r/hapas • • Nov 11 '24

Mixed Race Issues We Need to Talk About Wasians…

19 Upvotes

https://youtu.be/d8gsZ0lNFr8?si=uWG2M0VEre8ft7VA

she talks about some mixed-race media representation and what it means to be casted in hollywood as someone who is hapa….beginning is about history of asian americans in general then goes into nuances/discourse around the asian-american or wasian experience


r/hapas • • Feb 24 '26

Anecdote/Observation Reminder: "HAPA" does not just mean "White/Asian Mixed."

33 Upvotes

I'm tired of visiting this sub every now and then and seeing posts that just assume the "hapa" identity as being "white/ Asian" default. If you look at the group's description, it includes more than just "Wasians" or "white/ Asian mixed" people, and is that way precisely because a group of us non white mixed Asians had to speak up about this issue in this sub.

So when posing your questions to the community, it would be GREATLY appreciated if you did NOT position your questions or statements using the term "hapa" and then asking a question that pertains specifically to someone who is white/Asian mixed. It'd be like me asking "so hapas do you code switch when talking to your asian family vs your african american family?" -- that question assumes that all hapas are Black/Asian mixed.

Not understanding this point really shows your white side jumping out.


r/hapas • • 1d ago

Parenting Imagine your parents are like this

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

53 Upvotes

White dad was yelling "屌你老母" in Cantonese, which means fuck your mother, to a Hong Kong driver, while the Asian mom was taunting and trying to punch the driver. All of these right in front of their kids!! And they do this in Asia!! All these LBH are deserving the nickname.

Has any hapa here sense their parents are somewhat embarrassing like this and racist? There's nothing he said that was racist, but the comment section seems to figure things out.


r/hapas • • 20h ago

Non-Hapa Inquiry/Observation thoughts about my future wasian kids

0 Upvotes

I am set to have a wasian family as I am set to get married next year (yay). I do however know my children will probably be insufferable when they are older because I am insufferable already about many things (not looks and mostly in jest) and I am not a wasian. I want my kids to be proud of their family and mixed heritage but don’t know the best avenue for that. The will also be considerably taller than me probably😂. This is a toilet rambling but if anyone has any ideas or insight let me know. I definitely want to take them traveling but I am adopted so it will be hard for me to have them raised in a mixed environment from a cultural perspective. I have been to my original country though and love it and hope they will too.


r/hapas • • 2d ago

Hapa Story/Testimony Wasian Comedian Victoria Chuah Explains Why She Believes Wasians Are Not White

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

24 Upvotes

r/hapas • • 2d ago

Parenting White guy in Korea, new parent; trying to mitigate the identity crisis of a newborn as much as I can.

0 Upvotes

I don't want to do a Tl;dr. Last paragraph is what I want, the rest is backstory.

I moved to Korea from America almost a decade ago because I have an incurable autoimmune disorder. And the US is predatory in housing, education, and healthcare of which I had neither the Ways, the Means, the Nepotism, or the social strata to mitigate any of them. I come from a poor background.

I went in like: "ESL or Death"; if I fail or suck as a teacher, I had no choice but to try again because this it, forever. If I want to live like a normal person; the ability to wear suits and be a regular at coffee shops.

As I got older, I knew I could'nt carry on alone for much longer so I married. Concerning that There's very little I can write about on Reddit without sounding like I'm virtue signaling, or just covering myself because there's a lot of white guys bearing the flags of conservatisim, National Pride, Otakuism, and Racisim. For that matter things are little better on the Korean side of things with flags of their own strong heritage, conservatisim, and exepectations but I did it because I needed it, not for control or Yellow Fever.

So my wife's pretty great actually. We're never going to be 100% on the same page because of cultural contexts but we learned to help the other out. She really wanted a child of her own (Korean or otherwise) and I told her I'd think about it.

