Mixed Race Studies

By drawing on their Hapa identity while situating themselves within historically Black and Brown musical and cultural aesthetics these artists are contributing to what ethnomusicologist, T. Carlis Roberts calls the “new Black” movement in music, a trend that embraces broader definitions of what it means to be Black and Brown. According to Roberts, “Not only has this process resulted in more visible diversity in media and other social realms, it has productively worked to unseat the Black–white dichotomy as the paradigm of racial conversation.”³ Musicians like [Jhené] Aiko are unseating several racial dichotomies.

Sonia C. Gomez, “Jhené Aiko and the Problem of Multiracial Self-Representation,” Discover Nikkei, January 29, 2019. http://www.discovernikkei.org/en/journal/2019/1/29/jhene-aiko/.

Jhené Aiko and the Problem of Multiracial Self-Representation

Hapa Music is Black and Brown
Discover Nikkei
2019-01-29

Sonia C. Gomez, Postdoctoral Fellow
Mahindra Humanities Center
Harvard University

Jhené Aiko. Photo courtesy of The come Up Show.

At the 2018 VH1 Mother’s Day music tribute concert titled, Dear Mama: A Love Letter to Moms, Grammy nominated singer and songwriter Jhené Aiko recited this poem she wrote for her mother, Christina Yamamoto, a woman of African American and Japanese ancestry:

“I found another grey hair today but I was not bothered at all. I feel like I earned it. I’m better, I’m wiser, I’m leveling up overall. I am becoming my mother, my beautiful mother, who taught me with age, comes might. I’m becoming my mother, my beautiful mother, she is love in the flesh, what a sight.”

Afterwards, Aiko and her young daughter, Namiko Love, serenaded the audience with an original song Aiko wrote titled, Sing to Me. The performance was a touching display of affection between three generations of women, and as such, offers an opportunity to reflect on the role Aiko’s mother’s racial heritage has played in Aiko’s musical career. After all, she is her mother’s daughter.

Jhené Aiko Chilombo was born in 1988 in Los Angeles to Christina Yamamoto, a woman who is African American and Japanese, and Karamo Chilombo, a man of mixed-Black and Native American ancestry. Aiko is one of five siblings who grew up in a multiracial and tight-knit family from Ladera Heights, a Black middle-class enclave in south Los Angeles. Aiko’s sister, Mila J, is a singer, songwriter, and dancer herself…

Read the entire article here.

Neither One Nor The Other: Why I Love Being Mixed-Race

Discover Nikkei
2015-10-20

Mia Nakaji Monnier

I love those parts that seem incompatible but that, in a person, come together.

During my first week of college, I met a guy who, like me, had a long, four-part name. When I told him mine, he said, “Mine are better because they all match.”

This guy wasn’t exactly representative of my classmates at this New England liberal arts college. He was pretty obnoxious, and our friendship ended right along with freshman orientation. But he had a point. His name did match. It was a nice, genteel name, the kind you could transplant out of the 21st century and into a Jane Austen novel without anyone noticing the difference.

My name, on the other hand, is mixed and messy, alternately Japanese and French but, all together, a completely American whole: Mia Gabrielle Nakaji Monnier. In a 19th century novel, I might sound like an invading alien. But I love that. My name is a constant reminder that I’m mixed, on a borderline between worlds…

Read the entire article here.

About Hatsumi… with Toronto Director Chris Hope: Part 1 of 3

Discover Nikkei
2012-06-27

Norm Masaji Ibuki

An extraordinary and beautiful film…exhaustively and passionately researched, both at the level of the filmmaker’s personal history and as an investigation into our national consciousness”

—Academy Award^® Nominated Director, Atom Egoyan

Thus far in 2012, the 70th anniversary of internment, there has been no greater artistic tribute to the generation of Nikkei that survived Canadian internment than Chris Hope’s moving tribute to his grandmother, Nancy Hatsumi Okura.

It has been a very long time since we’ve had the occasion to celebrate a new feature-length film that addresses the issue of how internment continues to affect our community. The Toronto-based filmmaker’s new film, Hatsumi, is a moving testament to how his grandmother as a girl survived and triumphed over the systemic racism and discrimination that was aimed at destroying British Columbia’s Japanese Canadian community.

As such, this film is as much for the generations born after internment as it is a tribute to those who survived it. It is also a timely reminder for younger generations of all ethnic backgrounds that the fight to be recognized as “Canadian” has been and continues to be an ongoing one for many immigrant groups.

For those of Japanese descent in particular, there is something deeply personal about this film as there has been at least one “Hatsumi” in every one of our families be that a sister, mother, grandmother, or great grandmother. By telling her story, Chris helps to give voice to all of the Nikkei women who endured the betrayal of their country, rising above it all with a grace and, above all, a sense of forgiveness that this yonsei’s film honours.

