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2013 Research Showcase Karla Lucht | [email protected] A "Mixed" Bag: Searching for Hapa Characters in Youth Literature
2013 Research ShowcaseKarla Lucht | [email protected]
A "Mixed" Bag: Searching for Hapa Characters in Youth
Literature
Defining “Hapa”
• Mixed Race• “Two or more races” (U.S. Census Bureau).• 9 million individuals identified themselves as mixed-race. • 2.6 million Americans identified themselves as part Asian.
• “Hapa”• Defined as “part” or “mixed,” with no racial or ethnic
meaning.• Stems from the phrase “hapa haole.”• Commonly used to describe Asian Pacific Islanders of mixed
race heritage.
The Search
LOC Subject HeadingRacially mixed people – FictionRacially mixed people – Juvenile FictionRacially mixed children – Fiction
Subject Indices
Search Engine Keywords
Folksonomies
Keyword Frenzy
Asian Americanmixed-race
hapaAsian Canadian
blasian
Eurasian
Multi-racial
biracial
Amerasian
orientalAfro-asian
Racially-mixed
“When my mother met my father, she was a Japanese schoolgirl and he was an American sailor.”
-How My Parents Learned to Eat
“She was both Vietnamese and American—but she felt like a nobody.”
-The Face in my Mirror cover