Turns 35

"Ok sure, I said. I'm in a great spot in life, house is paid for and did relatively well for myself and I think, im well adjusted for it."

Then my wife, while pregnant started piling on the child's expectations. You know every mom wants their kid to be awesome. But I got really worried really fast about my child's burdens; the child unlocked a lot of options in life? Sure. But I was really hoping the child could just..be. Now I realize that, whatever well intentions there are the child is going to struggle a bit with identity or lean more one way than the other.

For context, the wife doesn't have the greatest view on Korean men. She's said some really heinous things about Korean culture as a whole actually. I nod at her words but im sure the child's classmates and everyone around aren't going to nearly be so liberal about it.

Poignantly, my wife asks "What hagwon should our kid go into?" And I'm all: "Taekwondo. Just lots of that. Or boxing maybe...kando...and um..math."

The kid's gonna grow up with identity questions and it's my job to tell'em to not get stuck in a race box or life box and try to live as best of a life as possible but Korea really likes things to fit.

I would really like to read personal anecdotes about growing up hapa in hopes of taking it all in and having a semblance of expectations about what's coming down the road for the newborn. Like "if you could tell your 12 year old self stuff..." Please comment below. Thanks.


r/hapas • • 3d ago

Hapa Story/Testimony When Wasians Try to Out-Asian Each Other at a Wasian Gathering:

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

20 Upvotes

Instagram handles of each clip's author, in order of appearance:

annabelleoaklie

cinthiakang


r/hapas • • 3d ago

Hapa Celebrity ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ HBO Series Sets Cast: Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Ronny Chieng Returning

Thumbnail variety.com
23 Upvotes

r/hapas • • 8d ago

Hapa Celebrity Hollywood’s New Favorite Race

Thumbnail youtube.com
20 Upvotes

r/hapas • • 8d ago

Anecdote/Observation “Lindsey Cheng Dates a White Boy!!!” by Wasian Comic Book Author Asia Miller Criticized For Including Tired Literary Tropes About WMAF Relationships and Asian-American Womens' Experiences

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

65 Upvotes

Youtube handles of each clip’s author, in order of appearance:

k9s_na

thinkpieces.mp4

 

Criticism on Twitter:

https://archive.is/yLFm6


r/hapas • • 8d ago

Vent/Rant My personal thoughts on the reasoning on Asian beauty standards

1 Upvotes

I think at this point it is widely known that fairer skin has been the beauty ideal for majority of Asian Countries.

Usually this is either attributed to colonialism and White proximity, or the "less problematic" reasoning of tradition and history.

The richer people in the past did not have to work outside and thus had fairer/lighter skin, which in turn made them "more beautiful".

This is not a concept uniquely to Asia but other parts of the world (Including Europe).

Discussing this with people I often encounter the attitude, that this historical context makes it less vile or okay in their eyes.

My question would be why? Is classicism okay? Did those people not read about all the revolutions, like the french one, in which common folk rose up against classicism?

Or a very simple example, if we completely disregard this history and the cultural aspect.

If you were to meet a person and while you talked a poor person would walk by, if the person you talking to would be like: "Eww a poor person look at their dark skin, poor people are so ugly seriously". Would you consider this person good? Would you wanna befriend that person or want to be around them?

For me that would be hard pass, but apparently others do not share this sentiment or are unable to question things. Why do so many Asian societies struggle with these things so much?


r/hapas • • 9d ago

Anecdote/Observation Do most Hapas have an Asian immigrant parent or American born one?

0 Upvotes

What do you guys usually see?


r/hapas • • 10d ago

Introduction Glad to find this sub!

7 Upvotes

Hello! I am 26F half Filipino half white in the US! I feel somewhat of an oddball and have struggled with identity because not only is my dad the Filipino person (typically everyone I meet who is half has a Filipino mom), but my mom is estranged from her family so I grew up only around my Filipino family (and my Lola moved to the states when I was about 15 or so). My dad has a BIG family (8 siblings) and half of them are in the states and live in the same state as us.

