Hapa

Hapa (Template:IPAc-en<ref name="dictcom"/>) is a Hawaiian word for someone of multiracial ancestry. In Hawaii, the word refers to any person of mixed ethnic heritage, regardless of the specific mixture.<ref name=":1">Template:Harvnb: "Thus, for locals in Hawai’i, both hapa or hapa haole are used to depict people of mixed-race heritage."</ref><ref name=":2">Template:Harvnb: "Currently, Hawaiian locals use 'hapa' to refer to any individual who is racially mixed."</ref> The term is used for any multiracial person of partial East Asian, Southeast Asian, or Pacific Islander mixture in California.<ref name="dictcom">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Ho 2015 p. 153">Template:Cite book</ref><ref name="Sunakawa Willmore Varner Rosenberg 2015">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Chew 2016">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref name="Gamble 2009">Template:Cite journal</ref> In what can be characterized as trans-cultural diffusion or the wave model, this latter usage has also spread to Massachusetts,<ref name=":Lian Niu 2022">Template:Cite news</ref> Ohio,<ref name="activities.osu.edu 2021">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and Oregon.<ref name="The City of Portland, Oregon 2016">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> Both uses are concurrent.Template:Sfn<ref>Template:Harvnb: "Today, 'hapa' is used to describe any person of mixed East and South East Asian or Pacific Islander descent."</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb: "Currently, hapa is often used to refer to anyone of a racially mixed Asian heritage, and even more recently to anyone who is of mixed-race heritage Template:Harv."</ref><ref name="Folen Ng 2007">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Harvnb: "In the United States, individuals recognized the term as meaning mixed Asian/Pacific Islander or, more popularly, part Asian."</ref><ref name=":0">Template:Cite news</ref>Template:Excessive citations inline Template:Efn

Historical and Hawaiian usageEdit

File:'Hapa Haole' (No. 206) by Grace Hudson, 1901.jpg

Hapa Haole (No. 206) by Grace Hudson, 1901

The word "hapa" entered the Hawaiian language in the early 1800s, with the arrival of Christian missionaries who instituted a Hawaiian alphabet and developed curriculum for schools. It is a transliteration of the English word "half," but quickly came to mean "part," which could be combined with numbers to form fractions. For example, hapalua is half, hapahā is one-fourth, and hapanui means majority.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" />

In Hawaii, the term can be used in conjunction with other Hawaiian racial and ethnic descriptors to specify a particular racial or ethnic mixture.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> An example of this is hapa haole (part European/White).<ref>Template:Harvnb: "'Hapa haole' is a commonly used phrase in Hawaii, employed by all Asian subgroups, but Hawaiian in origin. The phrase literally translates into "of part-white ancestry or origin.""</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Pukui states that the original meaning of the word haole was "foreigner." Therefore, all non-Hawaiians can be called haole.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> In practical terms, however, the term is used as a racial description for whites, with the specific exclusion of Portuguese. Portuguese are traditionally considered to be a separate race in Hawaii.<ref name="Judd 1961">Template:Cite book</ref>

Hapa-haole also is the name of a type of Hawaiian music in which the tune, styling, and/or subject matter is Hawaiian, but the lyrics are partly, mostly, or entirely in English.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> Many hapa-haole songs had their musical roots in the Western tradition, and the lyrics were in some combination of English and Hawaiian; these songs first gained popularity outside the Territory of Hawaii beginning in 1912–1915,<ref name="Haas 2011 p. 152">Template:Cite book</ref> and include titles such as "My Little Grass Shack in Kealakekua" and "Sweet Leilani."<ref name="Shepherd 2003 p. 450">Template:Cite book</ref>

Hapa haole is also used for Hawaiian-language hula songs that are partly in English, thus disqualifying them as "authentic" Hawaiian hula in some venues such as the Merrie Monarch Festival.

ControversyEdit

Some see the use of the term to refer to mixed Asian people without any connections to Hawaii as a misappropriation of Hawaiian culture,<ref>Template:Harvnb: "Prominent figures in the Hawaiian sovereignty movement, such as the Trask sisters, have spoken out against the co-optation of the Hawaiian language by Hapa organizations and other 'inappropriate' uses of the term."</ref>Template:Sfn but there are [[kamaTemplate:Okinaāina]] and Kānaka Maoli who see it as hypocritical to protest anyone using what was originally taken from another culture to begin with.Template:Sfn Template:Sfn

Still others take a stronger stand in discouraging its usage and misuse as they consider the term to be vulgar and racist.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

However, the term, unlike other words referring to mixed-race people, has never been a derogatory term when it is used in its original Hawaiian context, although there is some debate about appropriate usage outside this context.Template:Sfn As Wei Ming Dariotis states, Template:"'Hapa' was chosen because it was the only word we could find that did not really cause us pain. It is not any of the Asian words for mixed Asian people that contain negative connotations either literally (e.g. 'children of the dust,' 'mixed animal') or by association (Eurasian)."Template:Sfn