Wow! A lot of you felt pretty passionately about my last post (on To Kill a Mockingbird and breakdancing and the new law in Arizona, etc). I got a LOT of letters about it!
I’ve been trying to answer all them, but in between all the work I have to get done before I leave for Orlando next week*, plus keeping up with the Bristol/Levi excitement (not to mention Kathy Griffin’s grief about it), and dealing with my senile cat (and don’t forget my in-laws!), I don’t have a minute to myself anymore, even to read Us Weekly.
It’s sad, really.
And have you guys been following the latest on the Insatiable Facebook page? Dr. Ann Larson, exegetical demonologist, has started blogging. It’s kind of hysterical. She’s has a thing for Abraham Holtzman (not that she’ll admit this. And he’s a character from Insatiable, for those of you who don’t know. Not even one of the cute ones, either).
If you’re not following Dr. Ann, you’re really missing out. Look for the truth about why she’s so anti-demon this week! You won’t want to miss it.
Anyway, the reason I love getting letters like the ones you’ve been sending me—which are so thoughtful and inspiring (I’ve posted a few below)—is that I always think of them when moms come up to me at book fairs (like one did recently) and go: “When are you going to write a book with a (insert non-white race) as the main character?”
“It shouldn’t be any different,” this one mom assured me, “than writing one of your white characters. Just give her a (insert any race that is non-white) name. And have your publisher put a (insert any race that is non-white) girl on the cover! You don’t even have to have any (insert any race other than white) cultural references.”
Me: “Wow. I had no idea writing books from the point-of-view of non-white characters was that easy. Really?”
The Mom: “Oh yes. We’re exactly like everyone else.”
Me: “Well, I knew that. But shouldn’t I at least make some—”
The Mom: “Oh, no. I don’t even serve (insert food not usually served in white people’s houses, unless they are ordering in) in my house.”
Her Little Daughter: “I hate (insert food not usually served in white people’s houses, unless they are ordering in).”
Honestly, Allie Finkle hates tomatoes, like me, and I’m half-Italian. So I know what it’s like to be ostracized for disliking the food of your people.
Whenever a mom says something like this to me, it takes me back to when I worked as an assistant dorm manager at NYU. You wouldn’t believe the number of parents who would call me after the room assignments went out and ask for their kid to get moved to a new roommate!
“Oh, it’s not that we don’t like Jews/blacks/whites/Koreans/Mexicans/Catholics/gays,” they’d always begin in a friendly way on the phone. “We just don’t want our son/daughter to live with one! HA HA HA!”
I am not kidding.
I always gave them the same prepared speech: what I like to call the Let’s Try Something New (or, “There Are Other Restaurants In The World Than Cheesecake Factory”):
“Part of the college experience is learning about the diversity of our world and its cultures,” I would say. “Your son/daughter will be getting to know lots of different people when he/she arrives at NYU, and trying many new things. We strongly recommend that—”
At this point, the parent would either back down, and say OK. Or he or she would completely lose his or her s**t.
“I DON’T CARE!” the parent would scream. “WE ARE PAYING FIFTY THOUSAND DOLLARS A YEAR! WE DON’T WANT OUR KID LIVING WITH A #@&$!”
Whoa. It was hard to listen to this ten times a day. You have to remember, back then, I was living with my Arab-American boyfriend. And of course, many of my friends—and co-workers, people these parents were going to have to be dealing with when they got here—were black, Asian-American, Hispanic, Jewish, Catholic, and/or gay or even transexual. You name it. My own African-American brother was also living in New York City at the time. Have I ever mentioned that he’s gay? A hugely talented dancer, he was just starting out, so was often broke.
So he frequently stopped by my office, “just to say hi” (but being a big sister, I knew it was for loans). Then he could never resist blowing some of his rent money on leather pants, so he’d look “hot” for his next audition. Then he’d stop by to show me what he’d gotten—ON SALE! Such a bargain!
