Publishing and the Obligations of Ethnicity

Does it make a difference to you if an author of a cultural book does not come from that cultural background?

While anyone is free to have a personal opinion on the matter, most people’s influence can only go so far as their pocketbooks; money talks when it comes to the book-buying market. When publishers make choices, however, the consequences are far greater. Every book that is not published means that a voice is not heard. Do publishers have an obligation one way or the other to the ethnic stories that reach the market? Should publishers look at factors such as ethnicity when making editorial decisions?

Some publishers, like Children’s Book Press, pride themselves in precisely that minority representation. That is their marketing platform: not only do they publish stories that reflect our diverse communities, but they are supporting minority artists themselves by given them opportunity to present their words and pictures.

As a publisher and editorial decision-maker, I choose to approach this issue differently. While I think that representing minority artists is an extremely important task in today’s market, I still read manuscripts and choose corresponding artwork completely blind to the author or artist’s ethnicity.

This reminds me of some of my cousins who are, like me, Chinese American. When we were younger, they would insist that they would only date Chinese boys. Not me, I said. Finding the right guy is hard enough. Why would I rule out most of the population before I had even met them?

Reading manuscripts is the same for me. I don’t want to rule out a story just because of the author’s ethnicity, and besides, it is often impossible to tell from a writer’s name what their cultural background she has. Am I to ask an author of an exciting manuscript about a Chinese American girl if she is Chinese American herself? Would I reject the manuscript if I learned she was not? Finding a good manuscript is hard enough—why impose extra limitations?

The good news is that many aspiring writers interested in multicultural stories happen to be people of color themselves. That means that most of the submissions I see are written by minorities, and that’s great. It means that there is a good chance our next great book will be written by a person who has a cultural or ethnic background similar to the one represented in the story. But if it isn’t, that’s great too.