Hapas that don't look Hapa: You don't need the Kanaka to talk to you, when the Aina speaks to you. A personal experience.

TL;DR: You don't need permission from others.

Hello. This is a message from an old man 43, about to be 44, an old Hapa man for anyone of us that don't quite look like what our culture, race are.

I admit I don't look quite mixed. When skinnier, people have said that Josh Hartnett, Patrick Swayze, or a young Kurt Russell could be my twin. When I put on weight, and I hate this... as a teacher, I hate this, "you kinda look like Jack Black!" Grrrr.

Of course, I get the "oh, now I can see it, I thought you were an Islander, but didn't want to say anything because you also look Russian/Italian," or the famous "I knew you weren't quite White all the way, thought you were some kinda Mexicanese/Puerto Ricanese."

People talk about "White privilege" all the time, and yes, I mostly look White, despite the fact that I'm mostly Pake and Kanaka. Genetics are so weird, but it was almost always the people who were excepting were other Haoles. Growing up trying to connect with fellow Asians and Hawaiians, there was a lot of pushback, didn't accept me from them. Which ultimately, I began to become racist even towards my own blood, my own races. I kept it hidden, but being born and raised primarily in the mainland in the midwest and country states... yet also raised very much in a multicultural household... Midwest, country, and local are three totally different mentalities, attitudes. But kept it hidden, especially from my own family, when I'd go visit them on Oahu or they'd come to visit me, because yes, had been the target of racism from my father's side because I didn't look Chinese or Hawaiian enough.

It was 2018 when my father and I visited Oahu, my grandmother, uncles. First time I had visited since I was a teenager (at the time I was mid 30s). Dad asked me how I felt being back, and it just came pouring out... I didn't know how to feel. Because my kapuna (always called her 'puna-long story) was, for the first time as far as I can remember, so nice and loving, accepting (in fact for the first time I remember her telling me she loved me when we left that trip-also this was the time I had found out my mother and my grandmother, there was a lot of animosity there, and it was my mother who didn't want me being close to my father's side of the family, but that's another story). And I told my father all the racism, hatred I carried with me towards the Kanaka and Asians. How 90% of them, when I tried to connect, pushed me away.

Then, if this was a movie, start the emotional "become the chosen one"-music, he told me something shocking, he'd encountered the same. This floored me because my dad basically looks like a Hawaiian version of Jackie Chan with a pinch of Scandinavian. Born and raised until he moved to the mainland in his early/mid 20s. He told me that when he went to Kamehameha, lots of kids who were more Hawaiian than he was, even adults he knew, showed him that disdain because he wasn't 100% looking, or not 100% Kanaka. But he said growing up, his grandmother, who mostly raised him due to my grandmother working a lot, had raised him to be proud, despite those people. She taught him to shut those voices out, to listen to the Aina, and she'll talk to you, even when your own people curse you. He told me to let go of it. Don't listen to the idiots, the racists, that if you listen, she'll love you and she'll know you are one of hers. And doggone it, if that wasn't the case, I almost broke down and cried... even convinced me to move to Hawaii a year later (though only lived for 6 months because couldn't afford it, and finding a job was hard). And thank God my dad had this talk because months later, I went to a tattoo parlor, of a man who was from the Aina, and specialized in Hawaiian tats, claimed he was 100% Kanaka, and then proceeded to tell me how Hapas are ruining the culture.

Fast forward to today, have an old leader, a man I love and will follow even to this day. He's Black, his ex-wife Hawaiian, his kids obviously Hapas. He asked me, because his kids are now adults, and trying to find their way in what race and culture they are, because they have faced racism from both sides of their family (his and his ex-wife's, as well as others in their own race and outside). His son especially is trying to connect with his Kanaka roots, and asked my advice on this. Repeating what my father said, I told my friend that first thing your kids need to know, what my father said, is they don't need permission from anyone to be what they are. They're Hapa. Whether or not they will be accepted by anyone.

So basically, this is for anyone out there, like my friend's children and I, there will be critics, there will be racists of every race (including your own blood). What matters, you don't need permission. And yes, we have to learn about our cultures, and respect them, but you'll find, especially on the Aina, 15 people contradict one another of this or that, but side with each other if you speak your mind, if you don't look like them or were raised on the islands. You don't need permission. When the Aina talks to you, it doesn't matter what the hateful say. You don't need permission.