- They're expecting me to say India, and they're absolutely right insofar as 100 percent of my blood and ancestry does come from India. Except, I've never lived one day of my life there. I can't speak even one word of its more than 22,000 dialects. So I don't think I've really earned the right to call myself an Indian. And if "Where do you come from?" means "Where were you born and raised and educated?" then I'm entirely of that funny little country known as England, except I left England as soon as I completed my undergraduate education, and all the time I was growing up, I was the only kid in all my classes who didn't begin to look like the classic English heroes represented in our textbooks. And if "Where do you come from?" means "Where do you pay your taxes? Where do you see your doctor and your dentist?" then I'm very much of the United States, and I have been for 48 years now, since I was a really small child. Except, for many of those years, I've had to carry around this funny little pink card with green lines running through my face identifying me as a permanent alien. I do actually feel more alien the longer I live there.
I call bullshit. My best buddy hangs out exclusively with Koreans and Japanese and I have never seen any group of people as obsessed with race and "where are you from" as much as LA Asians. Any discussion about someone starts with name, and within the same breath, nationality, and within the next breath, arguing about nationality. "So I was hanging out with Joe - " "Isn't he Korean?" "Japanese." "I thought he was Korean." "You're thinking of Ted." "No, Ted's Vietnamese." "Anyway, I was hanging out with Joe, and Sandra came by." "Isn't she Laotian?" "Cambodian." Latin Americans don't do this, except to establish that they are HOLY FUCK NOT MEXICAN. Unless they are Mexican, in which case fuck you. White people? Polite white people, at least, have long since learned not to ask... but for fuck's sake, let it go. The only people who give a shit are you... and racists.
So your anecdote about your friend's experiences with Asian Americans trumps all of the article's examples from social media about people who are bothered by this question? Honestly, I think we might just live in very different worlds. I don't know where you're from, but the culture there must be very different than it is here. I posted this from one of my close friend's Facebook timelines. She's Vietnamese, and often complains about this question. My ex girlfriend was Chinese, but was adopted into a family with a very Germanic last name, and she dealt with people who were surprised she wasn't white all the time. I really don't think I'm the only one to give a shit. Maybe I'm the only one who cares on hubski?
Not my friend's experiences. Mine. I spent a New Year's Eve at a Korean nightclub where he and I were the only white folx there. No one would talk to me. I was super butthurt. Found out later that a rumor had gone around that I was Axl Rose and they were all giving me space because they thought I was hiding from the paparazzi. Don't get me wrong - Asians complain about this all the time, while also grilling each other every third sentence about their nationality. Then they also argue about how fobby everyone is. And, just like African Americans get to call each other the n-word freely but white people's careers can be ruined by the rumor of it, nobody who isn't Asian gets to say shit about it. And that's my beef - if you're a minority, you get to talk about it all day. If you're white, you're an oppressor for noticing. A culture has been created where I can get in trouble for bringing it up as a point of conversation but if those people I might oppress feel comfortable around me, they'll talk about it all day long. It's a super-tricky path to walk - you have to know when you're in enough to even acknowledge that you hear the discussion because if you broach it too early, you'll spend the remainder of your relationship in the awkward white guy zone. Refuse to acknowledge it until too late and you become perpetually labeled as uncomfortable around Asians. Articles like this? They make it harder, not easier. The "baggage" discussed is carried by everybody, not just immigrants and people of color, and pretending it's a one-sided issue only makes it heavier.
Maybe one day I'm going to learn to stop disagreeing with the arguments you make on my posts, and maybe one day I'll post something you like, and I won't have to. Who knows. I obviously misinterpreted your original statement. By referring to your friend, I assumed you were indicating that you hadn't had personal interactions with them. Again, we've probably had different experiences with our Asian American friends. I haven't experienced any of the attitudes that you're referring to, and my city has several thriving Asian American communities. That said, I still feel like the sentiments expressed in the article are accurate. I do think it's rude to ask someone "Where are you from?" as a way of avoiding asking about their ethnicity. My takeaway from this article is that we shouldn't beat around the bush when asking someone about their ethnicity. If you ask someone where they're from, expect them to answer with their birthplace, hometown, whatever. If you want to know about their ethnicity, ask them about it directly. The last paragraph of the article, I thought, summed it up nicely: I think the reason I'm having trouble understanding your anger over this article is because of this difference in understanding. I don't think that the article is advocating we ignore people's nationalities or ethnicity, and I think that's the way you're interpreting it. The way I understood it, the author wanted people to start conversations on these subjects in a direct, respectful way, and the question, "Where are you from?" doesn't feel that way to the author, or any of my friends who have had this question posed to them. Maybe I'm the one misinterpreting the article, but this was the point my friend made, and the reason I thought it might be an interesting article to share.If the conversation is naturally veering toward a discussion of origins and there’s genuine interest, I don’t mind being asked where I’m from. I would prefer, however, being asked more specific questions—where did you grow up? Were you born there? Do your parents still live there? Where did you live before you moved here? These queries are more transparent to me, and permit me to give more concise, nuanced answers.
