Episode 12: For centuries, mixed race Asian folks’ stories have been mostly told for them rather than by them. They’ve been weaponized as battlegrounds upon which racial wars are fought and they’ve been turned into symbols of a supposedly post-racial utopian world. But no longer. As the numbers of folks who self-identify as mixed-race skyrocket, mixed race Asians are reclaiming their narratives in popular culture, academia, and day-to-day interactions.
In this episode, we speak with Aria Binns-Zager (she/her), Dr. Wei Ming Dariotis (she/her/ta), Isabella Martinez (she/her), and Allison Perales (she/her) about the complexity of the lived experience of mixed race Asian-ness, shifts and conflicts in mixed race culture and politics, and what the future of mixed race identity could look like now that mixed race folks finally get to shape it.
As an accompaniment to this episode, we’ve created a list of resources for Mixed Asians (mixed race, mixed ethnicity, transracial and transnational adoptees) at bit.ly/3MhkQq6. While by no means comprehensive, this collection of resources aims to be a jumping off point for learning and community building.
Siena Iwasaki Milbauer: Hello and welcome to another episode of New Narratives. My name is Siena, I use she/her pronouns, and I’m the Content Creator Intern at Asian American Organizing Project, a Twin Cities based nonprofit run by youth and for youth. Today’s episode is all about mixed race Asian American stories. But before we jump in, I want to take a moment to acknowledge that the larger mixed narrative and community includes mixed race folks, mixed ethnicity folks and transracial and transnational adoptees. For listeners interested in exploring the concept of mixed-ness in an appropriately multifaceted way. I definitely recommend checking out episode 10 of New Narratives, called “Something Like Resilience,” which centers on transracial and transnational adoptee experiences. It is crucial to recognize that the term mixed is inclusive of all these experiences and many more. We at AAOP look forward to continuing to engage with mixed Asian narratives, both through focused storytelling, like today’s episode, and broader coalition building.
[Mellow music]
Siena: “All the while the question of nationality perplexes my little brain? Why are we what we are? I and my brothers and sisters? Why did God make us to be hooted and stared at? Why couldn’t we have been either one thing or the other? Why? Why? I do not confide in my father and mother. They would not understand. How could they? ‘What are we?’ I asked my brother. It doesn’t matter sissy, he responds. But it does.”
Chinese-Canadian writer Sui Sin Far wrote those words in 1890, reflecting on her childhood thoughts about being mixed Chinese and white. 130 or so years later, I read those words, and was struck to the core by how familiar they were to the questions that had swirled in my own young brain as a mixed Japanese and white girl growing up in Minneapolis.
It’s incredible when words stretch across centuries and thousands of miles to strike a chord. Words that speak to the mixed race Asian experience have always been especially meaningful to me. When I was that little questioning girl, I had this notion that my mixed race identity was something very unusual, a modern phenomenon. This made me special, and it made me alone. But as I’ve grown older, I’ve been truly fortunate to meet dozens of my mixed race Asian ancestors through books and hearsay. As it turns out, we’ve been here all along, for as long as people have loved and lived.
What is true is that our current era has seen a huge rise in the visibility of mixed race Asians, and a notable decrease in the discrimination we face. We no longer live in a country where anti-miscegenation laws, which are laws that prohibit interracial marriage, literally make our existence illegal. Progress! But for every step forward, there seem to be hundreds of steps back. Increased visibility is largely only applied to mixed race Asians who are mixed with white, like myself. Mixed ethnicity Asians, mixed Black Asians, mixed Indigenous Asians, and mixed Latine Asians continue to be erased from mainstream narratives, not to mention transracial and transnational Asian adoptees.
Additionally, mixed race Asians are often fetishized and weaponized to argue that we live in some sort of post-racial period, rather like Asian Americans at large have been trapped in a model minority myth which is used to confine Asian Americans and oppress other communities of color, particularly Black folks. Our society’s increasing engagement with and interrogation of concepts of race, ethnicity and identity have made it possible for many mixed race Asians to more actively embrace our layered identities. But we are still frequently positioned as a battleground upon which racial battles are fought.
