So I am a writer who is white, and I'm working on a novel/short story/not quite sure what it's going to be yet that has a number of POC characters, and I'm a bit worried about whether I'm doing things right. I've spent a lot of time on various social justice and anti-racism blogs, and it seems like when people write characters from other cultures/ethnic groups than their own, it tends to be one of two problems: either the cultural differences are so exaggerated that they seem stereotypical, or there's not enough difference and they seem "whitewashed" or "erased." So I'm wondering: how do I draw the line, as a white person - how do I portray cultural differences without making them seem like stereotypes?
For example, one of my characters is a Chinese-American college freshman, who is double-majoring in engineering and visual arts. He really just wants to study art, but his parents insist on him getting a degree in something "practical," and a double-major just seemed like a compromise that would make his parents okay with the art. However, his engineering classes are taking time away from his art that is holding him back, and he's trying to figure out how he can drop the second major without risking his parents' anger. I know that the "strict Asian parents" thing is a stereotype, but one I saw hold true a lot with my East Asian friends in high school and college, who told me that that was a common cultural attitude among East Asian immigrants to the U.S. He is not the only Asian-American character in my work (he has a twin brother and there is also an Indian-American and a Korean-American character - I grew up in an area with a lot of Asian-Americans, which is where it takes place, so it's accurate to the setting), and it just feels like it's erasing those cultural differences to not address that issue, or to hand it off to a character of a different race to avoid the unfortunate implications. (And it is important to my story that I have that conflict happen with someone. It's a reflection largely of the issues that faced my classmates and I coming out of high school and starting college, and that was a major one.)
So, basically: how does one draw that line between "too stereotyped" and "not different enough" when describing a culture/ethnic group that isn't their own, and not seeming insensitive? Am I making sense here?
For example, one of my characters is a Chinese-American college freshman, who is double-majoring in engineering and visual arts. He really just wants to study art, but his parents insist on him getting a degree in something "practical," and a double-major just seemed like a compromise that would make his parents okay with the art. However, his engineering classes are taking time away from his art that is holding him back, and he's trying to figure out how he can drop the second major without risking his parents' anger. I know that the "strict Asian parents" thing is a stereotype, but one I saw hold true a lot with my East Asian friends in high school and college, who told me that that was a common cultural attitude among East Asian immigrants to the U.S. He is not the only Asian-American character in my work (he has a twin brother and there is also an Indian-American and a Korean-American character - I grew up in an area with a lot of Asian-Americans, which is where it takes place, so it's accurate to the setting), and it just feels like it's erasing those cultural differences to not address that issue, or to hand it off to a character of a different race to avoid the unfortunate implications. (And it is important to my story that I have that conflict happen with someone. It's a reflection largely of the issues that faced my classmates and I coming out of high school and starting college, and that was a major one.)
So, basically: how does one draw that line between "too stereotyped" and "not different enough" when describing a culture/ethnic group that isn't their own, and not seeming insensitive? Am I making sense here?