Born to Marion (nee Okura) and Michael Hope (deceased 1998), his dual ethnic heritage is representative of the Nikkei community as it is evolving today. He studied Radio and Television Arts at Ryerson University, during and following of which he worked as a producer at CBC for about four years. Afterwards, it was on to Osgoode Hall Law School – York University, he spent summers working on the film and one summer at the CRTC in Ottawa. Following law school, he articled with Heenan Blaikie LLP, then worked as director of business and legal affairs at Cookie Jar Entertainment for two years, then joined Alliance Films Inc., which is where he’s been ever since. He completed an Executive Masters of Business Administration at the University of Windsor while at Cookie Jar Entertainment “for the purpose of rounding out my skill set.”

“Father’s mom was born in County Cork, Ireland and father in Bristol, England. They both came to Toronto in the 1910s. I grew up referring to my parents as ‘John and Yoko’ as a result of my dad’s lineage. The generations in my family are so far spread out on my father’s side that my grandfather (as above) served as a medic during WWI. I have his medals as well as their wedding invitation and photos from, I believe, 1922. Thanks to an apparent family penchant for history, I also have original naval records on my father’s side dating back to the early 1800s, and the wooden “cubby box” my father’s great-great grandfather carried with him on sea voyages which was them full of his personal effects (many of which are still in the box!).”

“My mother’s grandfather also came in the early part of the 20th century, and her grandmother (both from Gobo City, Wakayama ken) was a picture bride. They settled in Steveston, where my great-grandfather worked as a fisherman. I have both of their citizenship photo cards from 1977, which, according to my grandmother, they prized. Kichijiro Hashimoto was my great grandfather’s name and Tami Mori, my great-grandmother’s.”…

Read part one of the entire interview here.

China Dolls by Lisa See

Discover Nikkei
2015-01-15

Leslie Yamaguchi

Fans of best-selling author Lisa See will not be surprised by her diverse background, the source of the unique perspective readers inevitably find in each of her novels.

Born in Paris but raised and residing in Los Angeles for most of her life, she is part Chinese. Her great-great-grandfather came to the United States to work on the building of the transcontinental railroad, and her great-grandfather was the “godfather” or “patriarch” of Los Angeles’ Chinatown. About 400 members of her large Chinese American family currently live in the Los Angeles area.

Despite her appearance—red-haired and freckled—Lisa See has always been strongly influenced by her Chinese identity. In a recent interview, the author explained, “I don’t look at all Chinese, but I grew up in a very large Chinese-American family. My Chinese background influences everything in my life. It’s in how I raise my children, in what I eat, in how I remember the people in my family who’ve died. It’s in what I plant in my garden and how I decorate my house. I have a western doctor, but my main doctor is from China and practices traditional Chinese medicine.” Of course, her Chinese heritage is also an integral part of her writing.

See does not set out to educate her readers about Chinese culture; instead, she views her books as a reflection of her own personal journey, a journey in which her culture has played a significant role. “All writers are told to write what they know, and this is what I know. In many ways I straddle two cultures. I try to bring what I know from both cultures into my work. I have no way of knowing if this is true or not, but perhaps the American side of me is able to open a window into China and things Chinese for non-Chinese, while the Chinese side of me makes sure that what I’m writing is true to the Chinese culture without making it seem too ‘exotic’ or ‘foreign.’ In other words, what I really want people to get from my books is that all people on the planet share common life experiences—falling in love, getting married, having children, dying—and share common emotions—love, hate, greed, jealousy. These are the universals; the differences are in the particulars of customs and culture.”

Through these reflections about her writing, Lisa See captures the essence of her latest novel, China Dolls. Within the narrative, the author provides readers with a glimpse into the history of both her own Chinese American heritage as well as the Japanese American experience during World War II. The novel revolves around three Asian American women who meet at an audition at The Forbidden City, a nightclub and cabaret in San Francisco that featured Asian performers from the late 1930s to the 1950s. The three women—Grace Lee, Helen Fong, and Ruby Tom—share the role of narrators, creating a kind of symmetry within the novel which is itself divided into three sections—the Sun, the Moon, and the Truth…

Read the entire review here.

Betwixt and Between: Embracing the Borderlands of My Mixed Heritage

Discover Nikkei
2013-01-23

Mari L’Esperance

For weeks I resisted beginning work on this essay. Then, synchronistically, I encountered two pieces at Discover Nikkei that helped me get started. The first was Nancy Matsumoto’s excellent review (December 26, 2012) of Nikkei/Hapa psychologist Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu’s latest book When Half is Whole: Multiethnic Asian American Identities, and the second was a first-person essay (January 3, 2013) by Los Angeles-based food writer, soba maker/purveyor, and Common Grains founder Sonoko Sakai.

In her review, Matsumoto writes that Murphy-Shigematsu’s lifework explores “the complex issue of identity among mixed-race Asians… With subtleness and great empathy he guides us through what he calls ‘the borderlands’ where transnational and multiethnic identities are formed”. Eureka! The symbolism and psychology of “borderlands”—both internal and external—have been my own preoccupation for years, as a poet, writer, and woman of mixed Japanese ancestry.

