Rebecca King-Arian

It was the 90s.

Like, we were, you know, we were trying to carve a space because...

I think a lot of us had gone to like a lot of the Asian American student groups, but we often were sort of looked at strange or in some cases even rejected from kind of Asian clubs because we weren't Asian enough.

I met all these other mixed race people and particularly mixed Asian people and lots of people with my mix and.

Founding Hapa Issues Forum was really, really kind of empowering and we had great success.

We were accused of appropriating and probably it's true.

We did appropriate the word hapa.

Part of the reason I think that word appealed to us in the early 90s was it wasn't, you know, so like

fractionalizing yourself in terms of, you know, I'm half this or half that, a quarter of that.

Here's Rebecca again.

When I talk to people about the hashtag Waysian thing, they actually love the trend.

They love the hashtag because it allowed them to see other people like themselves.

Did you ever feel that way?