Multicultural literature seems to be the new buzzword in books. Why this sudden demand for multicultural lit? If you think about it, over half of all kids under the age of 5 are minorities, and multicultural kids want to see themselves represented in what they read. Plus, book editors and agents see the value in the growing market.
Young adult writer Ingrid Sundberg blogs about this new trend, examining the genre and also providing tips for writers of multicultural lit. She talks about how to write about culture while avoiding cliches, about whether you have to be an “insider” if you want to write about a particular culture with authenticity, and how to get sources.
Here are a few words of Sundberg’s advice:
How Do You Approach Multicultural Books the Right Way?
Take evaluative measures. Be aware of how to avoid stereotypes. These can be the greatest pitfalls.
No distortions! Befriend people in the culture. Ask questions, check facts. Find primary and secondary sources and have them help check your dialog, etc. People love to talk to writers!
Beware of insulting those in the culture. Make sure your characters are fully developed and multi-layered. Complex!
Be aware that there are different dialects within the same language (Spanish for example). People speak differently in California vs. Arizona vs. Texas vs. New Mexico. Think about this like the use of the word soda. It can be called: soda, pop, or coke, all depending upon where you live and the slang for that area.
Characters should be strong enough to solve their own problems. Don’t have another culture bail them out! There should be personal strength within the character.
You don’t have to be PC on every little thing. But be careful, there is a fine line.
The idea of the hero is important in race related books. Don’t have the characters bail out, or undermine the culture.
Read Sundberg’s full post about multilingual lit here.
Immigration reform is one the most controversial political topics today. Let’s face it: any decision made related to immigration crackdowns are going to affect our workforce, where many sectors are based on cheap, unskilled labor that immigrants provide. For better or for worse, how will these crackdowns affect the U.S. workforce?
The New York Times uses Michel Malecot as an example, who is the owner of a small French restaurant in San Diego. He was charged and indicted with charges of employing 12 illegal immigrants. If found guilty, he faces the forfeiture of his restaurant and up to $4 million in fines.
The Obama administration has been getting tough on immigration enforcement laws, which were once considered lax. This year federal employees expect to announce a record number of investigation and fines.
Taking a look at the restaurant industry, 1.4 million workers, both legal and illegal, are foreign-born. “According to 2008 estimates from the Pew Hispanic Center, about 20 percent of the nearly 2.6 million chefs, head cooks and cooks are illegal immigrants. Among the 360,000 dishwashers, 28 percent are undocumented, according to the estimates.”
While hiring illegal immigrants may be industry standard, the crackdowns are welcomed from many immigrant rights supporters, who see that illegal immigrants are underpaid and also afraid of complaining to their employers.
It can be complicated business for everyone involved. Employers don’t want the burden of policing their employees when they provide what appears to be legal paperwork, and even electronic verification systems have incorrect information that could turn away eligible workers. Many employers are now petitioning for immigration reform that makes it easier for undocumented workers to gain legal status.
A blog called “Latina-ish” brings us some fun tongue twisters (”trabalenguas”) to practice with your Spanish-English bilingual tots. For kids (or adults!) who have difficulty rolling their ‘r’s, try this one:
Erre con erre cigarro,
Erre con erre barril.
Rapido corren los carros,
Cargados de azúcar al ferrocarril.
The blog’s author, who is not a native Spanish speaker, tries speaking a few of the tongue twisters in this short video:
If you want to squeeze all the Spanish sounds into one sentence, have a go at this:
La cigüeña gigante bebió ocho copas de whisky, más quince jarras llenas de fría cerveza rubia, y enseguida huyó en un taxi.
Translation:
The giant stork drank eight glasses of whiskey, plus fifteen full mugs of cold pale ale, and escaped in a taxi right away.
In New York, hospitals are realizing that their patients, who come from all over the world, may not be accustomed to U.S. practices and protocol. So, they’re adopting new methods to make sure their patients feel comfortable during a stay, no matter where they come from.
At Elmhurst Hospital Center in Queens, a borough that is home to 2.3 million people from more than 100 countries, lactation consultants spend extra time explaining to Bangladeshi women that the yellow breast milk they produce right after birth is not dirty.
