canadiannikkei.ca » Hapa

Re(a)ddressed: I am (Japanese) Canadian Workshop

admin — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 19:53:06 +0000

By Caitlin Ohama-Darcus

Please check one of the following three options. I am ___white. I am___black. I am ___other. If other, please specify____________________________________.

How often have you been faced with this question? Where was it? When was it? Why? And what have you checked? What did you specify? How easy did you find putting a name to the parts of you or, for that matter, to the whole of you?

The 20th Anniversary Japanese Canadian Redress Conference was held this past September here in Vancouver, BC, with participants traveling to attend from all over Canada, as well as the United States. This conference stood out as a celebration of community.

On the Friday afternoon of this three-day-long event, I had the honour of co-facilitating a workshop geared towards youth. Titled “Re(a)ddressed: I am (Japanese) Canadian,” the aim of this workshop was to open a dialogue between Japanese Canadian youth surrounding the present and possible futures of identity and ethnicity in Canada. Very suited to these topics was the collaboration of award-winning Canadian independent animation filmmaker, writer and artist, Jeff Chiba Stearns.

If you’re close to a computer right now, please open up your internet browser (. . . and if you’re not close to a computer at the moment, then please remember to come back to the following websites later . . .). On YouTube, search for Yellow Sticky Notes. Take a couple of minutes to watch what unfolds before you. Next, through the CBC website, log on to http://citizen.nfb.ca/node/20831&dossier_nid=20498 and treat yourself to a viewing of What Are You Anyways? – another piece of short animation by Jeff Chiba Stearns. I guarantee that you’ll smile, laugh and be left with some pretty hard questions to ponder.

These two animations, in fact, served as the introduction to the Re(a)dressed youth workshop. With Jeff describing his experiences as a hapa boy growing up in Kelowna, BC, as well as the present motivations behind his work as an artist, workshop participants were given a very unique (but also representative) picture of what it means to be a 21st century Canadian youth of mixed race. Focusing his expression not only on youth within the Japanese Canadian community, Jeff’s questions and dynamic identity reach out to all those who are a fraction this and a fraction that. Jeff, it turns out, actually prefers thinking of halves as wholes. While many of us label ourselves half Japanese and half something else (or maybe even a quarter, or an eighth), Jeff considers each part of us to be a whole. “You’re not half this and half that,” he explains, “you’re two wholes.”

In the end, the majority of people who participated in this Re(a)ddressed workshop were slightly over the age of what is typically thought to be “youthful” (. . . although, as many of the Calgary Kotobuki Society members told me, we all remain youths at heart). This, however, seemed to have absolutely no impact on the breadth of discussion or creativity expressed! In fact, the ideas raised around discrimination, connections to Japanese heritage and the future of the Japanese Canadian community (as well as ethnicity in Canada in general) were all the more enriching because of the wide range of ages.

And since the purpose of this activity was to get all participants involved—not only listening but expressing—everyone was a given a pad of colourful sticky notes on which to write/draw/scribble their responses to the different ideas raised throughout the workshop. Discussion centered around the themes of ethnic experiences in Canada, our own “Japanese-ness”, the future of the hapa identity, and the million-dollar “what are you anyways” question. By the end of our two hours together, almost everyone had accumulated a thick stack of stickies, covered in artwork! Each person then posted their stickies next to the sticky notes of others on a series of colourful boards. The final product was beautiful, a patchwork of colour! We had collected and shared a multitude of differences, as well as similarities—every individual’s unique identity.

Above all, this workshop reminded me of just how proud I sometimes feel when checking the “Other” box on a survey, tax return, or exam. Of course, the “If other, please specify…” part is a whole other story. But my occasional cultural metamorphism, I figure that I have and always will know who I am. Sometimes I just can’t find the appropriate words to express this.

What are you anyways?

from Kids Corner, The Bulletin

A Canadian Nikkei in Hawaii – Day 2

admin — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 05:58:29 +0000

For the first time in many years, your humble blog-master is missing Vancouver’s Powell Street Festival. It was time for a badly-needed family vacation and circumstances dictated the timing. So here we are. In Kona, on the big Island of Hawaii. We travelled yesterday from Seattle, landing at our rented home last night–the Newman/Greenaway clan (Amy, Emiko, Kaya and me) along with Amy’s folks Bonnie and Joel. So maybe today is Day One, but I’m going to call it Day Two anyway. That’s me at breakfast this morning. On the beach.

It’s my first time in the land of the hapa (memo to self, ask someone here if it’s OK to use the term hapa) and there surely are a lot of folk who vaguely resemble me. It’s the first place outside of Japan where Japanese names aren’t routinely mangled beyond recognition.

So far, I’ve seen more incredibly beautiful and exotic froliage than I’ve seen in my life, been serenaded by dozens of birds at 5am, been tumbled head over heels by a wave that I foolishly turned my back on, seen wild parrots for the first time, seen my first wild gecko, had my first Hawaiian beer (haven’t tried the Big Wave lager yet, that’s next), and have felt more relaxed than I have in a long, long time . . .

And now, the sun has gone down in a blaze of glory, the swordfish has been barbecued, the bottle of Hawaiian wheat ale (with passion fruit) has been finished and the crickets are starting up their nightly serenade . . . and tomorrow? Snorkeling with the fishes!

Hapa Canada Day Message from Todd Wong

admin — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 06:40:43 +0000

Todd Wong, who is not hapa, (but is an honourary one – hey, he can’t help it, eh?) sent this message around this morning and I found it sitting in my in-box when I got home tonight (after driving my girls around all day to various events where they were performing with Chibi Taiko) and I thought it was really sweet. And since I’m too tired to write a message myself . . . well, here it is! (it’s also posted on his tres-cool website)

For my special Hapa Friends….

