Ethnic and cultural diversity in OCs discussion

A few random facts to start:

• As someone who has no direct experience of USA racial matters, I was quite shocked when I started wandering in the English-speaking parts of the web and seeing the term "race" being used so casually at first: I'd only ever been exposed to it in very problematic and racist contexts, as a harmful attempt to split the one human species in "better and lesser" parts, so it immediately alarmed me and it took me some time to adjust.
• Spaghetti with meatballs and spaghetti alla bolognese are not Italian dishes: it's actually a common practice for Italian tourists to take photos of those kinds of spaghetti, publish them on facebook with very angry emojis and rant about how foreigners don't understand our cuisine. Some tourists will actually prefer doing this instead of trying local dishes.
• Italy has a HUGE amount of dialects (just look at this image!) and different traditional customs, which is not surprising knowing its history; while most of them are disappearing, as younger generations don't particularly care about them, this still translates in very different accents that can easily give out the zone you were born into. So it's kinda funny to see the most common international stereotypes are mostly based on traditions from Naples, or broadly Southern Italy.
• People from the North used to hate on people from the South up until not too long ago, because the North has always been the most technologically advanced part and therefore there was a lot of inner immigration from the South to the North. Hopefully it's mostly gone, but you'll still find the odd grumpy "North first" guy every once in a while, and people might react weirdly if you call a Central region a Southern one.

I know it seems like Canada isn’t that big of a deal culturally, but I would like to provide insight on our military and cultural practices that aren’t always directly observed. If it is allowed, I would love to share a few things I have noticed being over arching themes as well as provincial cultural differences I have experienced through my travels in our cadet program. 

For example, did you know that despite our gun laws we have many opportunities for both minors and adults to learn how to bear arms! I personally obtained my firearms license at age 12, and continued to shoot at both civilian ranges and Military SAT ranges. Though we do have restrictions, hunting and recreational Shooting is still a thing.

The majority of Canada does not exactly care about British politics or the queen. Cadets and those who have a deeper connection to the British side of Canada however tend to know more about it! 

Provinces have their own distinct accents. To the point that I sometimes find myself confused because I cannot understand some things Newfoundlanders say. Albertan and Saskatchewan accents are also quite distinct, though I cannot say much for Northwest Territories, Yukon, or many of the western and northern provinces as I have not been there.

Ever had squeaky cheese? Well it’s a type of cheese made in Quebec for poutine. It is rare that squeaky cheese is found elsewhere due to its short shelf life.

I can also offer specifics on the Halifax region as well as several cadet units and military traditions if someone needs it for a story! I can also give insight on lesser known tidbits on the Halifax explosion, such as the fact the Halifax Armouries had an entire stone wall pushed in from the blast! It is taking 2 million CAD to repair it.

I know that Canada May seem to be a “northern USA” but like I said, we have a diversified history and rich cultural background I would love to provide people with knowledge about.

Otter_under_water surely did not expect the minor bearing arms bit, while that sounds like fine cheese! I'll add you in the list if you're fine with that!

Sounds good! Yeah I was surprised when the course was offered to me back then too but it was fun lmao.

I'm mixed race (latino*/SE asian) so I feel like contributing a few things down here abt being mixed if that's allowed. Will note can't speak for all mixed people because it's something that varies a lot from person to person so this is drawing from personal experiences

-mixed people experience some 'disconnect' from our ethnicities. Example: Off the top of my head I barely know anything about Cambodian or Dominican culture, just general things like having pics of Angor Wat and the DR flag around the house, and the food my grandparents cooked.

-It's not always 50/50 when it comes to features, and there's a lot of peeps who look either racially ambiguous, or bias one 'side' more

-blocking out bc it's heavy but going back to the disconnect/appearance thing it can get pretty bad, resulting in things like your own family and people not accepting you because you're mixed, and people saying things like 'im not racist, but-' around you because they assume you're not that race. It's very sad tbh

Again, this is mostly based off my own experiences but I hope this gives some insight

*edit: seems like a certain blog caught wind of this post - for the love of god don't call me "latinx" anymore. I prefer 'latino' these days & i advise people to NOT use the term as a blanket term as it is offensive to latinos since it's a term deriving from english speakers for english speaking convenience with no considerations for grammatical conventions in spanish. "Latino" is already recognized as a gender neutral word, though 'latine' is also accepted as it does fit within spanish grammatical conventions

(i should also clarify at the time of making the original post, i was cut off from other latinos/grew up 'assimilated' & was experiencing internalized racism. Only editing the og post and adding this note because this is something I've long redacted & i really don't have the energy to deal with people assuming I'm promoting the use of an offensive term I was using out of ignorance)

Jade-Everstone thanks for the little insights, anything you think others may find useful is allowed! And about the disconnect, I often heard similar things from people whose family comes from another Country while they were born here: they'll often visit the other State during holidays to meet with their family and know some traditional dishes, but usually that's just it. Most don't really know a lot of the language either, if at all! However I have met an Italian-French person who didn't know French because hearing two different languages confused them as a kid, and therefore wouldn't speak either before the parents stuck to Italian only.

