Writing, Illustrating & Publishing > Research

Current PC words to describe different races

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MysteryRobin:
When I lived in California, the rule of thumb was that to call a group of hispanic people "Mexican" was unkind because they weren't necessarily from Mexico. But, if someone had Mexican heritage, they were generally proud of it and owned the term themselves. I think it could come down to your individual characters, and then the terms they use to describe themselves may not be the terms others use to describe them, or that they'd prefer others use to describe them when talking about their race...

Lill:
A friend of mine read a story in which I had a character with a Mexican surname, and she thanked me for including a Mexicano.  The tile man who recently repaired my shower referred to himself as Mexican and his wife as Mexican-German -- he also threw in a few eye rolls and mutterances at that combo -- apparently his wife is on the feisty side.

Lill:
I googled. And this is probably useless information ... but ... I found it interesting to see the terms researchers in Michigan used while doing a study on residents in South Texas.

http://www.umich.edu/~strokepg/BASICforresearchers.html

andracill:
That's interesting, Lill -- Mexican-American is a term I've never heard before around here. 

And Rob, I think I will probably have to include their countries, as well...probably a good idea, anyway.  Even though they're secondary characters, because of their group's role in the book, I should have them expressing their cultures more specifically.

You all are great!

Dionna:
Could you leave the terms out all together and perhaps simply refer to the differences in their languages, hair, eye, and skin color, and parents' background without using labels?

In the schools where I've worked here in VA, younger Kids rarely use terms....maybe by middle-school the terms become norm.

As mentioned in a previous post, many African-Americans refers to their families as black, but those same individuals will in a formal setting say African-American. Personally, knowing that the heritage of many blacks here in this country cover many countries besides Africa, I believe the term is limiting and sometimes prefer saying "a person of color".

(In one nonfiction ms, I used the term European-American and African-American to keep it consistent!)

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