Emily Pilloton-Lam

Because “Hapas for Harris” means holding complexity

There’s a letterpress poster hanging in my window that reads, “Hapas for Harris,” in bold red and blue letters. From the Hawaiian word for “half,” hapa is a term used by many individuals of mixed ancestry with partial lineage from the Asian diaspora. As the firstborn daughter of a Chinese mother and French father, I am hapa. As the firstborn daughter of an Indian mother and Jamaican father, Kamala Harris is hapa, too.

My support for vice president Kamala Harris as a presidential candidate, however, is not just blanket identity politics without critique. Specifically, I continue to be deeply disturbed by the Biden-Harris administration’s underwriting of Israel’s unstoppable bombing in Palestine and their inability to broker a ceasefire to date. I wish her time as vice president had been more public, more active, more progressive. And yet, there is no one else I want in charge to fight for the reproductive rights of women or protect our children from gun violence.

It is actually within these dichotomies, however, that my greatest allegiance lies. In my imperfect support for her, I also see her humanity; I see her hapa. To be hapa is to be a human yin-yang, to forever be pushing and pulling your two (or more) parts into harmony. I am certain that, like me, Kamala Harris has felt alienated from both of her identities, told she was both “not Black enough” and “not Indian enough.” I know that understanding where she came from has been a lifelong pursuit, and as writer Sabrina Imbler describes, “I want to think about my mixed race being not as a noun but a gerund. I want to imagine how I am continuing to live.” I am certain she has done the hard and never-ending internal work to realize she isn’t half-this, half-that, but 100 percent both.

What Kamala Harris would bring to a presidency, beyond her impressive on-paper qualifications, is rooted in her hapa identity. Much of how she would lead has been forged from who she is: a woman who can hold complexity and harness its power to turn polarity to multiplicity.

And I want a president who embodies that hapa spirit.

I want a president with a declarative name that tells of her ancestors—“Kamala” from her mother’s Indian lineage, and “Harris” from her Jamaican father’s family name. (In 2021, I took my mother’s Chinese maiden name, Lam, as a matriarchal hyphenate to create such parity in my own moniker and as a declaration of solidarity with my AAPI community.)

I want a president who reflexively sees two seemingly opposing sides and digs deep to find the common taproot.

I want a president who feels at home in all the “in-between” places, in all communities that defy monolithic categorization.

I want a president who can hold many narratives with care and translate them back to us with clarity and hope.

I want to be led by a woman in power who centers self-examination and curiosity so naturally, so essentially, because it is what her identity has called her to do her whole life.

And so, on November 5, I will decisively vote for Kamala Harris, my hapa sister.

Emily Pilloton-Lam is an architectural designer, educator, author, and founder of Girls Garage, a nonprofit design and construction school for girls and gender-expansive youth in the Bay Area.