That's right. I'm hapa baby!
For the those who are not familiar with the term, "hapa" is a Hawaiian term used to describe a person of mixed Asian or Pacific Islander ancestry. The term has moved into the American mainstream in the last decade or so, and can be used to describe people like my half-Taiwanese sons, and apparently me.
How is this possible? Well to be honest, I was as surprised to find this out as most of you probably are. However, if you take a look at the photos of my maternal grandfather below, it's probably fair to say that I should have suspected this a while ago ( BTW, the little fellow in the stylish brown threads in the 3rd and 5th photos is me ).
My Grandfather was supposedly 100% German, but looking at the photos above, it's clear that his skin was a little bit darker than the typical German person. Recently, one my cousins on my Mom's side of the family did a little research and found the birth certificate of my Grandfather's mother. My maternal grandfather's mom was born in Jersey City, and her birth certificate listed her ethnicity as German/Filipino. The birth certificate doesn't say what percentage Filipino she was , but I've got to imagine she was half Filipino. My Aunt Barbara tells me that while all her German grandparents were born in the USA, her German great-grandparents were born in Germany. I think it's highly unlikely that one of my German ancestors found a Filipino spouse in Germany, so I would think that my part-Filipino great-grandmother probably had a 100% German parent an a 100% Filipino parent who met in the USA. The fact that she was born in Jersey City lends more credence to this theory. There is a pretty big Filipino population in Jersey City these days ( BTW, Ruth and I lived in Jersey City from July 2002 until the end of September in 2003. Our obstetrician was Filipino, and she delivered Michael in Jersey City in October of 2003. ), and apparently, the history of Filipino folks in Jersey City goes back to the time when my part-Filipino great-grandmother was born.
So, doing a little bit of math tells me that having a half-Filipino great-grandmother would make me one sixteenth Filipino. So, taking this new information into account, I can now say that I'm ....
half Ukrainian
5/16th German
1/8th Irish
1/16th Filipino
Considering that most Filipinos probably have at least a little bit of Spanish blood as well, I'm practically a one-man United freakin' Nations ( my kids even more so )!
Hmm, so I wonder when Keanu's going to invite me to the secret Hapa people dinner party? Of course, they'd probably stick me at a table with painfully unfunny Filipino hapa Rob Schneider, so perhaps I should just lay low for a while.
Rich
Edit: Clearly, I couldn't list every famous hapa in the world in the list at the start of this post. However, as a huge Mets fan, it's inexcusable that I left out Ron Darling.
