A MARTÍNEZ, BYLINE: Nearly 10% of people in the United States are of mixed race - that's according to the latest census. That is a 276% increase from just a decade before. In the Hawaiian language, there's a word for people who are mixed - hapa.
KIP FULBECK: Basically, hapa means half or portion.
MARTÍNEZ: That is photographer Kip Fulbeck. He's hapa himself - half Chinese and half white.
FULBECK: It's a transliteration of the English word half. There's no sound of F in Hawaiian language, so it's the pronunciation of half. And it was originally used to describe offspring of people that were from white settlers and Indigenous Hawaiians Kanaka Maoli.
MARTÍNEZ: Fulbeck spent the last 25 years working on The Hapa Project - a series of portraits of people who identify as multiracial. Each photo is accompanied by the subject's handwritten answer to a question about their identity. Now, the first iteration of the project in 2001 featured photos from some 1,200 people. Now, the series is back with Fulbeck revisiting some of the original participants to see how their thoughts about being mixed race have changed over time. Fulbeck says this project was born out of his own hapa identity and never knowing which box to check.
FULBECK: It was tough being an Asian kid where I grew up, and so I would check white sometimes. But then I was obviously not passing for white, and so I would check one, check the other. Sometimes there would have this other box that said, other, please explain, and I would just write no. And it wasn't until, like, I think it was 2000 where the U.S. Census actually allowed people to check more than one box. So, you know, for 35 years of my life, I wasn't able to even legally do that for my own - in my own country.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, when you started to conceive the project - The Hapa Project - what were you hoping, at first, that it would look like, that it would be like?
FULBECK: I was heavily influenced by two artists - one, Jim Goldberg, who was this great photographer in San Francisco. He does work on people and they write their handwriting. And I saw his work on people in nursing homes, and it just stuck with me how important the written word was. And then Lynda Barry, the great comic artist, who was just so honest in her work, exploring her own identity as a Filipino American. And so I thought I would just do this project and I never really wanted to get off the ground because with my crazy ADD, I thought, oh, I can never organize this. And I had a girlfriend at the time and I told her the project and she's, like, this is a great idea. And I'm, like, hon, it's too much trouble. And she's, like, If you don't do it, someone else is going to do it and you're going to hate how they do it. You're going to be so angry. I'm, like, yeah, you're right. So I started to do it. And I was really amazed that, you know, I'd make an announcement and there's 30 people at the door waiting to get photographed. And the way the people came in and really just jumped into this project really astounded me. I was surprised.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, when you look at these portraits, they're essentially the same - taken from the shoulders up. Fulbeck says he did this on purpose. He wanted everyone to be photographed the same way without any external identifiers.
FULBECK: Meaning no clothing, no jewelry, no glasses, no, like, you know, no purposeful expression. It's just collarbone up. You know, we carry driver's licenses and ID cards and, you know, passports, gym memberships, and we use this to define ourselves to say, I really am who I am. We have to do that all the time - prove who you are. And so I wanted to take - you know, take that and flip it and let people, you know, have their own pictures. And then I have them handwrite a response to the question, what are you? And I don't ever censor what they write.
MARTÍNEZ: So I'll just say the thing that the person in the first picture that you see when you go to the website says, I am a challenge for the simple mind to try and make sense of labels, prejudice and stereotypes. And then the update is, I am a person of color. I am not half-white. I am not half-Asian. I am a whole other. So it is a true evolution of maybe how they feel about themselves, how they feel about the way the world sees them.
FULBECK: Yeah, it's - I think that's accurate. Identity is internal but it's also this external way we relate with others. And so I think as we become more comfortable in our skin and our place in the world and where we fit in, that depends where you're living, too. If I'm living in Santa Barbara, it's very different from when I'm living in Hawaii.
MARTÍNEZ: And so this project is now a quarter of a century in. I mean, you clearly, I think, kept up with some of these people. Have their perspective changed in that time being part of this?
FULBECK: Oh, absolutely. I've never had a problem with people wanting to come back to it. And you see, like, physical changes on them, obviously. But you also see these changes in attitude as we sort of mature and we grow and we change as adults. And I remember I photographed one woman, Teresa (ph), and she was, like, I think, 22 and then around 38. And I looked at the photos together. I made a diptych and I said, Teresa, how do you look better and younger, you know, 18 years later? And she goes, oh, my 20s were hard, man. Twenties sucked.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. Now, so one thing we noticed looking at your project over time is that the word hapa is being reclaimed or reinterpreted. What do you make of that?
FULBECK: Well, I think that language is always a constant evolution. It evolves. It changes. It - I've had people say, well, hapa means this, or, no, hapa means this. You know, it means only people that are part Hawaiian. It means it's only people that are part Japanese. And to me, it's like, it's not our place to tell someone else who they are. You're the only person who gets to define who you are. You get to say that 'cause if you don't say who you are and define it correctly, other people are going to do it for you, and they're going to do it wrong.
MARTÍNEZ: (Laughter) Yeah. The United States, there's plenty of people in the United States that are intermarrying more and more, and it's been going on for decades. What's your advice to parents raising hapa kids, and even grandparents? 'Cause I'll admit to you, Kip, my granddaughters are half-Japanese, and they are very much aware of that side of their identity. But they also - you know, I'm trying my best to try and help them, too. I enroll them in Japanese language classes so that they can kind of keep track of that part of their life and their culture. But what's your advice to parents who are raising hapa kids?
FULBECK: You know, that's the million-dollar question. As a parent myself, I sort of ask myself this all the time. People have asked, like, you know, do you talk to your kids about being hapa? And I was, like, I don't. And they said, why? I go, because they're dealing with dad doing this all over the world. It's like, they don't want to hear about this. My kids they want to play Fortnite. You know, they just want to be kids. So I always just tell parents you just got to love your kids, be open to them. When they want to explore it, then be willing to do it. But you can't sit there and force it. Like, I got forced to go to Chinese school, and I hated it. But then later, when I was older and I joined the Chinese Cultural Association and, I - you know, the Nike Student Union and these things that I was, you know, involved with or - you know, first time living in Hawaii, I was just, like, these eye-opening experiences. So I'd just say, be open to it.
MARTÍNEZ: That's Kip Fulbeck, the photographer behind The Hapa Project, which explores the unique cultural identities of half-Asian and half-Pacific Islander people. The project relaunched on May 23 at the Museum of Us in San Diego. Kip, thank you for your time.
FULBECK: Thank you so much, A.
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