Letters to the Editor

Our story on mixed race Asian Americans in the January issue (“Growing up HAPA: A Curse or a Gift?”) generated a lot of discussion both through email and Twitter. Below are two of those letters.

Your article came to me at a crucial time for me tonight…I am a mixed person who has always struggled with my identity due to being more diluted than just half this and half that.  Growing up in central Texas where most everyone is either white, hispanic, or mezito, it was very difficult to feel part of any group. I was so often asked rude questions that it made me so extremely insecure about my identity that I would downplay my mixed side and try to fit in with white people since I have such pale skin, going so far as to straighten my curly hair every day. Despite that, I would still get, “Why does your face look so weird?” and “What are you?”  Even within my family certain family members shamed each other over who they decided to marry and no one was really there to be supportive or give me any insight or strength.  It was very lonely and alienating and I still struggle with my identity now at 26 living in the most mixed city in the world, New York.

My mother’s family is the most mixed side, her father was from the West Indies where indentured Chinese workers were essentially imported to work on the sugar plantations. They intermarried with black and native Carib people.  Her mother was originally from Virginia, coming from a long line of mulatto people descending from the illegitimate children of slaves and their owners. They met when my grandfather was in the US Army, had a family and settled in Texas. My mother and her sisters have light brown sugar skin tones, black textured hair, and mostly Chinese facial features.  My mother married a mostly white, but partly Choctaw man whose family wanted nothing more than to pretend that native great grandmother never existed despite native features still showing through.  His mother was racist and wanted nothing to do with my mother or I and shamed my father for marrying a “mutt”, but his brothers were all good to me.

When I read about these women in your article with such supportive families and only two identities to choose from, it nearly brought me to tears. Because I wish so much that I felt this cultural connection and empowerment.  I needed it badly as a child and made some very poor choices as far as who I decided to associate without having much of a support system or connection to any other mixed people.

I ended up leaving Texas at 19 to move across the country to New York. I thought I should try to connect with my aunt and try to change her mind about me since she lives in New York. She begrudgingly had me over and looked at me with utter contempt as I told her about my past and why I moved to New York. She lectured me to tears about how I wasn’t black enough to have these feelings about my race and I should just accept that I’m just white trash and nothing more. We never spoke again despite the fact that I have lived in the same city for 7 years.

In these 7 years I have gained more confidence about being mixed after having made so many friends from different backgrounds and just walking past people who look different every day. It feels amazing to finally be able to share experiences with other people about being mixed.  I no longer hide my mixed-ness and have snappy responses ready for when people ask me rude questions about the way I look.  I still don’t feel black or chinese or white, but I am much more okay with that fact now and can confidently speak openly about issues of race that I kept buried deep inside before.

Reading your article after all this in my own personal context just felt very important and confirming to me today.  Being mixed can be so confusing and difficult to sort through by yourself, and I still feel a little confused and insecure about who I am, but I feel the best about myself now than I ever have in the past. Writing like this is so, so important and this particular article really struck me deeply.  Thank you for writing this, because I really needed to read it today.

– Beki M.

I was recently interviewed for Asian Fortune’s January cover story “Growing Up Half Asian American: Curse or Gift?” Thank you for your magazine’s interest in covering the mixed-race Asian Americans, a topic that is very complicated and includes a diversity of viewpoints and experiences, perhaps more than can be fully understood in one article.

Many multiracial Asians have spoken out on Twitter about problematic aspects of Tamara Treichel’s article. To give some more background, the term “hapa” is not commonly thought of as an acronym for Half Asian Pacific American. The word “hapa” comes from a Native Hawaiian term “hapa haole” which originated as a derogatory phrase towards mixed-race individuals. It is important to note that the term does carry some complex history, including objections from some Native Hawaiians over its use. The reference to Nazi Germany is probably an overly provocative comparison. Perhaps a more relevant historical context would be to explore the history of disenfranchisement multiracial individuals have faced in both Asia and the United States. There are books devoted to this history, such as “When Half is Whole” by Stephen Murphy Shigematsu or “War Baby/Love Child” curated by Wei Ming Dariotis and Laura Kina.

My responses to Tamara’s questions were aimed at explaining the racial and social context in which I am raising my family, which includes Here is the most pertinent excerpt:

Silicon Valley, where we live, has a large Asian American population. There are some communites, such as Cupertino, which are majority Asian. However, much of the population is comprised of more recent immigrants or what’s called the “1.5 generation” – people who came to the United States as older children or young teens – and are much more versed in language and tradition.

My older son went to Chinese school for three years. Many of the kids in his class were already speaking Mandarin at home, so they already had basic conversation skills; they could then focus on increasing their vocabulary and learning characters. My son didn’t feel Chinese or Taiwanese enough to fit in with the other kids in his class.

One of the challenges of raising hapa kids, is that there is only one Asian parent to pass down the language and customs. As a second-generation Taiwanese American, I was born in the Midwest during the 1970s, when assimilation was emphasized as a means towards becoming accepted as truly American, so I have to make a conscious effort to incorporate my heritage into our family life.

Last spring, I spoke about mixed-race identity at a Taiwanese American women’s conference, some of the older women in their 50s and 60s said they hoped their multiracial grandchildren would pick up on Taiwanese culture by being around relatives and seeing how things are done in their families. I actually think parents and grandparents need to go beyond just hoping children will absorb culture by simply being around it. Kids are so influenced by what they’re surrounded by in the dominant culture; they will assume that the way things are done at school, on TV is the norm. Teaching them about different traditions needs to be an express message, even as simple as explaining what you’re doing while you’re doing things, such as, “In Taiwanese culture, it’s considered rude to open a present in front of the person who gave it to you. You should wait until you go home.”

Also, since many of the parents (like myself) of hapa children are monoracial, we can’t always draw upon our own childhood in raising our children, as they will find themselves in situations that we never experienced.

At the same time, my kids aren’t always viewed as white, either. One of my kids experienced racial teasing at school, with other children making slanty-eyed gestures at him.

As a journalist myself, I know it is not possible to publish an entire interview, but I do think the article missed an opportunity to discuss the very important issues of misunderstanding of mixed-race people, including from within Asian communities. My experiences may be unique to me, and other mixed-race individuals or parents of multiracial children may have different viewpoints. Again, the subject of mixed-race Asians is an important topic to cover, and if your publication decides to cover it in the future, I hope you will devote the resources necessary to thoroughly report on it.

Best regards,

Grace Hwang Lynch