Does the armored vest preserve the ethnicity of soldiers when worn?
If you add this to the armors.rul to the corresponding armor (for mods with a standard set of soldiers):
spriteFaceGroup: 6
spriteFaceColor: [96, 96, 96, 96, 160, 160, 163, 163] # M0 F0 M1 F1 M2 F2 M3 F3
spriteHairGroup: 9
spriteHairColor: [144, 144, 164, 164, 245, 245, 164, 164] # M0 F0 M1 F1 M2 F2 M3 F3
then ethnicity will be visible on the battlescape.