Own Voices?

LJD

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I plan to participate in #DVPit tomorrow but am unsure whether to tag my books (there are three that I could potentially tweet for this) as #ownvoices. I am mixed race. My father is white, my mother was Chinese. My mother's parents came to Canada from southern China in the 1950s and her family speaks Toisanese. I have two contemporary romances in which the heroes are Chinese-Canadian, not mixed race, and their parents immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong and speak Cantonese. I think there's a difference between me writing these stories vs. my white husband writing them...and yet, I have friends with such backgrounds, and their stories feel different from my family's. I think it may be more of a second vs third generation thing more than me being mixed race, actually. I have a third book in which the hero has a similar background, but the heroine is also Chinese-Canadian, and her mother's family history is very similar to my own. That feels like #ownvoices to me in a way that the other stories don't, although perhaps that's because racial issues are a more important part of the story, and the heroine doesn't feel like she belongs.

But I don't know where to draw the line. Would me writing a white/Korean character be #ownvoices? And yet if I wrote a fully Korean character, I wouldn't consider it #ownvoices...But if a character was white/Korean, my experiences would inform how I wrote that character.

For whatever reason, I would suspect that white people would be more likely to see me as part of that group and see it as #ownvoices, but to people who are actually part of the Chinese-Canadian community? I don't know. I feel pretty alienated from the Chinese community here, which has grown dramatically in the past few decades. Without speaking either Cantonese or Mandarin, it's hard to be a part of it. I feel "other" if I go to a Chinese part of Toronto, but I also feel "other" if I'm at a wedding where everyone else is white.

So...thoughts? It feels like a stupid thing to obsess over, but whenever I see "own voices" mentioned, I feel unsure about my identity.
 

Latina Bunny

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Don't worry. You're not alone with the identity issues, lol...

I'm Latina, but I'm light-skinned enough to "pass" as White, and my Spanish vocabulary is very limited.

So I totally get you on the identity conflict. ^_^

ETA: Like you, I wouldn't know what to consider as "OwnVoice", either. We can be confused souls together, lol. XD
 
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LJD

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Don't worry. You're not alone with the identity issues, lol...

I'm Latina, but I'm light-skinned enough to "pass" as White, and my Spanish vocabulary is very limited.

So I totally get you on the identity conflict. ^_^

ETA: Like you, I wouldn't know what to consider as "OwnVoice", either. We can be confused souls together, lol. XD

I'm glad it's not only me, even if it's just me and you :)

(You changed your user name! Or am I confused??)
 

StoryofWoe

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I've struggled with this, too. My mother is half-Austrian and half-French Canadian (so all-white) but my father was born in Iran to Iranian parents and immigrated to the United States as part of a university exchange program. Technically, Iranians are considered Caucasian, and up until 9/11, nobody really cared about my Middle Eastern heritage. Hell, most people are surprised to learn that my father is Iranian because my complexion is like lightest-shade-at-the-cosmetics-counter fair. There's always a long pause whenever someone learns my last name, but can't quite bring themselves to say, "But you don't look Middle Eastern." Usually, I just smile and say, "I'm the pastiest Persian you'll ever meet," which makes them laugh/puts them at ease/slows the hammering of my anxious, non-confrontational heart. I don't speak Farsi and I've only met my father's family via Facebook, though they seem like lovely people.

While I could tell you all about the struggle of keeping my eyebrows plural and my upper lip hairless, I'm still a recipient of white privilege, and wouldn't feel comfortable attaching an #ownvoices hashtag to an Iranian-American protagonist who had two Iranian parents, and/or Muslim parents, and/or was a practicing Muslim, and/or held immigrant status themselves. But I, too, can imagine white people accepting my use of #ownvoices far more readily than Iranians with much stronger ties to their family/heritage, and physical traits we automatically conjure when we think "Middle Eastern person."

I think it's about recognizing the limits of our own experience. The further I have to reach to imagine a perspective, the clearer it is that what I'm writing isn't coming from me, but from empathy. Since we're writing fiction, most of what we write isn't going to reflect our own lives. But to claim that my #ownvoice is akin to my father's voice, or that of a Muslim Iranian-American who's been called a terrorist because she chooses to wear a hijab feels disingenuous to me.

Then again, I might not even feel comfortable attaching #ownvoices to a half-Iranian male protag if I were to write one, so perhaps I'm just generally skittish about misrepresentation. :e2shrug:
 
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Snitchcat

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For whatever reason, I would suspect that white people would be more likely to see me as part of that group and see it as #ownvoices, but to people who are actually part of the Chinese-Canadian community? I don't know. I feel pretty alienated from the Chinese community here, which has grown dramatically in the past few decades. Without speaking either Cantonese or Mandarin, it's hard to be a part of it. I feel "other" if I go to a Chinese part of Toronto, but I also feel "other" if I'm at a wedding where everyone else is white.

