Where are you (really) from?

Commentary

By Frank H. Wu, Howard University

"Where are you from?" is a question I like answering.

"Where are you really from?" is a question I really hate answering.

These questions frequently come in pairs like that. Often my interlocutor seems to believe I am being obstinate or silly when I reply Cleveland or Detroit, the Midwestern cities where I was born and raised. Sometimes they act as if I have been rude or merely politically correct when I respond, "the United States" and "and where are you from?" People who trust that their own American identity is assured may be perplexed when they are rebuffed. Like too many other people of color who share memories of these embarrassing encounters, I know that I am being taken for a foreigner.

I am upset by these episodes not because I have rejected my racial ancestry or my cultural heritage, but because the people who ask seem to have an expectation of ethnicity and their inquiry suggests that I should give up my life story as an example of exotica. These two questions -- "where are you from" and "where are you really from?" -- help define what it means to be an Asian American. Racial etiquette, however, makes it difficult for me to make my point. I have a sense that stating I am offended by the questions in turn gives offense to the questioner. I have shown that I am ungrateful about being a "guest" in my own country. I may have proven my point, but only to myself.

Most people, I suppose, ask me where I am from because they sincerely would like to know about China and Asia, or would like to display what they already know. They went to China for a vacation, they met someone who is Chinese, they ate at a Chinese restaurant they liked, there is a Chinese phrase they'd like to have translated, there is a Chinese custom they'd like to know if people follow, and so on. A few people, I suspect, ask me where I am from out of a blend of malice and naiveté. They appear satisfied after I confess that my parents were born in China, emigrated to Taiwan, and then come to this country as students. Since they fail to continue our conversation, I presume they believe they know all they need to know. They must feel that they have gleaned an insight into me simply by knowing "where I am from."

What makes the incidents amusing is that the person waiting in line, the clerk behind the counter, the stranger on the street, and whoever else turns around, leans over, or pulls me aside to ask "where are you from?" does so as if she or he is asking me something I have not been asked before. Asians and Asian Americans occasionally ask me the same question, but perhaps with different meaning. Some of them are the same as anyone else: They want to know to confirm a prejudice of some sort, or they wish to confide their prejudice about another group, perhaps Japanese or Koreans.

A few of them want to place me within their geography of race because they would like to make a connection to someone else who is a minority and an outsider. They might need help with English or finding their way in an unfamiliar country, and they guess that I will be more sympathetic toward them if not actually similar to them. What makes these incidents alarming is that the passenger at the airport, the waiter at the restaurant, the doctor, the Asian individual who turns around, leans over, or pulls me aside to ask "where are you from?" does so as if they are asking me what has not been asked them before.

We are acutely aware of race, which is not to say that we are racists. We want to know about race, but for many different reasons. Some people who want to talk about where I am from want to share with me where they are from literally, or where they are coming from, so to speak. Asking "where are you from?" can be an invitation to a dialogue about what it means that each of us has come from elsewhere, that all of us have arrived here, and where we can go together. Whether "where are you from?" begins or ends the conversation is crucial.

It all depends on "why do you ask?"

Also by Frank Wu in the Village Archives

Born in the U.S.A.
How Wong Kim Ark won us the right to be "Asian Americans"

Helping Dr. Lee -- Innocent or Not
Is the Wen Ho Lee Case Dividing APAs?