The National Asian American Telecommunications
Association
Hapa Issues Forum
By Marisa Pjerrou
Occupying a nondescript-looking building in San Francisco’s trendy
Soma district are the main offices of The
National Asian American Telecommunications Association (NAATA),
a place where I once worked as an intern. Long before the dotcoms
invaded the neighborhood, dazzling the media with their brash pizzazz,
NAATA has been more subtly but steadily influencing the media in its
own way. A consortium
of Asian-American filmmakers founded NAATA in 1980, with funding
provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting that continues
to this day. Through the development of original programming for broadcast
on public television, sponsorship of the San
Francisco Asian American Film Festival (SFIAAFF), and the availability
of the world’s largest collection (nearly 200 titles) of Asian Pacific
American films and videos for purchase or educational distribution,
NAATA perseveres in its self-described mission of presenting "stories
that convey the richness and diversity of the Asian American Experience."
If you have ever seen an Asian American film or documentary on public
television, chances are that it was more than likely sponsored by
NAATA. The explosion of Asian American filmmaking with the last decade,
as well as the high interest generated by such works can undoubtedly
be traced to NAATA’s door-opening efforts over the last 20 years.
Digital space has allowed for small, non-profit organizations such
as NAATA to expand and reach out to a wider audience. Moreover, issues
surrounding racial identity, and unfortunately, racism have been allowed
to proliferate via the Internet as well. A recent trend towards more
specificity within long-held racial categories, especially by individuals
of multiracial heritage, points out how very complicated racial identification
can be. Marginalization is nothing new to racial minorities in the
U.S.; so then to people of mixed racial backgrounds, accustomed to
tangential status within a racial group, sub-marginalization is also
nothing new. We now have poised and attractive multiracial celebrities
such as Tiger Woods, who makes being "mixed", look cool.
And the Internet has allowed for more visibility of mixed race organizations,
especially those at college campuses such as the Hapa
Issues Forum, which started at U.C. Berkeley. Derived from a Hawaiian
word, hapa is now frequently used to describe someone of partial Asian
ancestry. Harvard
University’s HAPA Association just sponsored a recent conference
on mixed race in April 2001. For more information and links to hapa
topics, I found the Cornell
Hapa Student Association website to be a good resources, as well
as You Don’t
Look Japanese…
As a hapa, or Eurasian individual myself (I’m of Chinese and European
heritage), I can recall a time growing up when dialogue about being
multiracial was simply nonexistent – and this was in the San Francisco
Bay Area, one of the most ethnically diverse and politically progressive
places in the country. I was pretty much left on my own to deal with
seemingly trivial but painfully confusing absurdities such as deciding
which racial category to check off on a form. We now speak about such
issues so openly, especially in lieu of the recent census
fracas. Yet, lest we think that the more acceptance of diverse
individuals means less intolerance, we are reminded by artists and
writers such as Paisley
Rekdal and Kip Fulbeck that culture and race are often very closely
tied together in complicated ways. Rekdal’s recent book, The
Night My Mother Met Bruce Lee: Observations On Not Fitting In,
points out that racial identification for hapa individuals often depends
on how Asian or Caucasian is one’s resemblance. Comments Redkal: "If
for the past several years I have become a part of white America,
it is because it has embraced me so fully – and because the Chinese
would not recognize me on sight." Also exploring hapa issues,
but in various mediums is videomaker, novelist, slam poet and spoken
word performer Kip Fulbeck.
Fulbeck has interestingly made his Eurasian heritage a central theme
in his writing, performance art and I would assume in his teaching
as well at U.C. Santa Barbara.