I just read through that thread, and thought I'd start a new one on the topic. I am happa by marriage. When my husband and I were dating and starting to get serious, my mother said to me, "You know, if you marry him, you'll spend your life being half-Japanese." Well, she didn't quite say it like that, and she meant it kindly, and not as racism. She had friends, one who was Korean-Hawaiian, and a different one who was an Orthodox Jew, who had married outside their ethnicity( one a white boy, the other a goy of some type) and were cut off by their families for it. She really just wanted me to realize the larger picture in the choice I would be making. I wasn't simply marrying a man I loved; I was marrying a different culture.

I really hadn't thought about it much before that. But, you know? She was absolutely right. I am now 1/2 Japanese, because that's what my family is. On the ethnicity question on forms, if you can mark two, I always mark Asian and white. Or I mark mixed race. Otherwise, I just mark "other."

So, anyone else understand what I'm saying? What are your experiences of being happa by marriage? For me, it feels almost like being adopted. My family is Asian-American, and I'm part of that family. But, I don't look like it. (I'm 1/2 Irish, 1/2 mutt.)