When I was growing up, I was taught that I can write about whatever I want.
I hate to say this, but minorities in America don't get taught that they can write about whatever they want.
Minorities in America are taught that they are only allowed to write about one thing- the experience of being a minority in America- and that if they write about anything else, that they are not representing their race.
There are many great Latin writers from Latin America. They have invented a whole new genre, magical realism.
There are no great Latin writers from the United States.
The Latin writers from Latin America were taught that they can write about whatever they want.
The Latin writers in America were taught that they are supposed to write about being Latino in America and being oppressed.
There are no great Latin writers from the United States of America.
The Japanese in Japan write about all kinds of great things in Japanese Anime.
The Japanese in Japan were taught that they can write about whatever they want.
But the Japanese in America were taught that they are supposed to write about the experience of being Japanese in America and being oppressed.
There is no great Anime made in the United States.
There are no great Japanese writers from America.
There have been great science fiction writers from America.
Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov.
All of them are white.
The people in America who are not white have been told that they are not supposed to write science fiction. They have been taught that they are supposed to write about being an oppressed minority in America.
So there are no great minority science fiction writers from America.
I do not write about being white in modern America.
I write about Ming China, Golden Age Baghdad, and Minoan Crete.
I write fantasies about discovering all the wonderful things that are out there beyond ordinary life in modern America.
I write as a Universalist, who believes it is more natural for me to write about being human in God's Creation than for me to write about being white in modern America.
That is why people like me have been able to be so creative, while my equivalents in America who are 'Black' or Asian of Latino, unlike their counterparts in their home countries, have not been able to be so creative.
I hope you understand.
If you are growing up in America, and you are 'Black', or Asian, or Latino- write about whatever you want.
That's what I did.
That's what Robert Heinlein and Isaac Asimov did.
That's what the Japanese in Japan who write the great Anime do.
That's what the great Latin writers of magical realism who grew up in Latin America speaking Spanish or Portuguese do.
Write about whatever you want.
Sincerely,
David S. Annderson