The Hapa Project - Kip Fulbeck

Photo courtesy of Seaweed Productions
The Hapa Project - website

• Summer Olympics 2012 U.S. team members Nathan Adrian and Kyla Ross 
• Actors Jennifer and Meg Tilly, Russell Wong, Moon Bloodgood, Ian Anthony Dale
• USF men's basketball coach Rex Walters 
• MLB pitchers Tim Lincecum, Ron Darling (retired) and Danny Graves (retired)
• NBC news anchor Ann Curry 
• Sean Lennon
• The children of my cousins John, Kin, Ming, Kit, Faye 
• More than I can count on all my fingers and toes, my friends and their children

What do they have in common? All are of mixed ethnic heritage with partial roots in Asian and/or Pacific Islander ancestry*.

Or, in Hawaiian language, Hapa.  In 2001, American artist Kip Fulbeck began The Hapa Project, a photographic montage of 1200 volunteer subjects who identified themselves as hapa. To find out more about the project, please click the website link posted below Kip's picture.

For me, the objective of the project, as described in Wikipedia, said it best: The Hapa Project was created to promote awareness and recognition of the millions of multiracial/multiethnic individuals of Asian/Pacific Islander descent in the U.S; to give voice to multiracial people and previously ignored ethnic groups; to dispel myths of exoticism, hybrid vigor and racial homogeneity; to foster positive identity formation and self-image in multiracial children; and to encourage solidarity and empowerment within the multiracial/Hapa community.

While I may not be Hapa ethnically, I certainly am culturally. Loudly and proudly.

*from "about The Hapa Project" website.