Writing Multi-Cultural Characters

So... while I was at the writers conference, I went to a class titled: "The Beauty of Voice: Discovering Multi-cultrual voices in all writing."

I thought it sounded interesting. I figured as a writer, it would be a good thing to know how to include "multi-cultural voices" into my writing. Well, the class ended up being more about "what is voice" rather than multi-cultural. Oh well.

But, then... haha... I had a lay-over in the Minneapolis airport coming home, and I was hungry. So, I headed to one of the food courts, grabbed some food, and sat down. The music playing through the sound system was Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream."

From behind me, the girls working one of the food court counters start belting out the lyrics "...get your heart racing in my skin tight jeans, be your teenage dream tonight, let you put your hands on me in my skin tight jeans, be your teenage dream tonight..."

So, of course I had to turn around and sneek a peek at these girls having a blast singing at the top of their lungs.

Multi-cultural voices.

I only caught a glimpse of one of the girls (the others had moved out of sight) laughing at themselves, and she was wearing a burqa. Mighta been a hijab. I'm not well versed in the correct terms. But, she appeared to be from India, and she was laughing very hard.

So, anyway... I found it quite interesting (and had to laugh at myself) how that multi-cultural voice sounded a lot like the white teenage girls from Idaho.

Just sayin' ...