Question

Explain with reference to context this was my city the city where I was born and the city of my ancestors

Answer 1

At a convention in New Hampshire last week, Harvard student Joseph Choe stood up to askDonald Trump something about foreign policy. But before Choe could finish, the Republican presidential candidate interrupted him with a question of his own: “Are you from South Korea?"

"I'm not. I was born in Texas, raised in Colorado,” Choe replied. The audience  cheered, while Trump shrugged.

Trump’s inquiry was a variant of “where are you from?”—a seemingly innocuous question that we all have encountered under different circumstances. Most of the time, I get it when people detect my accent. In those cases, I’m happy to explain. But often, I’m asked where I’m from even before I’ve said a word—as a conversation-opener at a bar, on the street, or in an Uber. It irks me that in some of these situations, the question comes loaded with presumptions. And judging by the flood of responses I got when I asked people their reactions to the question on social media, I’m not the only one.

It’s obviously okay in situations where everyone is venturing answers: say, as a part of introductions in a classroom. And admittedly, I’ve also asked the question in some instances, and had some really great conversations. The point is, just as with any other fragment of language, context matters.

For minorities, the question carries historical baggage

For immigrants and people of color, including myself, the “where are you from?” question contains subtext. It often disguises curiosity about the ethnic background of the person being asked. And the people can see through that:

People of color are often singled out and asked this question, no matter how long they’ve lived in the U.S. or whether they have citizenship. (Trump’s phrasing is a good example.) This is strange because the original inhabitants of the country weren’t white; the very first “settlers” of Americawere Hispanic. The first Chinese came to the country in the 1500s; Muslims, a couple of centuries earlier. That somehow these identities are different from the mainstream—not American or American enough—is grating to many.

For Asian Americans, in particular, this assumption of foreignness has been damaging. Racistimmigration, naturalization, and domestic policieshave cost members of this group their rights to citizenship, and their homes, jobs, freedom, and privacy. In her new book, The Making of Asian America, Erica Lee recounts much of this problematic history. Here’s New Yorker’s Karan Mahajan quoting Lee’s book:

In the eyes of some, Asians in America are, Lee writes, “perpetual foreigners at worst, or probationary Americans at best.”

Of course, “othering” and its consequences were not exclusively borne by Asian Americans—it has justified violence and exclusionary policies at every level of government. From the erasure of native populations to the mass repatriation of around a million people of Mexican descent in the 1930s. The violence that African Americans encountered when they tried to live in white neighborhoods was a different avatar of the same monster.

So, when that assumption of foreignness creeps into a quotidian conversation, it’s not very inviting.* Here is how some people of color feel when they’re asked the question:

For “third culture kids,” the question is complicated

“Third culture kids” is a term coined by sociologist Ruth Uneem in the 1950s to refer to kids who’ve grown up in a culture different than their parents’. Writer Pico Iyer—who is of Indian descent, but has lived in America, Tokyo, and the U.K.—is a great example. In a TED talk from 2013, he described the confusion he faces when asked where he’s from:

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