The conflict within our mixed race Asian circles and within our own individual hearts rages on as well. The unique and complex mixture of privilege and marginalization that many mixed identities carry can make it difficult to build coalitions among mixed race Asians, or with allies of different racial and ethnic identities. And we still live in a world that, despite its bold claims of reform, largely clings to extremely binary notions of race and ethnicity. As people who literally embody the lie of these strongly policed categorizations, the potential for internalized self-hatred is very real. I speak from experience here. It’s hard to be taught that you cannot be what you so obviously are.
All this is to say that mixed race Asians are here, we are still working a lot of things out, and our impact in our Asian American communities and the United States at large is growing every day. That’s why this episode of New Narratives is devoted to unpacking the mixed race Asian experience in 2022. Of course, there’s no way we can cover every facet of this huge topic in a single podcast, nor properly honor all the perspectives that contribute to the mixed race Asian experience. But what this episode hopefully will do is add one more small testament to mixed-race Asian complexity and existence, joining a shockingly small collection of similar resources. Check out the link in the episode description for a list of some existing resources around mixed race, mixed ethnicity and transnational and or transracial adoptee experiences. But for now, let’s dive in.
[Mellow music transitions into up-tempo music which fades out as narration begins again]
Siena: For this episode, I had the chance to talk to four amazing mixed race Asian folks, each with diverse perspectives and invaluable insights to offer. Let’s have them introduce themselves.
Isabella Martinez: My name is Isabella Martinez. Everyone calls me Bella. My pronouns are she and her. I am a first-generation Hmong, Mexican American. My mom is Hmong and my dad is Mexican and also a little bit of Native American. I have a very diversely blended family. I have a total of five siblings. We are all part Hmong. But I do have siblings that are also mixed with other ethnicities such as Caucasian, Black, and Guatemalan. I am 29 years old and the fourth youngest of my siblings. I was born and raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and now I currently reside in St. Paul.
Aria Binns-Zagar: My name is Aria Binns-Zagar. I recently just got married and hyphenated my name. I identify as a Black woman but I am ethnically of mixed race. I am Black and Filipino. I am a podcast producer and I live in St. Paul, Minnesota.
Allison Perales: My name is Alison Perales. I am 23 years old. I identify as Hmong and Mexican. I’m currently residing in the Twin Cities area as a young professional and yeah, that’s me.
Dr. Wei Ming Dariotis: My name is Wei Ming Dariotis. I use she, her and ta, the Mandarin spoken gender neutral pronoun. I am living and working in the land of the Ramaytush Ohlone people who have never ceded their territory. And I am a professor of Asian American Studies, affiliate faculty with the Educational Leadership doctoral program, and currently faculty director of the Center for Equity and Excellence in Teaching and Learning at San Francisco State University. I identify as a cisgender, bisexual, queer woman of mixed ancestry. My heritage is primarily Chinese, Greek, that’s where the names Wei Ming and Dario does come from, and also Swedish. But my extended family is also Scottish, German, Pennsylvania Dutch, and English.
Siena: It should go without saying that every mixed race experience is unique. But there are definitely common threads that connect many mixed race folks across ethnicities, generations and geographies. One of those shared experiences is the “What are you?” question, an unfortunate staple of mixed-ness. Dr. Dariotis recalled her encounters with this question in our conversation.
Dr. Dariotis: I grew up as a mixed heritage person in a city that is very welcoming of mixed heritage people. That’s San Francisco. But I was born in 1969, which means that I was born at a time when being mixed was still barely legal. The landmark Supreme Court case of Loving versus Virginia had only been decided a few years previously, in 1967. So there was still quite a lot of stigma around being of mixed heritage. I still remember many, many times being asked, “What are you?” almost every day of my life until I reached about 30. I was asked that question by a stranger. Never “What’s your name?” Always “What are you?” And my, I never, you know, sometimes mixed race people will get tired of that question and so they might make something up, but I never made anything up and I always spoke from my own, you know, true experience and true identity. But the number of times that I was actually denied even when telling people my truth, you know, having people say “oh no you’re not” or “how did that happen?” or something, you know those types of things, was pretty frequent.
Siena: A generation later, Allison’s description of the “What are you?” situation is strikingly similar to Dr. Dariotis’.
