This week I'm sharing a hapa slam poet. It hits close to home with issues of racial identity. I love how he asks his audience to stand up, to take pride in being whole. Our world might want to break us down and make us invisible but we define who we are. Take a listen because poetry is meant to be heard!
Showing posts with label hapa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hapa. Show all posts
4.29.2013
11.19.2010
Through Eyes Like Mine Mix Tape
So I was inspired by Raymond's 50 State Mix Tape and decided my forthcoming literary work (otherwise knows as Through Eyes Like Mine, a quiet book passed on by most major American publishing houses) needed a soundtrack. So in order to build on a little buzz for the book's release here are some songs to set the tone for the book.
Through Eyes Like Mine starts with an epigraph of the first line from this song.
It's a Small World at Disneyland was the only ride I wanted to ride when I was two and made my first trip to the happiest place on earth. Too bad I wasn't so happy.
Failure in our family was congratulated with an evil grin and the chanting of "Dunt, dunt, dunt, another one bites the dust."
Chet, Laura and I were in a production of The King an I at a small theater in Bend. Maybe Anna inspired my teaching career when I was four.
My third grade crush and I both loved Devo.
For some reason my childhood memories of this song aren't of Cat Stevens, but of church on Sunday morning. We went to St. Francis every Sunday. Never missed.
The other song that plays pretty constantly through the memories of my childhood is the score from To Kill a Mockingbird.
Chet introduced my whole family to U2 in the mid 80s. I remember hearing this song blaring from his bedroom.
This mix tape got me really excited about getting back to work on Overdue Apologies, the middle school memoir that's next in line. There will be some fabulous 80s pop in that one. Hope this odd collection of tunes makes you want to read my quiet little book.
Through Eyes Like Mine starts with an epigraph of the first line from this song.
It's a Small World at Disneyland was the only ride I wanted to ride when I was two and made my first trip to the happiest place on earth. Too bad I wasn't so happy.
Failure in our family was congratulated with an evil grin and the chanting of "Dunt, dunt, dunt, another one bites the dust."
Chet, Laura and I were in a production of The King an I at a small theater in Bend. Maybe Anna inspired my teaching career when I was four.
My third grade crush and I both loved Devo.
For some reason my childhood memories of this song aren't of Cat Stevens, but of church on Sunday morning. We went to St. Francis every Sunday. Never missed.
The other song that plays pretty constantly through the memories of my childhood is the score from To Kill a Mockingbird.
Chet introduced my whole family to U2 in the mid 80s. I remember hearing this song blaring from his bedroom.
This mix tape got me really excited about getting back to work on Overdue Apologies, the middle school memoir that's next in line. There will be some fabulous 80s pop in that one. Hope this odd collection of tunes makes you want to read my quiet little book.
12.26.2009
New LA Life: Chapter 5
We didn't even play for five minutes before Mrs. Taylor called us back to the living room. Auntie Laine, Angela, Curtis and I all hopped into Mrs. Taylor's black Tahoe and she drove us to this huge park. Groups of kids were standing around in the parking lot but they looked nothing like the ones I went to soccer camp with in Portland.
Portland's soccer scene was all white boys with blonde or brown hair cropped short, or cut in slightly shaggy Abercrombie cuts. The white girls all had long straight ponytails and strong, lean legs. There was usually a smattering of Asians from Aloha, a few Indian kids from Bethany, some Latinos from Beaverton, and a handful of mixed kids like me, but in this parking lot the ratios were flipped.
Most of the kids here were Latino. There were some Asian kids, a few Black and mixed-race kids like me and C.J., and a few white kids too, but even they looked a lot harder than the kids in Oregon. What I noticed next was that it was almost all boys. Only a handful of girls stood in clusters around bags and I thought about Nat and wished she were here. Normally, I would have ditched Mom and started walking around, talking to friends I hadn't seen since school got out, or teammates I hadn't played with since basketball or spring soccer. Now I just watched, trying to figure out who went with who and waiting on C.J. to show me the ropes.
"Come on, E," Curtis said, already providing me with a nickname. "I'll introduce you to the guys."
"So, have a good day, Erika," Auntie Laine said before I got to far away, "and I'll see you around five tonight."
"Okay," I said, pulling on the shoulder strap on my bag and ignoring how tight my chest suddenly felt. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. I followed C.J. as he walked toward three boys juggling a soccer ball.
"What up, kid?" a boy with black spiky hair asked as he gave C.J. a high five.
"Not much, not much. Hey fools, this is Erika she just moved here from Portland."
Before he even finished this introduction the ball came sailing toward me. I dropped my bag instantly and let my body respond. Right knee, left knee, right knee, head, left knee and then down to my right foot where I passed the ball to C.J. who caught it in his hands.
"Whoa, she gots better handles than you, Jose," said the taller of the boys with longish brown hair and a hint of Asian in his eyes.
"Better than your punk ass too," Jose responded as he leaned down to lace up his cleats.
