The start of a letter

I'm taking a class on digital storytelling.  We had to write a letter in 10 minutes about what our story was going to be.  This is what I got in ten minutes:

Dear [My best friend in college],

I am hapa kepani.  You know this, but maybe you still don't understand what it means or how it defines/is defined by me.  I have always been aware of my ethnic identity, but I have come to understand it in different ways as the years pass.  When I was young, I knew I was Japanese and German, and that America had fought against them in a war and some people were still prejudiced against both parts of me.  I remember telling this to my 1st grade class in Ms. Marty's room.  

Then I found out that I was also Okinawan and Polish.  I've never had a strong connection to my Polish roots, perhaps because I had only a great-great grandmother and no one carried on any ethnic traditions from her.  My grandmother said that when her and grandpa had gotten passports, a lady had told them to just put Japanese, not Okinawan.