Understanding Multicultural Fiction

I would honestly have to say that multicultural fiction ranks up there as some of the toughest writing to do successfully. And yet, when it is done well, a reader can truly be sucked into a world that might be different from anything they personally experience in their own life. What I find, however, is that far too many authors really miss the mark when trying to write this genre.

It is important to understand the purpose behind multicultural fiction. In many ways, this genre is similar to women's fiction. As you know I have defined here on this blog (and also on my website) that women's fiction is not just a story with a female protagonist, but a story that gives us a glimpse of the world through the female lens. It gives the reader a chance to understand the world from a female perspective. When it comes to multicultural fiction, we are immersing ourselves as readers in a world and seeing how things look from within that culture. 

To understand this genre, we need to really understand what we mean by culture. According to some information from Texas A & M, we can see some basic definitions to work with for the term "culture":

• Culture refers to the cumulative deposit of knowledge, experience, beliefs, values, attitudes, meanings, hierarchies, religion, notions of time, roles, spatial relations, concepts of the universe, and material objects and possessions acquired by a group of people in the course of generations through individual and group striving.
• Culture is the systems of knowledge shared by a relatively large group of people.
• Culture is communication, communication is culture.
• Culture in its broadest sense is cultivated behavior; that is the totality of a person's learned, accumulated experience which is socially transmitted, or more briefly, behavior through social learning.
• A culture is a way of life of a group of people--the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept, generally without thinking about them, and that are passed along by communication and imitation from one generation to the next.
• Culture is symbolic communication. Some of its symbols include a group's skills, knowledge, attitudes, values, and motives. The meanings of the symbols are learned and deliberately perpetuated in a society through its institutions.
• Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behavior acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiments in artifacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other hand, as conditioning influences upon further action.
• Culture is the sum of total of the learned behavior of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition of that people and are transmitted from generation to generation.
• Culture is a collective programming of the mind that distinguishes the members of one group or category of people from another.

When we look at these definitions, we can see what needs to show up in multicultural fiction to really bring this genre alive. It is not simply about putting multicultural characters in a book, or inserting different foreign words in a text. it is about bringing forth all of the elements of that culture.

Look at some of the concepts in these definitions:

• Culture is communication, communication is culture.
• the behaviors, beliefs, values, and symbols that they accept
• Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit
• learned behavior of a group of people that are generally considered to be the tradition

In other words, we are seeing how a group of people might act and behave that goes beyond simply the external things we are used to. For example, if we are talking about a Latino family, we want to go beyond the food that they eat or the words they use for their family members. We want to see how they work with each other. We want to see the values and the relationships that they have come to grow up with over time. 

This becomes difficult on two levels. The first is finding that natural balance so that you can still tell a great story but not get overwhelmed by the language and the culture. The story itself still needs to be accessible to the readers.

The second level, and this is one that is especially hard in the present day, is to tell the story and yet not have the reader thinking it is "stereotypical." One of my authors, writes Asian American women's fiction. She has immersed the reader into a Chinese American home with parents who are immigrants to the US. Language is not something that is natural to the parents, so when we read the dialogue, it comes across as things people would scream are "politically incorrect." And yet, it is real.

For an author, we have to think of the culture as being another character in the book. The culture is a living and breathing species that needs to be authentic if we want to have the readers see the world through that lens. Again, it is not just about changing a few names. It is presenting reality.

Understanding Multicultural Fiction

Multicultural fiction is a fascinating genre and one I really do love to read, assuming the author really gets the genre. This is, at some level, a really difficult genre to write because of the role the "culture" has to play in the story. In many ways, it is like historical fiction where the backdrop becomes a character in the story. The problem is that there are far too many authors out there trying to write this genre and are really heading off course. There is a belief that by simply adding a few cultural terms, calling characters by stereotypical names, or by throwing in italicized words in the culture's dialect is enough.

To really get this idea, I went to the University of Northern Iowa and their library system for much of the information today. But, I do think if you have done any work with literature, (which in all honesty, every writer should be doing), then you will fully see why I am taking this approach.

NIU notes that multicultural fiction is, " Literature about the sociocultural experiences of underrepresented groups." I think what you should note here is the focus is on the experiences of these groups. What we are essentially seeing with this genre is a glimpse into a world that most of us would simply not know of or understand. The goal is to provide the reader with a bit more of an understanding of what it is to be part of this world.

When you think of authors such as Cisneros, Tan, and Sherman, readers are being immersed into these worlds. For authors, this is a chance to see the GMC's (Goals, Motivations and Conflicts) of this population. We are now able to see the world we live in through the lens of these characters. When done properly, this view can sometimes be very uncomfortable. Part of the reason this is the case, is because, as NIU notes, "This literature includes those who fall outside of the 'mainstream' of categories such as race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, [and] language." We are simply on the outside looking in.

Greyhaus author Jean Love-Cush does just this in her novel, ENDANGERED. Although she is
focusing in on the issue of racism in the juvenile criminal system, she forces the reader to have to come to grips with his or her own issues of racism.

As you are thinking about writing multicultural fiction, it is important to consider what you really know about the culture? If you are limited to simply textbook information or source book material, the odds are this is not a topic you will want to write on. You have to either be part of this culture, or have had a chance in the past to be immersed in this culture. A good example of this would be Suzanne Fisher Staples SHABANU. This YA/Middle Grade novel immerses the reader into the world of a young Pakistani girl. Why does this work? Fisher had spent an amazing amount of time in this culture.

The honesty of the story is also what tends to steer many readers away from this novel. For someone outside, there are scenes that are disturbing. Educators often criticize this book for the honesty, unfortunately, it is just for this reason that it should be read.

NIU goes on to note that other factors need to be considered when looking at this genre. Although they are speaking to an audience about purchasing these texts or using the material in the classroom, authors really should think about these elements when they write:

• What is the perspective you are trying to portray?
• Are the characters multidimensional? Recognizable? Not superficial?
• Do the illustrations depict real features? Is the story realistically resolved?
• Is the language authentic?
• Does the story promote positive attitudes toward the understanding of this culture? 

This is all about the "take away" for the readers. What do you want to say and what do you want them to leave with?

For authors, it is important to really focus on the realism of the story. Regardless of how disturbing it might be. I will note, however, that if it is disturbing and it does make people uncomfortable, it will often become a tough sale. As readers, we simply do not want to think of the world in this way. But sometimes, as good old Jack Nicholson says, "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!" But maybe we should