What Ethnicty Are Your Characters?

Due to a really interesting conversation that went on in the "Things You Hate About Stories" thread concerning the lack of racially-diverse characters on this site, I thought it would be a good idea to make a thread where you can discuss the ethnicity of your characters.

Think of these questions while posting:

-Is your character a non-Anglo European, such as Polish or Italian?
-Were they born in the country of their ethnicity? (Was your Nigerian character born in Nigeria or just descended from there?)
-Why did you choose that ethnicity for your character? Is it the ethnicity of your family? Do you know some one of that ethnicity?

Have fun on this thread and be respectful. :cute:

My main character for Horrorland and The Realm of Nonsense is part Italian and part American. Addeline was born in America, after her parents have moved away from Italy to find those new opportunities that the father had promised to Addeline's mother.

I chose the ethnicity because it was a bit different... like I actually had to research about common Italian names and surnames and such.

Fun!

All from No Man's Land:

- The Fitzgerald family, which includes Jackie Flores (who legally changed his surname from Fitzgerald to Flores when he was eighteen) is distinctly Irish, though most of its members live in the United States and Canada now. Jackie's paternal grandfather was an Irish immigrant who married an American woman. Gaelic is still a language that the Fitzgeralds pride themselves in speaking, though it fades out more and more with every new American generation. Jackie is still proud of his heritage, regardless, despite him not being able to speak that language well. Several family members still live in Ireland, though they're rather detached from those who live overseas.

- Contessa Grier was born Contessa-Mikhaila Nikitichna Ovchinnikov in Moscow, Russia. Her family, at the insistence of her father, left when she was a young teenager and moved to New York, in the United States. She married a man named Kiril Sobolev when she was nineteen, and he was in his forties, therefore becoming Contessa-Mikhaila Nikitichna Sobolev for a small while. Unfortunately, he suffered a heart attack and died a few years later, in June of 2000. She married again in 2002. Her second husband, Vladimir Grier, is third-generation American. Contessa usually only goes by the simplistic name of "Contessa Grier" now, though legally her name is Contessa-Mikhaila Nikitichna Grier. She has a condition known as sound ? color synesthesia, which she actually is rather fond of, because, "When I am onstage, and I am playing, I look around and - color! Better than acid trip." Her husband is the tour manager for the band she plays in, The Headless Choir.

I've always had a fascination with all things Russian, honestly. The people, the politics, the accents, simply everything. It was inevitable that, eventually, a Russian character or two would pop up in my writing.

- Lamont “Lucky” Ostheim is half Puerto-Rican; his mother was Puerto-Rican, his father a white American. He was born in New York, New York, and considers himself mostly just American, but regrets that he's so detached from his Puerto-Rican roots. His mother died when he was young, and his father remarried a Caucasian woman a few years later. His father never discouraged that Lucky learn more about his heritage, but he never went out of his way to make sure that it happened, either.

Lucky is based on a real-life friend of mine in this regard. (Though said real-life friend's father is Puerto-Rican, and his mother is white and American.)

- Taffy White and his paternal family draw their lineage back to Africa in the sixteenth century. They were brought to America via slave trade, and have records that show what plantations they were forced to work for. Taffy isn't sure what the "old family" name was, though his father has let on that their surname was probably some sort of joke taken on by an ancestor - "I think your great, great, great, and so-on grandfather had a fucked-up sense of humor, personally." Taffy's mother's side draws their roots back to Barbados.

Honestly, I was just tired of always seeing just white characters in stories. Though admittedly, I came up with the names of the three other No Man's Land bandmates before I attached actual characterization and ethnicity to them. I think I remember that Evan was going to have Taffy's name, and Taffy was going to have Evan's name, but the surname "Wise" was just so...more Evan-like, so I switched them.

