The Race Card Project
By Michele Norris
Deborah Halperin,
Bloomington, IL
A man said this to me while we were in line at the post office. I was 18 and had just moved from Hawaii to Iowa for college. I am part Chinese and Filipino. I look Asian. He must have thought I was Vietnamese? Korean? I was caught off guard. I said nothing. No one ever said anything like that to me. In Hawaii we all look “hapa” but not on the mainland.
Deborah Williams
Clearwater, FL
Fear affects all of us. Bad people are out there but it’s not based on skin color. When you walk by, take a moment to look that fear in the eye. Smile and say HI! You will see that 99.9% of the time your fear was unfounded.
Kristan Aiko,
Aiea, HI.
Tiana Tran
Kailua, HI
I thought of this because even though I am Asian, it does not mean that I am going to be the best at everything. I am not a genius. Sometimes it’s hard to live up to this “bar” where you have to be perfect.
Riverside, CA.
So Cal – Atlanta – Hawaii – Russia: No matter where I have lived, my heart yearns to connect and understand. Writing this, I am hesitating because I don’t want you to think that I can’t understand because I am white. My whiteness is a wall between you and me. I don’t know how to tear it down. Can we do it together?
Gianna Crosetti Bickson,
Honolulu, HI.
“Hapa” is the Hawaiian work for mixed and usually refers to someone of mixed race who is at least part Asian or Pacific Islander. My husband is of Hawaiian, Chinese, Filipino & Japanese ancestry and my family is Italian, Russian English. This makes our kids “Hapa Haole”. While slang, the term is not derogatory, President Obama could be called Hapa Haole on his mom’s side.
The worst thing about being hapa is the challenge in finding a donor match if you need a transplant. Time Magazine quoted the rate of three out of four people will find a donor match if they are Caucasian. This goes down to 1/4 if you are a single minority ethnicity and shrinks even lower the more mixed race you are.
My beautiful hapa kids have very difficult odds if they ever face needing a marrow or organ transplant. For cultural reasons. Asians have very low rates of donation and small numbers in the data bases. I work in the surgical device industry and was aware of this. I banked my children’s umbilical cord blood for their use if the need should ever arise. I pay $200 annually for this service. I am glad I can pay it, but wish it wasn’t necessary
Annie H,
Honolulu, HI
Even after living in Hawaii over 25 years (moved for employment – my husband was recruited for a hard to fill position in health care, and I have worked for two prominent Hawaii organizations), I still encounter people assuming I do not live here, and asking, “How are you enjoying your visit?” Also other examples of being seen as an outsider, when using the local park where we live 2 blocks away, we often experience the vibe, “Why are you using our public spaces?” from other folks who drive in from other neighborhoods. It has been very eye opening with the tables turned from when we lived on the East Coast as part of the majority. Have honed my humility and empathy.
Jessie Blakely
Los Angeles, CA
I was raised in Hawaii, where there really isn’t such thing as a racial stereotype. Hawaii kids tend to be so ethnically diverse, that any stereotype today may apply to up to 1/2 of their bloodline, but rarely more. When I moved to the mainland to go to college, I was faced with a multitude of ethnic stereotypes, none of which I was previously aware of. It made me realize how little color matters in Hawaii. I saw how some people on the mainland claim not to care about race, but race is the first thing they notice. Bit of a contradiction, I think.
Jan Mason
NY
Born and raised in paradise as a Haole (white) person I had more than my share of discrimination but living on the “mainland” where I “fit in” with the white majority(?) my island heritage is invisible. I have taken to checking the box or “Pacific Islander” though I feel guilty about if since all my blood is European. My heart is Hawaiian.
Larry Taylor
Webster, TX
Six words which could have saved a young man’s life.
Lars Olsen,
Honolulu, HI
I am white, Viking white… yet I have experienced racism. We humans are strange creatures. It’s great that we all want to express our individuality, our uniqueness. It’s also great that we want to belong, to something, some group. What I find sad is that in doing this great things, somehow, someway, it becomes about one being better than another. Why can’t we just accept each other and celebrate the diversity. Black and white is boring, color is amazing.
Gordon Lee Pattison,
Los Angeles, CA.