Polite disagreement is the entire point of discussion, as far as I'm concerned. By all means, please continue to disagree. Here's the thing: the last time I asked someone where they were from, I was in college, they had an extremely thick accent, and they were taking notes in something that looked like Amharic, but wasn't. That was when I found out that one side of the room wasn't talking to the other because they were literally at war. Somewhat awkward. And you're right - the Asian kids in the class didn't care. None of us did, really. Beyond frat and non-frat it simply wasn't an issue. But then I come down to LA and everybody cares. And here's where I take issue with the article: it's a bunch of Facebook quotes informing me that everything I've ever done is wrong and that there's a right way and a wrong way to ask the same question and minorities are allowed to be offended by me if I use the wrong syntax. Fuck that. If you want to give a specific answer, give a specific answer. Don't lay out a mental minefield for me such that you can choose to be offended no matter what I do.I would prefer, however, being asked more specific questions—where did you grow up? Were you born there? Do your parents still live there? Where did you live before you moved here? These queries are more transparent to me, and permit me to give more concise, nuanced answers.
Honestly, as long as we've established that I'm not saying we should ignore ethnicity (and that I don't believe the article does, either), I'm fine with us disagreeing on this point. It might be a hassle, but I know it's something that's important to people I care about, so I'm going to change my behavior to make them more comfortable. The Facebook posts, to me, felt like people expressing how they felt in response to something I (or others) might do, and I don't want to invalidate their opinions because they feel like a personal attack against me. None of the social media posts (and I only casually looked through them again, so I'm probably wrong) were talking directly about white people anyways. The whole crux of the issue is summarized in this post, which ties into your comment here. Nobody is saying not to look for common ground (which I don't think is the goal people usually have when asking this question), but to use more direct questions that people might be more comfortable with. And really, at the end of the day, I don't really care what you do. People I love care about this, so I choose to care about it as well. I honestly thought that the hubski crowd would like the article more, but at the very least I'm glad that it's caused this discussion. And to be clear, because I felt like my earlier comment came off as a little bit whiny, I do enjoy your input on my posts, and your presence on hubski as a whole. I don't usually respond to your comments, since I don't usually have as much free time as I've used on this thread, but I do read them all, and I'm glad they're there.
Here's the difference: Your entrance to this subject was through people you care about, expressing an opinion about something that mattered to them. My entrance to this subject was the fact that as a straight white male, the Internet is either telling me I'm wrong about something or reinforcing the fact that I'm god's gift to this earth and all other races, creeds, and genders must bow before me. As the latter position can be dismissed (with prejudice) by inspection, the former position becomes all the more annoying. I can't help but notice, however, that every time the internet tells white people they're wrong, White People on the Internet get a little more strident and unbearable, myself included. And I'm pretty sure it isn't good for harmony.It might be a hassle, but I know it's something that's important to people I care about, so I'm going to change my behavior to make them more comfortable.
Them: Clausnitzer... that's an interesting last name, is it German? Me: Yes Them: Huh.. Me: (Giving them what they really want) My father is of German decent and my mother Mexican. Them: Oh, that makes sense. Granted, this happens once a week because I am in front of a LOT of people every week with a business card in hand. Often, they'll only know me from email and my email address is my name, so they probably have a preconceived mental image of some arian fella. It's normally done from a place of genuine curiosity and for that, I don't fault them.White people? Polite white people, at least, have long since learned not to ask
They ask. They're just much stealthier about it. I get asked about once a week this question:
Dude, they ask about my wife, too, and her name is about as Teutonic as you could possibly imagine (most people on Facebook spell it with a ß). AND she looks the part - chick coulda walked off the pages of Heidi and you'd think nothing of it. The same people who will ask about European-sounding names are the exact same ones that aren't allowed to ask about names from literally anywhere else.
I just don't know about anywhere else. I went through a family tree phase recently and learned a lot about names from a few european countries, but outside of that I'm pretty ignorant. That said, I also never really liked the lineage small talk, it always seems to dead end pretty quickly for me: "That an interesting name, is is German." "Yes, my great, great grandfather was German." "...good for him?"The same people who will ask about European-sounding names are the exact same ones that aren't allowed to ask about names from literally anywhere else.
And that's part of the problem: it's small-talk, used as a silence-filler by people who don't know each other. The goal of asking is "say something I can relate to" - so in your example, you're hoping for "my dad was German" which you can follow up with "Oh yeah? I've been there twice! Where in Germany?" and now you have a vague, thin, irrelevant point of affinity between you and this total stranger. The argument of the article is "don't look for affinity with me in any possible way, because everything you do as a white person offends me."
Man, trust me I know when it's a "that's an interesting name" inquiry and when it's a "that name doesn't fit" inquiry. It's pretty obvious. Then theres the "you aren't fit for the name boy," inquiry which is rare, but happens. More so in South Carolina... I took a meeting at a business that was literally right across the street from this place and had that third type of inquiry. Pricks.