I met someone today who asked me after finding out only my first name (which is Anglo-sounding, by the way), “Are you from China?”
I’m sure the guy meant well, but come on! I never meet a white dude with a perfect American accent and ask, “Are you from Sweden?” or meet a Black woman with a perfect American accent and ask, “Are you from Nigeria?”
The guy who asked me is an immigrant, actually. His own accent and look gives away that he himself is probably from a country in Latin America. I suppose he has his reasons for asking. I don’t know. I find it weird. Is that his way of trying to make himself seem more American by making me seem less American (i.e., more foreign)? Who knows? I rarely have American-born Americans ask me if I’m “from China” or “from [fill-in-the-blank Asian country].” It’s usually someone who is clearly born outside the US who is either trying to make me more “other” and herself less “other” or perhaps make me “other” in order to commiserate (a kind of See? We’re both not Americans. We have a common bond.)
I always try to respond politely, because I’m generally a polite guy. Of course, if I weren’t, I’d scream, “What the fuck is wrong with you? Can’t you see I’m American? Can’t you hear that I speak English perfectly? Why do you think I’m from China?!” Instead, I either answer her straightforwardly that I’m from New England originally (which inevitably leads to the “Where are you really from?” obnoxious follow-up question) or I try to answer her question in a compromise of telling her what she wants to know and also hinting that she’s asking the question badly, “I was born in America, actually, but my parents are from Hong Kong. Is that what you wanted to know?”
Ah, to be of Asian descent in America… even in the Bay Area sometimes… geez.
Yep, happens more often than people would like to admit or acknowledge. Fight the power!
“Where are you really from?”
What the hell kind of a question is that?
You should have answered “I’m an alien from another solar system actually and my job is to infiltrate the human race to enslave them.”
Flip it.
The question is actually not a question but a demand to confirm a projection veiled as a question. The asker is literally putting you in your place sie has chosen for you – which may be narrow or wide depending on the scale of ignorance. I don’t think ignorance should be responded with absorbing kindness, not only since swallowed anger damages your health, but also because by absorbing everything, you take away the chance of the ignorant person to grow out of hir ignorance.
Try answering calmly something like: “No, I’m from the United States. You know, in the United States we have a rich ethnic diversity.”
Now not only have you placed yourself outside the mental room of projection that was assigned to you, but you have reversed the situation and placed the asker into the exact same spot sie had reserved for you, given that you reserved the “we” for Americans, a we from which the asker suddenly finds hirself being excluded from! If the asker is another American, the offense of asking something silly like that is even worse, likewise will the same response carry more energy back.
Another thought has occured to me: Why are Americans so damn sensitive about their nationality anyway?
I mean, a person has got to accept both his parental roots as well as his current nationality. Denying either is a sign of weakness.
Be proud of your ethnicity as well as your nationality. There’s no law which says you’ve got to deny one to stand up for the other. Ethnicity is as valid as nationality and anybody who denies it is being politically correct but dishonest.
You’re correct in a sense but also a bit hyper-sensitive I suspect. I would have never ask a Chinese with no accent and a typical english first name if he was from China or not… Why would someone? Stupid question really, ( although this doesn’t apply to the latino and I’ll have more to say on this later) it should be obvious you were from here or at least were brought up in America. This being offended by being ask where you are from is a ‘only in America’ attitude in case you don’t know.
However, I’ve had some of my best conversations with people who aren’t white like I am after I ask them “where are you from”? Incidentally, I lived in SE Asia for several years and I’ve been asked this question hundreds of times by locals,travelers, ex-pats, you name it. I had one old Filipino guy ask me this and when I said “American”, he said… ” I can never tell with you white guys, you all look alike”. Roflmao!!!!
One in particular that I initiated here in the states stands out in my mind. This guy was oriental or at least he wasn’t white, that was for sure and his name was odd and I wasn’t able to determine from it where he might have hailed from. Turned out he was Mongolian and from the same locale as Gheghis Khan. He spoke perfect American english but also was fluent in the local dialect… his grandfather had taught him to speak it and it was the inhouse lingo when he was a kid… he spent many of his younger years in England iirc and also spoke Russian. He told me the most fascinating story how he had taken a horseback trip of a couple thousand miles with some of his relatives who were traders, a euphemism probably for smugglers. It started in Mongolia and went through the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan. His brother a decade or two earlier had done the same thing and National Geographic had done a story on it only it was via 4-wheel drive and not by horseback.
It I was the type to worry that I might offend someone by asking “where are you from”, I would never had this conversation. The latino guy who ask you this question doesn’t have your PC values, I can assure you of that. I’m rather certain he has no idea he offended you. Even if you insist on torturing yourself with this attitude, a little appreciation and tolerance of cultural differences would certainly help with the resentments.
Clearly a lot of people don’t understand the issue at hand. It’s not distinctly American but distinctly Asian-American. I can assure you few white Americans with perfect American accents get asked on a regular basis “Are you from Italy?” or, when saying they’re from New England or Chicago or Los Angeles getting asked “Where are you really from?” until another country is named.
This happens quite often to Asian-Americans and is usually one of the first questions asked by such a person. There’s usually a smugness of an “I thought so” flavor that appears right afterwards, even if the person is wrong (i.e., she thought you were of Chinese descent, but you were really of Japanese descent, for example), as long as she can now place you into the appropriate category.
If you really want to understand this phenomenon better, here’s further reading for you:
Where are you really from? Asian Americans and the perpetual foreigner syndrome by Frank Wu
I wonder why a lot of people also get so defensive when a person asks where you are from? Maybe it’s not the question that we perceive as offensive but the inquisitive nature of it and the inherently implied racism in it??
By the way, Aysiu, in our country India, we are a lot more inquisitive of total strangers and our attitudes are a lot different from the Western conception of “privacy”.
It is a cultural issue and has a specific dimension of “personal space” linked to it. Each culture’s conception of “personal space” differs from others. IN the west, I suspect you guys treat your “personal space” with a lot more respect than people do here in India.
Thing is, hari, I don’t get defensive if someone asks where I’m from. This is the kind of conversation I actually welcome:
“Hi. I’m ____.”
“I’m ____. Nice to meet you.”
“So where are you from?”
“I’m from back East in New England.”
“That’s cool.”
“What about you?”
“I’m from the Chicago area.”
This is the kind of conversation I hate:
“Hi. I’m ____”
“Where are you from?”
“Where..? I’m from back East in New England.”
“No, no. Where are you really from?”
“I’m really from back East in New England, Massachusetts, to be specific.”
“Where are you really from? Korea? Japan?”
“I’m really from America.”
“But you’re Chinese? Vietnamese?”
etc.
Those fellows are so thick, you need a chainsaw to cut through their ignorance to make them understand who you really are.
In that case, your standard reply should be “no I’m actually an Alien from Alpha Centauri on a Secret Mission to Planet Earth, but if you talk about this to anybody else, your head will burst so keep it to yourself.” :)
I know you’re not defensive yourself; I was just talking generally about this kind of stuff.