Guessing Where I'm From
For awhile, this post has bounced around in my head. I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve heard this question. I thought that this is a good opportunity to discuss some of the common, possible contexts.
So…Where Are You From?
To keep things simple, I’d like to offer two contrasting examples.
Recently, I was able to attend in-person church service. After the service, we had our coffee hour and I was able to catch up with a few parishioners that I hadn’t talked in awhile. I discussed my persistent, pre-pandemic travel issues within the background of another parishioner discussing a possible trip in Canada. As I explained my situation, one of them asked,
“So were you born here?”
I was not only born in Detroit but I have pretty solidly had a passport, since I was seventeen. This later loosely related to discussing my issue with the National Driver Registry (Medium). In this way, both my respective travel and driver’s license issues make even less sense (to them).
Then, there is a group of examples from my time in the call center. I remember two statements from two separate calls:
“You don’t sound like a José.”
“You sound pretty “educated’.”
For many reasons not limited to my ability on the phone, these comments didn’t disturb my flow. In my head, I tried to make sense of these statements. Clearly, they thought that these statements were “okay.” More importantly, I think that they were more about trying to make sense of me within the world that they knew.
Having A Chameleon Face
As far as I can remember, I have a face that (unintentionally) “passes.” The first time that stood out was, when I was about 12 and visiting Camp Dearborn with my family. I was away from my family and some older kids approached. They kept asking “Where are you from?” At that time and at that age, I didn’t know what they meant. One of them detected my confusion and, eventually, said how they were Lebanese and I said that I was Mexican. Due to my features, they thought that I was Lebanese.
Fast forward nearly ten years, now I’m a university student. I was walking between buildings to my next class. There were two older men and one approached me.
Man: “Where are you from?”
Me: <puzzled tone> “I’m from here.”
Man: “No, no, where are you from?”
Me: “From here…”
Man: “No, no…where are you from? Your family?”
Me: <chuckling> “Oh…I’m Mexican.”
There were a few other sporadic incidents. I was at an Indian Sikh wedding and was confused for Punjabi. When I was in the call center and became part of the newly formed Spanish bilingual team, one of my colleagues thought that I was Lebanese, until he heard me speak Spanish. The funny thing is that he, like me, was Mexican. With this group of examples, either I didn’t initially fit into my own group or other people thought that I belonged to theirs.
Where Are You From (Do You Belong Here)?
I wanted to share my respective anecdotes about the after-service conversation, the Camp Dearborn and Where Are You From university incidents because I feel that they are the opposite of the two call center incidents that I mentioned.
With the after-service conversation, my fellow parishioner asked me where I was born to understand why I was having travel issues. Their question was to establish context. From the Camp Dearborn incident to the university incident, I feel that there was genuine inquiry behind those questions. I joke about how, when two Mexicans or Mexican-Americans meet, one of the first questions is, “Where is your family from?” The intent was to connect.
If we look at the intentions on a spectrum, the intent of the call center questions were somewhere between one end (opposite of the after-service conversation, the Camp Dearborn Incident or the university incident) or maybe a little over from the middle. In the case of “You don’t sound like a José,” I really feel that the caller genuinely thought that it was a compliment. While that lady was “nice,” her comment was still a microaggression.
Merriam-Webster defines microaggression as
“a comment or action that subtly and often unconsciously or unintentionally expresses a prejudiced attitude toward a member of a marginalized group (such as a racial minority)”.
I can only assume that the lady probably didn’t know many people with my name. I can, also, assume she believed or had heard certain “facts” that were, in fact, stereotypes). If I’m correct, then this woman was prejudiced and didn’t know it.
I know that prejudiced or prejudice are sensitive words. Sometimes, I think that people, whose prejudice has been pointed out, feel/think that they’re accused of being “bad people.” I don’t know that prejudice is what’s “bad,” but the results definitely can be. If we again look at Merriam-Webster to define prejudice, we read,
“an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge.”
So returning to both of the call center comments, both of them fall under prejudice. If we look at the first, the caller had their idea of what a José should “sound like.” Even if they knew one or even a few other individuals named José, I don’t know how much of what they “know” applied to me.
If we look at the second, the caller couldn’t have known very much about my education. I have known people with more education than me that wrote and spoke horrendously. On the other hand, I have known people with less education than me, who wrote or spoke beautifully, simply and clearly. Perhaps, they are big readers that have read widely, so they had a lot of writing examples to teach them. In my case, I happen to have a university education and still read a lot. Were they trying to “raise” me to their level or to say that they were above me?
…Are You From Here?
I have to mention how, sometimes, the question “Where are you from?” has a different meaning. What the person is really trying to figure out is if I’m “American,” according to their subjective definition.
It’s not unusual that people may keep a small circle of acquaintances and stick to a “small” part of the world. When I was younger, I mostly stayed to a 4 mile radius around my town. When I started going to Royal Oak with my cousin, it felt like the other side of the world. There was so much that I didn’t know because I hadn’t yet made the effort. For me, starting my university education greatly expanded my world. It was a commuter campus, so there were people from all over Metro Detroit.
Returning to my point that some people know only what they know based on who they know and what they’ve seen, they may confuse opinion with absolute fact. If they “know” it, it must be true “most of the time.” These generalizations could be wrong, as personal experience may not be correct nor accurate.
If someone were to solely look at me or my name, I don’t know that an individual could correctly guess where I live nor my nationality. I think that the various ethnicities that I’ve been mistaken for is evidence of this.
I realized a long time ago that, if someone is preoccupied with whether I’m American or “where I’m from” (my ethnic or “racial” background), it is their hang up. Some of them may subscribe to “race, as defined by Merriam-Webster,
“any one of the groups that humans are often divided into based on physical traits regarded as common among people of shared ancestry.”
There are some that might look look at my darker features and think that they might define Mexicans or Mexican-Americans. However, I have cousins on both sides that, if I were the baseline for Mexican physical features, they might not be able to guess that we’re related! Then, there are people that mistakenly think that I’m a member of other ethnic groups. If this is such a flawed idea, I wonder why these individuals still use it and why it still matters to them.
If someone really wants to know, I was born in Detroit, raised in Metro-Detroit, born of Mexican parents and speaking Spanish and (later) English. This is it. These are the correct facts. However, if they still want to guess, it’s their gamble to take. Nonetheless, I think my unintentionally “chameleon” face might make things interesting.
WHY DOES IT MATTER WHERE I’M FROM?
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