- Sibley Scott is very much British. He's from Manchester, England, and left only after completing his studies as a young man so he could travel more and still pursue his goal of making a living off of his photography. He was successful at it, and is widely regarded as a talented and sought-after photographer, especially by bands and other musicians. He calls Chicago, Illinois, home. He renews his Visa whenever he needs to, instead of trying to obtain permanent citizenship, however. "No real reason," he explains. "I love living here, but somehow I still feel like I'm cheating on dear old England, sometimes."

Although I began writing his character a while ago, I found new inspiration in him from a photographer I met at a Rise Against show. Said photographer was not British, but he had a distinctly Sibley-like vibe. My only excuse for the character being British is my fascination with the people in general.

- Abella Delauney is originally from Reims, France, though now finds semi-permanent residence in Chicago, Illinois. Her accent is slight, having moved with her mother and brother to Canada when she was a young girl, and then to the United States when she was a little older. She is Sibley Scott's assistant. Sibley has taken a shine to her, which is fairly astonishing when considering he hardly admits to even grudging friendships with anyone, but would never actually tell her that.

There are probably more, but for main and secondary characters, I think that's about it.

Being adopted, DenJ's ethnicity in particular is unknown. At the very least, she looks of European descent and possibly Scottish by a couple acquaintances. The fact that she was born and spent her early years in the U.S., where it's filled with different ethnicities nowadays, makes it just a bit harder to figure out any more info about her.
- I've had this particular character since I was about 11 years old. She started out as a full-blown Mary-Sue but I have managed to clean her up throughout the years. I decided to keep her as a foster child, but I'm unsure of myself to what possible ethnicity DenJ could be until recently. Possible Scottish ancestry in her blood seems right since I already have her be European.

Kiran, if she were to live on our Earth, she would be Chinese-Indian. The world Kiran lives in is where each country and its areas are a mix of at least two different cultures. So she was born and descended in an area that's an intermix of Chinese and Indian cultures.
-I just felt it would be an interesting mix when I created Kiran and eventually her country. Since I'm creating an entire world in the end, it's obviously a butt doing all the research of all the different cultures but it's all in the name of good writing, of course. And I like learning cultures. Especially Asian cultures.

Luna is orphaned and therefore unknown about her ethnicity. However, it's obvious that she at least looks East Asian. Luna was born in the U.S. and she chose her own name regardless of whether or not it's of the origin of her ethnicity ('cause she doesn't even know her ethnicity in the first place, anyway).
-This was kind of based off a friend of mine who's Chinese and is named Luna, but the part of whether or not my Luna is actually Chinese is still up to debate in my head.

Haneul is definitely Korean, born and spent her first years in her homeland before leaving for England at a very early age. She takes pride of her culture and takes extensive time to become fully fluent in her mother language and a lot of her clothes are Korean-influenced including her custom made military uniform.
-The Korean culture is something that's a bit obscure to my knowledge, so me, being someone who's always interested in different cultures of the world, I'd like to take the opportunity to learn more about it as I continue to write about her.

Perpetual Guilt:

Nathan and Cameron (brothers) - Both are Caucasian, though I'm not yet sure where exactly from.

Annelle - Is African-American, though I'm not yet sure where exactly from. She lives in NYC now, but that's not where she was born and raised and I haven't decide if I was going to make her parents from America or from the West Indies...but I'm leaning towards the West Indies.

Not Near:

The main character, who is not yet names: Is also African-American. From America. Her family is from New York, linking all the way back to her great great great grandparents.

Swagger:

Whitney: Caucasian. Still haven't decided any thing else particular.

Katherine: Asian. Still haven't decided any thing else particular.

Moving On:

All current characters are Irish.

Changed:

Angela: has no ethnicity, not in the story. It's never revealed and I'll never say. :D

Untouchable:

Belinda: Is half-Hispanic and half-Caucasian. Her mom is from Spain. Her dad is Caucasian, All-American.

