Unusual ethnicity wanted

Sage said:

Before you start, think about what you have knowledge of or can obtain knowledge of without being offensive or culturally appropriating. Should your cast be diverse? Yes. Can you fix this by slapping a new color on someone's skin? No, you can't. What makes sense for your setting, your story, your character's specific situation in life? Readers will see through putting a color and ethnicity on a would-be-otherwise white character, especially readers of color. If you're choosing an ethnicity for your character that is not your own, you need to commit to it.

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+1

It's good to think outside the "white" box when coming up with a cast. It's not so good to think of it like a checkbox or a quota. You want to write characters, not placeholders.

satyesu said:

I'm trying to apply diversity to my cast. My first POV lead is Jewish, so I'm looking for a non-white ethnicity for my other protagonist. Wondering if I should go with something a large population of Americans would identify with or something obscure, and any suggestions.

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whoa - joining in here to say this is not a good way to approach it. "Something that a large population of Americans wouldn't identify with" does not orshouldnot equal Unusual Ethnicity.

I can see what you're trying to do and applaud you for it - but you're approaching diversity-in-writing from the outside in, rather than from the bottom, up. It is all much more complex than that. I wonder if someone knows a good discussion piece they can recommend, to get you started?

Good luck!

mccardey said:

I wonder if someone knows a good discussion piece they can recommend, to get you started?

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I enthusiastically recommend Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward's Writing The Other. It's a short book broken into shorter components, and it's an excellent introduction to examining your own biases.

Write a person, not an ethnicity.

I applaud you for recognizing that there are many different people out there and for being willing to include them. The default for most people in North America and Europe when a character is not described is that they are white, heterosexual and able bodied. Don't worry about offending anyone, the greatest offence is in not including any of us with greater amounts of pigment in our skin or other ways groups of people differ.
Being Jewish is not an ethnicity it's a religion. Where are they from/live? Are they highly religious or non-practicing. Keep in mind colour and culture are not the same. A black man born and raised in Chicago has more in common with a white man from the same place than he does with a black man born and raised in Kenya. A character's colour doesn't have play a role in the story to warrant being shown. In the book The Shawshank Redemption the character of Ellis Redding (Red) is white, in the movie he is played by black actor Morgan Freeman. Did it matter what colour he was in terms of how he behaved, no. It mattered in that he was included.

K.S. Crooks said:

Being Jewish is not an ethnicity it's a religion.

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I just want to point out that this is not quite accurate. Jews are an ethnoreligious group, and the way in which the ethnic, cultural, and religious elements of Jewish identity work together can be quite complex. There's a reason people generally can't just "convert" to Judaism. And plenty of Jewish people are not religious/agnostic/atheist. There's also ethnic groups with Judaism.

Regardless, OP. Listen, do your research, be respectful. Write a well rounded character. Basically all of the above advice is solid!

lizmonster said:

I enthusiastically recommend Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward's Writing The Other. It's a short book broken into shorter components, and it's an excellent introduction to examining your own biases.

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I agree, this is an excellent resource.

To actually answer the question, there's lots of ethnicities you can try. There's Cubans, Lumbee, Puero Ricans, Brazillians, Dominicans, Nicaraguans...basically, I feel like there's a lot of western hemisphere people groups that don't really get talked about a lot. I recommend picking out one of them.

Nerdilydone said:

To actually answer the question, there's lots of ethnicities you can try. There's Cubans, Lumbee, Puero Ricans, Brazillians, Dominicans, Nicaraguans...basically, I feel like there's a lot of western hemisphere people groups that don't really get talked about a lot. I recommend picking out one of them.

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Actually - you only answered the question to the same extent that the rest of us did - that is, you only answered part of the question (while dissing the rest of us who also answered part of the question). The whole question was

Wondering if I should go with something a large population of Americans would identify with or something obscure, and any suggestions.

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Any suggestions was not the whole question.

satyesu said:

I'm trying to apply diversity to my cast. My first POV lead is Jewish, so I'm looking for a non-white ethnicity for my other protagonist. Wondering if I should go with something a large population of Americans would identify with or something obscure, and any suggestions.

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First, I think it's a bad idea to use token minorities. For example, adding a black female strictly for diversity's sake diminishes not only that character but the race she represents as well.

Second, there's a difference between race and culture. My partner is of Polynesian descent, but grew up in the USA (mostly, she immigrated when she was 4). Culturally, she's American (although she learned to cook Indonesian food from her mother). A person can appear one way, but will have their own unique values - not just as a product of their up bringing, but their life experiences as well.

If you insist on adding a token character, I suggest you get to know someone from that bin you are plucking them from. Physicality only goes so far. People have different ways of speaking - common phrases - slang - mannerisms; additionally some are deep thinkers and others are spontaneous. Some have prejudices of their own regarding other races. What level of education have they attained? Were they raised in a stable family? Have they had sibling issues that show up in how they treat their friends? IMO those are the things you need to define before you paint them a particular color.