In 1959, when I was 14 years old, I moved from Los Angeles to Honolulu. I had just started taking French as a foreign language at my junior high school in Los Angeles and wanted to continue. However, there was only one junior high school in Honolulu at that time offering French in the 9th grade, so I got permission from the Honolulu school district to enroll there even though it was not located where we lived. I don’t think we realized it at the time, but I came to find later that it was located in one of the rougher parts of the city. When I enrolled, I met with the principal who warned me that because I would be one of only two haole students at the school, I might encounter trouble from the other students because of my race. What he was telling me was to watch my back, at the same time making it clear to me that I was on my own. I was about to have an experience that every white person in America should have. I know what it is like to be subjected to the mostly curious, sometimes mocking, and occasionally hostile stares and harassment that minorities often endure. I know the feeling of isolation, vulnerability, and anxiety that comes with that. I also know as a minority member what it is like to walk into a room of people and find myself instinctively looking around the room to see if there is anyone who looks like me. I do realize, however, that my experience had one major difference from that of many other minorities in our society. I was a member of an economically dominant, privileged, albeit minority, ethnic group in Hawaii. Nonetheless, it was a very instructive experience. It shaped my life and social outlook ever afterward and gave me empathy for the minority experience in America, and for that I have always been grateful.
Mark Petersen-Overton,
Mount Laurel, NJ
The loves of my life! When we was stationed in Hawaii, we wanted to adopt a local girl to go along with our three natural born sons. We received huge resistance from local orphanages because we were “Haole”. So I flew to Phnom Pen and brought home our precious little girl, Holly Kaiulani Petersen-Overton. Holly was half Thai and half Cambodian. She completed our family. In SC during school, kids would look at her and literally say: “What are you?, You are not a N****r and you are not a C**nk. Ugh!
Mark Petersen-Overton
Capt, USN (ret)
Monalisa Layan,
Federated States of Micronesia
I lived in Hilo, Hawaii for 7 years while I attended college. There were many kinds and good people that I met. However, there were some that were just plain ugly. As a native Pacific Islander, it was quite strange for me to see someone who is not pure Native Hawaiian–mixed plate as some may say–calling me names and telling me to go back where I came from. It’s even more ridiculous for me to see a Caucasian person yell at me for being racist because I served someone brown before them in a room full of brown people and they were last in line. And in both experiences I’ve learned one thing: it isn’t really racism that drives most people’s hate, it’s the fear of not belonging. Hawaii is literally a place of many, many ethnic groups from all around the world. So when you have someone born and raised “local” who is racist towards you, you have to wonder why they are doing that when they are completely multi-cultural in appearance. Maybe they’re afraid that they don’t fit into a particular ethnic group anymore, so they will use whatever percentage of Native Hawaiian blood they have to speak on behalf of an entire group? And when you have someone who absolutely looks different from everyone else, the white person in a sea of brown, whom you treat like everyone else [because they are human] and yet still thinks you’re singling them out…Maybe they are afraid of everyone else because somehow they think people actually find them offensive? As far as I’m concerned, if you treat me with respect, I will respect you too. If you don’t, then that’s your problem and I will ignore you.
Mia,
Honolulu, HI
I grew up in Hawaii which was a very diverse place. Coming to the mainland I had a lot of people ask me what I was. When I would answer with “Japanese” they wouldn’t believe me. I admit my skin tone is darker than the average Asian person but no matter how many times I answered with “Japanese” no one seemed to believe me. I would constantly get the “But you’re from Hawaii so that means you’re Hawaiian right” and even “You’re really dark for an Asian” which was straight disrespectful in my opinion. Personally, I struggle with whether or not I am “Japanese enough” which makes these comments hit a little close to home. But I am proud to be from Hawaii and that I have a darker skin tone. But just because I am from a different place or look a little different shouldn’t mean that someone can question who I am.
Eryne Tinajero,
Honolulu, HI.
I am biracial. I wasn’t raised with much knowledge of either culture. It’s always tough to visit the two different sides of my family. I feel as if they don’t see me as one of them. I feel like an outsider because I don’t know the cultures. I don’t know the languages. I don’t know the traditions. I don’t know who I’m supposed to be. Sometimes I feel as if I’m missing a big part of my identity.
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