Allison: I was talking, actually in a conversation last night, about, you know, what kind of races or ethnicities do people misjudge you for. And someone in the conversation who wasn’t mixed was like, “I don’t get those questions” or “I don’t get asked about, you know, my race or ethnicity.” And I just thought that was a complete 180 from my experience, because I was like, what, you don’t get asked that, I consistently get asked that, like, every time I meet new people, like if I go to a conference or if I, you know, am in a space where it’s predominantly Hmong people, that’s always a question. Or if they see my last name, and they see me, they’re like, “Wait, I’m confused.” Because with my last name, it’s not a very common last name either. So then that also makes it ambiguous. And then it’s just this huge thing that I feel like people need to figure out. And so, over time, right now, it’s kind of been a bit of a trigger, where I’m just waiting for them to say something that like, basically hurts me. Because I think that people aren’t, like they haven’t figured out dialogue on how to correctly and respectfully ask someone about their race or ethnicity.
Siena: This “What are you?” question reflects mainstream confusion around mixed race identities, and the uncomfortable, invasive, and harmful experiences this subjects mixed race people to. Indeed, the ways that mixed race identity shapes mixed race folks’ lives can be both painful and positive. On the painful end of the spectrum, judgments based on physicality and racial gatekeeping are common. Recalled Aria:
Aria: I grew up with family members who were very tall, very heavyset, very robust. Like probably like, you know, Amazonian I suppose. And everyone around me is Black. So, growing up, I always again, had that cultural dynamic of what you know, being a Black person would be. I grew up, I grew up with that and identify as a Black woman because of those experiences. But again, you know, being 5ft 2in and 120, and like having a different skin tone, and having different hair texture, and also not knowing my father played into the dynamics of how my relationship was sculpted with certain family members, how I would be bullied sometimes, how I would be purposefully, you know, kind of called out into that part of my ethnicity that I’ve never known, my Filipino side. And growing up in that environment, and having that happen socially, kind of like you’re a Black person, but you’re not Black enough because you are part Filipino, or, you know, that type of dynamic. And it definitely has given me a lot of identity issues, inside my family and outside of it and socially.
Siena: Isabella also remembered facing discrimination for defying racial and cultural stereotypes.
Isabella: In elementary school, I was born and raised in Minneapolis, so I went to a school in Minneapolis, which had a large Hmong population. The majority of my Hmong classmates were first generation as well, so they didn’t speak a lot of English and they could only communicate with other Hmong kids. And I remember just trying to make conversation with them. And some would just stare at me in shock, or give me a dirty look and just say things in Hmong like “why does that Mexican girl like, have such hairy arms?” or like, “Why does she have a nose bridge, she looks different”or “her eyes don’t look like ours” or “she’s dark” and things like that. But I could understand them because I’m fluent. So, I mean, of course, it was hurtful. And kids can be so blunt, you know, they don’t really know what they’re really saying and how what they’re saying can be hurtful. So, yeah, I’ve just heard that. Basically, all my life, like, I hear things like, “oh she can’t be Asian” or “she can’t be Mexican” or whatnot.
Siena: An often complex aspect of mixed race identity is the ability, or lack thereof, to connect to heritage cultures and languages, especially because this is often directly tied to mixed race folks’ interpersonal relationships. Aria spoke to the internal conflict this stymied ability to connect can cause.
Aria: I think this also ties into, you know, the ethnicity that I identify with, with just being a Black person. Not knowing my Filipino side has prompted me to try and be, you know, proactive and vigorous upon learning, you know, what that means for me, and if I can even claim that cultural side. So that has, you know, really affected my source of identity. And when I say about, like, my ethnic side of being a Black person, you know, I don’t know any of my heritage languages from Africa, you know what I’m saying? So, that, you know, ties in especially to everything that I didn’t or, I’m sorry, I wasn’t able to experience. I’m not like, ashamed. I’m more so just kind of sad that those things haven’t circulated in my family, that I haven’t had the chance to meet other family members of my Filipino side and speak with them in any language for that matter. But yeah, it has definitely tied into, again, my identity issues as a mixed person.
Siena: On the topic of heritage languages, Isabella shared about how her proficiency in one heritage language and non-proficiency in another affects her.
Isabella: I feel like I can identify more with the Hmong part of me, not only because that’s just what I’ve been mostly exposed to growing up, but also because I can speak, read, write, and understand and converse in my language, my Hmong language. I didn’t always learn, or know how to read and write, but it’s something that I wanted to do so that I could test out of language in college. So, it was really easy actually, like once you already speak it, it’s easy to read and write. And then it also got me more in touch with like, Hmong karaoke! And getting, just feeling more in touch with my culture and my language. So I definitely feel like, it was like a little celebration moment for me, just feeling a little bit more empowered to say I am Hmong.
