Part Asian, 100% Hapa

By Kip Fulbeck, Sean Lennon and Paul Spickard

Once a derogatory label derived from the Hawaiian word for half, Hapa is now being embraced as a term of pride by many people of Asian or Pacific Rim mixed-race heritage. Award-winning film producer and artist Kip Fulbeck has created a forum in word and image for Hapas to answer the question they're nearly always asked: "What are you?" Fulbeck's frank, head-on portraits are paired with the sitters' own statements of identity. A work of intimacy, beauty, and powerful self-expression, Part Asian, 100% Hapa is the book Fulbeck says he wishes he had growing up. An introduction to the rest of the world and an affirmation for Hapas themselveswho now number in the millions—it offers a new perspective on a rapidly growing population.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chronicle Books Digital
• Release date: Jul 1, 2010
• ISBN: 9780811875806

Kip Fulbeck

Extensively tattooed artist, filmmaker, and professor Kip Fulbeck is the author of Part Asian, 100% Hapa.

Book preview

part asian • 100% hapa

Portraits by Kip Fulbeck

Foreword by Sean Lennon

Afterword by Paul Spickard

Photographs and Introduction copyright © 2006 by Kip Fulbeck

Foreword copyright © 2006 by Sean Lennon

Afterword copyright © 2006 by Paul Spickard

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written

permission from the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data available.

eISBN 978-0-8118-7580-6

Digital Compositing by Derrick Velasquez and Michael Velasquez

Chronicle Books LLC

680 Second Street

San Francisco, California 94107

www.chroniclebooks.com

ha•pa (hä’pä) adj. 1. Slang. of mixed racial heritage with partial roots in Asian and/or Pacific Islander ancestry. n. 2. Slang. a person of such ancestry. [der./ Hawaiian: Hapa Haole (half white)]

acknowledgments

This project involved several thousand people over three years, via organization, communication, participation, and production. I wish to thank everyone involved, and to mention several in particular.

Thanks to my family for their continued love and support, to Hapa Issues Forum for their steadfast devotion to promoting Hapa awareness, and to Mikyla Bruder, Brett MacFadden, Alan Rapp, Bridget Watson Payne, and the amazing staff at Chronicle Books for their commitment to producing innovative work.

Thanks to my friends Keith Alexander, Lindsay Castro, Jonathan Cecil, Willy Chui, Mary Clark, Casey Copeland, Jenn Crawford, Wei-Ming Dariotis, Jen Diskin, Rebecca Drexler, Kristina Fredriksson, Tejvir Grewall, Amy Hill, Robert Horsting, Stewart David Ikeda, Matt Kelley, Ming-yan Lai, Jaker Lemberger, Sean Lennon, Ronnie Lin, Heather Milne, Cindie Nakashima, Vicki Nam, Victoria Namkung, Dan Nazaretta, Jocelyn Nguyen, Ben Northover, Marky Mark Pasadilla, Joe Perez, Harry Reese, Joel Sherman, Paul Spickard, Phel Steinmetz, Kellie Stoelting, Kevin Tam, Andres Torres, LeeAnn Trusela, Derrick Velasquez, Michael Velasquez, and Teresa Williams-Léon.

I also wish to express my gratitude to the Department of Art, the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center, and Academic Senate at the University of California, Santa Barbara; to my agent, Faye Bender; to my research assistants, Krista Bergenstal, Lizvet Corral, Jean Lee, Tracey On, and Jaclyn Tamizato; and to Lynda Barry and Jim Goldberg for inspiration.

Finally, thanks to all the generous people

Reviews for Part Asian, 100% Hapa

[anhsieh_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

The culmination of the Hapa Project, wherein Kip Fulbeck, a rather talented poet/photographer/surfer/guitarist (you name it), photographs various people who define themselves as Hapa. That is, Fulbeck did not say "I will only photograph this particular racial identity", but rather accepted anyone who considered themselves Hapa. Included in the book are a variety of portraits, devoid of any identifying markers except for the subjects' natural appearances, as well as their own handwritten answers to the one question Hapas get the most: "What are you?"From infants to the elderly, Fulbeck photographs them all (though it can be difficult to find the elderly, considering the once-illegal state of interracial marriages), and does so with staggering talent. Most of all, however, Fulbeck lets his subjects define themselves in every way, without his interference, and considering the nature of this work, that is for the best.

[katya0133 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Each spread includes a picture of a subject and a personal statement written by them (and in their own handwriting) about what it means to be part Asian. A beautiful collection of images and thoughts.