A GUIDE TO ETHNICITY, NATIONALITY, AND RACE
I’ve noticed this is quite a confusing topic for a lot of people in the RPC, so I’ve decided to breakdown the differences between ethnicity nationality and race! these three things are not interchangeable. This is purely informational.
race is broken up into a few different categories, White; Black or African American; Native American and Alaska Native; Asian; Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander. according to the US census. The reason Latinx is not categorized as a race according to the census is that Latinos/as are ethnically a combination of Indigenous and white ethnicities (mostly Spanish), but from a societal change over hundreds of years, Latinx has informally became its own race, as they’ve developed cultures that are less based around being biracial.
nationality is a lot more simple to understand than race or ethnicity, its simply where they’re from. for example, Im American! Being from America does not make me ethnically American, but it does make my nationality American. This does not need to be matched for roleplaying.
ethnicity is what you get into a lot in the roleplay community, and for the most part, what you need to match. ethnicity is where their ancestors are from, and a lot of people will have mixed ethnicity. If you are choosing siblings, their ethnicities need to match unless they’re adopted. ethnicelebs is a great place to fact check this!
Adriana Lima is of mixed race (despite being white passing, she is still a poc), her ethnicity comprises of Portuguese, upspecified Indiginous Native, Swiss, African, Japanese, and her nationality is Brazilian.
Ariana Grande is of the white race, her ethnicity is Italian, and her nationality is American.
KJ Apa is of mixed race (despite being white passing, he is still a poc), his ethnicity comprises of Samoan, Scottish, and English, and his nationality is New Zealander.
Brenda Song is of the Asian race, her ethnicity comprises of Hmong and Thai, and her nationality is American.
Idris Elba is of the black race, his ethnicity comprises of Sierra Leonean and Ghanaian, and his nationality is British.
i hope this information helps you make accurate and awesome casting choices in your roleplays!
