Writing The Lived Multicultural Existence
The Golden Manuscripts: A Novel is the sixth e-book within the collection Between Two Worlds. The fundamental theme weaving by way of 5 of the six-book collection is how the “Other” navigates the realities of dwelling in two (or extra) separate cultures inside a society.
Who is the “Other?” The “Other” is anybody not like “Us.” That may very well be somebody who’s:
- of various ethnicity;
- an immigrant;
- raised in a tradition totally different from the mainstream, who could have hassle mixing in;
- at the moment dwelling more often than not in a tradition totally different from the mainstream;
- a mixture of any of the above.
The “Other” often lives a multicultural life. If that life is exterior a multicultural setting, conflicts are more likely to come up.
The conflict of cultures will be so sturdy that selecting between the dictates of the dominant tradition and the usually international traditions during which one has been raised could make the “Other” really feel like two totally different folks. It will be an insufferable state of duality, however they will’t run away from it.
In The Golden Manuscripts, Clarissa, the primary character, is an Asian/Caucasian younger girl who has inhabited seven totally different nations by the time she’s twenty. Of the six protagonists within the BTW collection, she exemplifies the intense of what might occur to somebody who grows up dwelling in a number of totally different cultures—she has no place she might name residence.
She chooses to seek out her residence by immersing herself in the one fixed ingredient in her childhood–image books. They nurtured a love for artwork, particularly, illuminated manuscripts, medieval image books handwritten on parchment during which illustrations, decorations, and letters are gilded. It’s an artwork kind hardly ever practiced these days, although methods of their manufacturing (e.g., gilding) have been appropriated by some modern artists.
I invent multicultural characters for the plain purpose that I, myself, am one. My personal experiences are mirrored in these of my characters, though none of them is a fictionalized me.
I spent my early years in a rustic of hybrid traditions, outlined by waves of colonizers and immigrants—almost 4 hundred years of Spanish rule, fifty years of American colonization, and ten years of Japanese invasion. Plus waves of Chinese immigrants. You might say I used to be born multicultural. Today, I dwell in a veritable melting pot, and I like to journey to maintain experiencing different cultures.
My characters additionally have a tendency to show inward, a coping mechanism that may be triggered by social milieus we understand as new, or unusual, or the place we’ve got problem becoming in. Clarissa’s greatest good friend, aside from her brother, is herself who she refers to as “her inner voice:”
“I have no one I call friend. Except myself, of course. That part of me who perceives my actions for what they are. My inner voice. My constant companion and occasional nemesis. Moving often and developing friendships lasting three years at most, I’ve learned to turn inward.”
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