Xavier Montição is from varied ancestries, but identifies as Brazilian or pardo.
He never knew his father (which is why he only has one surname instead of the usual two), but later in life DNA tests revealed that he was of part African (most likely Afro-Brazilian) and Amerindian (most likely Guaraní), although due to the fact that his father was never a part of his life, neither of these ethnicities are a part of his identity.
Xavier's mother, Nadia Montição, had strains of Italian in her and was fluent in both Portuguese and Italian, which she passed onto her son, but her family left Italy four generations before she was born. Most information and culture was lost over time, and all hope of recovering any information was lost during the rise of the military junta. There is also reason to believe his mother was part Amerindian as well, most likely Kaingang, but since this never played much of a role in Xavier's upbringing it is not a large part of his identity.
He and his mother left Rio de Janeiro for New York City when he was thirteen due to his mother's growing fear of the junta, but at age twenty he returned, bought a house and refused to leave until the Brazilian government, still under junta control, officially kicked him out, stating they had no proof that he was a Brazilian citizen (which was true, since the baptismal record had been destroyed and he'd never had a birth certificate in the first place due to the fact that he grew up in a favela). He returned to New York, staying until 1984 when the junta collapsed, then went back down, bought the same house, and developed a migratory pattern of staying in Rio for the northern hemisphere's winter and in New York for the southern hemisphere's winter. So far it's worked out fairly well. :XD

Mireia Mèrcat Madrugón self-identifies as a "Mexican Jew" and occasionally calls herself "Ashephardican", a portmanteau of Ashkenazi, Sephardi and Mexican.
She was born to a Sephardi-Mexican mother, Emilia Madrugón Davila, and an Ashkenazi-French father, Jean-François "Jeannot" Mèrcat in the DF, but her father never instilled much French culture in her upbringing besides teaching her the language, and so it never became a part of her identity.
Her mother's family had left Spain in the sixteenth century due to the Inquisition, but finding that it had quickly spread to Mexico, were forced to hide the fact that they were Sephardim until the nineteenth century. It was during this time that they got their surname, which means "early-rising" in Spanish--because they had to make people think they were Catholic, they went to the earliest Mass every Sunday to make themselves appear ridiculously devout, and so were given the collective nickname Madrugón.
Her father's family was Ashkenazi, eventually settling in France during the seventeenth century after wandering around German territories for fifteen hundred years. During the Nazi occupation, however, the only remaining members of the Mèrcat family were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Jeannot was the only member known to survive. After the Soviet liberation of the camp, he spent a few years in Europe, then moved to New Orleans, and eventually went to Mexico where he met Emilia. After Mireia's birth they separated, and when Emilia died when Mireia was thirteen, Jeannot moved back to New Orleans with his daughter in tow.
Mireia, while still identifying as Mexican, never returned to Mexico to live because she associated it too strongly with her mother's death.

I don't really think about it much when I write. Most of my characters are caucasian, but it's not something that I make a point of doing. I write fanfiction, like most of the people here, and these days, it's slash between band members and they are white.
With older stories where I had an OFC, I never really specified (unless I said pale/olive/whatever skin tone), so they could have been anything. I always thought of them as white, never much thought about backgrounds, like italian or anything. :/
I'm not racist at all, it's just not something I give so much thought to. I should, but.

My characters are every color of the rainbow, seriously.

Leszter Gára Farkas (pronounced Lester Gaah-rah Fohr-kohsh. Hungarian A's are said like O in the British "hot" sort of... I don't know hwo to explain..)
Leszter was born in Kecskemét, Hungary and is Magyar Hungarian, Magyar being the main ethnic group in Hungary. While he lived in Budapest, he was an "úságíró" (oo-shaah-gee-raaw) which is a journalist. A good one too, he was able to travel around Europe especially during WWI. However, in america his journalism career isn't neary as successful, having only a limited knowledge in English.
I am Hungarian myself and I figured, hey, this guy is going to be Hungarian.

Vanadia Vincent
Pure blood Cajun born in New Orleans and has the French accent to prove it-when she wants to, she hides it pretty well. Says her last name like "Vin-sante", y'know, French-like but despite that, Clyde just says it in the English way.

