I’ve considered myself fairly open. Diversified and embracing of other ethnicities. After all, I’m South Korean who lives in America. But I relate more to the Caucasian American culture since a Caucasian family adopted and raised me. But with all the awareness of racism in the current environment, I evaluated my own worldview.
I thought I was open especially to the African-American experience because I have several black friends and even black nephews.
But after taking time listening to my black friends and their experiences, educating myself on anti-racism and black history, and when I received feedback from Jennifer Owens, my black friend, who read portions of my work-in-progress, Love At the Mayo, I realized I’m not as informed and open as I thought.
She was courteous to read the portions of a black character. From her feedback, I was astonished how much I didn’t know or was ignorant about.
As I’m educating myself on black history and books, honestly, I’m left wondering, “Where have I been?”
Without diving too deep into my experience, let’s say that I needed to be open to myself first. All my adolescent life, I wished I were white. I lived in a predominately Polish-American community with little diversity. I can count only a handful of Asian Americans and even less African-Americans when I was growing up.
No wonder I gravitate to predominately white culture—from my choice of authors, movies, and music. And it shows blatantly in my writing. I’m not ashamed of my portrayal of the white characters, but of my black one. I can do better by not remaining ignorant but educating myself so they’re properly portrayed.
And also, I want my fiction to better represent my actual world view; afterall, I have a multi-cultural family and friends. But if I wasn’t willing to reflect my own Asian ethnicity, how can I reflect others outside of what I’m comfortable?
Christ loves all people. So, as a believer in Christ, I want to expose myself to understand a variety of ethnicities. Learn how they see the world. But God pointed out, I need to look inside me first. Open my heart to accepting myself as a believer who is Korean. Jesus accepts me for who I am, so why can’t I?
Our writing reflects our world view. How we see the world and how we experience it, is splattered on the pages of our works. No matter how hard we try not to- it’s inevitable. That’s why it’s invaluable to get feedback from others, so they can point out our blind spots.
I’m not necessarily saying that I have to reflect every ethnicity in the world, but I want to properly reflect those in the world around me. (And if compelled, research and discover those not around me.) By doing so, I’m enriched. And hopefully my readers will be as well.
How about you? What have you discovered when educating yourself about other cultures?
Featured Image by KAL VISUALS on Unsplash