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[shreena]

I made a post a while ago about the annoyance of the conversation, "Where are you from?"  "Cambridge" "No, where are you really from?" [...] "Oh, so you're Indian!"

Someone madea very similar post on Commentisfree about the same thing.

I am slightly horrified by many of the comments.

Some suggest that people are just chatting her up.  This has never

Comments

[annifa]

Amazing post! Thank you so much.
I freaking hate being asked this and the, "where are you parents from", "Your skin is brown so clearly *someone* in your family isn't English". I mean, how freaking rude is that? I think it's hard for people who haven't experienced it to understand. Being white in a majority Black country is a very different experience to being Black in a majority white country which is why is annoys me when people say, "oh, I didn't mind when I was in Tanzania/Uganda/South Africa etc". Colonialism, anyone!

A colleague, who is the same ethnicity as me just doesn't answer the question. I'm still trying to work out ways to do that politely. But perhaps if Bristol isn't a good enough answer for them I'll try to turn it back and ask why they want to know so much.

Wow, I have a lot to say about this!
Thanks again.

[blue_mai]

i usually respond to "where are you from?" with "how do you mean?" because there are so many different answers, but i don't mind it, unless someone is clearly pre-judging or mean something else (ie. subtext - what are you doing here). I actually don't mind it as a generic conversation opener either, whether the question is about ethnicity, current abode, place of birth, place of upbringing, place of parents' birth, place of grandparents' birth etc etc. And i'm slightly surprised by your take on it, however, i can imagine if i didn't want to talk about it to random strangers (which of course is fine) then to have people push the question as if they have a right to interrogate you would be really infuriating. I do get annoyed when people are like "REALLY!! that sooo interesting! gosh i've never met anyone who ...". hmm. i don't believe you / get out more

[beckyzoole]

It must be so frustrating! Thank you for talking about this.

My first thought was that questions like these must be more common in fairlly homogenous societies like Britain than in the US. But then I remembered that this very question was played for comedic effect in the '80s movie "Short Circuit".

In the movie, Ben is an Indian-looking guy with an Indian accent (an improbably broad and incomprehensible Indian accent, no less), who is asked, "Where are you from, anyway?"
Ben: "Bakersfield, California, originally."
Crosby: "No, I mean your ancestors."
Ben: "Oh, them." [pause] "Pittsburgh."

(Here via livredor, I think.)

[kathrid]

If I asked that question I'd expect either where you grew up or where you live now. I can see how being unwilling to accept those answers would be annoying.

That said, it wouldn't entirely surprise me if the idiots that seem to provide most of the British population felt that was a nice unthreatening and non-pervy way to start chatting up a person of ethnic minority appearence.