Clyde de la Flor
Born in Kansas City, Missouri. Clyde's just a typical American mutt, a mix of all sorts of different things and he doesn't really care. Italian, Irish, Spanish... He just saves his breath and calls himself American. Clyde's never been one for nit-picky details.

Shivani Rangarajan
Though both her parents are Indian, she was born in Boston. Shivani doesn't know much about her culture, though she is Hindu and follows it. Doesn't speak much Hindi either, and she doesn't mind that.

Zhong Cai(pronounced like Jong Tsai.)
He's not quite sure where exactly he was born. He's not even sure Zhong Cai is his real name. He says he was born under a rock in some village way out in the boondocks of south China. Though, he also thinks he could've been born somewhere around the borders of China, Laos, and Vietnam. He's lived in a million different places, not realy having a permanent home until moving to America. He speaks Mandarin, Cantonese, English, and somewhat understands Thai and Lao. (Thai and Lao are very similar.)

Ed Schneider
Bit of a mystery with him. It's unknown whether he was born Edrich von Schneider in Braunfels, Germany or Edward Schneider in Braunfels, Texas. He doesn't really remember himself. He faught in World War I but can't remember if he faught with the Central Powers against the Russians on the Eatsern Front or with the Americans against the Central Powers on the Western Front.

Nathaniel Morrison
Born in Colorado and idenifies himself as American, though he does has British and Irish blood. This man is pretty white, as in, he's very pale and he doesn't like it...

Valerie Crawford
African-American and born in Illinois. For some reason, as a love interest to Nathaniel, a white girl just wouldn't work, I don't know why. But she's cute~

My original characters are typically white, but not on purpose.
I guess that becaue I'm white I just find automatically write stories about other caucasian people. I've written about people of other races before and those stories went along just find, so it's not like I have any aversion.
I just don't really think much about race when I'm developing a character, but then when I start writing them, they automatically become a caucasian to me unless I'd previously planned them to be something else.

I only write fanfiction so it's a bit hard to have different races in my stories.
Unless I'm writing about like, Gabe Saporta or Travis McCoy.

jay!:

My original characters are typically white, but not on purpose.
I guess that becaue I'm white I just find automatically write stories about other caucasian people. I've written about people of other races before and those stories went along just find, so it's not like I have any aversion.
I just don't really think much about race when I'm developing a character, but then when I start writing them, they automatically become a caucasian to me unless I'd previously planned them to be something else.

That's basically what it is for me.

I'm working on a new story with three main characters, though;
one of the girls is Italian, another is half French and half Russian and the other girl is half Irish.

I had an original fiction story I never finished, ages ago. The character was Mexican and her name was Isabel.

But most of my characters are white. I know Lucy's white. Theo probably is too. But now that I think about it, Patricia might be black. I'm not sure. I just know that she looks good wearing red lipstick.

Hex: 'Wendy' is like...mixed race. But then again, she is also mixed species. Hell, she's not even human.

Stargazed is probably my most diverse story - or beginning to a story anyway. There's people from all around the world in there.

There's Richard and Virginia: posh, aristocratic English people with roots in Bavaria.
Marcia is a Scot whose grandparents were Spanish.
Ruth is Welsh.
Todd is English but his parents were from Uganda.
Miles is an American with roots in Germany and Russia.
Lyra is French and is mixed race - one parent is from Algiers.
Arya is Indian.
Tsubame is Japanese.
Zack is an American - never really got round to writing his family tree.
Shereen is Iranian but she moved to Germany when she was going to university.
Mila is from New Zealand but has roots in Eastern Europe.
And the unknown twins are Maori.

But I've stopped really mentioning the ethnicity of my characters, particularly OC characters because sometimes it doesn't fit the story.