I really wish I knew how to speak Spanish. I’m not even proficient. I did grow up going to like, a Latino church with my family for a few years. But I found it just so frustrating not being able to understand any of the sermons and therefore feeling, you know, not part of that church community. I did make some Latino friends my age, but I did feel out of place sometimes. Because, you know, when they speak Spanish, I don’t know what they’re talking about me too the way the Hmong kids did when I was younger. So yeah, to this day, I do feel slightly embarrassed when I can’t converse with like a Latino OG, who’s asking me like, “What direction is this?” or “Where can I find this?” And I’m just like, “I’m sorry, I know, I look the part I just don’t speak Spanish, like, I’m so sorry!”
Siena: Unsurprisingly, mixed race family dynamics can be very complex. However, there is also a lot of possibility within that complexity, as Isabella recalls.
Isabella: So I would say being mixed has definitely affected my family dynamics, in regard to my dynamics with my parents. You know, my mom did eventually remarry to my stepdad who is primarily Latino and Black. So I had to kind of adapt to both of their expectations for me as a Hmong and Latino daughter. And they always, I mean, they didn’t always agree on how to raise me and my siblings, which I feel caused a lot of misunderstandings and complications in our family dynamic. But then again, like, it was so rewarding at the same time, just how open my family has become to so many other people who are not like us or are like us.
Siena: Allison shared a similar sentiment, and also talked about how changing attitudes toward interracial partnerships and mixed race folks are showing up in her family.
Allison: Yeah, for me, I definitely think it has affected my family dynamics. I think it played a bigger role within my extended family, as my parents were one of the first in the family to date outside their race and marry outside their race. It was really hard for them and they weren’t accepted right away. And then, you know, as it goes down the line, it’s kinda like, well, then what role do I play in that? After growing up? I think that a lot of those feelings, kind of, they were just scared of the unknown, and to go outside of their race. And later, that subsided as they saw that this is real, this isn’t going away anytime soon. If anything, it’s becoming more common. And so they were really accepting once the kids came into the picture, of me and my brother. And then later on my mom’s siblings married outside the Hmong culture as well. So, I have cousins who identify as Hmong and white or, you know, different racial mixes within our family. And I guess I didn’t really realize how much that had changed over the years until we were celebrating my Uncle’s 40th. And the majority of the kids in the room were mixed. And it felt really weird at first to realize like I wasn’t the minority anymore, like we were the majority. And to see that I was the oldest one, and to see all these other people who may have similar experiences to me, may have different, but something that we shared in common was really nice. And so I think, yeah, like I said, there’s so much more for me to explore. And I think that role has been changing recently with it becoming more common in my family. So it’s definitely interesting.
Siena: As a prominent scholar and collaborative co-creator of Critical Mixed Race Studies, Dr. Dariotis has an invaluable perspective to offer in terms of how mixed race scholarship and societal attitudes have changed in the past few decades. One aspect of that change is the very existence of Critical Mixed Race Studies and its growing acceptance within mainstream scholarly communities. I asked Dr. Dariotis to share the story behind the gradual creation of Critical Mixed Race Studies and the bi-annual Critical Mixed Race Studies conference.
Dr. Dariotis: The reason that we started the Critical Mixed Race Studies conference in 2010 is because, as a specialist in this field, I constantly was experiencing marginalization. You know, it wasn’t taken seriously. Mixed Race Studies has a conflicted history within Ethnic Studies. And that has to do with different racialized communities experiencing mixed-ness mostly in a pretty negative way. Within the Black community, there is a particular history. Within the Latinx community, there’s another different history. Within the American Indian community, there’s another history. I’d say that out of all of these groups, the Asian American experience with mixed-ness was both the most recent in terms of large numbers, really starting in the 20th century, and although also quite painful. I mean, I should say, starting in the 20th century at least in the US. When we start to look at histories like the Anglo-Indian community, or the Dutch-Indonesian community, that is also, you know, a lengthy and colonial-related process. But within the US, we’re talking more about US wars in Asia in the 20th century. So that’s why it’s kind of a more immediate history. And a lot of those histories are also painful. But in some ways, I don’t know. I don’t know that it’s helpful to say this, but in some ways less painful than that, for example of the Black community. So I do think that if Mixed Race Studies was going to become institutionalized, it makes sense that it started in Asian American Studies. But even within Asian American Studies, Mixed Race Studies was marginalized. You know, there’s been distrust of mixed race people, especially of people who are part white. There’s been a feeling that we’re inauthentic. And that extends into the scholarly community and the academic community, as well as it does in our non academic communities.
