I was sitting in class the other day chattering to a friend about my Passover plans when the Hawaiian girl next to me, Leah Lau, leaned over and said that she was also Jewish. I did a double take, drinking in her features and wavering tan line. Her mom is a Jewess from the east coast and her father’s a Chinese American. She’s what the Hawaiians call a hapa, literally meaning half. And evidently she’s not the only one. According to the records of the University of Hawaii there are an estimated 10,000 Jews living in Hawaii. The seemingly endless varieties, colors, traditions, and lifestyles that are all Jewish never cease to astound me. Goodness, do we like to spread out and procreate or what?
Especially since our multiracial President rose to the limelight, words like biracial and multicultural have become everyday adjectives. For those of us that enjoy the complexities and headaches of being a hyphenated Jew, mixing cultures like finger-paints to live the unique shade of our identity, being a hapa can be both a source of pride and of confusion.
I asked Leah to share with me a little bit about what it’s like to be a Hawaiian Jew. And this is what she said:
“Growing up in Hawaii I was even more of a minority than I would have been on the mainland. I don’t think many people my age growing up even knew what a Jew was, let alone have any stereotypes about them. I don’t “look” Jewish at all, my Chinese side has reflected straight hair, yellow skin, and squinty eyes when I smile. My mixed heritage of being Asian European Jew is surprisingly common in Hawaii, as are different mixes of native Hawaiians, Filipinos, blacks, and Native Americans. I’d rather have multiple sides to my cultural identity. Although I don’t identify with my Chinese culture as much as I do my Jewish, it allows me to maintain perspective. I like being a multicultural Jew, in Hawaii it ironically helped me avoid being picked on, since whites are discriminated against. I like that I can experience a whole different spectrum of traditions.
I attended a Jewish preschool, Sunday school, Wednesday school, President of the temple youth group HOOTY (Honolulu Oahu Organization of Temple Youth). Since I was 10 all my holidays have been strictly Jewish (no Christmas etc) I plan to continue this until further notice. I know it’s a long ways away, but in the future I don’t think I’d be able to raise my children any other way.”
The ever-rising rates of intermarriage within American Jewish communities means that this idea of the Jewish hapa is here to stay. In fact, the results of a nationwide Gallup survey suggest that Jewish hapas may be the happiest people in America.