Particularly in Old Rugged Cross because I don't want to give that voice a body. I like it as it is, disembowelled, nameless, bodiless. It is a quivering soul, speaking out to the world.

I think there is a collective act in indeliberately making characters the same race as ourselves. I interpret most of my characters as being Caucasian, but I try to leave out giving them specific skin colors so that readers can interpret the characters in whatever way. Three of mine are absolutely not white; two are Hispanic, and one is Native American. I think a majority of the world's population stick to their own race in most aspects, and writing isn't unincluded. What is important is the meaning of the work as a whole, with all the little details intact to make it so, but ethnicity shouldn't be forced on a character or writer. Peer pressure works in all ways.

In fanfiction, the people are write about are caucasian, so they are in my story. It makes no sense whatsoever to change their race.

I do agree with ghosthorse, though. In my OF, my main character is white and that wasn't a conscious decision, other than the fact they're English and this is because my story is set in London. There is diversity within other characters in the story because it's set in a school and a children's home, but I haven't got to them yet.

Another leading character in the same story is Irish, just because I love the accent. :tehe:

I always imagined all my characters as Italian for some reason.

In my book Creep Is Dead, my character Fred is Irish, Italian, and a little bit of Russian. Yeah, it's no surprise he's such a tough street kid.

:XD

My other character, Nick, is Scottish, I believe.

Let's see, other characters...

Well, in The Kids Flew The Coop I'm not exactly sure what ethnicity anyone is. Harry's last name is Maxwell, so he's probably English.

My vampire spoof, of Dragomir von Grabovich, he's either Romanian or Russian. But that doesn't really count. :tehe:

Let's see, in Blood Brothers, Franky is hispanic and Ricky is either English or German, and there are a lot of Italian kids around.

In Just a Freak, Riley is very very Irish.

The rest of the characters either aren't developed enough, or ambiguous racial-wise.

Those characters are mainly Anglo, but I usually prefer writing characters who aren't anglo because I love talking about the culture.

I like writing Hispanic characters and I have quite a few (gets difficult with language, though, because I've never taken Spanish in my life), and I love love love writing Italians. I'm half-Italian from my mother's side and both of my parents grew up right outside of NYC. Italians just have a very family-oriented culture, and I love how loud and belligerent they can be. Both hispanics and Italians tend to be very religious people, also, which works great with story-writing as well. It just gives you such great material!

I'd also like to write an Asian-American family, because I really like the whole 'honor' sort of thing. I know that whole 'my Asian grandmother does not understand my American ways' thing is really cliche, and if I could set it in an actual Asian country I would, but I don't know enough about any of them, and America is easier for me to write. Also, it adds conflict, which is a benefit.

I love themes. :tehe:

I think it's really interesting to write a character or family that has a unique culture because not only do traditions play well depending on the story, but you also get to learn so much about them.

My most important ethnicity-wise character is Tank.
He's Islamic (Muslim) and it plays a huge role for him.
When he can, he tried to follow the five pillars as well as prayer.
He doesn't eat pork and matches up to fasting.

He has a very lost of respect for his religion and ethnicity. :XD and a muslim nose.

Most of my characters are caucasian, although I do have a work in progress, not published on Mibba, with a main character that is half Italian, half English. And I think Nikolas, a minor character in another story is definitely of some sort of Eastern European descent. But my characters' races are never explicitly stated, so it's really up to the reader, I suppose.

jay!:

My original characters are typically white, but not on purpose.
I guess that becaue I'm white I just find automatically write stories about other caucasian people. I've written about people of other races before and those stories went along just find, so it's not like I have any aversion.
I just don't really think much about race when I'm developing a character, but then when I start writing them, they automatically become a caucasian to me unless I'd previously planned them to be something else.

Yeah, that's pretty much how it is for me. Only one of my main OCs isn't caucasian. After reading the stuff abour ethnicity in the "Things you hate about stories" thread though, I've started to give it a bit more thought, and I think with future OCs I'll probably try to make them a bit more diverse.