Why Bothness?

Why bothness?

Bothness is acknowledging you are unorthodox. It is having the humility to concede you are not pure, acknowledging that you are not 100%. But bothness is also knowing, feeling, and sharing as much as possible--in two domains.

Bothness isn’t just stopping at 50%. “Less than 100%” can mean 50%, surely, but it can also mean 99.999%. Those five nines mean a lot. Bothness is stretchy, real stretchy.

There are two basic rules of bothness: 1) bothness means two things, not three, not four—not everything; 2) bothness means two things that meet as two equals.

When I think of “Hapa,” I think of everything. Hapa is just as much about the Korean-Argentinean as it is the Caribbean-Laotian. Hapa is everything. That’s fine and all, but the medium for my narrative is not the encyclopedia. It need to tell my story. And that mixed story is one that needs a simple framework where I can juxtapose two, and only two things.

When I think of “Eurasian,” I think of elitism. I think of a Eurasian “beauty myth,” as direct progeny of the “Western beauty myth.” I think of bias. I think of a hierarchy. I think of an iron-hard, top-down class system. “Eurasian” makes me think of colonialism. And for all those reasons “Eurasian” is averse to bothness on the second count: “Eurasian” can be two things but it can’t be two equal things.

 Ultimately that’s why.

And if you are mixed and you wish to be both—consider if “Hapa” or “Eurasian” make the grade. If so, why?