What's a good way for the POV characters to observe someone's ethnicity or race? (For the purpose of creating a clearer picture in the reader's head)
Excellent question!
Firstly, it is important to note that all the typical rules of character description apply! There’s really nothing wrong with blatantly saying that a character is of a certain race or ethnicity. But if you want to describe your characters in detail, a remember that you don’t have to describe every physical feature of a character at once. Making small references to a character’s appearance throughout your story gives your description a more natural effect.
I’m glad you specified in your question that the description is coming from POV characters as opposed to an omniscient narrator. This distinction is important! When writing an observation of a character’s race, consider a few things:
Is the POV character reliable?
In other words, do they observe another’s race correctly? Some people will be more familiar with the features within a race, for example, seeing the differences between chinese and korean. Others might not be able to tell the difference between someone Latinx and someone Southeast Asian.
The race of the POV character will likely heavily influence this reliability.
The media consumption patterns of the POV character will influence this too. For example, there are plenty of Americans that can distinguish different British accents because of their consumption of British news/movies/shows (*coughcoughYoutubecough*).
Also, mixed-race people exist too!
Some people have more features of one race than another, others look more of a mix.
If your pov character knows a character is mixed-race, they can mention that while they are describing the features of the character in question.
*Side note:
As someone who is half black and half filipino, I often get mislabeled as Cambodian or Puerto Rican (or other Latinx) because that’s just how my features lay out to different people.
Depending on the context of your story, it might be important for the narration to include a character’s reaction to the observation. Does the appearance of someone of a certain race make them happy? Confused? Disappointed?
I know as a person of color, I always notice very quickly when another person of color is around if I am in a situation where there aren’t many POC. In addition, I do get excited when I see a fellow Filipino or AFAM. I know through personal observations that immigrants (POC or not) get really excited when they run into someone of their race/ethnicity (As far as I’ve seen in Canada and the US).
Of course, I don’t know the context of your story, but it is good to recognize the pov that goes along with being a certain race.
Now, when concerning the details of physical appearance, consider what your POV character first notices about someone’s appearance: hair, eyes, body shape, etc. What stands out to them? Going back to the idea of reliability, does your POV character exaggerate the (un)attractiveness of certain facial features? Would a different POV character provide a contrasting description? This can be fun to play with if your narration jumps between different POV characters.
If you are interested in keeping POC descriptions inoffensive, I would suggest visiting the Writing with Color blog. They have a long archive of posts for the experience of and the tropes associated with specific races and ethnicities.
One final note,
I know you asked this question in reference to imagery, but remember that ‘observing’ can go beyond noticing a character’s physical features. For example,
If you have two or more characters of the same race, you can make a small reference through language.
Ex: Maureen whispered something to Arthur in Tagalog, fighting desperately to muffle the giggle bursting at her lips.
*It’s good to note that a language cue should probably accompany other description, because language does not necessarily indicate race or ethnicity. It is also good to note that not everyone of a certain race will speak a certain language. For example, you can be Italian-American and not speak a lick of Italian. (That was a bit redundant, but I want to make sure I’m getting the point across.)
I hope this post was helpful. Happy writing!
-Cilla