Avoiding Cultural Appropriation with your Mermaid Costume

[Echidna]

which is exactly why i backtracked and checked a second time :P different pathway, and i still ended up with wu.

I'm not sure if it's possible to backtrack that far, especially with chinese naming customs (patriarchal line).
There are millions of Lis, but that doesn't mean they are all related somehow xD
Roughly 100 family names exist in China. That would make for some heavy inbreeding if they were all truly related by blood.

Also note that there are many different characters for the same-sounding name.
There are several family names that are pronounced Wu, 邬, 仵, and probably more I never learned how to write.
I have an ancestral line named Wu, but that doesn't mean I'm related to Wu Zetian, because that's not so much a name but a title, and the Wu in that title is not a family name.

(Better to drop out before the thread gets derailed, ha.)

[Sherielle]

^ i think so. example is black face or yellow face in cosplays. the reason why i havent gone as pocahontas (even though i've had native people tell me its ok and that it's just a character) is because i'd feel like i'd be disrespecting the nation as a whole because i'm not native :|

and at the same time...... people dont seem to have a problem cosplaying japanese characters. i wonder why :S

I can understand that.

[Echidna]

and at the same time...... people dont seem to have a problem cosplaying japanese characters. i wonder why :S

Pocahontas was a real person.
Most japanese anime characters are entirely made up and often not even depicted as japanese by looks and name.

[Sherielle]

I work at a renaissance festival. Would the people who portray Spanish characters (spain, not mexico) be considered appropriating if they are not of that culture? In this situation, people are hired to play characters from other cultures such as spain, French, Moor and such. To be clear, no one is in black face or anything of that ilk.

[HamptonsMermaid]

For example, I'm half native American (my mom is native) but I would never put any parts of Sioux culture into my mer costume or wear any Sioux garb. why? Because I wasn't raised in that culture and as such me putting it on without knowing the cultural significance and not identifying as that culture would be me appropriating it.

Wow 50% is more than many. If you don't feel connected with the culture I think it would be a great excuse to learn more! The most indigenous cultures are the ones at highest risk of losing their crafts, stories and values, so when you do have a blood tie I think the culture would want you to feel included, learn more and keep the knowledge alive.

And even though the Native Americans are some of the most sensitive around cultural appropriation, I know they can also be very accepting when you show them authenticity. I go to Lakota Full Moon Sweat Lodge ceremonies run by a 100% white guy shaman. He is more Lakota at heart than many with 100% Lakota blood. He's been invited by tribes all over America to be part of important ceremonies because they can tell that he is not appropriating, he's more like a true convert to their religion and they welcome his authenticity. Another friend of mine who has zero connections or study of Native American culture was invited to a very traditional paote ceremony simply because he met some Native Americans at a gas station, politely asked if he could join and he was respectful of the rules they explained to him.

It seems to be just the completely ignorant ones who cause all the appropriation trouble. Most don't do it on purpose, they just don't realize that a war bonnet is a sacred object and would never be worn for something so trivial as Halloween.

[HamptonsMermaid]

I work at a renaissance festival. Would the people who portray Spanish characters (spain, not mexico) be considered appropriating if they are not of that culture? In this situation, people are hired to play characters from other cultures such as spain, French, Moor and such. To be clear, no one is in black face or anything of that ilk.

I think this is more like theater. Many actors play characters who are not their ethnic match. If they're representing certain sensitive negative stereotypes then that could be offensive, but an American putting on an exaggerated French accent is probably funny even to the French. If you get butthurt over every little joke it's you, not them.

This is why I love Family Guy, it makes fun of all cultures so no one can be more offended than the other.

[Mermaid Clarity]

I work at a renaissance festival. Would the people who portray Spanish characters (spain, not mexico) be considered appropriating if they are not of that culture? In this situation, people are hired to play characters from other cultures such as spain, French, Moor and such. To be clear, no one is in black face or anything of that ilk.

