I volunteered to have my picture taken for Kip Fulbeck's 2017-2018 photographic project known as Hapa Me, not knowing whether my picture (which for the record, I don't love) would be included in the 2018 collection. I received an email a few months later telling me that I was either in the installation or in the book, or both. The suspense was killing me.
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Reading at the Mixed Remixed Festival
I got the good news a few days ago that I've been accepted as one of the readers at the Mixed Remixed Festival 2016 for a panel on hapa writers entitled "Hapa Writers: Our Stories." As some of you might remember, I went last year and the festival blew my fucking mind away. Suddenly, mixed race identity was the rule. It felt amazing to be part of a community (even a temporary one) made of multiracial artists, intellectuals, poets, writers, activists, and filmmakers, all of them with different stories, different narrative modalities, different experiences and cultural vocabularies. It was so fucking dope going last year and it'll be even more dope participating in it this year. I'm incredibly proud and excited to be part of this project
When Your Hapa Face Becomes The Rule
I went to my first Mixed Remixed festival today at the Japanese American National Museum, and I have to say, it was an amazing experience. For the first time in years, my phenotype, my story as a hapa writer, my experience being biracial and multicultural (in my case, Japanese, French, and American)--was the rule of the universe. Being biracial and multicultural was normal, even common. It was fucking amazing.
Though simply the experience of being there and connecting with other mixed, biracial, hapa, and multicultural writers was enough for me, I really enjoyed the multimodal panel ofJamie Ford, Mat Johnson, Bryan Medina, Marie Mockett, Michelle Brittan, and James Tyner. Hopefully, I'll find a way to get on this panel next year for the next incarnation of the Mixed Remixed festival. That would be both fun and also an honor.