That’s why, whenever I’d be on the phone with these parents, I’d look up, and see this:
But seriously, Meg. How do I look? It was only TEN DOLLARS!
These were parents whose only experience with a different culture had been—I’m not even making this up—at Cheesecake Factory.
“Oh, yeah! I eat (insert food from culture other than theirs) all the time. And one of the waiters at that restaurant is gay! So he touches my plate! And I don’t mind. I just don’t want my child to live with a (insert race/religion/person of sexual identity other than theirs).”
Everyone loves the Cheesecake Factory. It’s a place where you can sample the cuisine of many lands and cultures. But none of them are too spicy!
The food there is also in no way actually authentic. Everything at the Cheesecake Factory is a deliciously bland imitation of what its actually supposed to be.
A good example would be the edamame I ordered there recently. In case you don’t know what edamame is, it’s boiled, salted soybeans.
When I tasted the ones I ordered at Cheesecake Factory last month, I called the waitress over and asked her what was on them, because they tasted so weird (though still good, of course). Just unlike any edamame I’d ever had before.
“Oh,” she said, cheerfully. “That’s the butter!”
Butter?
I don’t know if you know this, but edamame is not supposed to have butter on it. Edamame is the single thing that is semi-good for you that I actually like to eat.
Here is the Wikipedia page on edamame. Note that nowhere on it does it mention the word butter.
Anyway, whenever someone asks me when I’m going to write a book from the point-of-view of a non-white character, I think of those parents at NYU who used to get so mad at me. Then I think of the Cheesecake Factory.
Not because I don’t think there are white writers who can write convincingly and well from the point-of-view of non-white characters. Because of course there are MANY great books by white writers written from the point-of-view of non-white characters.
And not because I don’t think what Cheesecake Factory is doing is great. It’s presenting food from many lands to Americans who might otherwise not try it.
And it’s great that America has become the giant melting pot our forefathers imagined, with all of us adopting the good bits (edamame!) of some cultures, while rejecting the bad bits (female circumcision!) of others.
But because sometimes I worry that if we don’t celebrate our cultural differences more, we’re going to become like those parents:
So fearful of anything that isn’t watered down or swimming in butter (like what that mom asked me to write—you know, a book with a non-white character, but who isn’t any different than a white character, because she’s just been given a non-white name, and had a non-white face put on her), we aren’t going to want to try anything new.
And then, as a country, we’re going to lose all the REALLY “good bits”—those differences that make us all the wonderful, special people we are, and are part of what make this a really GREAT country, and that make an author’s character seem REALLY believable, and really . . . well, spicy.
That’s why, in spite of what that mom believes, you actually can’t take a white character and just put a non-white name on her and turn her into someone a reader will actually believe in. Because what you’ll actually be turning her into is . . . .
Something that tastes weird. Like that edamame I had at Cheesecake Factory.
If you’re going to write about a culture or race (or sexual identification) that isn’t your own at any great length, you need to research it . . . to, as Harper Lee put it, “walk around a little in that person’s shoes,” just to make sure you don’t do something that makes it “taste” weird—such as drown it in butter—to people who actually live that life on a daily basis.
Maybe MOST of America won’t realize that it tastes weird. But people who have actually tasted it before will.
It’s like the kinky hair thing. People who have actually lived with someone who has what is often universally referred to as “kinky hair” know that sometimes, kinky can just be a lot of very tightly—and beautifully—curled strands of hair, clinging very close to the head.
And that if you were to gently separate, then pull on one of those curls, it will slowly uncoil, like a tiny Slinky.
And then—if the person you were with doesn’t move, and allows you to do so, of course—you can wrap one of those silky curls around the end of your finger, like a little snake, and just hold it there awhile, soft as a feather.
Until of course the person whose hair it is jerks his head away, and goes, “Oh my God, what are you doing to my hair? Give me the remote, you freak. I’m going to tell Mom if you don’t, it’s my turn, ow, why are you so obsessed with my hair? You want it, don’t you? You want my hair. Admit it. Ow. Freak.”