I worked the Original Renaissance Pleasure Faire in SoCal for 4 years, playing an Italian and 3 of those years playing a catholic Italian. (Also the group used to be Spanish and since then have changed for some reason.) I've also played been cast to play palestinian, native american and latina- none of these races I'm remotely related to. On the one hand, I have no "right" to play these because it might have taken the work away from a girl who actually was native american but on the other hand, like with faire- we do A LOT of research beforehand, portraying real people from the Italian court and learning as much as we can to be as accurate as possible. I think in that regard race has a little less to do with it- especially because we try to be respectful with things like accents because they can get "stereotypical" very quickly. I think this makes all the difference, though someone please correct me if they are offended. I spent hours recreating the dress, learning the history and the culture and even tried to make it less appropriation-ey by playing an italian jew my first year, though the character was scrapped later to play an actual person instead. I KNOW I'm not wearing a costume because it's fun and pretty, I know I'm not wearing a rosary (unblessed) because I think it's a pretty bracelet.

As for being paid to play roles that people think I look like rather than ethnically am? That's less cool. Generally if the character's race comes up in a show I'm in, it's because it's a location thing (think west-side story.) When acting was my only source of income, I was very willing to play whatever came my way and I got paid to do. Now that it's not, I'm less likely to take a role if I think it plays more to stereotype than a real person. In the end, I think it's up to an actor's discretion to decide if they got a role because they were the best actor or if it was because they "had the right look."

[SeaGlass Siren]

I'm not sure if it's possible to backtrack that far, especially with chinese naming customs (patriarchal line).
There are millions of Lis, but that doesn't mean they are all related somehow xD
Roughly 100 family names exist in China. That would make for some heavy inbreeding if they were all truly related by blood.

Also note that there are many different characters for the same-sounding name.
There are several family names that are pronounced Wu, 邬, 仵, and probably more I never learned how to write.
I have an ancestral line named Wu, but that doesn't mean I'm related to Wu Zetian, because that's not so much a name but a title, and the Wu in that title is not a family name.

(Better to drop out before the thread gets derailed, ha.)

(which kinda confirms my theory of inbreeding and name changing :P but i'm down to drop out. i did check a third time to see if i was actually crazy.
then i found this http://www.ancestry.ca/name-origin?surname=yang

i'll probably keep looking though a fourth fifth and sixth time to see if i really am crazy lol)

[SeaGlass Siren]

Pocahontas was a real person.
Most japanese anime characters are entirely made up and often not even depicted as japanese by looks and name.

yes i was more or less referring to the disney pocahontas.

[HamptonsMermaid]

i'll probably keep looking though a fourth fifth and sixth time to see if i really am crazy lol)

If you really want to get to the bottom of it you could try a 23&Me personalized genetic report. My mom got me one and I still have to send in the saliva sample, but will be really interesting to know where my exact DNA comes from. Who knows what surprises it might reveal? Yay science!

Chinese names can be quite difficult to trace as there are sooo many of us under the same name. My last name Chu is super common, so thankful my grandfather made a family tree book.

[SeaGlass Siren]

oh... i've been meaning to save up for 23&me :0 let me know how it goes.

my last name isnt very common.. unlike my mom's last name (le)

[AniaR]

If you really want to get to the bottom of it you could try a 23&Me personalized genetic report. My mom got me one and I still have to send in the saliva sample, but will be really interesting to know where my exact DNA comes from. Who knows what surprises it might reveal? Yay science!

Chinese names can be quite difficult to trace as there are sooo many of us under the same name. My last name Chu is super common, so thankful my grandfather made a family tree book.

I was just looking at doing one of those too!

[Echidna]

It's not just with chinese names where millions of people have the same surname but are entirely unrelated;
it happens everywhere.

As an example, take romanian:
most names end in -escu, which comes down to mean "son of".

So everyone who had a father named Mihai (very common name) would end up with a surname like Mihaiescu, and probably none of them were related.
In other countries, surnames were generated from professions, so every worker of a profession would have the same surname but none of them necessarily related.