The short kid with a short-cropped afro held out his hand. "I'm Manny, and that fool over there is Alan. Looks like you might have better handles than all of us."
A whistle blew and kids streamed to the shade of a tree on the edge of the field.
Throughout the morning I lost myself in the familiarity of soccer drills: dribble through cones, pass, trap, pass, trap, wall pass, throw-in, penalty kick and for that first hour I forgot everything but the ball, and the grass and the summer sun shining down. I didn't even pay attention to my competition the way Nat would have wanted.
Instead I pretended that the coaches were the ones I'd played for back home; that the boys I paired up with were Nat or Paris or Andie, girls that I'd known my whole soccer life. I let myself get lost in the only truth that felt right, the stiff leather of a soccer ball, the green grass of the field and my body's automatic responses in that world.
On the soccer field I didn't have to think about Jem, still up in Portland playing with our cousins at Uncle Kev's house, or Mom and Dad's bodies buried six feet underground. I didn't have to think about Nat meeting up with Paris because she was her new best friend and the two of them would call Jason and Derrick, the guys we'd been crushing on before I left, to see if they wanted to meet at the movies.
I played as hard as I had to in order to forget.
Portland's soccer scene was all white boys with blonde or brown hair cropped short, or cut in slightly shaggy Abercrombie cuts. The white girls all had long straight ponytails and strong, lean legs. There was usually a smattering of Asians from Aloha, a few Indian kids from Bethany, some Latinos from Beaverton, and a handful of mixed kids like me, but in this parking lot the ratios were flipped.
Most of the kids here were Latino. There were some Asian kids, a few Black and mixed-race kids like me and C.J., and a few white kids too, but even they looked a lot harder than the kids in Oregon. What I noticed next was that it was almost all boys. Only a handful of girls stood in clusters around bags and I thought about Nat and wished she were here. Normally, I would have ditched Mom and started walking around, talking to friends I hadn't seen since school got out, or teammates I hadn't played with since basketball or spring soccer. Now I just watched, trying to figure out who went with who and waiting on C.J. to show me the ropes.
"Come on, E," Curtis said, already providing me with a nickname. "I'll introduce you to the guys."
"So, have a good day, Erika," Auntie Laine said before I got to far away, "and I'll see you around five tonight."
"Okay," I said, pulling on the shoulder strap on my bag and ignoring how tight my chest suddenly felt. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. I followed C.J. as he walked toward three boys juggling a soccer ball.
"What up, kid?" a boy with black spiky hair asked as he gave C.J. a high five.
"Not much, not much. Hey fools, this is Erika she just moved here from Portland."
Before he even finished this introduction the ball came sailing toward me. I dropped my bag instantly and let my body respond. Right knee, left knee, right knee, head, left knee and then down to my right foot where I passed the ball to C.J. who caught it in his hands.
"Whoa, she gots better handles than you, Jose," said the taller of the boys with longish brown hair and a hint of Asian in his eyes.
"Better than your punk ass too," Jose responded as he leaned down to lace up his cleats.
The short kid with a short-cropped afro held out his hand. "I'm Manny, and that fool over there is Alan. Looks like you might have better handles than all of us."
A whistle blew and kids streamed to the shade of a tree on the edge of the field.
Throughout the morning I lost myself in the familiarity of soccer drills: dribble through cones, pass, trap, pass, trap, wall pass, throw-in, penalty kick and for that first hour I forgot everything but the ball, and the grass and the summer sun shining down. I didn't even pay attention to my competition the way Nat would have wanted.
Instead I pretended that the coaches were the ones I'd played for back home; that the boys I paired up with were Nat or Paris or Andie, girls that I'd known my whole soccer life. I let myself get lost in the only truth that felt right, the stiff leather of a soccer ball, the green grass of the field and my body's automatic responses in that world.
On the soccer field I didn't have to think about Jem, still up in Portland playing with our cousins at Uncle Kev's house, or Mom and Dad's bodies buried six feet underground. I didn't have to think about Nat meeting up with Paris because she was her new best friend and the two of them would call Jason and Derrick, the guys we'd been crushing on before I left, to see if they wanted to meet at the movies.
I played as hard as I had to in order to forget.
10.26.2009
Disguises
A story for a Moth evening (that I didn't perform...)
The unintentional disguise I don is the mask of racial ambiguity.
Particularly if you don't hear my name, pronounced with the proper Japanese inflection (Noriko Nakada desu. Hajimemashite) then the chances of correctly identifying my half-Japanese ancestry diminish drastically.
See me walk down the street here in LA and you might assume I'm Latina; speak to me in Espanol. Or maybe you'll read my name, assume my identity, then meet me in person and struggle to reconcile the name and the face.
But it isn't only strangers who ask, "What are you?" Growing up multiracial I struggled with my own identity issues. Born and raised in small-town, Oregon, the only half-Japanese family in town, we were accepted as one of their own, just another rural, middle-class white family. The closer we were to the Kah Nee Tah reservation the more likely people were to assume we were Native American but for the most part people ignored our foreign look, name and culture.
