Towards a more diverse population in Romancelandia. An aspiring writer’s perspective.
Harlequin Mills & Boon are running a Historical Heroes
tournament at present which is a wonderful thing and a great opportunity. But the limited range of
heroes suggested by the competition opened up an interesting billy of worms. The question was asked - Where were the opportunities for ethnic heroes when the
competition seemed to be asking for British Gentlemen, Knights and Tudor Lords,
Vikings and Warriors? Warriors might encompass a broader demographic. But what
of Chinese Scholars and Black Businessmen? Are they not heroic enough or are
there supposedly none out there?
There has long been a perception that romance is dominated
by “white” sensibilities. Looking back over my decades of Harlequin Mills &
Boon reading, I have to say they are not entirely wrong. The most exotic of
reading might bring a sheikh or even a Turk. But often this alien culture was
softened by a French or British mother and frequently an education received at
a fine British institution.
Modern contemporary romances are stretching the boundaries.
We have Indian heroes and heroines and even a black Frenchman in the Presents
lines. Brenda Jackson, a long established author and also a POC (Person of Colour-this is the
term being used in the on-line discussion) has a series of romances in the
Desire line featuring African-American protagonists but they seem to be a niche
even within the mainstream. Sarah M. Anderson is writing Desire romances and
others featuring First Nation heroes (Please excuse me if I get the current
designation wrong). Special Edition have a few interracial romances. Harlequin even
have a dedicated line for interracial and POC romance. I’ve read the Kimani
line and as a Aussi with minimal daily contact with American POC I did
notice differences in language but otherwise, not much different.
I’ve been puzzling about interracial romance for some time.
Because I’m white and I want to write about POC in my romances. Not
deliberately as some kind of crusade, but because characters just come that
way. The hero in the romance I put up for the Harlequin Sold Blog first page
critique is not entirely white. But he isn’t entirely a POC either. With an
unknown black father and brought up by a white mother in Australia, his
experience would be different to a POC brought up in a family in the US or even
England. I feel comfortable in writing about him because his experience is not
so far from my own.
What I didn’t feel sure about was where he could be
published as he doesn’t fit standard category lines. I looked at a range of
digital publishers, mostly US based, wondering if I should try submitting the
story to one of them. But when I look at their offerings I noticed something that
made me as an Australian, very uncomfortable. Several of the digital publishers have a category “Interracial
Romance”. I hadn’t ever considered it as a “thing”. Without being aware of it, I wrote an
interracial romance. In fact I have written several. I have written a story
about a Chinese-Australian girl who falls in love with an Italian-Australian
boy.
Now I’m worried. Because I wonder if people will look at my
stories as some kind of statement. Will they look at my Chinese-Australian girl
and see racial stereotypes. Am I a racist because my heroine does Martial Arts?
Should I have made her a surfing groupie or something typically “white” just to
prove I don’t see her as “different”? Should I not make my Chinese-Australian
hero so enigmatic in case it plays into the stereotype of the “inscrutable Oriental”?
Should my Italian avoid Pizza and Pasta? Where do I draw the line?
I recently went to see the Georgian era romance “Belle” at the cinemas. (Twice actually, cos I loved it so much.) It is a beautiful romance with such a positive heroine, the illegitimate daughter of a well-born sea captain and a black slave. The slave trade was in the background through her guardian, Lord Mansfield, who as Lord Justice had to pronounce on a significant legal issue with a slave ship, but it was not the primary story. The romance came first and it was lovely, if a little enhanced for the sake of the story. But at that time, in 1783, Lord Mansfield estimated there were 15,000 POC in England, slaves and free in a population of 7.5 million. I suspect many people would say that constitutes only a handful.
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| Where is the Black Hero? |
In the Castonbury Park series published in 2012, Marguerite
Kaye, a historical author has written a romance between a white woman and a
black former slave set in 1816. I have come across the odd historical romance
with a half Indian heroine, but they are rare. Jeannie Lin has a fascinating
series of Chinese historical romances in the Harlequin line. In the broader
romance community, Beverley Jenkins writes romances with African-American
protagonists and First Nation heroes are found more often in American
historical romances. I’m sure there are others but they seem to be very much a
niche market.
I suppose to be truly diverse, no-one should feel the need to comment
when there is a hero or heroine of a difference ethnicity in a mainstream
romance. Somehow I can’t see that happening for a while.
