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Almost Asian – A Series on Hapa Identity Crisis

 

By Sophia Whittemore
AsAmNews Intern

When I stumbled upon Katie Malia’s web series, “Almost Asian“, I watched her comedic skits about what I fondly call “mini identity crisis moments.” Namely, these multiracial hapa experiences include:

  1. Being given a fork at an Asian restaurant
  2. Being mistaken for being the wife of your blood relative because you don’t look like them
  3. “Oh, you’re not (blank) enough”.
  4. Trying to change your physical appearance for the sake of “code switching”.
  5. Not feeling worthy of speaking for either side because you’re only half

I subscribed immediately and liked as many videos as I could.

It isn’t easy growing up “between worlds”, and Katie Malia puts a great, comedic spin on it with the web series “Almost Asian” that played at the Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival.

From PRI, Katie Malia puts her identity this way:

In the past,I just wanted to blend in. That’s all I wanted to do,” she says. But Malia is embracing her mixed identity in a fuller way now. “I can’t speak for the full Asian community. I can’t speak for the full white community,” she says, but “I’m on my own path and when I hear from people like you who are half-Japanese say, ‘Oh I can relate to this,’ I’m like, ok this is where I’m supposed to be.”

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