismatched racial identities, colourism, and health in Toronto and Vancouver

Social Science & Medicine
Volume 73, Issue 8, October 2011
pages 1152–1162
DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.07.030

Gerry Veenstra, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of British Columbia

Using original telephone survey data collected from adult residents of Toronto (n=685) and Vancouver (n=814) in 2009, I investigate associations between mental and physical health and variously conceived racial identities. An ‘expressed racial identity’ is a self-identification with a racial grouping that a person will readily express to others when asked to fit into official racial classifications presented by Census forms, survey researchers, insurance forms, and the like. Distinguishing between Asian, Black, South Asian, and White expressed racial identities, I find that survey respondents expressing Black identity are the most likely to report high blood pressure or hypertension, a risk that is slightly attenuated by socioeconomic status, and that respondents expressing Asian identity are the most likely to report poorer self-rated mental health and self-rated overall health, risks that are not explained by socioeconomic status. I also find that darker-skinned Black respondents are more likely than lighter-skinned Black respondents to report poor health outcomes, indicating that colourism, processes of discrimination which privilege lighter-skinned people of colour over their darker-skinned counterparts, exists and has implications for well-being in Canada as it does in the United States. Finally, ‘reflected racial identity’ refers to the racial identity that a person believes that others tend to perceive him or her to be. I find that expressed and reflected racial identities differ from one another for large proportions of self-expressed Black and South Asian respondents and relatively few self-expressed White and Asian respondents. I also find that mismatched racial identities correspond with relatively high risks of various poor health outcomes, especially for respondents who consider themselves White but believe that others tend to think they are something else. I conclude by presenting a framework for conceptualizing multifaceted suites of racial identities and relating their various components and inconsistencies between them to health outcomes.

Call for Robson Square Art Installation: Hapapalooza Festival

Hapa-Palooza Festival seeks outdoor art installation proposal to show-case work by individual artist and/or groups of mixed cultural descent whose artistic work explores mixed roots/cultural heritage/hybridity/identity.

Submission Deadline: 2011-07-15
Contact: Ella Cooper – ella@ecoartslab.com

Hapa-Palooza: A Vancouver Celebration of Mixed-Roots Arts and Ideas is a new cultural festival that commemorates Vancouver’s 125th anniversary and celebrates the city’s identity as a place of hybridity, synergy and acceptance.

In an unprecedented gathering of artists, Hapa-palooza will bring together in one festival Vancouver’s many talents of mixed-heritage and hybrid cultural identities. A vibrant fusion of music, dance, literary, artistic and film performances, Hapa-palooza places prominence on celebrating and stimulating awareness of mixed-roots identity, especially amongst youth.

This inaugural event will take place between Sept 7-10, 2011 with our Mainstage event taking place on September 10, 2011 from noon to 6pm in Robson Square.

Submission Details: We are seeking an artist or artists whose existing work deals with hybridity, identity, contemporary traditions and/or cultural heritage. Depending on the submissions received, this final installation will either showcase a variety of works or feature one or two artists in Robson Square. Compensation includes funds to mount the installation, volunteer support during the event plus an artist honorarium. Emerging artists are welcome.

For more information, click here.