Hapa Japan Project
The Hapa Japan Project at the Center is dedicated to the study of mixed-roots Japanese people globally from both historical and contemporary perspectives. The project consists of an event series (including major multi-day festivals), publications, and a dedicated website that is part social networking and genealogical database and part educational hub featuring news stories, longer form articles, and interviews. In 2017, the Center launched a new interface for the website, released the 2-part Hapa Japan edited volumes (vol. 1 History and vol. 2 Identity and Representations), and hosted Hapa Japan Fest III from February 22-26, 2017 partly in conjunction with the Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) conference.
Events
Thursday, October 3, 2019
Join us as we hear from Fredrick Cloyd, author of the book Dream of the Water Children. To tell his story, Cloyd incorporates photographs and Japanese writing, history, and memory to convey both rich personal experience and significant historical detail. Bringing together vivid memories with a perceptive cultural eye, Dream of the Water Children brings readers closer to a biracial experience, opening up our understanding of the cultural richness and social challenges people from diverse backgrounds face…
Friday, October 4, 2019
Join us for a screening of an internationally award-winning short film, Tamara Ruppart’s Path of Dreams, inspired by a legend associated with ninth-century Japanese poetess, Ono no Komachi, the only female poet among Japan’s Rokkasen, the Six Poetic Geniuses of the early Heian period…
Saturday, September 23, 2017
Dr. Koji Murofushi, former Olympic gold medalist and sports director of the Tokyo2020 Organizing Committee, joins Duncan Ryūken Williams, founding director of the USC Shinso Ito Center for Japanese Religions and Culture, in a featured session titled “Japan on the Global Stage: Engaging Cultures in the 21st Century,” on Saturday, Sept. 23 at the 2017 USC Global Conference…
Friday, April 27, 2018
Presently approximately one out of every thirty children born in Japan has one parent who is not Japanese. Mixed race Japanese individuals are fast becoming a part of the Japanese mainstream and one of the fastest growing ethnic groups in the United States. What is mixed race Japanese identity, from the voices of people who actually are Hapa Japanese? In “Hapa Expressions,” the voices of transnational individuals of mixed Japanese heritage are explored, representations that focus on the U.S.-Japan experience, two countries in which mixed-race identity is being heard in a big way, perhaps bigger than the societies-at-large are aware of. The expressions are brought to life in this play written by Velina Hasu Houston…
This event is co-sponsored by the USC School of Dramatic Arts
Saturday, June 30, 2018
During and shortly after the US-Allied Occupation of Japan, the Japanese women who fraternized with soldiers often met opposition from their families and were shunned by other Japanese. Many mixed-raced children faced severe prejudice for being “impure” and born from the former enemy.
This symposium brings together various stakeholders to tell the stories of the war brides and their children. By focusing on the memories, realities and legacies of this community, this groundbreaking gathering will create opportunities for listening, discussing, healing, and empowering attendees…
Sunday, February 26, 2017
The Hapa Japan Festival celebrates mixed-race and mixed roots Japanese people and culture. Come join us at the Japanese American National Museum and the USC campus for film screenings documenting the story of mixed race Japanese people, rich conversations with Hapa cultural icons, jam sessions, and a gastronomic experience to remember. Please also join us as we hear from lead thinkers of Hapa Japan (and critical mixed race) scholarship at the 3-day Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) Conference which will be held in conjunction with the festival. This year’s conference explores issues in trans (gender, gressions, migrations, racial). For a full background on festival and conference participants, see our bios sections.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
This 48 minute documentary reveals rather unknown history of Japanese community in Tijuana that has existed since the 1920s. The documentary weaves the images taken by the first documentary photographer of Tijuana, Kingo Nonaka with testimonials from the first, second and the third generations of Japanese immigrants. The documentary also highlights the history of post-globalized city Tijuana by shedding light on stories like plight of Japanese community during the World War II all the way to a story of contemporary economical and cultural point of connection between Japan and Mexico…
Saturday, February 27, 2016
Author Christine Piper will discuss her award-winning novel, After Darkness.
Half-Japanese Australian author Christine Piper will discuss her award-winning novel, After Darkness, and its themes of identity, otherness and the immigrant experience. Set during World War 2, After Darkness is narrated by a Japanese doctor who is arrested as an enemy alien in the pearling port of Broome and then interned at a remote camp in South Australia. When tensions between the nationalist Japanese and the Australian-born Japanese internees escalate, the doctor’s long-held beliefs are thrown into question and he is forced to confront his dark past: the promise he made in Japan and its devastating consequences…
Friday, April 29, 2016
The film Zen and Bones is a kaleidoscopic portrait of an unconventional 93-year-old Japanese-American Zen monk, his dramatic history and turbulent family life. Fiction and animation adds to create a motley concoction of fascinating true stories. The film screening will be followed by a panel discussion with director Takayuki Nakamura and Gretchen Mittwer, the daughter of Henry Mittwer…
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Using “found footage” retrieved from the family archive as well as the public domain, Sylvia Schedelbauer explores the genres of autobiography, documentary, and experimental films. She negotiates the space between broader historical narratives and personal, psychological realms, mainly through poetic manipulations of source material. Weaving together different footage, she inserts the subjective into the collective, while blending fiction and documentary…
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Sawyer Seminar X / CJRC Hapa Japan Database Project
How does a multiethnic location like Los Angeles provide the contours for mixed race individuals and community formations? How does dislocation – across the Pacific Ocean – inform multiracial experiences? And how does religion either inform or provide an alternative to race and mixed race as a framework for identity formation?…
Monday, September 10, 2012
A lecture by Professor Itsuko Kamoto of the Kyoto Women’s University on intermarriage between Japanese and non-Japanese, or kokusai kekkon.