Female obstetricians are always on duty overnight at the hospital’s maternity ward in case a Muslim woman arrives in labor and does not want to be treated by a male doctor.
At the diabetes nutrition classes, where participants are mostly from Latin America, diet plans incorporate items like guava paste, plantains and chayote squash.
At Mercy Medical Center in Merced, Calif., shamans tend to the spiritual needs of the hospital’s many Hmong patients. Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital in Houston has a floor devoted to Asian patients, where the menu offers a selection of Chinese and Vietnamese comfort food, like chicken congee soup and steamed dumplings.
If you’ve ever been hospitalized overseas, you probably felt an extra level of discomfort caused by unfamiliarity with the medical practices, or simply the food served at the hospital cafeteria. Imagine how your experience might have been improved (and how much more you might have understood about the procedure or condition) had your healthcare provider understood where you came from.
That’s exactly how hospitals are starting to think. “Doctors and nurses are interviewing religious leaders, visiting cultural centers and even traveling abroad to better understand their patients.” It’s a great start!
People all over the world are learning English to increase business opportunities and get better jobs, and China now holds the top place with over 300 million English speakers.
The problem, of course, is that proper English is not often used due to a shortage in trained teachers. Mike Kraft, CEO of Lingo Media Corporation, has a solution: a free, avatar-based program called speak2me.cn that helps correct users’ pronunciation and provides real-life learning scenarios that students can repeat as many times as they like.
This avatar speaks English properly and, through voice recognition software, “listens” to students repeat her words and sentences then makes them verbalize over again until they get it right. There is scoring, contests and prizes.
Students can tap into hundreds of tailor-made modules — about shopping, studying, working, traveling or socializing — that help them practice their pronunciation, vocabulary and grammar.
The program is free to users but uses advertising and product placement to pay for operations. The site now has 1 million users.
Entrepreneurs like Kraft are smart to tap into the Chinese market. Apart from English speakers, China also boasts the largest number of internet users, with 328 million people online.
Although based on a relatively small sample pool, we now have a better idea of which Latin American countries use Twitter the most. Amazingly, of the 93 million Twitter users around the world, 15 million are Latin American! Just in the past year, the Latin American Twitter population grew 305%.
Some other fun facts:
Brazil (20.5%) and Venezuela (19%) are in the second and third place respectively in terms of Twitter users, after Indonesia.
The Asian region ranked second with a growth of 243%
The portrait of a typical user of twitter is: male (75%), between 21 and 30 years (56%), blogger (83%), linked to the world of Internet and new technologies (72%), using the tool because of professional interests (52%).
What does all this new social media technology mean for worldwide communication? We’re only beginning to find out. As one corporate communication strategist states, “Even many who now use Twitter did not understand it until they started to follow people with similar interests, participate in discussions and feel the value of such contacts. Twitter is one of those applications that rather than we try to explain, are understood only by the experience.”
Read the full blog post about Twitter in Latin America here.
Latin Americans are the fastest growing population of Twitter users in the world, and are engaging in all forms of social media. Marketers who are attempting to access the potentially huge Hispanic market in the U.S. have a tough choice now: Spanish or English?
Andy Checo of Hispanic PR Chat gives his insight into this area. His main idea is this: language is ultimately irrelevant. Companies need to be “in-culture” in order to relate to their target audiences, no matter what the language.
He recommends using English if the majority of your target audience wouldn’t get the cultural message in Spanish. “We all know that if your audience is an acculturate Hispanic they will be able to relate to the bachata group Aventura as they would to Damien Rice, but can your non-Hispanic audience relate to Aventura?”
Use Spanish if your target audience is communicating in Spanish. “Are people commenting in Spanish? Asking you questions in Spanish? If so, why would you choose to communicate back in English?”
Spanglish is also an option, but again, it depends on the needs of your particular audience. Just listen to them!
Read Checo’s full advice post as originally posted on his website here, or reposted on hispanicPRblog here.
People all over the world are learning English to increase business opportunities and get better jobs, and China now holds the top place with over 300 million English speakers.
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Latin Americans are the fastest growing population of Twitter users in the world, and are engaging in all forms of social media. Marketers who are attempting to access the potentially huge Hispanic market in the U.S. have a tough choice now: Spanish or English?