Race/ethnicity at Faire.

[Lady Nicolette]

It occurred to me while driving after I'd posted this that an ethnic group that tends to have disposable income are Asian people in our country, again, seen less at Faire than Caucasians.  I'm wondering along with some postings above if it's discouraged within the culture...Perhaps because of the tradition of conformity to the group?  I wish we had more cross-cultural folk here to check in with...The postings already have been very intriguing altogether.

[Trillium]

My hubby is hispanic and hawaiian and loves going as does his mexican step father and family.  We have a friend who is black and loves going also.  However, as Blue said, he isn't your "stereotypical" black man, definitely holds different interests.  I have several hispanic friends who enjoy going also.  I'm willing to bet that TRF has a bit more of a mix than many faires just because of the ethnic mix of the area.

[Baron Dacre]

I am part Fillipino, Puerto Rican, Mexican, Venezuelan and French (in addition to some other ethnicities swimming around there).

My current character (based on the real Sir John Davies... look it up) is of Welsh ancestry but was raised in England. The guy before that was English (Yeoman Christopher "Kit" Foxe, Yeoman of the Guard of the Queen's Guard)

For the most part casting at the California's have been "color-blind". If you have the ability to play someone, it is not denied you.

Considering that the high percentage of non-white people, this works for us.

As for the audience perception, no one really believes that I'm the 16th century poet "John Davies", but if you have an audience willing to play and willing to suspend disbelief then it just flows.

To quote the Bard himself:
Can this cockpit hold
The vasty fields of France? or may we cram
Within this wooden O the very casques
That did affright the air at Agincourt?

It's all make-believe, don't limit yourself to outward appearances...

[Finnian]

I think that a lot of it has to do with the fact that even if you go to faire historically accurate, you are still indulging in a fantasy world.
The fantasy genre in general, whether it be literature, film or tv has a narrow pool of people from the general population to pull from.  This might sound weird but in my experience, at least in the latin community "fantasy" anything is pretty much disregarded. Its tolerated as a kid thing but as an adult you really should grow out of it. Also peer pressure and what other people think of you is really important and so even if someone is kind of into it, they would never admit to it or publicly display it because they would be ridiculed by their peers at nauseum.
Like I said, at least that is my experience.

Only bit I have to add relates to this, in that another subculture having a tremendous overlap with rennies, namely science fiction fans, exhibits a similar skewed race ratio, and in that case, there is no "historically accurate" restriction/limitation. 

I'll chime in to say that I see very few black people at science fiction conventions as well. I'm not sure why, because they are pretty well represented in the genre, both as characters and creators.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0VZj-85E5o

Well down here scifi and comic cons are REALLY more mixed than our faire is, a lot of the local kids are otaku mainly, so the anime cons are definitely way mixed, and larger comic/scifi cons are also...but that might just be because of our locale.

[Lady L]

Maybe because our faire is in the North (MN) but I have seen quite a  mix of people there. I think it's one of the largest cross sections of people in the state. My hometown is very middle income/mostly white, but faire is more diverse. We have people from other countries, that don't speak English, that come to our faire. Some were Asian, not sure what country. Some were Middle Eastern and had thick accents. Some were from India. Sometimes I don't know what language they are speaking, but it sounded like Russian.

We also have black people that are in entertainment and own shops, as well as patrons. I remember one guy with dreads.. he was very handsome and striking in appearance! I wanted to paint his portrait! We have had black moor characters.

One of the pickle guys said he was an Eskimo, in an English village, wearing a Scottish kilt, selling kosher pickles.

One can not always tell by appearances, what race another person is.  Many of us are mixed, but may only appear to be one race.

Our faire is close to Shakopee, where there are more Mdewakanton Dakota people. I have seen Native Americans and Mexicans at our faire. Some of them were customers and had Native names (on the checks they wrote to me)

We probably do have more white looking people than not. Overall, it's more of a mix than I usually see at home.

