I’ve been meaning to write about this topic for a while, but I didn’t want to sound ANGRY. I want to make it clear that I appreciate how difficult it must be for authors to write about ethnic characters who are from a different cultural or ethnic group. No amount of research can provide the complete picture of what it’s like to grow up black, Latino, Asian, Native American, etc. Many writers try to mitigate the Otherness of a character by making them half-white/half-minority, which is fine (I’m all for multiculturalism), but those who go for fully developed — let’s Latino (since that’s what I am) character — should be aware that it’s really obvious when you have no clue. Here are three observations I’ve made from reading more than 250 Young Adult books in the past couple of years:
1. Spanglish Schpanglish: Spanglish (and I assume Chinglish and any other kind of mix of English and another language) doesn’t mean Latino teens substitute every other English word for a Spanish one. So while the sentences “Que pasa, girls” or “What’s up, mi amor?” both sound fine (that’s a specific phrase or term of endearment), saying “I need to brush my pelo with this cepillo, dude!” or “Yo, you need to fix your carro. But first let’s buy gasolina” sound inauthentic, because bilingual characters would have no reason to use them (hair, brush, car, gasoline) in Spanish. Spanglish can sound random to non Spanish speakers, but it’s usually done for a reason: a word you can’t easily translate, like malcriada (which literally translate to ill-bred/raised but can also mean spoiled, self-entitled, uncouth, ill-mannered, even slutty or sass-mouthed), a phrase that just sounds better or means more to you in one language or the other, or a word you can’t remember how to say in the other language. I’ve noticed that some authors just pepper their dialogue with so many random Spanish words that it sounds unbelievable. Latino adolescents who were born and bred in the U.S. just don’t speak that way!
Someone who does it extraordinarily well but isn’t Latina: Susan Beth Pfeffer in “The Dead and the Gone” and “The World We Live In” (Alex Morales is an extremely believable Nuyorican!).
2. Catholics and Caramel? Not all Latinos are Catholic or live with their grandparents or know how to make empanadas. We don’t all have criminals in our families or are the first to go to college. And our skin color? It’s not all tan, caramel, cafe au lait, creme brulee, burnt sienna or whatever other euphemism you want to call it. People “of color” can still be extremely fair skinned (I have Asian, African American and Latino friends) or dark skinned or anything in between. And just a tip — if you want to make it clear your character is not Caucasian or white just say what their ethnic or racial makeup is somehow, otherwise readers (especially white ones) will think all those euphemisms mean your character is just a white person with a suntan — not because they’re necessarily racist, but because they just don’t gloss people as being minorities unless it’s clearly spelled out for them.
3. The Minority Redshirt: This is especially noticeable in dystopian or paranormal books where characters are injured or killed on a regular basis, but in a couple of books I won’t mention, the body count starts with the nonwhite supporting characters in as obvious a way as it does in a stereotypical horror movie. I’m not being overly sensitive, for example, when I say that in the undeserving “Red Dawn” remake, every single adolescent character who was black or Latino died. It was almost laughable.
I guess the question should be brought up whether it’s better to have a book with multicultural characters, even imperfectly drawn ones, than a book that is noticeably absent any nonwhite characters. I’m going to say that true diversity isn’t tokenism. It’s featuring characters who are pivotal to the storyline with real backstories and a real purpose beyond signifying diversity. To put it in TV terms: we need more “Lost” and “Battlestar Galactica” and “Grey’s Anatomy” treatments of diversity.
Seriously, they red-shirted every ethnic character in the new Red Dawn? After making the South Koreans the enemy, too?! *tears out hair in frustration*
Well anyway, this is a great, great post, with some really good tips. (And yeah, the Spanglish thing bothered us about Simone Elkeles’s PERFECT CHEMISTRY, despite it otherwise being a decent read.) This issue is particularly close to Kristan’s heart, since she’s half-Asian and grew up with a group of friends that, quote, “could be an ad for United Colours of Benneton.” 😛
As you said, we applaud any/all writers who attempt to include diversity — since, you know, that reflects our world and encourages young readers to be more inclusive — but hopefully more of them can take this advice to heart.
(And YAY for BSG and Grey’s Anatomy!!)
That really bothered me with the Perfect Chemistry books. I grew up in Texas and was exposed to Hispanics reguarly, including my BFF and her family in elementary school. They either spoke all in English or all in Spanish unless it was a curse word. For some reason those were always in Spanish!
I love this topic!! I’m not Latina or really any minority (just a mutt from my parents – although technically I’m half Italian (my dad is full-blooded Italian) but none of that really falls under ANY stereotype – I guess that’s a different point entirely that just because you’re full-blooded-anything doesn’t mean you fall under that “stereotype”) – Anyway, where was I? Oh yeah, I definitely don’t fall under a minority, but I was a Spanish major and spent years and years learning not only the language but customs, cultures, slang (okay, not a lot of slang), etc. I’m certainly not an expert, but I’m always upset with the “Spanglish” that people use in novels to “prove” that their character is Hispanic. One thing that REALLY bothered me was in the final installment of The Maze Runner series (The Death Cure) the one character called everyone “amigo” at the end of the sentence. The only people I’ve heard call everyone amigo are people who are “stereotypically white”, aka people who are trying to incorporate Spanish into a conversation but really don’t know many words. PLEASE. There are WAY better words and way better slang to call a person than calling them “friend” at the end of what seemed like every other sentence in that book.
It’s a shame that everyone tends to (borrowing the term since I don’t know a better one) “whitewash” books but respectfully to the authors, I would too. I grew up in kind of a “preppy” part of the Western Suburbs of Chicago so there weren’t a whole lot of minorities around or they were – in fact – minorities in the neighborhoods. Most of my friends in high school could be referenced to a “whitewashed” cast of characters in a book, but that’s really how it was. If I were to write a book, that’s how I’d write my characters as well because that’s what I knew.
I guess it all comes to down my opinion that if you don’t know it well enough, don’t write it poorly. It’ll probably upset more people that the character’s race is misrepresented that it will please people that someone attempted to bring diversity into a book. My two cents!
Great post, Sandie!! Love this discussion.