Siena: As a young professor within Mixed Race Studies and Asian American Studies, Dr. Dariotis connected with other academics, artists, and creators interested in approaching things through a mixed race lens, including Camilla Fojas and Laura Kina.
Dr. Dariotis: We could see how important it was to create opportunities to kind of reshape how people think about mixed race. And Camilla Fojas, Laura Kina, and I determined that, although what we really wanted was an association of Critical Mixed Race Studies, what we probably needed to do first was just organize a conference and get people together. So we sat down, and we hammered out a definition for Critical Mixed Race Studies, which is lengthy and jargony but it does work. And then we started planning the conference. And when we hosted the first conference at DePaul University in 2010, and I remember asking Laura, and Camilla, how many people do you think will come? And about a month before the conference, they were estimating like, 50 people would show up. I thought we would do better and we’d have like, 150 people, I was pretty confident. Two weeks before the conference, we realized that over 200 people had registered. And by the time of the conference, it was close to 500. For that very first conference. What I was not prepared for, I still remember with such clarity, is how much it moved people to have that space. I was working with a number of graduate students at UC San, I’m sorry, at SF State at the time, and I made sure that they came to the conference. And they and everybody else was literally just crying in the hallways. To have that safe space, many of us were members of other Ethnic Studies associations, like the Association for Asian American Studies, which has also always felt like a safe home for me. But there was something about knowing that your identity wasn’t going to be in any way questioned or challenged, and that people were really centering the kind of work that we wanted to do, that made it so powerful.
Siena: Critical Mixed Race Studies and the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference, which just hosted its most recent edition in February of this year, filled a desperate need within the academic sphere to provide a space where mixed race voices and mixed race wisdom could be uplifted, respected, and protected. The innovation of Critical Mixed Race Studies, which is a strongly intersectional field with particularly close ties to Queer Ethnic Studies, continues.
Dr. Dariotis: I see the next generation of scholars who have come up with the support of, you know, it’s been a chain, right, you know, there was the generation that was ahead of me that supported me and Laura and our work, and then we’re having the opportunity to support the next generation. And it’s just been really lovely to see that.
Siena: The flourishing of mixed race perspectives in academia has been matched with a rise in mixed race representation in media and mixed race positivity in society. A recent development was that the 2020 Census results saw a notable increase in folks self identifying as mixed race. I asked Dr. Dariotis what takeaways she had from the census statistics.
Dr. Dariotis: It says to me two things. One is that mixed race relationships are less stigmatized than they used to be. And so that’s happening more often. And you can look at also the census data that that shows, you know, marriages and so forth, will show you a lot more interracial marriages. But the other thing that’s happening, that I think isn’t paid attention to as much, is that a lot of people are recovering mixed race identities that have been, you know, buried for generations, or that hadn’t been talked about as much.
Siena: Even as mixed race reclamation and joy take center stage like never before, issues of inclusion remain both within and without mixed race focused spaces, it can still be challenging to find spaces that truly welcome the complexity of mixed race folks, as Aria shares about her experiences trying to find community.
Aria: I would say, to be very honest, it’s been kind of negative. You know, like I said previously, it’s either I’m a Black person, or I’m not Black enough. I kind of feel like it would be the same way with any other ethnic type of group. It’s almost as if you can claim something that you are ethnically, but you know, there’s a percentage to it, you can’t claim enough. It’s been negative. And just very uninformative. Not very supportive. I think a lot of people grapple with their own racial identities, they grapple with colorism, you know, how much of you is a part of this community by a percentage of your ethnic material. So, I think that a lot of people are still grappling with how they are individually. And that’s why we can’t really have these positive spaces to, you know, include everybody’s mixed ethnicity. And, you know, gracefully.
Siena: Alison also struggled to find mixed race solidarity, though when she did, she described an outpouring of emotion strikingly similar to the one Dr. Dariotis recalled from the first Critical Mixed Race Studies conference.