Check out some of the letters I got this week:
Hi Meg, I’m an 18 year old Radiology student. I’m also a writer who is in the process of completing her first book, I’m an avid reader of your blogs, AND I’m Arab-American.
I can’t thank you enough for posting your ‘Break it Down’ post about racism. It just touched me so much and inspired me to follow my dreams no matter what my ethnicity is. I’d be lying if I said that I wasn’t apprehensive about how people would perceive me when I wrote a novel because of my Arabic descent, I even thought of a pseudo name just because I was nervous of public reaction.
So thank you a million for giving hope to a ‘dreamer’ in the process.
With Love and Appreciation,
A.P.s. Hopefully when my Young Adult fiction novel is on bookshelves one day, I’ll send you a copy signed “With Love, from the Arab-American Radiologic Technology Student you Inspired”
Yes! Thank you, A.! I can’t wait to read your book. I hope your character makes out with a lot of boys. If she doesn’t that’s OK, too, though.
Here’s another:
I just want to thank you so much for posting about the Arizona law against Mexicans on your blog.
I am a Chicana. My parents and beyond all came to this country from Muochocan and Guadalajara in Mexico, but my siblings and I were born here in Los Angeles as Mexican-Americans.
It upset me very much when my father told me about this law when they were still trying to keep it under wraps. My father was an intense participant in the UCLA Chicano Movement for equality in the late sixties and seventies and as a family we are very proud of our culture.
The establishment of this law made everything my father and others like him fought for retract several steps backward and makes you wonder, if this is how it is going to be, what WAS fought for? It is very upsetting.
Once news of the law had circulated a little bit, I brought it up to some friends of mine at lunch. They immediately denied it, writing off the new law as being over-exaggerated, hardly anything to worry about, and definitely not anti-Mexican. They then moved on from the conversation to talk about some dumb video they saw online.
It made sense, I supposed. The only way for people to truly understand–and I do mean ALL people–is to help them understand what exactly is going on and to help instill in them the desire to WANT to know what is going on in the world.
Life is unfair, and it is our job as human beings to help put it back in balance, or at least very close to balanced.
Sorry this has been so long, but this entry meant a lot to me. I would like to visit Arizona someday, without being racially profiled or sent back to Mexico, though I was born in this country.
I think this is a great letter from someone who seems determined to remember her cultural heritage, and never let it get watered down, and who would be very offended at the idea of some writer putting a Chicana name and a Chicana face on a white character . . . and who, at the same time, seems very proud to be an American.
If you’re looking for good stories with strong minority main characters, go online and ask these nice moms, The Story Snoops, to help you find something. They write VERY BALANCED, THOUGHTFUL REVIEWS. I checked (well, not every single one, of course).
Or you can always ask a knowledgeable bookseller or a librarian to steer you towards them. Just say, “Hi, I want a book where the heroine is (state name of ethnicity/race/religion/sexual orientation you are interested in). It would also be great if she were a vampire or a princess or was only interested in going to the mall and making out with boys (or girls).” Whatever. They will definitely be able to help you. If they can’t run away until you find someone who can.
And please don’t get me wrong: I love the Cheesecake Factory. There is a lovely scene that takes place in it in Allie Finkle #5, Glitter Girls and the Great Fake Out in which there is a huge birthday party, and then someone (not telling who) fakes sick in the ladies room. There might even be crying.
If someone were to take me to the Cheesecake Factory for my birthday (in six months), I would not fake sick AT ALL.
Next time, I’m just not ordering the edamame.
More later.
Much love,
Meg
*Anyone who is going to RWA: you HAVE to come up and talk to me if you see me at the conference. OK? Especially if you see me sitting anywhere alone, looking lost, as I’m wont to do at conferences. You’ll recognize me because I’ll be the pasty white girl. I’m the only person who lives in Florida who has no tan because I’ve been inside, working so much.
