Often in the arena of multicultural writing, the topics tend to only exhibit the broadest terms or characters a mixed audience can understand. For example, I was nine years old when I moved to Arizona with my father. My parents were splitting up and my father wanted to venture out West from New Jersey. Arizona sounded new and exciting to me and being a daddy’s girl, of course I wanted to go. It was the early to mid-1980’s and many of our New Jersey relatives were not impressed. My father had to combat such comments as inquiries as:

·        You’re taking a girl away from her mother to a land of horses roaming the streets and bouncing tumbleweeds?

·        What’s out there in Arizona?

·        Where’s Arizona?

·        Are there any black people in Arizona? (Still find it hard to answer this one sometimes! LOL)

Needless to say, my father had his work cut out for him. The same is true for the development of multicultural characters in fiction. We can take the easy way out and rely on stereotypes or caricatures of a culture or ethnic origin—be it the good, the bad or a mixture. But I hope to expand my writing beyond this. How many people didn’t realize there were white Africans? Or that not all Nigerians are scam artists? As a multicultural writer, it is my responsibility to reflect all the positive representations of a culture. Sure, I’ll point out flaws, but there are enough people doing that already.

While I write about many cultures, In terms of African/African American culture, I hope that my writing will blossom to include not only positive African Americans, but positive Africans as well. Exploring representatives of a culture that is familiar yet dissimilar is challenging, however, the Internet can bust clichés and barriers as well. Take for instance, Nigerian businessman Mohammed Babangida. Many images come to mind at just the sound of his name and the simple reference to his ethnic origin; however, Mohammed Babangida was schooled in Switzerland and attended Harvard Business School. His professional accomplishments include board directorships and executive chairs in the real estate, banking, gas and oil industries.

When taking on the task of creating multicultural characters, personas like Mohammed Babangida represent how important it is to embrace the limitless possibilities multiculturalism provides.

Related Posts:

• Professional Culture: Tim Arel
• Bringing Character into View: Amos Tamam
• Creating Real Culture: Joseph Odindo
• Multicultural Characterization