Among the more than 300 student organizations at Tufts, there are many geared toward specific ethnicities and cultures. Tufts Hapa, a new group on campus, is working to become the only one intended to represent mixed race students.
In 2000, the United States Census was changed to allow citizens to check multiple boxes of racial identification, and the 2010 Census showed a 28 percent increase in interracial households. Tufts Hapa hopes to reflect these changes on campus.
Tufts Hapa aims to create a community of mixed race peoples of part Asian descent, according to President Joseph Wat, a senior. The club is currently in the process of receiving recognition by the Tufts Community Union (TCU) and has the support of the Asian American Center.
Tufts Hapa executive board member and senior Stephanie Howell explained that the start of her involvement in Tufts Hapa stemmed from the instability of past multiracial organizations on campus.
"There was a multicultural group at Tufts before, [Multiracial Organization of Students at Tufts (MOST)], but it kind of fell apart. So we really want to make sure that this is a more permanent group," she said. "I met [Wat] very early on my freshman year. There were a few of us in Houston [Hall], and it was just so exciting to meet other Hapas. I wanted to make sure [the group] was something that did get off the ground."
The term Hapa loosely refers to a racial mixture that is part Asian, but continues to evolve and be redefined. Wat explained the origins of the word.
"Hapa originally came from an ultimately pretty racist system in Hawaii," he said. "It originally meant someone from elsewhere or half-Asian or Pacific Islander, half-white. It was part of the term HapaHaole, where haole meant foreigner, and hapa was used as a phrase that is an additionally defining adjective."
Wat attests that the phrase has developed over time.
"It means a different concept now," Wat said. "You can be half-Asian, half-black and be Hapa. It's important to recognize it's being used in a new way. It's not a re-appropriation but a re-contextualization."
Other Tufts Hapa members also appear to have a flexible approach in defining the term.
"I think it's any kind of mixture of culture," senior Tobias Reeuwijk said. "You can be completely white, but if you love Japanese culture and are accepting of other cultures, then that's Hapa to me. I don't think you have to be half-white, half-Asian. Hapa is not exclusionary."
Reeuwijk believes that there is a misconception that exclusion is a byproduct of ethnic clubs and this leads to resistance to such organizations, including a mixed-race club.
"People feel almost alienated from us because they're not like us. That's not what we're trying to do at all," Reeuwijk said. "We're about accepting culture, accepting differences. We're interested in all these other cultures ... It's about how we're all similar because we're different and it's about accepting your differences."
Tufts Hapa's faculty support, Assistant Professor of Economics Arthur Chiang, commented on the difficulty of achieving the balance between maintaining pride in ethnicity and solely defining oneself by it, which is particularly tricky for people of a mixed-race heritage.
"I think the basis of [your] social life shouldn't be based on your race ... It's certainly a concern, everyone just fracturing into their own little [ethnic] groups. Of course, at the same time, no matter what background you have, you should feel some pride in your culture," Chiang said. "It's a little bit harder if you're mixed, so I think a good thing for this club is the celebration of Hapa culture. It's not an exclusionary thing, but more about learning about our experiences."
Chiang is eager to become more involved now, as he has talked in past semesters to Hapa students throughout the process of forming the group.
"I hope to be a resource and encourage other students to aspire to be whatever they want to be," Chiang said.
Likewise, group members are passionate about the club and its future, especially since it carries personal meaning for many executive-board members.
"Being Hapa has always been an identity struggle," Howell said. "Just kind of trying to figure out what you are when you don't look like either of your parents."
The question of identity is consistent among other students as well.
"I had wanted to start this group for a long time. It was about recognizing this self identity that I had grown for myself," Wat said. "I struggle to call them struggles but at the same time ... I had never filled a space where I felt like a majority. That doesn't even exist inside my own house, so finding that space and creating that space is very important to me."
Professor of History Gary Leupp notes a feeling of alienation throughout the history of people of mixed-race descent. He gives an example of an epitaph written in 1680 by PieterHartsinck, the son of a Dutch merchant and a Japanese woman.
According to Leupp, the epitaph is in St. Jakob's Church in Osterode, Lower Saxony, Germany, detailing that Hartsinck and his mother were born in the East and his father in Europe.
Leupp quoted Hartsinck, "My destiny varied from the beginning ... I left my homeland early in life to find my father's country. But I could not find my true home." Leupp explained that Hartsinck accomplished much in his life, even translating Descartes' work into Latin from French, but his identity struggles are evident in his epitaph.
Yet Hartsinck was not alone. Leupp, who has mainly focused his research on Japan, points out that the history of Japanese Hapa culture dates back to as early as 1543, originating from a relationship between a Portuguese man and a Japanese woman.
"Looking at the relations between Portuguese and Japanese, I found that there was essentially a surprising relationship of respect in that although the Japanese regarded the Portuguese as barbarians,
they still wound up not only having relations with Japanese women,
but marrying women of status and having children with them," Leupp said. "The Portuguese recognized the Japanese as equals to themselves, or near equals."
Reflecting on Hartsinck's emotional epitaph, Leupp attests that there have been periods of discrimination against Japanese mixed-race peoples and relationships throughout history.
"In the 1630s, first when the Portuguese were expelled, several hundred Portuguese men and their Japanese or half Japanese wives or children were deported to Macau," Leupp said. "And then, a few years later, the Dutchmen who were married to Japanese women and their children were expelled to Batavia, what is now Jakarta in Indonesia. It was a kind of ethnic cleansing to get rid of these half-Japanese children."
This line between acceptance and rejection seems to be characteristic of Leupp's study of Hapa history. In modern times, this history is still being written and leaning toward acceptance, according to Leupp.
Chiang agrees that trends are moving toward multiculturalism.
"There are more interracial couples. Internationally, the global economy is much more linked," Chiang said. "But at the same time, a lot of your experience will depend on where you're from, not just geographically but socioeconomically. Some parts of the world have more diversity than others."
The West Coast, for example, has a large population of Hapas, especially in Hawaii. Reeuwijk references the significance of this diversity on his own experiences.
"Being in Hawaii helped me be more comfortable with my multiculturalism," Reeuwijk said. "Everything there is so multicultural ... There is a lot of cultural crossover. That made me okay with my identity, and accepting of everyone else's."
Wat hopes the group will be a forum to discuss these complex and emotional topics.
"It's easier to say you don't look like me than you do look like me," Wat said. "Because of that I feel like no one has ever walked up to me and been like, 'You, you belong here.' I want to build something to do that."