[Ambrosine]

I have little info I can throw in here. While my family is Caucasian thru and thru we have a roommate that is Asian. He has been a very close family friend for the last five years. He moved to Florida from California where his family is located. Asian families that I have come in contact with are very family oriented. I grew up in San Fransisco until I was 11 so had many Asian friends. Our roommate has never lived on his own, not that he couldn't as he has a very disposable income, he prefers to live with others and mainly families. He among most Asian individuals I know is well educated and has a high appreciation for the arts in every form from crafts to performace. He is the "Uncle" to both my children and loves them as his own. He is very disciplined in nature and is a MMA fighter as well. He attends fair with us yearly but does not dress up. He ends up being our photographer. He is not against dressing up but he has no interest in the European history, he goes because we go as a Family.He enjoys himself, taking in everything there is to see but he does not "participate". He doesn't come out and say this but I think the festival does bring out, to him, a childish nature that in Asian culture they do not like to accept when they are adults. They expect adults to be well disciplined especially males , which I can say we seem to throw out the window at the fair for fun. But then again it is disrespectful to not attend a family tradition, so year after year he goes. And yes we were the first family to ever invite him to the fair.

[Noble Dreg]

Maybe because most "Faires" celebrate white northern European culture?  I see no harm nor foul here, all are welcome but no surprise we see a large percentage of Caucasians.  I am also not shocked in the least that most Cinco De Mayo participants are of Mexican descent.  And imagine my lack of surprise to find a predominately Native American crowd at several of the local Pow Wow celebrations.  Of course everyone is Irish on 'Paddy's day no mater skin color or lineage!

We all find comfort in our heritage, and most find joy in others celebrating their heritage as well.

All are welcome, that's the truly great thing about every fair I have ever visited.  I also note that at least around here most "cultural celebrations" go out of their way to invite non-whites, non Native Americans, non-Mexicans, etc.  Our very own MNRF had two "theme weekends" encouraging Asian and Hispanic participation.  Big tent indeed!

[Finnian]

Maybe because most "Faires" celebrate white northern European culture?  I see no harm nor foul here, all are welcome but no surprise we see a large percentage of Caucasians.  I am also not shocked in the least that most Cinco De Mayo participants are of Mexican descent.  And imagine my lack of surprise to find a predominately Native American crowd at several of the local Pow Wow celebrations.  Of course everyone is Irish on 'Paddy's day no mater skin color or lineage!

We all find comfort in our heritage, and most find joy in others celebrating their heritage as well.

All are welcome, that's the truly great thing about every fair I have ever visited.  I also note that at least around here most "cultural celebrations" go out of their way to invite non-whites, non Native Americans, non-Mexicans, etc.  Our very own MNRF had two "theme weekends" encouraging Asian and Hispanic participation.  Big tent indeed!

Where I live EVERYONE celebrates cinco de mayo basically...cause here its become an excuse to leave school/work and get smashed.

[Zardoz]

As someone on the inside of the "ethnic curve", usually, it's not culturally acceptable to do these sorts of things. Acceptable past times, stereotypically of course, DO NOT include exploring the Middle Ages/Renaissance in a costume. If you'd like me to go more into it, I most certainly will.

Blue, I would like for you to go more into it, I think this is a very interesting topic.

[Rapier Half-Wit]

To say that "historically the minorities have always been oppressed" is patenly false, unless you are fishing for a PC prize. If you had said "in recent history" then I wouldn't have taken issue and would have just kept reading. But I'm going to add my 2c.

We of the human race have a very long history of treating each other very badly throughout our entire history. Stepping back in history, the Romans enslaved everyone they conquered, and they didn't give 2 squirell nuts if you were red, yellow, black, brown, white or green. As a race, we humans have been walking this planet for 150,000 years. Racism, slavery, bad behaviour, idiocy, stupidity (ad nauseum) is par for the course with us. Every race, creed, color, ethinicty, hair color has been "oppressed". Consider the points that some have posted here where others in there own ethnicity have "oppressed" those that like to participate in faire. It's all the same bad attitude. It's all the same mental process of thinking that "if you don't look and act like me then you are different and therefore you are bad." Think "purple monkey" syndrome. To quote from a book, "as a man thinks in his heart, so is he." What never ceases to amaze me about this human race, is that whatever we believe can drive us to extents and extremes and give us permission in our own minds and hearts to treat others badly.

I'd like to suggest that we all be a little more careful and diligent about what we believe. There are 2 things in this world that cannot be replaced. One is time, and the other is people.

[Thank you for letting me give voice to that.]

