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October 18, 1998
This week, we had a guest speaker come out to talk about his life experience. Since this week’s topic is about HAPA issues, we had a speaker from the HAPA Issues forum. His name was Robbie Silva and he is a student here at Cal. What his main concern was to talk about HAPA issues and to increase awareness about HAPAs in general.
He started off his lecture by asking us what types of stereotypes there were against HAPAs. Some of the topics that came up were that they are good looking, that they have an identity crisis since they come from two or more different types of backgrounds, and that they are whitewashed and try to ignore their Asian heritage since they look more white than Asian.
I felt that those stereotypes are pretty much true. Most of my friends who are HAPAs easily attract the opposite sex and they pretty much were whitewashed. As for having an identity crisis stereotype, I would not know since I can’t see the results clearly and since I am not HAPA myself. However, I could kind of relate to them since I am a Japanese American and therefore, I did have times when I did have an identity crisis. I used to hate being Japanese since I didn’t fit in with my other Asian friends. However, I feel very lucky now since I am multicultural and I try to use it as an advantage over people that only have one culture to reflect upon.
Robbie Silva then asked us to guess what his race was. There were guesses ranging from Latino to Japanese. He ended up being half Japanese and half Portuguese. He told us that his father was from Hawaii and his mother was born and raised in Peru so the main language that his mother spoke was Spanish. So he grew up speaking to his mother in Spanish. That is why he was able to confuse his friends when he was little. He said that his friends would guess that his race was White one day because his dad picked him up and his dad looked White. The next day, he would be Japanese since his mother picked him up that looked very Japanese. However, some other day, they would label him as Mexican since he would talk to his mother in Spanish. I could kind of understand why his friends tried to label him as being of a certain race and not of a mixed race. Whenever I see a HAPA, I try to guess what type of race he/she is and I would forget the fact that the person is of a mixed race. I think that the reason why is because I take that one half is white and the other is to be determined.
Robbie then talked about how he hated being of a mixed descent since he didn’t know which side to choose. Therefore, he kept on switching from one side to the other depending on which type of friends he hung out with. He eventually began to like being mixed because he could attract more girls and because he had a lot in common with different types of people.
Kelly Knight from our floor then talked about his life being a HAPA. He is half White and half Korean. Since he grew up in Korea, he was considered to be American. That is why he was shocked when he came to the United States and he was labeled as a Korean American. He grew up being American all his life and now he was something different which was completely new to him. He recalled that there were no racial tensions in Korea and that when he came to America, he was shocked at how distinct the races were. He just wanted to be Kelly and nothing else.
I agree with Kelly that we make too much of a big deal about what race we are in the United States. We must check a race in an application and even in conversations, we ask what race we are. I think that it would be great if we don’t emphasize on race too much and to emphasize more on the person’s character.
