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Hapa Tales and Other Lies: A Mixed Race Memoir About the Hawai‘i I Never Knew
by
In her first work of literary nonfiction, Sharon H. Chang reflects critically on her Asian American, Mixed Race, and activist identity through the prism of returning to Hawai‘i as a tourist. While visiting O‘ahu and Kaua‘i she considers childhood trips to Maua‘i and the Big Island, pop culture and Hollywood movies of her youth that perpetuated Hawaiian stereotypes, and wha
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Paperback, 210 pages
Published
September 15th 2018
by Rising Song Press
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Hapa Tales and Other Lies is a captivating memoir by Sharon H. Chang that reflects on what Hawai'i has meant to Chang throughout her life as a Mixed Race woman of Asian and white descent. During a family vacation to Hawai'i, Chang sees the island through new woke eyes. Her book begins with recognition that Hawai'i was a land nurtured by Native Hawaiians for two millennia and she brings light to the Hawaiian Sovereignty Movement. By her gifted storytelling, she relates experiences that are poigna
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Sep 16, 2018
Sherry
rated it
really liked it
Recommends it for:
Anyone ready to learn beyond binary views of race
Calling all people whose work or interests touch on diversity and equity: You need Sharon Chang's engaging observations on Hawaiian colonization, its problematic relationship with mixed-race people, and what that means for all of us. Her perspective as a mixed-race mainland woman offers us a nuanced, intersectional commentary like none I've seen.
If you've ever felt uncomfortable being a tourist--but couldn't quite express why--allow this book to give voice to that discomfort. Chang sheds light ...more
If you've ever felt uncomfortable being a tourist--but couldn't quite express why--allow this book to give voice to that discomfort. Chang sheds light ...more
Sharon Chang’s memoir Hapa Tales and Other Lies provides captivating snippets from the West Coast-based Asian Mixed writer’s life while it documents her unfolding awareness of the oft problematic nature of our relationship with Hawaii. It’s a meditation on the author’s experience growing up Mixed in the continental U.S., as well as an exploration of the complicated history of Asians/Mixed Asians in Hawaii.
Chang deconstructs the myth of Hawaii as a post-racial paradise populated by “happy hapas. ...more
Chang deconstructs the myth of Hawaii as a post-racial paradise populated by “happy hapas. ...more
I recently quit going to therapy as I felt that my therapist (a white man who was born and raised in Seattle) was simply unable to understand most of my struggles which come from a search for identity and place as a mixed race woman in a nation that loves to categorize people by the color of their skin. Then this beautiful book fell into my life. It is so amazing to see the same thoughts that rattle through my head written out in a very real book on what it means to consistantly be tied to an is
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I was predisposed to like this book. I'm the same age as the author, mixed-race and grew up on the West Coast. I hoped this book would be an exploration of what it means to be hapa/mixed, and/or teach me something about the history of Hawai'i. The book does neither of these things.
On page 111, the author writes that being a Biracial Asian person makes her feel, "amorphous and empty." She fills that empty space with guilt and anxiety.
I didn't expect this to be a fun read, but I thought it would ...more
On page 111, the author writes that being a Biracial Asian person makes her feel, "amorphous and empty." She fills that empty space with guilt and anxiety.
I didn't expect this to be a fun read, but I thought it would ...more
The perfect book to read if you want to go beyond the tourist definition of Hawaii. Thank you, Sharon, for much-needed perspective and insight!
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SHARON H. CHANG is an award-winning Author Photographer Activist with a lens on racism, social justice and the Asian American diaspora. She is author of the critically acclaimed academic book Raising Mixed Race: Multiracial Asian Children In a Post-Racial World and her newly released memoir, Hapa Tales and Other Lies: A Mixed Race Memoir About the Hawai’i I Never Knew. Her writing has also appeare
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