Twilight series provides multicultural insights.(IN HER OWN WORDS)

Stephanie Meyers' popular Twilight series offers insight into issues of cultural diversity from a new perspective.

A new type of 'other'

While educators and diversity trainers have spent decades teaching students, faculty, staff and corporate audiences about the glorious world of inclusion and acceptance of difference, the Twilight series of books presents a host of characters in the Cullen family who differ from the norm because they're vampires.

The treatment the Cullens receive from members of the Forks community in Washington is based on their physical traits and perceptions of their lifestyle. Typical of those who face discrimination, the Cullens are different from the majority in skin color, facial features and physical traits.

They don't look like the rest of Forks' society. They have extremely pale complexions the color of alabaster white, icy cold skin, flawlessly perfect beauty and fluid movement, with overstated grace and strength. They speak with voices and inflections that represent other worlds.

Edward Cullen, the novel's hero, uses phrases that hint at another time, another century. Before the reader knows of the family's physical strength, the immediate visual clearly indicates the Cullens are different. Something is abnormal about their appearance, which raises a level of discomfort and jeopardizes their acceptance into the community.

Hanging together