Allison: It was hard to find a mixed community as a mixed person. I didn’t really find one until I was in college at the University of Minnesota, and there was a local nonprofit starting called Midwest Mixed. And my friend sent it to me and was like, “I think this would be, you know, a really great experience if you were interested. Because this is, you know, grassroots. This is really cool.” And so I looked into it, and I reached out to the conference, the head conference person, and I was like, “Hi, I identify as mixed. Is there any way that I could help out or be a part of this?” I couldn’t go to their biannual conference that year and I was so sad, but I still wanted to be involved. I was like, I still want to come to whatever you have later. And so I, you know, got to meet a lot of the folks there. They’re really great. They’re really nice. And they’re just doing such great work.
And then I was able to finally attend their conference two years later, and all the workshops in the spaces were for mixed individuals. And it felt amazing, but really overwhelming for me at the same time. Because I was going to these workshops, and I like, was so silent the whole day, because I was scared that if I talked, I was gonna just burst into tears. You know that feeling where you’re like on the edge of tears, and you’re just like, “Please don’t look at me, please don’t, please don’t touch me or else I’m going to like, burst out.” But it was very different, it felt amazing to have a space specifically created for you, because different conferences or workshops that I’ve gone to, I’ve always felt that although race was talked about, and I could relate to it, it wasn’t mixed race, it wasn’t, there weren’t questions or enough people to talk about that. And so it felt really limiting, like I could only relate to a certain point. And then the rest of it was like, kind of can relate, kind of can’t, or there’s just a whole different part of the experience that I’d have no one to talk to about. And so I think that I really realized when I went to that conference that I haven’t had these conversations with a lot of people. And that’s why it was so hard for me to talk about, because some of the stories that they’re asking you to share, I’ve never shared with anyone in my life, that story. Like, I’ve never said it out loud. I’ve only internalized it. And so it was really emotional. But really great. And I’m really glad that other people talked at that conference, because I was just silent the whole day in amazement.
Siena: Another aspect of contemporary mixed race complexity is lack of equality within mixed race representation. Dr. Dariotis spoke about this issue within her academic field and history itself.
Dr. Dariotis: Some of the earliest scholarship, like I said, is focused on kind of white/other mixed, right, so white mixes being kind of like the dominant in Mixed Race Studies. And that has a lot to do with privilege, having the privilege of being able to talk about your experiences and your identities, and being more accepted within white dominated educational spaces, and publishing industries, and so forth. Also, within the dominant culture, there’s maybe not as much interest in Afro-Asian or Asian-Latinx or those, you know, mixes that don’t involve whiteness. Because what they’re really curious about is whiteness, right, with that mixing with whiteness is the thing that is of concern. Anti-miscegenation laws never prevented interracial marriage between groups of color. They’ve only ever prevented interracial marriage with white. And that’s something that’s quite significant.
Siena: The difference in discrimination faced by, and visibility available to, half-white Asian mixed race folks as opposed to mixed race Asian folks who are not part-white, is a sobering reminder that mixed race culture and politics exists very much within the broader spectrum of dysfunctional racial dynamics, including forces like anti-Blackness, colorism, and Orientalism. Another way in which mixed race representation is affected by systemic injustices is how mixed-ethnicity folks are often not included in the conversation around multiracialism and multiculturalism. However, in this area, Dr. Dariotis sees some progress being made within the field of Critical Mixed Race Studies.
Dr. Dariotis: Another thing that I think is going to continue to increase in Mixed Race Studies is a focus on people who are multi-ethnically mixed within one racial category. Because this is, you know, a significant area of growth, both within the Asian American community, the Latinx community, Black community, American Indian, you know, pretty much any racialized group is developing kind of pan-ethnicity, and that often includes interracial mixed, I mean interethnic partnerships.
Siena: The burgeoning mixed race Asian community has also run into appropriation issues regarding the use of the word Hapa, a native Hawaiian word for mixed race which was widely adopted by mixed race Asian folks in the United States during the 2010s. Dr. Dariotis shared about her own evolution regarding the use of Hapa.
Dr. Dariotis: I had first heard the word Hapa when I was in Teresa Williams class. I had never heard it before. And I was so enamored of it, because my identity is Chinese, Greek, Swedish, English, Scottish, German, Pennsylvania Dutch.
Siena: It doesn’t roll off the tongue!
