HAPA JAPAN FESTIVAL 2017 – February 22-26 & Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference – February 24-26
This Year, University of Southern California (USC) is hosting a concurrent mixed festival and conference: the biannual Hapa Japan Festival (mixed-Japanese heritage studies and celebration) and the annual Critical Mixed Race Studies (CMRS) Conference.
Here is the program for the Hapa Japan Fest: http://dornsife.usc.edu/cjrc/hapa-japan-festival-2017/
Here is the program for the Critical Mixed Race Studies Conference: https://criticalmixedracestudies.wordpress.com/cmrs2017-program/
Posted in: academics, Art, Conference, Critical Mixed Race Studies, Event, Hafu ハーフ, Hapa, Hapa Japan Festival
Dream of the Water Children: The Black Pacific 
What a huge conference! The only names I recognized were Maria P.P. Root (I remember visiting her house many years ago) and Kina Grannis, who I âknewâ only through admiring her webvideo âIn Your Armsâ with the jellybean animation. I see that her new webvideo is a performance of âCanât Help Falling in Love.â I remember 40 years ago my friend told me that the way I sang that song made it sound like I was reporting on a tragedy, and, at the time, that was how I meant it: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=kina+grannis &t=ffab&ia=videos&iax=1&iai=COFgTynydQE.
I did not see your name in the programs. Are you going? Anything memorable happen at College of San Mateo?
Best,
Leonard
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Leonard!
I’ll be running a meeting with a few of the prominent presenters, for planning a colloquium for Japanese postwar brides of Americans and their children, to be planned for next year. I will also be helping out. USC will be planning a book launch party for me when my book comes out in the fall, so I will be featured then. I’m kind of glad that I”m not presenting at this one. The program has some great stuff in it. As far as presenting, I don’t have any credibility yet. I’m just starting out. Most of the speakers here have been doing this for *decades,* while others are graduate students studying aspects of mixed-Japan. I have done none of these things, even though identity speaks for itself. So there are several factors. I think once my book comes out, this will help me. By the way—The great commentary you wrote for my manuscript, is featured prominently in much of the upcoming promotional material. It is beautiful. I’ll be at this Festival for the whole time, running the meetings and helping out. This will also give me a chance to meet Mixed-Japanese folks who I’ve been communicating with on Facebook whom I haven’t yet met. One of them, who lives in Japan, is open to possibly doing some work together. He recently visited the Foreigners’ Cemetery in Yokohama, which has been getting quite a bit of attention in Japan in the last few years—where about 900 mixed-race babies from the postwar are buried, without names, which the government has tried to keep secret and has revised many of its history, which has now been challenged by local people there and has now been revealed. So will see how this pans out. Hope you are doing well. Take care.
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I really wish I lived in California!!! I would have loved going to this festival!! I am half Japanese and half Australian and knowing that there is a festival for hafu’s, it makes me feel like I have found my people. I’ll definitely go next year!!!
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