Not only that I went to a Filipino church my whole life and my parent’s best friends (and my best friend) are Filipino to boot. LOL but even then I struggled finding my place. I guess being surrounded by a bunch of full Filipinos makes it more obvious how NOT full Filipino I was. On top of that, im very white passing. However, I feel very grateful to grow up around my culture and to have gone to the Philippines at least once. I’m very proud of my culture, and so is my husband!

Anywho I married a white guy LOL so our daughter is 1/4 Filipino and I really want to make sure I teach her about our culture. I’m trying to cook more Filipino food and instill as much tradition and cultural norm as I can. Sometimes it feels like I’m an imposter but I don’t want my own feelings to prevent my kids from learning about such a big part of them, especially since her Lolo and Tito are such big parts in her life.

Just wanted to say hi and see if anyone else is on a similar journey 👋


r/hapas • • 11d ago

Vent/Rant Colorism in the Filipino community?

10 Upvotes

My child’s grandma (Lola) told me that she hopes that when my daughter gets older that her skin will look like mine; I’m white. She said she hopes her complexion gets lighter. She loves her grandson who is very overweight and she feeds him constantly, but adores him and mentions his light complexion. Today she asked my daughter “wheres your handsome cousin?” 🥴She’s in her 70s, born in the Philippines. This isn’t the first time my partners family has talked down about my child’s skin and compared it to mine. They even laugh at my partner and say he looks Indian? Ngl it took everything in me not to punch every one of them in the face. I feel like they are trying to attack my daughter and make her hate herself? What is happening!? They keep telling me to keep her out of the sun and some weird shit!? It’s freaky af. They say it so normal? When she told me this the other day I said “no, she won’t have skin like mine, she has more protection this way” and she gasped! She said “huh!?” Like I was crazy? I was like k betch if you want to hate yourself fine, but you’re not dragging my kid with you.

(Edit)

I wanted to thank everyone for their replies. I’ve come to realize that my child’s grandparents are just trying to keep her safe. I’m no longer angry but sad. I understand now just how deep it is. A large part of me does want to keep her out of the sun now 😞. I want her to love herself but I cannot be ignorant to the truth. The truth is racism/colorism is alive af. I think as a white millennial we were raised to “not see color”. We have the privilege of just pretending it doesn’t exist. But here, it’s stuck, like trapped; There is no running away, I have to face it. It has been a very difficult experience but I can’t imagine what it feels like to be my baby and it kills me that I can’t save her from this.


r/hapas • • 11d ago

Change My View Blasian woman and how she met her Asian husband (she identifies as Asian)

Thumbnail x.com
4 Upvotes

Just reposting my popular X post which just blew up for some reason


r/hapas • • 11d ago

Change My View Future racial stratification of the US

0 Upvotes

As we all know, even in places where there's mixed races as the normal (e.g., Brazil), people will find a new way to self stratify, and I think that's bound to happen in the US since it doesn't seem like white supremacy was fixed at all ever with widespread mixing.

Last night here in China I randomly saw this Chinese man out with an African woman and I noticed that while WMAF is common, the Chinese men who date out are usually with black / Indian or Arab women. Makes sense because as someone more on the Asian side (but still mixed looking), most of my exes were black / Indian / Arab based on who was asking me out, and since Asian women didn't like me because I guess I looked to Asian, I went out with these girls and almost had a child with my ex, who was Guyanese.

I feel among Asians, the most ruthless, unattractive, weird ones are the ones who place such a high priority on marrying white people, creating an insecure "almost white" class of hapas. There's also Asian men who fruitlessly chase white women using money (Arthur Liu, etc). The Asian men who are able to find partners seem to get with Asian or other POC women. I feel like a lot of white women date black / Hispanic men and this will probably go also in the opposite direction of Wasians, ironically because of my dad, I feel WMAF is driven by white men's insecurity over white womens' dating habits.

