What’s in a name?
Answering that question can be difficult for some multiracial students. So often throughout history, names have been given for us, many of them pejorative, that it becomes difficult for multiracial people to pick just one. I suppose it’s no wonder, then, that when we choose to name ourselves, or the organizations we form, that someone will take an affront to it.
Salim Zymet, in his article “UCLA needs more than just one multiethnic club” (Oct. 12), seems to be simultaneously lamenting the dearth of multiethnic/multiracial organizations as well as the proliferation of others. It is unclear what organizations he may be a member of, if any, although he does make it clear that he “would never fathom joining the Hapa Club because of the word’s association to Asian heritage.”
I have been active in the multiracial community for almost 20 years in various organizations. This community includes multiracial and multiethnic people, interracial couples and trans-racially adoptive families. I believe that the more awareness we raise about the multiracial community, the better society may become.
I may not have the solution to Mr. Zymet’s dilemma, but I can offer up this story. During the early ’90s I was an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley. I joined a student group there called the Multicultural Interracial Students Coalition (MISC) or “miscellaneous” for short. A little tongue-in-cheek, I know, but better than the original name Students of Interracial Descent.
Anyway, after being involved with MISC for a few years, I eventually became its president.
That same year another organization appeared on campus, the Hapa Issues Forum, which was initially geared toward Japanese Americans.
I have to admit that I initially viewed them with some suspicion. They appeared without first consulting with MISC and in full awareness that we existed. At the same time I felt self-conscious about MISC.
Why did there have to be another multiracial club on campus? What was MISC not doing that they were doing? Here I am, trying to build up an organization, and they’re competing for members. And worst of all, what if MISC is coded as the “mulatto” group and HIF is coded as the “hapa” group?
Some of our members who were hapa attended their meetings and reported back. I also got to know the organizers personally and we chatted about our respective missions.
They saw MISC as mostly a support group where multiracial people could comfortably express and develop their multiracial identity.
For the most part this was true. Remember, this was the early ’90s and the climate was different than it is today. “Jungle Fever,” a popular film, portrayed interracial relationships as dangerous, and the federal census still required people to check only one racial box.
The Hapa Issues Forum, on the other hand, was all about action. They formed with the express purpose of engaging the Japanese American community to gain greater acceptance of multiracial Japanese.
This was something that MISC would have had a hard time focusing on, given all our other agenda items. In short, there is a diversity of needs and interests within any community, and an abundance of organizations is a reflection of that. In fact, it is not the symptom of a disease but an indication of a very healthy community.
Ironically, in spite of the Hapa Issues Forum’s initial focus on Japanese Americans, other Asian mixes began gravitating toward them (mixed Koreans, mixed Chinese, etc.) such that they had to take a moment and re-evaluate their purpose to embrace their growing diverse membership.
There’s plenty of room for complimentary groups to coexist, just as there’s plenty of room on this planet for diverse people to coexist.
I don’t think there will ever be a day when one club is able to represent everyone’s interests, and I wouldn’t want to live in that world anyway.
Thomas Lopez
UC Berkeley alumnus