I was similarly inspired by, and felt a kinship with, Sakai through her account of her experience as a woman born in New York to Japanese parents and raised in several different places in the West and Japan, including my mother’s hometown of Kamakura. Eventually Sakai settled in Los Angeles, where she leads workshops and writes about food as a source of constancy, connection, and physical and spiritual sustenance. Reading these two pieces helped me to integrate the threads of my own history and my struggle over the years to define my identity in the world…

…I am the daughter of a Japanese mother and a New Englander father of French Canadian and Abenaki Missisquoi Indian ancestry. Months after I was born in Kobe in the 1960s, my father moved us to Southern California and then on to Santa Barbara, Guam, and Tokyo. This regular uprooting, combined with my bicultural upbringing, contributed to my feelings of otherness…

Read the entire article here.

Book Review: Exploring the Borderlands of Race, Nation, Sex and Gender

Discover Nikkei: Japanese Migrants and Their Descendants
2012-12-26

Nancy Matsumoto

Growing up in predominantly white Marin County, mixed-race yonsei Akemi Johnson hates her name and just wants to blend in. In college, though, her attitude changes. She studies race and ethnicity and travels to Japan. Though her stated purpose there is to study issues around the American bases in Okinawa, she later writes, ”My real motives were more personal and intertwined with the past, with traumas that had been born many years before.” She reflects on why her grandparents, who were imprisoned at the Tule Lake and Gila River concentration camps, never talked about those experiences. Eventually she returns to America satisfied that she has confronted her “fears of association, shame, really, of my Japanese ancestry—and won.”

Johnson’s story is just one of many that psychologist Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu tells in his latest book, When Half is Whole: Multiethnic Asian American Identities. Exploring the complex issue of identity among mixed-race Asians has been his life work. With subtleness and great empathy he guides us through what he calls “the borderlands” where transnational and multiethnic identities are formed, arguing that in an increasingly globalized world, identities are more flexible and inclusive, and can “challenge the meaning of national and racial categories and boundaries.”…

Read the entire review here.

Nikkei Heritage: Intermarriages and Hapas: An Overview – Parts 1 and 2

Discover Nikkei (Japanese Migrans and Their Descendants)
Republished from Nikkei Heritage (The quarterly journal of the National Japanese American Historical Society)
2007-05-11

George Kitahara Kich, Senior Trial Consultant
Bonora D’Andrea

Rebecca Chiyoko King-O’Riain, Lecturer in Sociology
National University of Ireland, Maynooth

Larry Hajime Shinagawa, Associate Professor Director of Asian American Studies
University of Maryland

Shizue Seigel

To be biracial and Japanese American means having many different labels from which to choose. For this historical overview, we will use “Hapa”, a term popularized by the Hapa Issues Forum, to mean people who have an Asian/Asian Pacific Islander parent and a parent of any other race. Our focus here is on those with a Japanese or a Japanese American parent.

There is no single Hapa experience. Over the decades, Hapas have had widely different experiences based on individual circumstance and background, as well as the time period and environment into which they were born. The history of people of mixed-race has been deeply influenced by the evolving social and legal contexts for interracial relationships and marriages, along with community attitudes about culture, tradition and belongingness. Legal barriers against mixed marriages have fallen; however, discrimination, prejudice, community fears and stereotyping still affect interracial marriages and interracial people today. Nonetheless, about half* of all Japanese American marriages since 1970 have been to non-JAs, and the birthrate of interracial and interethnic children with some Japanese ancestry now exceeds that of JA/JA children. The Japanese American community has been gradually welcoming Hapas as a significant and growing part of the Japanese American community…

Read the entire Part 1 of the article here.
Read Part 2 here.

Half vs. Double: Hybrid Mathematics

Column: Little Momo in the Big Apple
Discover Nikkei: Japanese Migrans and Their Descendants
2008-03-28

Simone Momoye Fujita

My mother is Japanese American, and my father is African American.

According to this equation, most would assert that this fact makes me exactly one-half Asian and one-half Black, right? I whole-heartedly disagree. When faced with an either/or dilemma, I will defiantly choose the both/and option. The sum of my parts, racially speaking, is greater than one. Let me explain:

I am of the school of thought that takes the math-defying stance that mixed people are not split schizophrenically down the middle when it comes to their ethnic identities. This means that despite my ambiguous phenotypic appearance, I consider myself just as Japanese American as anyone who was born to two Japanese American parents. The same applies to my African American side. The fact that my parents are of two different races is incidental to the big picture – my blended cultural heritage cannot be quantified in percentages. If one should insist on doing so, the most accurate description would be to say that I am 100% Japanese and 100% African American, much like a participant in kip fulbeck: part asian, 100% hapa exhibition suggested…

Read the entire article here.

Exploring the Realities of Hapa-ness – Curtiss Rooks

Revelations & Resilience: Exploring the Realities of Hapa-ness
Japanese American National Museum
Presented by Discover Nikkei
2008-04-12

Curtiss Takada Rooks
Loyola Marymount University

Introduction: Revelations and Resilience

Part 1

Part 2