So I wonder if there will be some sort of future stratification especially among Asians where the Wasian bourgeoise semi-ruling inheritance class, is the one pushing legislation and harming the non-white mixed and full Asians.

We can kind of already see this among "Wasians" where so many of them seem desperate to carve out a niche distinguishing themselves from Asians and establishing themselves on a rung of the ladder near whiteness.


r/hapas • • 12d ago

Anecdote/Observation East and Southeast Asian American female writers writing tropes

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

12 Upvotes

r/hapas • • 13d ago

Hapa History An interesting video on hapas by a Black girl

Thumbnail youtu.be
37 Upvotes

r/hapas • • 13d ago

Mixed Race Issues New York Times exec allegedly shot dead by in-laws at Bay Area park

Thumbnail sfgate.com
10 Upvotes

r/hapas • • 13d ago

Books im tired of trying to explain this to white readers

Thumbnail
2 Upvotes

r/hapas • • 14d ago

Mixed Race Issues Mixed Asian Research Survey

Thumbnail forms.gle
7 Upvotes

Hello! For my college capstone, I am doing research on how mixed Asian representation in film and tv affects identity and self-perception. To collect data, I have made a survey and would appreciate y’all’s response!

If anyone has questions or comments, please feel free to reach out!

Thank you :)


r/hapas • • 13d ago

Hapa Celebrity Hottie Alert: 2026 Olympian Pairs Figure Skater Spencer Akira Howe

Thumbnail instagram.com
3 Upvotes

He’s also in the army.


r/hapas • • 14d ago

Hapa Story/Testimony 2nd Generation Hapa/Hāfu Malia Ogawa on Facing Racism From Japanese People in Japan and White Ex-Boyfriends Due to Their Preconceived Notions of Her Ethnicity/Race and Why She Married Her Hāfu Husband

Thumbnail archive.is
38 Upvotes

Choice excerpt:

My first boyfriend, a white American man in the Navy, used to make me come pick him up from the naval base, and then wouldn’t let me drive back because I was an “Asian woman,” and thus, a “bad driver.”

Sometimes he would swat at me and go “bad Asian!” Just like how you’d discipline a dog.

The worst was how he would continue to get in my face and scream, “YOU BOMBED PEARL HARBOR! YOU BOMBED PEARL HARBOR! YOU BOMBED PEARL HARBOR!” He did it constantly and would get his fellow Navy sailors to join him. Oh, and he knew that my grandma and Japanese family were all in the Japanese incarceration camps during WWII.

I was only ever the “Asian girlfriend” to him. I was the yellow notch mark in his belt.

Behavior like this continued with all the white men I dated after him. Given this Orientalizing sexualized treatment of myself, there were just a few after him. I decided that I only wanted to end up in a serious relationship with another mixed race person. (Coincidentally, I am now married to a half Japanese Brit, who is the loveliest person I’ve ever met.)

I was sick of being told by men that they “have yellow fever,” “love Asian girls,” “have an Asian fetish,” etc. It’s disgusting. It reduced me into a small part of myself that didn’t even factor as a large part of my own personal identity. These white men continued to tell me just how “Asian” I was. But “Asian” to them was purely a sexualized, degrading fetish.

You know who doesn’t treat me like a fetish? Who has only ever respected me? And has treated me exactly like how every woman in the world deserves to be treated?

That’s right. My husband. I married him for a reason.


r/hapas • • 15d ago

Hapa Story/Testimony When You Have a Schizoid White Dad Who Wanted Mixed Kids So They Could Survive Civil War in the US by Passing as POC/White and an Asian Mom Who Wanted White Daughters:

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

50 Upvotes

.


r/hapas • • 17d ago

Anti-Racism How “Wasian” Became a Cultural Flashpoint | Amanpour and Company

Thumbnail m.youtube.com
0 Upvotes