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.

The Hapa Experience: My trip to L.A. to see the Hafu Film

Last week, I traveled back to my home state, the beautiful and sunny California, for a Mixed-Race Japanese festival called HapaJapan. This was a unique experience for me because while I am of Japanese heritage, I have never been in the company of other Mixed-Japanese (that I wasn't related to) before. It was amazing, for most of my life I felt like my brother and four of my cousins on my dad's side were the only Black, Japanese, White kids on the planet. I discovered that not only are there other mixed people of Black, Japanese, and White descent, WE DON'T LOOK ALIKE!

Though my hair and skin color are closer to Japanese, my facial features are Black, and usually a Black person can tell I am Black from a mile away (though a Japanese person never can). I have never once surprised a Black person by telling them I'm part Black. But imagine my surprise to find that there are people mixed with Black, that even I wasn't able to tell.  It was amazing, we were all different shades of yellow or brown and for one of the very few times in my life I didn't feel like I wasn't part of the group. Strange too, because no one spoke to me at this festival, I was in the minority of people that attended by themselves. I didn't make any new friends and no came up to me to say "what are you?" But I still felt a sense of community unlike any of my life.

But I am way off topic...

The reason for this post is to discuss a film that I have been anticipating for several months. In fact, this film was the reason I spent my holiday bonus from work and part of my tax return to fly out to L.A for a week. The film is called Hafu, it is a documentary film about 5 different Mixed-Japanese people and their experience living in Japan. When I discovered this film's website online a few months ago I was floored. This was the documentary my cousin and I have been talking about making (talking not doing mind you) for years. It was going to be our excuse to get to Japan but alas we have not done anything related to this dream documentary yet. Fortunately, filmmakers Megumi Nishikura and Lara Perez Takagi have. I stumbled on the trailer of this film back in November of 2012 and emailed the filmmakers immediately to express my gratitude that someone has told the Mixed-Japanese story and to offer my support if there was something I could do from my home office outside of Boston. To my surprise I was contacted by Megumi Nishikura. The film was finished but she suggested that I come out to L.A., if I could, because this festival would be a great experience for me personally. She was right.

Not only was the film a really great start in the dialogue for Mixed-Japanese living in Japan, but the experience of being surround by other Mixed-Japanese in a room screening this film was something most of us would never have experience otherwise. In general, Japanese are very mono-ethnically oriented and have a reputation for not welcoming outsiders easily, let alone accepting Mixed-Race people. But as time progresses, more and more foreigners are finding their way into Japan to live and work. As a result, there are more than just the post-WWII mixed babies living there. According to the film, 1 in every 49 babies are now born Mixed-Race in Japan.

David Yano (pictured above) is one such Mixed-Japanese living in Japan and featured in Hafu. David was born in Ghana to a Ghanaian mother and Japanese father. When he was very young his family moved to Japan. His parents later separated and David and his brother's were forced to live in an orphanage while his mother return to Ghana and his father lived alone nearby. While he clearly looks Mixed-Race, the films shows how he surprises Japanese people with his fluent language and Japanese mannerisms. It was one of 5 beautiful portraits of the Mixed-Japanese experience in Japan.

What I appreciated most about this film was that each profile was carefully selected to give a broad perspective on Mixed-Japanese. In addition to David's story, there was a story about one Australian-Japanese woman who moved to Japan to get in touch with the half of her heritage she had little knowledge or experience of. A family of Mexican-Japanese mix with two children, one struggling to fit in at school and balance three languages at home (Japanese, Spanish, English). An activist for Mixed-Race acceptance and community of Venezuelan and Japanese descent. Finally, a Japanese-Korean woman, that did not know of her mixed heritage until she was a teenager. Each story from a different perspective, each perspective important for Japan and the world to be aware of.

What this film does not do is try to preach to the audience or the country that it is profiling. It is simply sharing the information, hoping that progress in acceptance of these Mixed-Race families grows organically.

This film has inspired me both to make the effort to reach out to more people of Mixed-Japan descent (and beef up my Japanese) and to work on my own film about being Mixed-Race because it is the reason I am back in school in the first place.

And on a freakish side note, when I finally met Megumi Nishikura in person, it turned out that she was friends with the friend I was staying with in L.A. The world felt very small that night.

To learn more about Hafu, please visit www.hafufilm.com/en.