Dr. Dariotis: It doesn’t roll off the tongue. And it also doesn’t, it feels very separate. So when I first started using the word Happa, I was so excited. I had to tell everybody. And so I was at UC Santa Barbara at the time, and I would run around and like tell everybody: you’re Hapa, you’re Hapa. But what was interesting is that I got some resistance. And the resistance was from folks who were Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino. And they said, hey, that’s a Japanese word. And I don’t want to use a Japanese word because these things happened to my grandparents, you know, during the war, and I really don’t want to take on this Japanese colonialism, you know, in my identity, right? Which is totally, you know, understandable. But my excited response was, no, it’s not a Japanese word. It’s a Native Hawaiian word. And everybody loved that. Because they’re, you know, because Native Hawaiians never colonized anybody. So they could really, you know, but later, I realized that that was actually the problem with using the word. But for almost a decade, I became very invested in using the word Hapa. I actually tried to coin Hapa Studies. I was a happy Hapa hostess, we had Hapa holidays, parties.
Siena: There’s so much alliteration, I didn’t even think of that.
Dr. Dariotis: I actually had printed up these pins that said, don’t worry buy Hapa. Like, be Hapa, be happy. And, you know, there was just a lot going on with it, right. And I loved it, I wrote poems about it, everything, I was so deeply invested in it. And then I started to hear, you know, complaints and concerns. And I realized, actually, that the word Hapa, because it was a Native Hawaiian word, didn’t actually apply to mixed Asians, it applies to mixed Hawaiians. Now in Hawaii, there is a long standing history of using the term Hapa to describe mixed heritage people in general. But originally, it was used specifically to describe people who were part Native Hawaiian and part something else. Granted, in Hawaii, a lot of those people were also part Asian. And so the term kind of migrated. But it didn’t, that migration is not neutral. That migration also has to be considered within the context of Native Hawaiian language being punished and almost obliterated, you know, through the education system in Hawaii, and through legislation. And really, if even one person of Native Hawaiian heritage says it harms me, for those who are not Native Hawaiian to use this word, then in good conscience, I can no longer advocate the usage of that word.
But actually, it was much more than just one person. And I know that there are some people who still argue that well, you know, English is a language that borrows. True, and sometimes that borrowing is neutral, or sometimes that borrowing is not harmful. But when it is harmful, then it is incumbent upon us not to use those words that belong to somebody else, particularly when we can’t give anything back. So I no longer use the word Hapa to describe myself, or other like mixed Asian people. There are still people who are Hapa. They are part Native Hawaiian. So when I think about terminology, I think about, you know, not only who does it help, but also who might it harm to use a certain term.
Siena: Despite continued struggles within and without mixed race communities, I was struck by the realist optimism that each guest shared when I asked them about their hopes for the future of mixed race Asian solidarity and joy. Said Aria:
Aria: I would say that we need to incorporate more grace into the educational sector of, you know, when we’re trying to learn who we are ethnically. I would love if there are more resources that I could find or that were presented to me into being a Filipino person. And then also being accepted into, you know, a space where we take each other gracefully, I’m gonna make mistakes because I don’t know much about this cultural aspect of being a Filipino person. So I would hope that there would be more grace in my humanity in trying to learn what that is and what that means for me, and vice versa, you know. I would hope that it doesn’t exclude us from being one particular race over the other when we are mixed, and that we’re able to explore the possibilities of who we are in a safe space.
Yeah, and I hope that it gives us more connection, because there are so many mixed people out here that are probably lost in their own, you know, identity and don’t really know who they are, don’t really know who they can be. And yeah, that’s probably from a lack of social understanding, awareness, and empathy. So, I would hope that that would change in the future, especially while I’m trying to find myself in this space.
Siena: Isabella and Alison shared similar hopes for mixed race and non-mixed race folks, I’d like to move forward with increasing compassion, curiosity, and bravery.
Isabella: I hope that mixed folks can have more safe spaces to express and share their experiences with their mixed-ness. I would want our feelings to feel validated, and not feeling like we’re being overly sensitive, or being told we’re over-analyzing our experiences. Because I’ve had experiences in the past where I’ve shared my stories regarding my mixed-ness, or have questioned my sense of belonging, like as a mixed person, and people who aren’t mixed would say things like, “Why do you care so much?” or, you know, “why do you just make it about race so much?” and “ Who gives a hoot?” you know. And it can definitely feel discouraging, and I hope we have the courage to continue to speak up and tell our stories, despite people who don’t want to hear it, but can you know, benefit from hearing it.