So...thoughts? It feels like a stupid thing to obsess over, but whenever I see "own voices" mentioned, I feel unsure about my identity.

#ownvoices... Interesting term; had to look it up.

Maybe the following might help; it's my own story / background. You might find something to relate to?

Feeling alienated or "other" in both settings mentioned here is normal, IMO; it's not silly to dwell on it. In fact, that's quite normal, too. Humans like to belong and find it stressful or distressing if they don't. IME: it's always been this way -- not fully part of either community, shunned by both groups, and marginalised by all. Meh.

A long time ago, I arrived at a conclusion that has worked for me more than it's backfired: I'm in the middle of two cultures and that middle ground is mine. I found a way to own it and say "sod off!" to ethnic ID according to society. At some point, I identified as Chinese (no affiliation to any particular country, either), but with an English-culture background (I don't have English genes / heritage per se; European ancestry, though). Having accepted that I'd never belong fully to either side, I created my own space and told myself, "I accept me for me; everyone else can fall into line. If they don't, that's their problem; and I don't have to deal with it." Of course, that doesn't work 100%, even now, but it has helped a lot.

These days, if people try to push their problems or versions of "ethnic ID" on me, I bounce it all back (aggressively). Other people have learned (sometimes the hard way) to accept me or leave me alone.


Regarding the original question:

I plan to participate in #DVPit tomorrow but am unsure whether to tag my books (there are three that I could potentially tweet for this) as #ownvoices. I am mixed race.
The #ownvoices angle I see here would be "mixed race voices". It's enough of a blanket term to include all peoples without pinpointing which nationalities comprise the mix. Could be something to consider?
 
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kuwisdelu

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Personally, I think this is a question only you can answer for yourself.

I also don't think anyone else has the right to tell you your choice is wrong.

And you can send me after anyone who says otherwise.
 

LJD

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The #ownvoices angle I see here would be "mixed race voices". It's enough of a blanket term to include all peoples without pinpointing which nationalities comprise the mix. Could be something to consider?

Well, there are no mixed race main characters in these stories, so...
And I would only feel comfortable claiming #ownvoices for a mixed race character if one of the character's parents was East Asian and the other was white.
 

LJD

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Personally, I think this is a question only you can answer for yourself.

I also don't think anyone else has the right to tell you your choice is wrong.

One feels like I am refusing to acknowledge who I am, and the other feels like I'm trying to say I'm something I'm not, so they both kind of feel wrong to me. I don't know how to reconcile that for myself.

Anyway, I tagged as #ownvoices and feel like a bit of an opportunist.
 

Latina Bunny

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I'm glad it's not only me, even if it's just me and you :)

(You changed your user name! Or am I confused??)

Not confused. I did change my username (and avatar pics/profile pics). :)

As for the ownvoices, I guess mixed race could be a sort of ownvoice, like snitchcat mentioned. I could see that as a viable POV.
 

LJD

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I suspect my experiences would differ greatly from that of a person with one black parent and one white parent. I wouldn't tag that as #ownvoices...

The parents' backgrounds would have to be somewhat close to my own for me to consider thinking of it as #ownvoices.
 

Latina Bunny

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I suspect my experiences would differ greatly from that of a person with one black parent and one white parent. I wouldn't tag that as #ownvoices...

The parents' backgrounds would have to be somewhat close to my own for me to consider thinking of it as #ownvoices.

I totally understand. :)

Do what feels right for you.

(I'm still going through my own identity crisis moments to this day, so I really feel you.)
 
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M.N Thorne

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Personally, I would just write as I see the character. However, I do not have too many identity issues because I understand myself in relate to the Western world. I also understand that my genetic makeup is very different compare to those of pure West African descent. I find that painful and disturbing at times but I still just deal with it. Nevertheless, I use my "mixed heritage" to fueled my character creations. It is always in my own voice because I am the only one who can describe how my outlook on my racial identity.
 

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I am struggling with this issue too. Does my writing qualify as #ownvoices? I am Latina but appear white to many people. I am an immigrant with perfect English and flawed Spanish. And the lullabies I sing to my children are in Spanish. I am Central American but have written about a Cuban woman. So where does this leave me?
 

Rumelo

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P.S. My protagonist is also struggling with her identity. Part of the story is her trying to embrace it.