Personal disclosures and other perils of blogging

There has been a disclaimer that I've thought about making for a while, ever since I realized that the readership of this blog has grown beyond my parents and two best friends. But I've hesitated to make it because the academic in me believes that personal disclaimers can sound overly apologetic and/or needing external validation, when the reality of academic writing is that as long as you do the research and the writing is good/analysis is solid, then you don't need the hundred personal caveats and disclaimers.

However, this is a blog and not a piece of academic writing. And there have been a series of observations I've wanted to make--things related to the academic writing that I am doing--and I think that rather than unload all at once in one large unreadable blog post, I will try to unfold them bit by bit, my musings on race and racial representation, that is.

So the first thing to disclose is that while this blog is called "Mixed Race America" and while I do write about and research on many topics related to mixed-race issues, I am, myself, not mixed-race. That is to say, in the racial pentagram of race, I would stick with the single category of "Asian American" and not need to check any other boxes.

[Further disclaimer: Even as I write this, I am uncomfortable with validating the "racial pentagram"--you know, the 5-pronged scheme that has us believing in the coherency of racial categories like "white," "black," "Latino," "Asian American," and "American Indian," because quite frankly ALL races are mixed--there are no "pure" races--and especially a category like "Latino" becomes very problematic to establish as a separate "race" and yet I don't want to ignore the fact that race exists as an organizing principle in so much of our lives that we have come to naturalize it (sigh)--I am doing that thing I hate in some academic writing which is the continual caveat-making and disclaimers, so I'll stop now]

Why do I disclose this now? Because I do write about mixed-race people--specifically mixed-race Asian American subjects (both in terms of the actual people who identify as mixed-race Asian Americans and the academic subject matter of Asian American studies, which is often a mixed-race study, if that makes sense).

And so here's a question for everyone: if I identify as Asian American but not mixed-race Asian American, am I qualified to write about mixed-race Asian American people either on this blog post or in other writing venues? In what ways do we expect a person's personal identity to match up with his/her writing topics? And to push this further, do my mixed-Asian heritage experiences give me "license" (if there is such a thing) to write about mixed-race issues (ie: the fact that I did grow up with a bi- and multi-cultural perspective since my maternal family claims Jamaican heritage/roots)? Do my academic credentials (PhD in English, dissertation written on Asian American literature, professional affiliations in Asian American organizations) qualify me to write about racial topics, Asian American and not, mixed-race and not?

I start here, with my own subject position and identity as well as the subject matter of this blog and my research, because as much as I want to claim that I am thinking in complicated ways about race, I think I continue to have knee-jerk reactions about race and who gets to speak for whom and about which subjects.

Thoughts, anyone?

Warning: the following post is academic

I'm never quite certain how much personal or professional information to share on this blog. And I know I don't want these posts to turn into a kind of "Dear Diary" forum. But I also realize that my one-year "blogiversary" is approaching (mid-May) and that I began this blog as a way to talk about race and American culture as a form of pre-writing for the book I'm working on.

And the decision I made, just today--just a few hours ago--was to re-vamp the entire book project. Because what I realized after talking to a book editor and senior colleague in my field is that the topic of what I wanted to write about is not quite what I am writing about. Let me give you an analogy not in my field. I thought I was writing a book about free-range chickens as a metaphor for the organic food movement, but it turns out that what I'm really interested in is organic farming.

OK, maybe this doesn't make sense...and I'm not comfortable with telling you the specifics of how I'm changing my argument from "M" to "W" (see--I thought it looked like an "M" but it is really a "W" turned upside down).

Anyway, the good news is that I'm still writing about race and mixed-race issues and Asian Americans--at least that's the good news, to me, otherwise the last year of research and writing would feel like it was all for naught.

So I figured that I'd share this with you, especially since many of my readers seem to be people who are familiar with academia, and some of you even know the vagaries of trying to write a book from scratch (this is my first post-dissertation work and in some respects it's liberating not to write with the audience of your grad committee--in other ways, though, it's a bit daunting, especially me being pre-tenure, to think about writing for a book editor/larger audience).

Thanks, dear readers, for indulging my more personal/professional obsessions. I haven't written any real opinion pieces for a week because I've been obsessed with trying to write this book proposal. I've promised someone a copy of it on Friday so maybe by next week I'll have some fresh thoughts to share with you about race and the state of mixed-race America. Lets hope so.

How do I feel about "hapa"?

Someone emailed me a few days ago, in response to the post I wrote about Hyphen Magazine, particularly about the link to the essay by Wei-Ming Dariotis, San Francisco State English professor and specialist in mixed-race Asian American, "hapa" studies, and asked me what I thought of the article.

In the essay, Professor Dariotis explains, very elegantly and powerfully, what the word "hapa" meant to her during her path from graduate school to professordom. And she also charts, clearly and concisely, why she can no longer embrace the term--because it is clouded with colonial implications for the mixed-race Asian Americans who use it, given the particular historic circumstances of Hawaiian colonization (both literal and cultural) and the various forms of appropriation by whites but particularly by Asian-ethnic settlers (like Japanese Americans, Chinese Americans, Filipino Americans, Korean Americans, who make up a racial majority in Hawaii--unlike the continental U.S., Asian Americans are the majority race (over 65%) in Hawaii and are also the power base there), of indigenous Hawaiian culture.

[12/23/12 Update: The link to the original hyphen essay no longer works, but you can find an updated version of the essay on the Mixed Heritage Center's site (click here)]

So what do I think about giving up the word "hapa" to describe mixed-race Asian Americans?

The truth is, I don't have a strong opinion. I can really see both sides. I respect Professor Dariotis and her rationale, but the truth is, I also know a lot of people who really identify, strongly, with the term and see it as a form of empowerment and do not see its colonial history or oppressive implications. And as someone who teaches English, I am aware of the flexibility of language--the way it mutates, and the way that it becomes appropriated by various groups, sometimes for good, sometimes for ill. Language, like people, is fluid--no one truly owns it. We take words out of the context of their original meanings, their original language, and we make them fit into our own linguistic system.

I am sensitive to the situation of indigenous Hawaiians--the ways in which they have been stripped of so much--land, government, culture--so that now taking this piece of their "language" seems like it could be another form of oppressive force.

But what I would also counter with is this: is there not another way to look at this? That instead of seeing the use of the term "hapa" by non Hawaiians as a form of oppression, it is, instead, a sign of respect and homage? If we go in with good intentions (these are never enough, but they can help), if we take this word "hapa" -- not "hapa-haole" (which has a definite historic connotation and context), but "hapa" or "half"--if a group of people who are, themselves, marginalized from mainstream American, English, discourse, finds this word, "hapa," finds that it speaks to them, gives them an identity, gives them a label of their choosing, gives them a home, so to speak, then is it really appropriation? Or can there be good forms of appropriation?

Sort've like the question: are there any benign forms of Orientalism?

I would respect an indigenous Hawaiian person telling me they are offended by my use of the word "hapa" to describe mixed-race Asian Americans. But I would also respect a mixed-race Asian American person who chooses to use "hapa" as an identity marker they take pride in.

Does anyone else want to weigh in?