Don’t Like Your Ethnicity? Just Change It

by Skip DeKades

January 5, 2029 — Today’s Chinese businessman is rich and powerful — with blonde hair and big blue eyes.

The modern Indian woman is independent, accomplished — and as fair-skinned as an Irish school girl.

And millions of Caucasian Americans have become successful African-American lawyers and Asian newscasters.

These are the messages coming from a growing number of global cosmetic-alteration companies, which are capitalizing on people’s growing interest in changing their ethnicity.

Avon, L’Oréal, Garnier and a variety of other companies are heavily marketing new face creams that either lighten or darken skin tones. Clairol is hitting record sales with hair-coloring products.  And cosmetic surgeons are making millions altering eyelids and noses. 

Combined, these products and services are enabling people to virtually change their racial profile.  Often, they are sold with a message about taking power, getting ahead and finding romance.

“It seems in most countries, people are enamored with the exotic and view their existing race as boring to the point of being a professional and personal handicap,” explained Dr. Rachel I. Dentity, a professor of ethnic studies at Princeton University.    “They believe altering their ethnic profile will help their careers and their prospects for finding a mate. And Madison Avenue is capitalizing on that trend.” 

Indeed, London-based NuYu, Inc.  distributes advertisements that show an unhappy white man in a flannel work shirt morphing into a smiling Asian man in a business suit.  In Seoul and Tokyo, ads by Face West Corp. show a woman with big blue eyes landing an executive-level job and a hot Nordic-looking husband. 

A British advertisement shows a blonde woman
changing her appearance to that of an Indian
woman.  Ethnic alterations are increasing in
popularity throughout the world.

Korea, Japan, China, India, the United States, Canada and Northern Europe are the biggest markets for skin-altering products and eyelid changes.   A growing number of young Koreans are looking more like Norwegians these days.  In Iceland, where many people have become bored with the homogeneity of the population, citizens are flocking to plastic surgeons to have their eyelids altered to an Asian appearance.  Austrians are darkening their skin to look Indian or Pakistani.

In the U.S., where international, mixed-heritage looks have become vogue and Caucasian is considered out of style, more than 1.2 million whites last year had their appearances altered to African, Asian, Middle-Eastern or Hispanic, according to the American Vanity Association (AVA). 

Not surprisingly, some people oppose ethnic revision, arguing that the skin-changing products and eye-alteration procedures reinforce prejudices and lead people to lose touch with their heritage.

And while many whites are rushing to adopt an African appearance, African-Americans today have largely eschewed the ethnic-alteration trend, AVA says.

“African-Americans are embracing their heritage like never before and view skin-lightening as anathema,” said AVA President Fay Shull.  “Now it’s the white man wanting to yell, ‘Say it loud, I’m black and proud!’”