85sity, Pomona, was also a writer and published poet,
and Fulbeck counts him among his influences. As a
student at South Hills High School in West Covina,
California, Fulbeck excelled in swimming and at
age 16 was ranked sixth in the nation. While keep-
ing an interest in painting and drawing, he initially
gravitated toward a career in medicine but even-
tually received an M.F.A. in Visual Arts from Uni-
versity of California, San Diego, in 1992. Currently
a professor of art at the University of California,
Santa Barbara, Fulbeck has been an artist-in-resi-
dence at Albion College in Albion, Michigan, and
a visiting professor at the University of Michigan
and the University of California, Berkeley.
While a graduate student, through film and the
visual arts, Fulbeck began to explore the issue of
mixed-race Asian identity, using the term hapa,
which originally derived from Hawaiian slang for
someone who is half Hawaiian and half white, but
has now come to designate anyone who is an Asian/
Pacific Islander. In 1991 he created Banana Split, a
37-minute short film exploring mixed race iden-
tity, which won numerous awards including first
place at the Red River International Film Festival.
Fulbeck was also named Best Local Filmmaker at
the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. His
other films include Asian Studs Nightmare; Sex,
Love & Kung Fu, and Lilo and Me—a humorous
video that compares Fulbeck’s image to “ethnically
ambiguous” characters in Disney films such as Lilo
& Stitch, Aladdin, and Pocahontas. While the visual
medium is an important aspect of Fulbeck’s work
on mixed Asian ethnicity in America, he has also
contributed to the growing scholarship on this
topic via the print medium.
Fulbeck is the author of Paper Bullets: A Fictional
Autobiography, a memoir about growing up half-
Chinese in a largely white community. As one of
the very few memoirs dealing with the experience
of being of mixed Asian race, this work contributes
to the growing field of Asian-American literature
by expanding its borders. In this semifictional ac-
count of his life, Fulbeck mixes reality with inven-
tion to uncover the larger truths surrounding the
issues of dating and sex, family and friends, and
finding one’s way in the confusing landscape of
contemporary America. This frank memoir muses
upon the effects of racial and ethnic stereotypes
and mixes in a pastiche of popular songs, movies,
TV shows, and other cultural ephemera, while ex-
ploring his growing political and personal aware-
ness of race and ethnicity and the large part that
it has played in shaping the person he has come
to be.
Fulbeck has continued to explore racial identity
through various performances and visual media,
most notably in his photographic project entitled
“The Hapa Project,” a collection of photographs of
self-identified mixed-race Asian/Pacific Islanders.
Also included are their answers to the question,
“What are you?” A book from this project, Part
Asian, 100% Hapa, was published by Chronicle
Books in 2006. Fulbeck states that the impetus be-
hind the publishing of the Hapa Project is that he
“wished a book like this had been around when
I was growing up.” Fulbeck’s appeal and impor-
tance lie in his willingness to squarely confront
and examine the ever-changing landscape of Asian
America with humor, irony, and frankness.Bibliography
Fulbeck, Kip. Paper Bullets: A Fictional Autobiography.
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2001.
———. Part-Asian, 100% Hapa. San Francisco:
Chronicle Books, 2006.
Glancy, Diane, and C. W. Truesdale, eds. Two Worlds
Walking: An Anthology of Mixed Blood Writers.
Minneapolis: New Rivers Press, 1994.
Kip Fulbeck. Personal Web site focusing on the Hapa
Project. Available online. URL: http://www.sea-
weedproductions.com. Accessed September 22,
2006.
Valerie SolarFurutani, Dale (1946– )
Sansei author Dale Furutani was born in Hilo,
Hawaii, on December 1, 1946. His grandparents
emigrated from Oshima Island, just south of
Hiroshima, Japan, to Hawaii, to work on sugar
plantations in 1896. His grandfather later es-
caped plantation work to become a fisherman.
At five, Furutani was adopted by John FlanaganFurutani, Dale 85