Posted by Kaapuikinaea on November 14, 2008 at 5:30am
Ah yes, that wonderful word that has caused controversy among Asian/Haoles living on the west coast in their early 20s to early 30s. I wrote the subject line like that because while reading through a passage (see link below) I noticed the use of "kanaka" following the word "hapa". Again I'll say in my own experience growing up on Molokai in the 70s and early 80s, I never heard "Hapa" being used by itself at all. I've always heard hapa haole, but never Hapa by itself.But this passage or phrase that I found further proves how the use of the word was used as an adjective, not as a noun.HAPA KANAKA passageIf you scroll down to the bottom left (after clicking on the fullsize) where the title mentions "Na ka huli ana o ka moi ma ka hewa a me ka lilo ana o Kaomi i punahele", at the bottom you'll see he hapa kanaka Bolabola a he hapa kanaka Hawaii. I just thought that was interesting, of course it means nothing now today since it morphed into another meaning.Although the other issue brought up by these Asian/Haole kids was that "hapa" or "hapa haole" was used negatively, which it wasn't as proven by the use of the word/phrase in the paper. This is contrary to what others may say about how the paper doesn't reflect the vernacular. Unlike in the USA where you can have in colloquial speech using the "N" word which has been transferred to songs as part of their lyrics, versus having it being used to describe a type of person and printed in the paper. Same thing here where it was used to describe a person but it wasn't used negatively.HAPA HAOLE entries
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