Ok, I'll start asking a question myself.

Any tips about describing skin colors and eye shapes without using geographically tied terms, and more words than light/dark? For example, how do I describe different kinds of monolid eyes, especially in a context where there's people who have them, but are not on Earth and know nothing about Earth (since monolid eyes, despite being spread in many different zones of the World, have that linguistic link to outdated previous geographically-tied terms)? And how to tell, for example, the skin tone of an almost albino person from one that has just a hint of more melanin, without using the Von Luschan scale (which is still very generic anyways)?

@leoleonis When it comes to terminology like that, it can help to look up if there are other names for these concepts. Monolid eyes, for example, are called an epicanthic fold. That's not something you can easily use in prose without breaking up the story, but once you have that term, you can look up literature about it and see if they offer a clear physical description without dropping the name.

As for the skintone thing, I'd say that the Von Luschan scale is rather obscure and using it in prose will come across as a bit stiff. The best way to solve it is to write it like any other description. For example: "The man had a much lighter complexion than she'd ever seen in someone of Admon heritage, but he was still darker than the Dormer, her pale skin even more ashen by contrast." or the likes. Especially comparing to other populations or people could help, and comparisons make a good descriptor!

ElithianFox neither option is too useful to me personally for my story, but both are really good points! Especially the second, I hadn't really thought about comparisons. Thanks!

GraySummerEnt

With the wavy to curly hair, me and my sister are full Chinese as far as we know. I've got mostly straight hair with a slight wave at the ends, while my sister has loose waves all throughout her hair. It wouldn't be a stretch for a half-asian to have natural wavy/curly hair! 

GraySummerEnt other than wavy hair and epicanthic folds appearing in any ethnicity, albinism occurs in any place too so I wouldn't worry about that: surely showing their parents and having other people of similar origin in the cast would be a good way of going around it, or even if that wasn't possible, make sure it's clear they're not albino "because of the aesthetic" only (as in, make sure they're not just pale pretty people, but actually have the possible downsides that come with albinism such as oversensitivity to light and being nearly or legally blind - the disability thread would probably be useful for this too!).

For the eyes, I'd take the style into account first. Is the style simplistic, but it takes different eye shapes into account (ex. does it represent downturned wide eyes with a circle, hooded eyes with a square, and almond eyes with an oval)? Then you can give them their own shape. Is the style simplistic, but every person without the same eye shape your characters have just has the same depiction (ex. everyone has circle eyes)? Then breaking the pattern doesn't seem like a good idea. Also, many different kinds of eye shapes exist even in every subgroup (ex. hooded eyes might as well have different inclinations and sizes), so I guess it can be quite tricky to decide how to make every stylized character different from the others.

While from my experience I usually see widely Chinese (as in, no too clear distinction between the ethnicities and cultures of China), Japanese and Korean characters, and a pair of Filipino ones; so the latter (and definitively some from China) is still under-represented, but probably any other group needs more and more accurate representation, so I hope you can get a clearer guide to any!

GraySummerEnt I'd say the important thing to know is that people are always going to think that way; there are always going to be people that assume you're just making somebody white and saying they're Asian because you don't like how "actual" Asian people look.

But that's up to them, not you. It's their incorrect interpretation of the material, and their assumption of you as a person. That makes it their problem, not yours.

The only way you could be disrespectful in this is if you directly say or show "this character is  w h i t e  except totally  A s i a n, I did that b/cuz ew actual Asians amirite totes m'gotes". Talking about their appearance in a way that puts down "traditional" Asian appearances (what most people think of as Thailand, India, China, or Japan, most likely) would be rude and insulting.
You're not doing that. You're openly trying to figure out how to go about this in the most respectful way possible, and trying to implement reasoning that would make such a character valid (the albinism). So you're doing fine on that front.

not a question, but if anyone needs advice on writing characters with religious and/or cultural jewish identities, i can answer! i'm not comfortable speaking definitively on the jewish experience, considering there is no singular jewish experience, but my religion and culture is a very important part of my life so i can speak on my experience. 

beetlejews I should definitively explicitly add religious identities too! I'll add you for both culture and religion if you're fine with that!