Canada Day Eve is one of the greatest celebration events not celebrated…

Hapa-Canadian “Standing on Guard for Thee”! original drawing by Jeff Chiba Stearns

Why don’t we have a midnight countdown to celebrate our country’s birthday? Okay, there are fireworks celebrations at the end of Canada Day, but everybody has to go to work the next morning. Aren’t holidays better celebrated when you can stay up late the night before, then sleep in?

Last night, I met up with two friends, Leanne Riding and Judy Maxwell. When I introduced them, it took only a few moments before one of them said “Are you hapa?”

And this was in a darkened room!

If people think that “Canadian Identity”is a conundrum, try to define being Hapa. It’s a Hawaiian term that is now more commonly used to define mixed race Asian-Canadians and Asian-Americans.

My friend John Endo Greenaway writes this:

Some people don’t like the term hapa, given its somewhat derogatory roots, but many mixed Asian-Canadians/Amercians have embraced it, although it has yet to enter the mainstream vocabulary. But whatever term you want to use, hapas are here to stay. With a 90% intermarriage rate (give or take) Japanese Canadians are producing hapa children at a prodigious rate. Attend a Japanese Canadian gathering or event and chances are you¢ll see hapa everywhere, ranging in age from infants to mid-thirties.

http://www.canadiannikkei.ca/blog/what-is-hapa/

So…. back to Canada Day Eve….

With my two Hapa friends, we start talking about our “Hapa radars”, that intuitive sense that immediately lets us know when we think that somebody we’ve never met before is Hapa. We talk about the reactions that people have to them, when people realize they are neither Asian nor Caucasian, but both. We talk about the first time when I realized they were Hapa.

We go down to Kitsilano Beach, finding a secluded spot, watch dusk settle in because we just missed the sunset after 10pm. We talk more about Hapa-ness… the beingness of Hapa, about our Hapa friends, our Hapa cousins, Hapa nieces and nephews.

We talk about Hapa friends like Jeff Chiba Stearns who is an animator, and created the Hapa short animation film “What Are You Anyways?” We talk about Brandy Lien-Worrall who is the editor of “All Mixed Up”an anthology chap book of Hapa poetry.

Maxwell and Riding… two very un-Asian sounding names. But they chatted on about how easy they can be mistaken for Asian or Caucasians in different settings. Both are very active in the Asian-Canadian community. Judy is presently a researcher for the Chinese Canadian Military Museum, and has done many academic and conference presentations because of her research on the Chinese disaspora and migration patterns. Leanne has been studying Asian-Canadian history and is now active as co-president of Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop and the Asian Canadian Organization, which started as a student initiated project at UBC.

But both have family histories that are rooted in the racial turmoils of our country. Judy’s great-grandfather was a Member of Parliament that had pushed for the Chinese Head Tax and Exclusion Act, while Leanne’s grandparents and mother had been interned during WW2 because they were of Japanese ancestry.

They name me a Honourary Hapa, because of the community building work I do such as Gung Haggis Fat Choy, which they both totally love, and attended earlier this year, back in January. They both made fun of me, because I couldn’t initially remember where they were sitting in the room of 430 people, even though one of the them was sitting at the head table with me, along with the Vancouver Mayor.

And then it dawns on me. Being Canadian is being Hapa… and being Hapa is being Canadian. Canada celebrates it’s cultural diversity, and nowhere is that diversity better celebrated than in the mixed race DNA enhanced ethnicities of it’s peoples… even better if it all rolled up in one.

With BC celebrating it’s 150th Anniversary this year in 2008, we are reminded that Simon Fraser came down the “Fraser River” with a crew of Metis (French-First Nations mix), and BC’s first Governor James Douglas was born in Jamaica of mixed Scottish and Creole bloodlines. BC’s history is Hapa…. and most people don’t even realize it.

So… sitting on English Bay… (Somewhere there must be an original First Nations Name that can be chosen as a “rename”) we toasted to Canada’s birthday eve, and our Hapa-ness. And in our lively and wonderful conversations (which later moved to a Kitsilano area apartment), we had so much fun, we forgot to do a countdown to midnight until it was long past.

Sunday January 25, 2009
250th Anniversary of Robert Burns’ birth + Chinese New Year’s Eve
Gung Haggis Fat Choy:
Toddish McWong’s Robbie Burns Chinese New Year Dinner.
www.gunghaggisfatchoy.com

Hapa Singer-Songwriter Up for JUNO, Tours Canada

John Endo Greenaway — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 04:03:26 +0000

Born in New York to a Japanese father and a Caucasian mother, Justin Nozuka and his six siblings were raised in Toronto by their mother. All four boys followed careers in the arts, with Justin and his brother George becoming musicians. At 19 years of age, Justin is already carving out a reputation as an up and coming singer and songwriter. Touring in support of his debut CD Holly (named after his mother ), Nozuka will be appearing in Whistler tonight and Vancouver tomorrow with Hayley Sales, before making his way back east across the country. Already nominated for a Juno as best new artist, his future looks bright.

FEB 18, 2008 Whistler, BC – Garibaldi Lift Co.
FEB 19, 2008 Vancouver, BC – The Plaza Niteclub
FEB 20, 2008 Kamloops, BC – The Blue Grotto
FEB 21, 2008 Kelowna, BC – The Habitat
FEB 23, 2008 Calgary, AB – Quincy’s
FEB 24, 2008 Edmonton, AB – Horowitz Theatre
FEB 25, 2008 Saskatoon, SK – Louis
FEB 27, 2008 Winnipeg, MB – West End Cultural Centre
FEB 28, 2008 Thunder Bay, ON – The Outpost
FEB 29, 2008 Sault Ste Marie, ON – The Speak Easy