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>"where are you from"

Based on the fact that you took some (minor) offense to the followup questions, I'm assuming you're middle-class or higher?

I've spent a decent chunk of my adult life living in working class, high-immigrant areas (Noble Park and Sunshine, to any other Melbournians - both actually really nice places).

What struck me as interesting is that in these environments, probing about one's ethnicity is nothing more than smalltalk. Everybody has one; they're curious about yours and will ask directly.

In more upper-middle-class environments, though, it can be really taken the other way as ethnicity is something semi-taboo that needs to be treated far more carefully.

I moved from Australia to the US and I agree. It was small talk as a kid in Australia (where 30% of residents are born overseas), and it's a no-no in the US.

Possibly I was offending some folks in Australia.. in 2022, as a white man without Mediterranean roots, I'd probably not say your username out loud in either country :)

>in 2022, as a white man without Mediterranean roots, I'd probably not say your username out loud in either country :)

If you'd like, I'd be more than happy to print you off a W-word pass. :P

It's a fairly common observation that there's more middle class racism than working class racism.

Working class racism certainly exists and can be very nasty, but it's not endemic and casual in the way it can be among the middle classes.

One possible explanation is that the working classes know they're at the bottom of the heap, while the middle classes are much more finely tuned to differentiation markers of all kinds.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/mar/07/white-...

Is there a correct way to ask about your family background/ ethnicity/whatever? For context, I am a white English-seeming (but not actually) person in London.

I never ask, as I don't want to offend, however I am often quite curious. Not because I doubt anyone's claim to being British - most British Indians are likely more British than I am. Usually, I just want to talk about food, ask if you've been to India, hear your life experiences, reminisce about when I visited India, etc.

One of my favourite work relationships was with an older Indian man who, when he found out I was vegetarian and liked Indian food, he would bring me food his wife had made and give me recipes to cook myself. Sadly he died of Covid, but I still cook the recipes he gave me often - albeit with less ghee.

I feel like it's a little sad that racists have made it hard to talk about any issue touching on ethnicity without worrying that one may be coming from a place of hatred or aggression. My girlfriend is a Filipina so I can pick up the accent, and when I was making small talk with someone I asked if they were from the Philippines. They said yes, but instantly clammed up and didn't really talk to me for the rest of the interaction. But hey, I'm autistic so maybe I'm misunderstanding what I did wrong.

As a visible minority who has lived in a western country for more than 2 decades I bristle every time I'm asked this question.

The majority of the time it isn't asked from a place of genuine curiosity but as a way of boxing you in and "other"ing you. I shouldn't need to justify my existence to you just because my skin color stands out.

Also restricting your exploration to just food topics doesn't make you curious or cultured. There's more to experiencing a culture than looking up a recipe online, going to an "authentic" restaurant or going backpacking while surrounded by expats of a similar cultural background as you.

Ultimately I'm not a zoo animal for you to poke or probe at. I'm a complicated individual with my own personal story just like you are & I deserve the same respect I give you.

How would you feel if I just met you and started interrogating you on whether you are an Angle, Saxon or a Jute?

Now how would you feel if every single non-white person you met asked you this dozens of times over the span of a decade?

As a visible minority myself, I think you are being way too abrasive and nasty.

I'm not restricting my exploration to food, it's just people often like to talk about food. It's the cultural equivalent of talking about the weather. Hopefully things can get deeper after that.

Obviously I can't know what it's like to be asked this kind of thing constantly for years, but I can say that travelling in non-white countries as a white person, you do get asked that kind of stuff a lot (or people touch my hair, beard, talk about how tall I am etc.). Or stuff about Scotland or the royal family. I've never minded, but perhaps after years it would get annoying.

This is on topic and pretty damn funny:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RU_htgjlMVE

Obviously your ancestors aren't British so there's something to the "where are you really from" question. I've been asked similar things even as a White American.

Sure, but imagine the scenario that you're one of about 5 non-white people in your entire school life, and the area you lived in has a similar demographic. You might feel generally more alienated from society. It might make it slightly harder to accept/understand your own identity, and being quizzed about it further (at times when you've already mentioned your nationality) is unlikely to help.

It has rather different connotations in Britain.

As far as I understand it from Americans I know, quite a few people in the US have a fascination with where their, and others', ancestors came from, so it could be a fairly innocuous question. Pretty much any American I know would happily rattle off an answer of 'oh, I'm half Irish, a quarter French, and a quarter Spanish' or something similar.

Here in the UK, even though we're also a nation of immigrants and invaders throughout history, there is much more of an attitude of 'people whose ancestors have always been here' ('British') versus 'immigrants' ('not really British') - even if the 'immigrants' are from families who have also been here for generations.

So yeah. Generally 'but where are you really from?' means something a little like 'I don't believe that you're one of us people who have always been here'. Whether that's malicious or just naive depends on the person, but I can imagine it gets pretty tiring.

(I'm the son of a Chinese immigrant, but due to my other parent being Scottish I pass for white and thus I've never actually been asked the question!)

"Where are you from" means the same in the US (source: moved from UK to US 25 years ago). Someone who is interested in your ethnic background would ask "what's your your heritage" or perhaps "what are you?". "Where are you from?" is always going to mean Where did you personally physically come from.

Thank you for the clarification :)

When I have given a shy smile and an interested "What is your ancestry?" followed by, if sincere, "You have a really cool look!", I have often gotten very interesting answers and nearly never any offense. Once someone I asked had 8 heritages bestowed by 8 great grand parents, including Sephardic, Chinese, Cree, African-American and Swedish!

I'll ask "Where are you from?" as a way to understand someone's heritage only if it's obvious, from accent or other markers, that they are literally from another country.

Ancestry is pretty common small talk for White Americans.

I like learning more about people and the world so I like to ask people about where they’re from. The immigrants I’ve spoken to are proud of their heritage and don’t take offense. I have noticed though that their descendants can take offense, perhaps because they take it as implying they’re somehow inauthentic. All that’s required is a little delicacy. Instead of asking “where are you really from” instead ask something like “it sounds like your family has a really interesting story, would you like to tell me about it?”

No, it isn't phrased the same way. If you have an ethnic-sounding last name but don't have a foreign accent you might be asked about your ancestry, but they won't say "where are you REALLY from" with the stress on the word "really", the way it's said to, say, someone with Asian ancestry, born in the US, who answers "I'm from Chicago".