I couldn't shed my subtle Asian features even though I shortened my name to Nori, spelled like seaweed (Nodi) but pronounced Nori, like Lori but with an N. I pretended I was like everyone else even though my "exotic" look set me apart.
In the summer we'd drive to Los Angeles to visit family. We'd go to Disneyland or eat sushi with Dad's side and around my full Japanese cousins with their shiny, black, straight hair woven into thick braids I hated my fine brown hair and honey-colored eyes. With Mom's side of the family we'd drive from the valley to Zuma Beach and in that world of sand and sea, blonde hair and blue eyes I couldn't believe I was related to them at all.
A few years after moving away from that small town I traveled to Hawaii for the first time. You know how every year there is one Halloween costume everyone wears, the year everyone is a pirate, or a princess, a vampire or a witch. In Hawaii, my disguise was just like everyone else's. Instead of my identity setting me apart, being Hapa meant I belonged.
"Howzit?" a local asked as I browsed through ukeles and plastic leis. "You playing one tourist today?"
I looked at the woman behind the display of puka shell necklaces and paused. If I kept quiet I could stay in costume, just a local girl stopping by the gift shop. Open my mouth, release my mainland accent without a hint of pidgin and my real identity would be revealed.
"Oh, I just visiting," I said trying to mimic the rhythm of the locals.
"Ha! I thought you one local," the woman said with a smile. "Shua look like one."
After years spent wishing I could shed my disguise, in Hawaii I saw another possibility. If I'd lived in the islands since small kid time I could fit in here, fo' shua, no act, local style, brah. I suddenly saw how banana I was, yellow on the outside, but white inside the peel.
It's taken years, a few more trips to Hawaii, countless questions, explanations, and looks I've learned to ignore in order for me to figure it out: I'm not Latina or Native American or Alaskan Eskimo. I'm not white, not Japanese, and not Hapa from Hawaii.
I don't fit neatly into one of those boxes used to make sense of a complicated world.
The disguise isn't about me. It's about how you perceive me because this is no disguise. This is me and I have no choice but to keep the world guessing.
The unintentional disguise I don is the mask of racial ambiguity.
Particularly if you don't hear my name, pronounced with the proper Japanese inflection (Noriko Nakada desu. Hajimemashite) then the chances of correctly identifying my half-Japanese ancestry diminish drastically.
See me walk down the street here in LA and you might assume I'm Latina; speak to me in Espanol. Or maybe you'll read my name, assume my identity, then meet me in person and struggle to reconcile the name and the face.
But it isn't only strangers who ask, "What are you?" Growing up multiracial I struggled with my own identity issues. Born and raised in small-town, Oregon, the only half-Japanese family in town, we were accepted as one of their own, just another rural, middle-class white family. The closer we were to the Kah Nee Tah reservation the more likely people were to assume we were Native American but for the most part people ignored our foreign look, name and culture.
I couldn't shed my subtle Asian features even though I shortened my name to Nori, spelled like seaweed (Nodi) but pronounced Nori, like Lori but with an N. I pretended I was like everyone else even though my "exotic" look set me apart.
In the summer we'd drive to Los Angeles to visit family. We'd go to Disneyland or eat sushi with Dad's side and around my full Japanese cousins with their shiny, black, straight hair woven into thick braids I hated my fine brown hair and honey-colored eyes. With Mom's side of the family we'd drive from the valley to Zuma Beach and in that world of sand and sea, blonde hair and blue eyes I couldn't believe I was related to them at all.
A few years after moving away from that small town I traveled to Hawaii for the first time. You know how every year there is one Halloween costume everyone wears, the year everyone is a pirate, or a princess, a vampire or a witch. In Hawaii, my disguise was just like everyone else's. Instead of my identity setting me apart, being Hapa meant I belonged.
"Howzit?" a local asked as I browsed through ukeles and plastic leis. "You playing one tourist today?"
I looked at the woman behind the display of puka shell necklaces and paused. If I kept quiet I could stay in costume, just a local girl stopping by the gift shop. Open my mouth, release my mainland accent without a hint of pidgin and my real identity would be revealed.
"Oh, I just visiting," I said trying to mimic the rhythm of the locals.
"Ha! I thought you one local," the woman said with a smile. "Shua look like one."
After years spent wishing I could shed my disguise, in Hawaii I saw another possibility. If I'd lived in the islands since small kid time I could fit in here, fo' shua, no act, local style, brah. I suddenly saw how banana I was, yellow on the outside, but white inside the peel.
It's taken years, a few more trips to Hawaii, countless questions, explanations, and looks I've learned to ignore in order for me to figure it out: I'm not Latina or Native American or Alaskan Eskimo. I'm not white, not Japanese, and not Hapa from Hawaii.
I don't fit neatly into one of those boxes used to make sense of a complicated world.
The disguise isn't about me. It's about how you perceive me because this is no disguise. This is me and I have no choice but to keep the world guessing.
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