Building Characters, Blending Cultures

By Courtney Wong Chin, from EmbraceRace's 2023 Reflections on Racial Learning

When I was a kid, I saw my cultural identity represented in media on opposite ends of the spectrum: completely Americanized or completely Chinese. Today, kids have an incredibly rich media window into the lived experiences of others—a window that has widened to cover the vast range of possibilities between completely Americanized and completely any-other-culture. Code-switching into a non-English language for a single word or entire conversation. Sitting around a dinner table with only American food or a mix including non-American dishes. Eating with chopsticks or forks, or both.

Blending and growing cultures can be beautiful. There is no perfect balance of American and non-American elements within an individual kids’ show or within an individual kid or family. At Noggin, Nickelodeon’s interactive learning platform, we consider these questions quite deliberately as we develop our original kid characters. Beyond building characters to be representative of various racial/ethnic cultures, we architect full profiles including parent and grandparent backstories to understand how their families’ journey to the U.S. drives the blending of cultures that make up a child’s world.

I would love to continue seeing more examples of blending cultures beyond language and food, especially in evolving family relationships. There is more work to be done; at the same time we have made tremendous progress. Representing the diversity between cultures, within cultures, and within the blending of cultures gives me hope for growing our awareness and appreciation for every child’s lived experience.