[Blue66669]

Ok, I'm going to drop the PC cloth for a minute and give you a hint of what I was while growing up. Please remember that this is only my opinion, and my personal experiences.

Growing up half white and half black, I had a suprisingly hard time finding a niche for myself. As a small child, I was ostracized by my white peers because my father was black. I cried everyday because of it. I had kids in kindergarten and first grade ACTUALLY tell me that their fathers were better than mine because their fathers were white. It's a load of bull, but you start to wonder if it's true after awhile. Fast forward to middle school. After being very culturally diverse in elementary school (and getting teased for being so damn awkward), I got to an upper middle class middle school in an Honors program, which automatically put me, racially, into the minority. It was time for me to quit being socially awkward. So I try to befriend whomever I can. Failed. Miserably.

I noticed that the groups in my honors classes were highly segregated. There was a group of blacks, a group of whites, and a group of hispanics. The asians and the nerds kinda hung out together, and the goth kids hung out together. But, if you looked closely, blacks were ALWAYS on their own. There was no such thing as the blacks joining ANY of these other groups... UNLESS there was a need for them being there (like, the one black girl on the cheer squad, or the one black girl on the volleyball team, etc.) OR if said black had, as many of my future black friends would have put it, "denied their people". I assimilated myself into the black group, but poorly. I spoke in complete sentences, free of slang, because language was always stressed in my home. I wore clothes that fit properly, and my hair was never "done". Over the course of three years, I changed the way I spoke, how I dressed, and what I looked like, so as to fit in more with the group that I wanted to belong to. But, it was never enough. While they would be nice to me often, sometimes my race would come into question, and the fact that I was "too white". And lest you all think that this is an affliction from just the idiot kids at school, you'd be wrong. To this day, as I go to see my father's family, they still look at me, my white husband, and my seemingly white children with misunderstanding and disdain.

As I got older, I realized that I did not enjoy being a "poser". So I drifted more towards the goth kids, who really didn't care WHAT color I was. It was at that time that my black friends turned on me. I was told that listening to rock music, going to goth clubs, and wearing band tees and grungy jeans wasn't what I was supposed to be. I was called uppity because I spoke well, and was teased, and later on harrassed, because "it's not what african americans are supposed to be". It's absolutely rediculous, trust me, cause I've lived it. But blacks, as a culture, are still closed-minded on the whole. They succumb to the stereotype that "someone" set up for them, and REFUSE to acknowledge that maybe, just maybe, it's ok to NOT be the damn stereotype. So everyday, they seek to live up to the image that someone laid down many years ago. They stereotypically stay poor and uneducated, shun the english language, and refuse to pull up their pants. There's a "ghetto swagger" that is engrained into the DNA, and an intolerance of any one of their own that decide that there is something better. No, I don't have to sell drugs or be a rap star, or a girl in a video in order to succeed.

So in looking at Ren Faire.... it's just another thing (and I quote, from my father's family) that those "crazy white people do".

[Carl Heinz]

At a guess, I'd say that the majority of participants are White.  There are a fair number of Hispanics both as participants, and particularly as non-costumed visitors.  Faire is still a place that's much less expensive than other venues in the area and a good place to take the family for an outing.  Both our entertainment manager and stage director are Hispanic.  We have a number of Blacks (I have problems with the term African-American because I think it's divisive instead of inclusive) both as participants and visitors, but I don't think they're in proportion to the general population in Southern California.

[bran_gray]

It's kind of strange...growing up in Kansas and Nebraska I never once even saw anybody other than hispanic or caucasian ethnicity.  But I was raised by the principle that you look at the person and not what the person is like on the outside.  I wasn't introduced to a wider range of skin colors till I moved down here to Texas.

I work with a guy that was in somewhat the same situation you were when growing up Blue.  He's half black and half indian (native american) and always had a problem finding his place in the world.  And I don't know you very well but you strike me as the same type of person as he is.  Very independent, educated, well spoken, and an all around good guy to know.

All that matters to me is how you treat yourself and others around you.  I find the more I surround myself with good people the better a person that I become.  And faire folk are some of the best of people 

[Rapier Half-Wit]

...faire folk are some of the best of people

Hear! Hear!

[Blue66669]

I may agree with you... but I've met some faire folk that make me lose my faith in humanity. They're few and far between, thank god!