“Where are you from?” is a dreaded question

In yesterday’s AZ Daily Star, they published an opinion piece on page A6 by an adopted Korean American journalist Kurt Bardella, which ran in the LA Times earlier: https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-03-22/op-ed-the-question-every-asian-american-hates-where-are-you-from?fbclid=IwAR1Pg1DCP1IWXbfWsJ0oa8cG8_Wg25C6hCYEQHkMoUOrCpAbWLgCYnRXZwY

He writes about the question that is dreaded by Asian Americans: “Where are you from?”  It is dreaded because when asked by usually white people, it perpetuates the thinking of Asian looking people as foreign and not American.  This has been called the myth of perpetual foreignness for us Asian Americans.

Bardella writes “I promise you, that every member of the Asian American community cringes inside when they are asked that question.”  Very true.

Yes, I have been asked countless times that very question, and yes, I do find it off-putting, and offensive if asked in a negative tone. I usually will answer with “Hawaii”, but then the person will ask “But where is your family from?” (meaning country of origin), or even worse, “Where are you REALLY from?” meaning they want to know ethnicity (i.e. Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Filipino, etc.)  Sometimes I retort by asking the person where s/he is from. And I get a state or city name in response.

Bardella ends his column by writing “When ignorance and obliviousness converge, this is what happens. The next time you meet someone who looks Asian and you feel compelled to ask the question, just don’t.”

Once I was at a Sun Tran bus stop here in Tucson, and a white woman was sitting next to me. We commented about the hot weather, then she turned to me and asked “And how’s the weather now in China?” I took offense by telling her I wasn’t from China, nor Chinese, that I was a 3rd generation American citizen. She, to her credit, apologized several times and looked remorseful, but I was still angry.  Because of my looks, she had stereotyped me as Chinese and foreign, yet I spoke good English. She told me in her apology that she was 2nd generation Greek American.

Anyway, dear readers, you get the point.  Many Asian Americans have been here now 5 or 6 generations. We are no longer foreigners.  My granddaughter is part Gosei (meaning 5th generation Japanese American), but she doesn’t look very Asian, so she probably won’t be asked this question.  Take Bardella’s advice and mine, just don’t ask people who look foreign that question.

Remember that America is a land of immigrants, so let’s be welcoming to foreigners and people who don’t look or talk like us. So instead of asking that dreaded question, perhaps it would be better to ask a person, “Where did you grow up?” in a friendly tone. Then you can engage in a constructive conversation and we can celebrate the diversity of America.