Ummm what is a Snarky Hapa?

A lot of people are familiar with the word snarky... which the Oxford English dictionary defines as "critical or mocking in an indirect or sarcastic way; bad-tempered or irritable." Soooo yeah. I have been known to be snarky. I'm other things too... honest, direct, and I like to stand up for myself. As a woman, that gives me all kinds of additional labels but I like snarky.

But many people have never heard the word "hapa" before and don't know what it means. Hapa means "half" in Hawaiian and originally referred to children who were of mixed Hawaiian and caucasian descent - hence the term, hapa haole (half foreigner). After the influx of immigrant plantation workers, the term slowly warped over time locally to refer to anyone who was mixed race, which in Hawaii meant a lot of folks with Asian/White backgrounds as that became the dominant mix. 

When I think about my identity and who I am at my core, the first things that have always come to mind are 1) being half-Japanese and 2) being from and of Hawaii. More than anything else, the cultures, traditions, and values of my family and my home are what shaped me into who I am today and what I stand for. 

And that's where Snarky Hapa came from. It's who I am.