What Are You Anyways?

I am always looking for new films, shorts, music, comics, anything created for Mixed-Race people, by Mixed-Race people. My passion for the promotion of Mixed-Race people in the media comes from my own enjoyment of being a person of Mixed-Race and growing up without representation in film and TV. In my quest to find filmmakers and artist of Mixed-Race, I came across an animated short by filmmaker Jeff Chiba Stearns called "What Are You Anyway?"

Jeff Chiba Stearns, is an independent animation and documentation filmmaker from Canada, who is of Japanese and European Caucasian descent. The short, "What Are You Anyways?" is an autobiographical tale about Stearns's personal examination of his coming to terms with his Mixed-Race heritage. After years of feeling like an outsider in his hometown of Kelowna, British Columbia, he meets and falls in love with a girl with the same half Japanese- half Caucasian heritage. The girl, Jenny, is proud of her heritage and had a totally different, non-racist experience growing up. He says that he struggled with being Mixed because he was always made to feel different and that struggle prevented him from embracing his own diversity. This new relationship, with someone similar to himself, taught him that it was okay to be proud of being Hapa.

People of Mixed-Race are asked the question, "So, what are you anyways?" probably as often as most people are asked "Are you hungry?" If you are not easily identified as Black, White, Asian, Latin, Arabic, etc. by first glance than people seem to feel they have to right to ask what you are. This is a frustrating part of being Mixed-Race because on the one hand you want to respond, "What business is it of yours?" and on the other you are proud of what you are and wouldn't mind sharing. Also, you don't want to get a reputation of being sensitive because of your Mixed-Race heritage. If you don't want to be defined by your race or what you look like, it can feel like a lose, lose situation. I have personally allowed being Mixed-Race to become a major part of my persona from as early as I could understand what being Mixed meant. My brother, on the other hand,  is not as comfortable in his Mixed-Race skin and rarely ever talks about it even to me. It is odd that we could have grown up together and had such different perspectives on what it means to be Mixed-Race.

I imagine most Mixed-Race kids go through the "What am I?" stage as they grow up. People's reactions to us, makes us feel different when there isn't anyone, any race, or any group that can truly claim to be the standard that makes everyone else different. When you are growing up, you don't realize this and as a Mixed kid, you might allow people to make you feel like an "other." Stearns's experience, is a common one, and I think it is wonderful of him to share his personal journey towards self acceptance with the world through his animation.

"What Are You Anyways?" has been included in 40 International Film Festivals and won 7  awards including the Best Animated Short Subject from the Canadian Electronic & Animated Arts festival and Best Animation from Los Angeles ARPA International Film Festival. Jeff Stearns travels the world teaches animation at various workshops and speaks conferences on behalf of Mixed-Race and Hapa people in film and animation.

If you would like to see the animated short film, it is available here on Film Annex. Also, swing by Jeff's production website, Meditating Bunny for more on this Hapa-ning Filmmaker.