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Free HAPA Show at Stern Grove

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Sean Lennon: Part Asian, 100% Hapa

“Hapa” is a Hawaiian word that means half Hawaiian, half white, but it has been adopted by most Asian-American cultures to just mean “half white, half Asian.” I happen to look super hapa, which was extremely helpful while growing up on Kauai. No one messed with me on “Kill Haole (white person)” Day. When I arrived as a freshman at UC Berkeley, before I learned to avoid Sproul Plaza, where all the campus organizations tabled all day, my hapa-ness afforded me only annoyance. Every day, as I innocently tried to walk to class (I was always alone because I had no friends yet), the people at the Hapa table would yell “Hapa! Come join the Hapa Club!” as I passed by. This happened for several weeks in a row. Eventually I went up to them and said “I’m not hapa.” “REALLY?” They asked. “What ARE you?” “A Russian and Hungarian Jew, full-blood,” I replied. “What is the hapa club, anyway?” “Oh, it’s just a place hapa people can come and hang out where they people won’t ask them what they are.” “You JUST asked me that,” I said and walked away from the idiots towards my zero friends.

HAPA the band

In retrospect I should have just gone along with it and made an instant group of extremely good-looking friends. Alas.

The band HAPA is one of my favorite contemporary Hawaiian musical groups. It is made up of a Hawaiian dude and an Irish dude, both with some serious vocal abilities. Genius band name. They are playing a FREE show at the Stern Grove Festival, which Andrew posted about the other day and which I wrote about in my first ever Broke-Ass post!

Free HAPA Concert
Sunday, June 27, 2p.m.
Sigmund Stern Grove

19th Ave. @ Sloat
FREE

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Chloe - Pennywise Reporter

Chloe - Pennywise Reporter

Chloe's youth was split between California and Kauai, frolicking on a macadamia nut farm in the tropics and landing finally in the Bay Area. Raised by super-Jew hippies, and the youngest of three sisters, Chloe learned early the virtues of thrift, economy, and green living. To the chagrin of her parents (who hoped, of course, for a Jewish doctor or lawyer), Chloe has put her degree from UC Berkeley to great use by becoming a folk singer. As "Chloe Makes Music" she plays shows throughout SF and beyond, donning vintage frocks, selling handmade merch, and pinching pennies as she sings for her supper. Calling Berkeley home for the last six years, you can think of Chloe as the website's East Bay Correspondent, opening your eyes to the hippie-filled, tree-hugging, organic-loving, vegan-eating, but way-overlooked and awesome assets of Berkeley, Oakland, and beyond.