LA Downtown News Online, CA
June 24 2006
JANM Show Questions Identities and Seeks to Demystify the Term ‘Hapa’
by Tami Mnoian
I’m not saying this is the end-all-be-all of experiencing hapa,"
artist Kip Fulbeck announces. "This is my experience."
Fulbeck is sitting in a low-key Santa Barbara coffee shop as he
makes this statement, but his words resonate to Downtown Los Angeles
and beyond. His current project, part asian, 100% hapa, is both a
recently published book and a new exhibit at the Japanese American
National Museum (it runs through Oct. 29). It explores assumptions
of race and ethnicity and seeks to demystify "hapa," the Hawaiian
word for half. Despite its derogatory origins, hapa is embraced by
people of Asian or Pacific Islander descent. Part asian is like a
hapa coming-out party, and Fulbeck is the host.
The exhibit is simple in format: a collection of more than 80 headshots
taken from the collarbone up, no glasses, no jewelry, no smile. A
handwritten answer to the question "What are you?" sits opposite
each photograph, along with a self-declared list of the subject’s
racial and ethnic background. The inclusion of this simple query is
inspired by the forms – a standardized test or a college application,
for example – that ask people to choose between their ethnicities. Part
asian allows them to freely affirm who they are.
The responses land all over the map, literally and culturally. One
Japanese-German-Romanian-Russian man confesses (responses written as
they appear in the exhibit), "Many of my ex-girlfriends were habitual
half-asian daters. These women considered half-asian men ‘exotic,’
‘sexy,’ and ‘just-like-Keanu Reeves-in-the-Matrix. I consider these
stereotypes appropriate because I got laid." A Chinese-Palauan-Austrian
woman says that Palau is "an island nation between Guam and the
Philipines. If I only had a dollar for every time I had to explain
that." A part-Chinese, part-Japanese man writes, "I have this big jar
in my kitchen which I fill with a mixture of Corn Flakes, Cheerios,
Raisin Bran, and sometimes granola.
My breakfast is a daily statement on the excellence of mixture."
These testaments are personal evidence of part asian’s significance in
a world where, like the abovementioned breakfast selection, mixture is
on the increase. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, almost 7 million
people described themselves as being of two or more races.
"It’s been a subject, I think, that nobody has actually sat down and
tried to tackle," said JANM spokesman Chris Komai. "That’s why this
is the first of a series of programs that the museum intends to do
in the future."
Consistent Theme
Fulbeck, 41, has been deconstructing his identity for most of his
life. He is Chinese, English, Irish and Welsh, and was raised in a
Chinese household in Covina, Calif., then a predominately white Los
Angeles suburb.
"My siblings are 100% Chinese, so I grew up in this family where I
was the white kid," he remembers. "Every weekend we were in Chinatown
and I was the one who didn’t fit in."
Fulbeck has a varied career as a filmmaker, writer, photographer,
professor and chair of art at UC Santa Barbara. Yet ethnicity is a
consistent subject in his work. His 1991 award-winning short film
Banana Split focuses on being hapa, as does Paper Bullets, a novel
Fulbeck describes as a "fictional autobiography." Part asian is a
departure in that Fulbeck doesn’t take the stage, but rather sets
it up for others like him. Though he notes, "The book isn’t just for
hapa people. It’s for anyone who’s dealing with identity."
Fulbeck laments that he didn’t have a book like part asian while
growing up, which is when the idea first took root. He says that
his artistic and professional commitments made it easy to postpone
a venture of this size. But, he recalls, in 2001 a friend warned,
"If you don’t do this, someone else will. And they’re going to do it
the way you don’t like, so you might as well do it."
At a hapa issues conference in San Francisco that same year, Fulbeck
took his camera and put out a sign that read "Hapa Project." He hoped
to photograph five or 10 people.
"That day I shot 60," Fulbeck smiles. In ensuing years he traveled
all over the country snapping mugshots of willing participants. "They
were all really excited," he says. "It’s this kind of thing where
you’re around your tribe."
Avoiding the ‘Hot’ Girls
Fulbeck ultimately documented more than 1,000 subjects. Then came
the difficult cutting process. Fulbeck and three editors laid out the
pictures on a giant table and made their selections. One editor chose
only people with "cool hair," says Fulbeck, and unconsciously or not,
everyone tried to avoid picking the "hot" girls.
"All of us didn’t want it to be the Devon Aoki book," says Fulbeck,
referring to the Japanese-German-English model and actress. "Yes, there
are some hot girls in there, but I didn’t want to add to the stereotype
that all of us are gorgeous and smart and have good figures."
Ultimately, Fulbeck wants the word hapa to be known by those other
than hapas themselves. "I would like hapa to be a term that people
understand," he says, not wanting to offer up a laundry list of famous
hapas every time the subject comes up: Keanu Reeves, Tiger Woods,
Apolo Ohno, Michelle Branch, Eddie Van Halen. "I just want people to
be aware that we’re a really multiracial society and deal with it."
On Saturdays during the show, JANM visitors will be able to take a
Polaroid of themselves and respond to the question "What are you?" in
an interactive display area. With the audience’s participation, part
asian will grow throughout the next few months. It’s also an effort
to celebrate the past and the future.
"If you look at the history of the United States, and you look at most
ethnic communities," Komai cautions, "eventually, they just sort of
disappear. What we believe is that people should have a choice. If they
want to be part of the mainstream and just be considered American,
that’s fine, their choice. If, on the other hand, they feel like
there’s a link they want to continue, then there ought to be a way
that they can do that and institutions like the Japanese American
National Museum will be part of their ability to pass that down to
their children and grandchildren."
Kip Fulbeck: part asian, 100% hapa runs through Oct. 29 at the Japanese
American National Museum, 369 E. First St., (213) 625-0414 or janm.org.
Tami Mnoian is half-Japanese, half-Armenian. "Mr. Astani has a track
record of great projects and does a great job contributing to the
area," said Franco. "This sends a message to other developers if they
want to go this route."
Pacific Atlas Development Corp. bought the property in 1990 and
received city approvals to develop two office towers, an open-air plaza
and a hotel. But after the downturn in the economy in the early 1990s,
the project was shelved. In 2005, Astani bought the 129,000-square-foot
lot for a reported $38 million.
Astani is responsible for about 5,000 units in Los Angeles, including
the Concerto, which broke ground last month at the corner of Ninth
and Figueroa streets. That project, which took two years to make its
way through the city approval process, is scheduled to open in 2008.
The Concerto will offer two 27-story residential towers and one
five-story mixed-use building, creating a total of 619 units, along
with 27,500 square feet of retail and a 2,510-square-foot park.
Another Astani project, at Wilshire and Bixel in City West, will hold
200 units, 30 of them priced as affordable housing. The development
is under construction and occupancy is scheduled for the fall.
Altogether, Astani is working on plans to create nearly 1,700 units
in Downtown, making him one of the area’s biggest developers.
"If buildings don’t get built," he said, "the city loses money and
jobs, and homeowners stay renters."