Richard Bridge, you mentioned that I was interested in the relevance of ethnicity.

Well, yes and no. With regard to race/ethnicity-I believe that race and ethnicity {as used for Latinos and maybe other populations] are social [and perhaps still in some places legal] constructs that probably have little or no biological meaning or relevancy. I very much hope for a time when race/ethnicity has no positive or negative valuation, though as categories they still may be recognized {in the same way as folks who can see recognize different colors of flowers}.

With regard to the collection of folk music, I believe that whenever possible collectors of folk music should collect as much demographical information as they can [gender, age, location, meaning of topical or slang terms, name of informants {at least first names, description of performance...and the informants' race/ethnicity.

Could a person's race/ethnicity be a factor in the version of the song collected, and the manner by which the song is performed, and the meaning of the song's words or references? Perhaps.

That is why I advocate that folklorists should document their informants' race/ethnicity.

However, Richard, your question about people documenting traditions that are not part of their culture, is a whole nother subject.

First off, we are in this world together. I personally don't like the term "alien". When I hear it I think of people from out of space. But even then, I think of how the American television series "Star Trek" promoted interaction as equals by persons without regard to which planet they came from...

I absolutely believe that individuals should be introduced to and learn about and perform-if they desire-whatever music from whatever culture they wish.