Munday - Race Relations
Today's topic can be a racy one.... race.
What's race like in your characters' world? Is your character white (or the equivalent privileged race in their society/culture), or a character of color? How has race shaped them? Are they conscious of racial and ethnic issues?
Do you as the writer make an attempt to address racial and ethnic issues in your portrayal? Why or why not?
Don't Let Go is set modern-day California in a fictional seaside town between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz. So any racial issues would be what exists today which in my experience of area is rather open. If anything the prejudice is more on economic and lifestyle levels. Both main characters are mixed. Seth is Polynesian and white, Marion is Japanese and white. Marion's parents are also mixed background as both of them are half Japanese as well, and while his father is certainly Japanese and American (one of his ancestors was a WWII soldier) I never decided on his mother and it doesn't matter in the story. Race doesn't shape them nearly as much as their environments and social pressures, but there is more of an effect on Marion with the sense of family duty being most important. Seth just doesn't want to be seen as a useless good for nothing because of his troubled childhood.
I don't concentrate on racial issues because I'm not well versed enough to do it well, nor do I really want to. My interests just don't lie in that direction. I tend more towards issues of gender, economic status and lifestyle choice, but really I just want to write an engaging story. I'm not out to prove anything.
What's race like in your characters' world? Is your character white (or the equivalent privileged race in their society/culture), or a character of color? How has race shaped them? Are they conscious of racial and ethnic issues?
Do you as the writer make an attempt to address racial and ethnic issues in your portrayal? Why or why not?
Don't Let Go is set modern-day California in a fictional seaside town between Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz. So any racial issues would be what exists today which in my experience of area is rather open. If anything the prejudice is more on economic and lifestyle levels. Both main characters are mixed. Seth is Polynesian and white, Marion is Japanese and white. Marion's parents are also mixed background as both of them are half Japanese as well, and while his father is certainly Japanese and American (one of his ancestors was a WWII soldier) I never decided on his mother and it doesn't matter in the story. Race doesn't shape them nearly as much as their environments and social pressures, but there is more of an effect on Marion with the sense of family duty being most important. Seth just doesn't want to be seen as a useless good for nothing because of his troubled childhood.
I don't concentrate on racial issues because I'm not well versed enough to do it well, nor do I really want to. My interests just don't lie in that direction. I tend more towards issues of gender, economic status and lifestyle choice, but really I just want to write an engaging story. I'm not out to prove anything.