Allison: I think that, I mean, I have a lot of hope for the future. I’m definitely an optimist. So I try not to, I try to keep myself in a box where I’m like, okay, you know, you can’t always have bright eyes for the future. But I think the thing for me is that I want everyone to realize their place in the conversation. Like, I think people often put mixed race and mixed Asian identity people on a pedestal, and then they expect them to put all the, I guess they just put a lot of pressure on that identity, what the future holds for them, how they can be the saviors of race, this race/social structure. And it’s more like we need everyone to be here.
Siena: Dr. Dariotis similarly affirm that the future of mixed race folks depends not simply on our growing empowerment, but also on every single person’s commitment to creating a world that not only tolerates complexity and diversity, but actively cultivates and celebrates it.
Dr. Dariotis: When I was part of Hapa Issues Forum, one year, we had a retreat that was led by Sheila Chung, our Executive Director at the time, and Sheila had us do an imaging exercise. She had us close our eyes, and imagine that we were floating in the sky, and that we were descending towards the Earth. And what we saw, when we got closer to the ground was a center, a building, and in that building was a space for mixed heritage organizing, a library for our books, an art gallery for our artwork, a stage for our performers, a gathering and celebration space, a place for our food, our fusion cuisine! And, you know, all those sushi burritos!
Siena: They gotta go somewhere, they need at home!
Dr. Dariotis: Exactly! And, I guess to me, that space still hasn’t been built, and I would still love to see it. At the same time, I also want us to be everywhere, not just in one place. We’re seeing it more in television and movies, more mixed race people who are growing up, and not only just mixed race children symbolizing something, usually the conflicts that their parents have to experience like the Romeo and Juliet kind of dynamic.
I mean, the Vice President of the United States is a mixed race woman who claims, proudly, both of her ancestral heritages in her identity. And that is already a transformation. When Obama was president, I remember I was actually scolded for bringing up his mixed race identity. Because politically he had to be seen just as Black, you know, so that’s the kind of transformation that I would like to see, that it becomes understood that when a mixed race person talks about their identity or their family, the response isn’t “oh, how did that happen?” Or my other one that I, you know, I can’t, I don’t know why, but for some reason, you know, people will often just say the most, because first of all, they asked you this question, “what are you?” and then they compound it by then saying something inane when you respond. And the one that I’ve gotten that really puzzles me is, “oh, what a great mix.”
Siena: As if others are not great!
Dr. Dariotis: That’s the thing, right?!? Like, I understand it’s meant to be a compliment, but nobody has ever said to me, “Oh, what a weird mix.” You know, and so I do think that it’s not possible to have a bad mix. So, let’s just stop asking that question, or if we’re being asked that question, we’re being asked that by other mixed race people who identify with us rather than are trying to place us within a racial hierarchy, which is what you know, is often intended, you know, unconsciously, but still is behind that question, “what are you?” It’s confusing me, it’s troubling me, I need to place you so that I know how to interact with you. So really, the future for Mixed Race Studies and mixed race communities that I would envision, that I dream of one day, is not an end to our mixed race identities, but an end to the racism and the racial hierarchy that subjects us to stress. The problem was never being mixed. The problem is always the racism that says that being mixed is a problem.
[Up-tempo music slowly comes in as Dr. Dariotis’ remarks conclude and continues under the closing credits]
Siena: Thank you for listening to New Narratives. This podcast is brought to you by Asian American organizing project. A huge thanks to our featured guests. Aria Ben Zager, Dr. Wei Ming, dari Otis, Isabella Martinez and Alison Corollas. Thank you Alyssa Paris of Midwest mixed and new narratives creator on your Steinberg for their advice and support during the making of this episode. Thank you to Selena Saito known for contributing many resources for and about mixed Asian folks. Please visit AAOP’s website for a list of those existing resources and see this episode’s description for an exact link. While today’s episode focuses on the mixed race experience, this resource list more comprehensively contains podcasts, books, organizations, publications, and videos around mixed-race, mixed-ethnicity, and transnational and/or transracial adoptee experiences. If even one of those resources, or this episode itself, can play a small role in empowering mixed folks and non-mixed folks alike to connect, learn and deepen engagement, I will be a very happy podcaster!
Thanks for listening, and see you next time!