My daughter and I were at Chicago's Field Museum for a kid's theater show, and we happened to pass by this photo exhibit of portraits of people who are part Asian. It's a selection of images from Kip Fullbeck's Hapa Project. He also has a book titled the same as the exhibit.
It was interesting to see so many different faces who are all part Asian and to read the descriptions of how people define themselves personally. My daughter was too hungry for lunch to take the time to look at each photo, but I did wonder how much she has considered being "other." As far as I know, she is the only mixed race child in her class, and she knows that Mommy is Korean, and Daddy is not, and she is both.
I doubt she's given it much thought, and I'm not sure what guidance I can provide in encouraging her to reflect on her identity as she grows older. I hope our postmodern sensibilities will allow us to embrace the complexity and seeming contradiction of having a racial makeup of certain proportions that do not equate to how one actually identifies oneself. I don't know how my daughter will take her "half Korean-ness" and "half Caucasian-ness" and integrate them into an identity that is holistic and truly her own self; I just hope I can be the support she needs on that journey.
~ Sarah-Ji
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In addition to the Hapa Project, Kip Fullbeck has a newer project called MIXED which features portraits of mixed race children and is also out in book form.
To see if there is an exhibit of either project near you, click here.