Now add changing names, titles, and words all pronounced the same but written differently like in asian languages, and you have a giant tangle.
Think; Smith.

I'll shut up now.

[SeaGlass Siren]

Well back to square one ;-;

[AniaR]

I work at a renaissance festival. Would the people who portray Spanish characters (spain, not mexico) be considered appropriating if they are not of that culture? In this situation, people are hired to play characters from other cultures such as spain, French, Moor and such. To be clear, no one is in black face or anything of that ilk.

there's a lot of backlash in Hollywood for casting white actors to play the roles of other cultures. And I think if a white actor is portraying someone from Spain or Mexico in a stereotyped way or a way that makes fun of them, it's frowned upon. It's called "whitewashing"

A few links:
http://www.villainesse.com/culture/t...n-and-tokenism
http://www.dazeddigital.com/artsandc...sian-in-ab-fab

[AniaR]

To me, cultural appropriation can happen even if you have some of that ethnic blood in your own. For example, I'm half native American (my mom is native) but I would never put any parts of Sioux culture into my mer costume or wear any Sioux garb. why? Because I wasn't raised in that culture and as such me putting it on without knowing the cultural significance and not identifying as that culture would be me appropriating it.

A lot of times the big deal with appropriation is that people take parts of a culture, whether religious or not, and when they take it they're praised for it while the original culture is stigmatized for doing something they own. It's like working real hard on a project for class, the teacher telling you it's crap, then another student copying it and the teacher hanging it up to show other students how it's supposed to be done. And a lot of appropriation does nothing but embrace stereotypes usually (looking at you people who like to wear "geisha" makeup and costumes )

This ^

[SeaGlass Siren]

While I can see what momo is saying, I was raised to think that everyone should connect with their roots when they have the chance. Especially since being raised here everyone becomes white washed and we forget about our culture and where our blood came from. That's what makes you .

[HamptonsMermaid]

Whitewashing is especially easy for the younger kids to get sucked into. Kids reach that age where all they want is to fit in so they'll downplay their roots, avoid speaking their native tongue and just try to blend in and be normal. They try to detach from the culture and their weird foreign parents.

[Little_Orca]

This thread in part reminds me of a video that I found some time ago, but first some back story...

Over a year back, I decided I was going to try to learn Japanese. Personal goal, so I went for it. In the process of learning the language, I have learned about the culture so that I had a better understanding of words and phrases and why things are said the way they are and where new words and slang come from and beliefs and so on. I started to get a lot of negative attention from this. People were assuming I just liked anime (which I do) and that I didn't care at all about what I was learning. I even had people 'test' me to see if I knew what I was talking about. It felt that I was being punished for learning another language and about another culture.

Interestingly, none of this happened when I was learning Spanish or when I was a folklorico dancer for three years. All of the pale girls, Hispanic/Latina/or not, got called Gringa or other terms, but it was all water off a duck's back. Somehow, too, my in-laws from a previous marriage of my aunt's being Hispanic gave me street cred in the dance community (which is just BS). (Spoiler alter, I left that community in high school.)

Back to Japanese culture, sure there are things I see as unusual, but there are other things that I quite enjoy and have integrated into my own life. Simple things in terms of how I speak to people and things I had been doing similarly in my life anyways. Then I got the other labels... Otaku (meh, I'm ok with that one) and Weebo and Gaijin (which just means foreigner and is not meant in a derogatory way in Japan usually, but meh. It all depends on how it's used in the moment, hmm?). I really felt discouraged for a bit and stopped learning. After all, why try to learn new things if I was going to be harassed about it? Why? Because learning friggen rocks, man.

Part of why I like to learn about other cultures is I'm white. I'm so friggen white, and I have no culture I can look to and be like "That is me." I know where my heritage comes from: Italy and some other Euromutt-ness, but Italy is the primary one. There was no Italian upbringing for me, the blonde girl in Southern California in the 80s. With how chaotic my childhood was, I don't blame my mother for not looking into our own heritage: she has to focus on raising two children alone, but she always encouraged me to learn about others so that I could understand them.