The Japanese government was less concerned about race than nationality when Decree 103, which first established the rules for international marriage in Japan, was drafted in 1873. Its model was the Napoleonic Code. Resulting from its relationship with the United States, the Japanese government learned that Japanese were categorized as “Mongolian” and as such, were prohibited from marriage to Caucasians in some sates that had anti-miscegenation laws. The immigration law of 1924 enabled Japanese to emigrate to the United States, later resulting in the post-war Japanese War Bride act and setting the stage for dilemmas such as Japanese women being blamed for kidnapping their children back to their home country. Professor Kamoto will discuss possible solutions to problems regarding mixed-race marriages, and invite discussion on these issues…
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Crossing boundaries, taking risks, making music and redefining identity—“Mixing It Up” will showcase a broad range of talent from mixed-race artists in an exciting evening of cultural and artistic performance. Musical performances from popular YouTube artist and USC alum Kina Grannis, Japanese-Canadian singer/songwriter Justin Nozuka and Gow, from the Japan-based group Genez, will be woven with interactive conversations and stories from the artists about their cultural roots and mixed identity, experimentation with innovative technology and music-making outlets and the risks and challenges they have faced in building their careers in inventive, groundbreaking ways…
Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Found in Translation (2010)
A post-screening discussion with director, Masahiko Fox
Power of Two (2012)
A post-screening discussion with documentary subjects Anabel “Ana” Mariko Stenzel & Isabel “Isa” Stenzel Byrnes
Co-sponsored by the Japan Foundation, Los Angeles
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Hapa Japan 2013 Festival – Day 3
A literary panel featuring distinguished mixed-roots Japanese authors:
Ruth Ozeki
Sesshu Foster
Velina Hasu Houston,
Carlos Yushimito del Valle
Co-Sponsored by the Asian American Literary Review and Kaya Press
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Hapa Japan 2013 Festival – Day 3
Performanced by mixed-race comedians:
Dan Nainan
Anna Suzuki
Samantha Chanse
KT Tatara
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Hapa Japan 2013 Festival – Day 3
A book fair featuring the Asian American Literary Review, Kaya Press, Loving Day, Mixed Marrow, Multiracial Americans of Southern California, and various Hapa Japanese authors.
East West Players Theatre 120 Judge John Aiso Street Los Angeles, CA 90012
Friday, April 5, 2013
Hapa Japan 2013 Festival / Sawyer Seminar III Capstone Conference
Featuring: Duncan Williams (USC), Jane H. Yamashiro (USC), Akemi Johnson (writer), Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu (Stanford University), Masako Kudo (Kyoto Women’s University), Laurel Kamada (Tohoku University), Jane H. Yamashiro (USC), Lily Anne Yumi Welty (UCLA), Interview of Karl Lippincott, Athena Asklipiadis (Mixed Marrow), Natalie Mfaume (The Hafu Project), Ed Sumoto (Mixed Roots Japan), Ken Tanabe (Loving Day), George Kich (Founder, I-Pride)
Co-Sponsored by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation John E. Sawyer Seminars at USC and Kyoto University
Friday, April 5, 2013
Hapa Japan 2013 Festival – Day 4
Hafu – the mixed-race experience in Japan (2013)
Screening of documentary film, Hafu – the mixed-race experience in Japan (2013), and a Post-screening discussion with directors Lara Perez Takagi and Megumi Nishikura
Co-sponsored by the Japan Foundation, Los Angeles
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Hapa Japan 2013 Festival – Day 5
A collaboration between the HAPA JAPAN DATABASE PROJECT, the USC Center for Japanese Religions and Culture, and the Japanese American National Museum
Featuring a performance by singer/songwriter, Meiko
Co-curators: Cynthia Nakashima, Lily Anne Yumi Welty, Duncan Williams
Remarks by Greg Kimura (CEO/President, JANM) and Duncan Williams (USC)
MC: Emily Folick (Los Angeles Nisei Queen)
Saturday, April 6, 2013
Hapa Japan 2013 Festival/Sawyer Seminar III Capstone Conference
Featuring: Zelideth María Rivas (Marshall University), Tamaki Watarai (Aichi Prefectural University), Lily Anne Yumi Welty (UCLA), Trailer for Mixed Match (Director, Jeff Chiba Stearns; Associate Producer, Athena Asklipiadis), Screening of documentary film, Neither Here Nor There (2011) (Director, Ema Ryan Yamazaki), Yasuko Takezawa (Kyoto University), Featured Artist Presentations by artists, Laura Kina and Shizu Salamando, Christine Yano (University of Hawaii), Sayuri Arai (University of Illinois),LeiLani Nishime(University of Washington), Cynthia Nakashima (co-editor of The Sum of Our Parts)
Co-Sponsored by the Mellon Foundation Sawyer Seminars at USC and Kyoto University
