I remember clearly the first time someone used the term “hapa”: I was a freshman, waiting for Campus Cruiser in front of New/North, when a random guy asked me if I was hapa.
Not knowing what it meant, I asked for a clarification. He told me that hapa is Hawaiian
for half—it’s traditionally used as a term to refer to people who are half-Asian and half-
Caucasian.
Marissa Hui, a senior communications major, knows the intricacies of this term well. She’s the president of HapaSC, an organization on-campus dedicated to exploring what it means to be of mixed race, and the exploration of identity that comes with the territory.
HC: Tell me about HapaSC.
Marissa: HapaSC has been around campus for about 10 years. It started originally as a club
specifically for students that fit the traditional meaning of “hapa:” half-Asian and half-white.
Since then, it’s become an all-encompassing club for students of multiracial, multiethnic, and
multicultural backgrounds.
Our mission is to create a diverse community where people can explore their identity.
Specifically we deal with a lot of topics about being mixed raced and try to cater to that student
population. Sometimes students who are mixed race don’t identify completely with [single-
culture] groups, or want to be able to explore their backgrounds within one group and not have to
sacrifice one group for another.
HC: What kinds of events does HapaSC put on? What does the club do?
Marissa: We have general meetings, usually biweekly. Typically at our meetings we announce
events, then we have a discussion or an activity. At our first general meeting we had a discussion
about values and upbringing children, especially in interracial relationships. Sometimes those
values can clash, or one can be more dominant than the other.
We were inspired by the one article written by Amy Chua about why Chinese mothers are
superior. I know that raised a lot of controversy in general. It’s interesting because she’s a
Chinese mother, but she has a white husband. One of the things that crossed my mind when
reading the article was what her husband feels about her parenting style, since it’s so traditional.
We had a really lively discussion based on that.
Sometimes we’ll do fun activities: ice-breakers and games and stuff. Part of the mission of the
club is to create a community where people can get to know each other and become friends,
so we always try to include some social stuff. We supplement that with a lot of social events throughout the semester.
HC: How did you get involved with the organization?
Marissa: I got involved my freshman year. I had no idea what the term hapa meant. I considered
myself mixed race, but never thought much about it. I lived in Parkside and saw a flyer by the
elevator. It had this smiley face: half of it was yellow and winking, and the other half was white.
I thought it was funky and was kind of curious. So I looked it up and got really excited.
The club seemed to have a lot of potential. So sophomore year, one of the returning officers and I
talked about reviving the club and trying to make it a more active club on campus. Then I started
doing E-Board stuff and have stayed super-involved since then.
HC: What kinds of events do you produce?
Marissa: One of my other favorite events was called Mixed and Matched, and it was a concert
and bone marrow drive that we hosted at Ground Zero. We were working with A3M (Asians for
Miracle Marrow Matches), an organization which caters to mixed race and minorities to register
for bone marrow drives. Bone marrow transplants are a hapa issue: apparently race does factor
into your likelihood for getting a match, so people who are mixed race sometimes have a harder
time getting matches. Then the concert itself was really awesome. We were able to get several
bands and singers, and our headliner was Marié Digby, the YouTube star, and a hapa artist.
She was really gracious to volunteer and do an acoustic performance for us, which was really
intimate.
We had a really awesome event last year called HAPArt. We opened up submissions to the
greater southern California area, to anyone who was multiracial who wanted to take part,
especially if it was about their identity. We were able to rent out the Hive Gallery, which is one
of the galleries on the Art Walk. We had a one night art show. It was a really cool night, and it
was something a little bit different: to have people showcase their identities through art. We had
poetry, painting, drawings, all kinds of good stuff.
HC: Was it mostly students, or did people come from the community?
Marissa: We had a pretty good mixing of both, I’d say it’s about 50/50. I didn’t expect a lot
of people from the community to come, but because the gallery had pretty good reach, people
came because they knew the gallery. We had a lot of students affiliated with HapaSC, and then
students who weren’t as well.
HC: What have you learned from being a part of HapaSC?
Marissa: I’ve learned a lot about accepting and being really proud of my background. I’m
Chinese and Mexican. Before I got involved in HapaSC, I’d always known that, but never
considered it to be something that was particularly unique or came with unique experiences. I
learned a lot talking with other people that we all experience a lot of similar things: people being
confused about our races or assuming we’re one thing but not the other, balancing different
cultures and values at home and then figuring out where our niches are on campus, because so
many of them are culturally segregated.
I think most of my learning has come from the members of HapaSC and the discussions that
we’ve had. It makes me realize that being mixed race – it means more than just how I identify.
According to the census there are a lot more mixed race relationships and mixed race people in
the US, and that number has been growing steadily over the past few decades. It’s interesting to
see the implications that being mixed race is going to have in the future.
I think eventually we’re going to have evaluate how we see race. A lot of times we think of it as
a way to group people, but it’s hard to do that when there are more mixed race people around.
We put all these attributes on people based on their race, but what do you do when someone’s
mixed? We can’t always do that, you can’t always pigeonhole them that way. So I think that in
the future we’re going to have to look at race in a different way. Maybe it won’t be as relevant in
the future, especially when more people are mixed. But I think we’ve still got a long ways to go.
Interested in learning more? Meetings are typically held every other Thursday in Taper
Hall at 6:30pm. Check out HapaSC’s website for more information, or join the Facebook group.
Katherine Goldman is a senior majoring in Theatre.