When I don things upon my person (usually in my hair) that are representative of other cultures, I do so not out of "lol look at me guys, I'm Asian today! rofl!" that some people have accused me of, but because I like said ornament. Ironically, in terms of the Japanese things I have worn or own (like a randoseru backpack,) the women at the Asian market laugh and giggle and talk to me about my belongings. They share with me memories of their childhood back in Japan with similar items. We have a great cultural exchange! Yet... to others who just see a white girl wearing 'funny asian things' I am offensive.

This brings me to this video I found. I think it echos some of the things I have gone through trying to learn about cultures (though I've not put on a kimono) and its puts a good perspective on how different views can be on different things.

[Mermaid Lorelei]

This thread in part reminds me of a video that I found some time ago, but first some back story...

Over a year back, I decided I was going to try to learn Japanese. Personal goal, so I went for it. In the process of learning the language, I have learned about the culture so that I had a better understanding of words and phrases and why things are said the way they are and where new words and slang come from and beliefs and so on. I started to get a lot of negative attention from this. People were assuming I just liked anime (which I do) and that I didn't care at all about what I was learning. I even had people 'test' me to see if I knew what I was talking about. It felt that I was being punished for learning another language and about another culture.

Interestingly, none of this happened when I was learning Spanish or when I was a folklorico dancer for three years. All of the pale girls, Hispanic/Latina/or not, got called Gringa or other terms, but it was all water off a duck's back. Somehow, too, my in-laws from a previous marriage of my aunt's being Hispanic gave me street cred in the dance community (which is just BS). (Spoiler alter, I left that community in high school.)

Back to Japanese culture, sure there are things I see as unusual, but there are other things that I quite enjoy and have integrated into my own life. Simple things in terms of how I speak to people and things I had been doing similarly in my life anyways. Then I got the other labels... Otaku (meh, I'm ok with that one) and Weebo and Gaijin (which just means foreigner and is not meant in a derogatory way in Japan usually, but meh. It all depends on how it's used in the moment, hmm?). I really felt discouraged for a bit and stopped learning. After all, why try to learn new things if I was going to be harassed about it? Why? Because learning friggen rocks, man.

Part of why I like to learn about other cultures is I'm white. I'm so friggen white, and I have no culture I can look to and be like "That is me." I know where my heritage comes from: Italy and some other Euromutt-ness, but Italy is the primary one. There was no Italian upbringing for me, the blonde girl in Southern California in the 80s. With how chaotic my childhood was, I don't blame my mother for not looking into our own heritage: she has to focus on raising two children alone, but she always encouraged me to learn about others so that I could understand them.

When I don things upon my person (usually in my hair) that are representative of other cultures, I do so not out of "lol look at me guys, I'm Asian today! rofl!" that some people have accused me of, but because I like said ornament. Ironically, in terms of the Japanese things I have worn or own (like a randoseru backpack,) the women at the Asian market laugh and giggle and talk to me about my belongings. They share with me memories of their childhood back in Japan with similar items. We have a great cultural exchange! Yet... to others who just see a white girl wearing 'funny asian things' I am offensive.

This brings me to this video I found. I think it echos some of the things I have gone through trying to learn about cultures (though I've not put on a kimono) and its puts a good perspective on how different views can be on different things.

In line with your thread, I have had people take issue with me for wearing kimono, even though I know far more than they do about the process, the meaning, the parts, and the history of the art of kimono. They didn't care that I find the Japanese culture incredibly beautiful, and that I do my best to be respectful of every piece I wear or use. The most important moment for me came when an elderly Japanese woman who LIVED for the art of kimono told me how much it meant to her that I, who have no traced history in Japan, had such a love for the Japanese culture. In my personal opinion, I think the difference between appreciation and appropriation comes from intent and understanding.