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Honest question here. It's something I avoid asking most of the time because I'm not sure whether or not it's appropriate, but would it be okay to ask, "where did your ancestors come from," or would that still be offensive to a multiracial person? It's not something that comes up regularly or anything, but occasionally I'll end up in conversation with someone who is multiracial and clearly another American and I'll think, "I wonder what their family story is? How did their predecessors get here? Where did they come from?" But I usually don't ask because I don't want to offend them.
Obviously I wouldn't just walk up to a stranger and ask them, I mean if I'm getting to know someone.
Edit: I should add that I'm white, but my family history is pretty weird, so I do like to hear about others' history regardless of their race, I just don't want to broach the subject where it might be a sensitive one.
i can't speak for all multiracial people (or anyone else for that matter). but personally any question that doesn't pretend to be something other than it is is fine. if the thing you want to know is someone's ancestry or ethnic background, then don't ask "where are you from." that's all.
also, still not speaking for anyone else, but i've gotten pretty numb to people being racist towards me, because i decided that if someone's going to judge people by their race (or anything else they didn't choose for themself), then there's no reason to care what they think anyway. though i will mock and ridicule racists for the sake of others who experience suffering from racism. especially kids.
Thanks for the answer, and I'm sorry you've become numb to the racism. It sucks that there's even a reason to feel a need to be.
Really, the only two times I could imagine asking someone where they were from no matter what they looked like is if they had an especially weird accent, and I would probably precede it with, "you have an interesting accent," or if I found out we were both from the same state, so I'd be asking them where in the state. Otherwise, it's kind of a stupid question to ask of anyone most of the time, at least in the U.S., even if you aren't trying to be a bigot.
things are getting better though--unlike the kids around me when i was a kid, i see the younger generations today being much more accepting and welcoming of different races, gender identities, sexual orientations, etc., because the racist white supremacist greatest fear is actually coming true: the country is becoming more and more diverse, more inclusive, and more equitable. and they want to stop it at all costs. that's why we're having to waste time arguing about DEI and CRT and gay books in the library and yes, kamala IS black, and yes, kamala IS indian--gasp at the same. time.
i dont' see the numbness i feel for myself as a bad thing; it keeps me sane. and i still feel pain for other people who are victims of racism. not everyone is at a point where they can acknowledge these emotions and then let them pass away as they arise. so i will still speak out and condemn racism at every opportunity
I can only speak for my own kid, but she has never seemed to care about anyone's physical appearance in terms of race in her life. I've never given her a reason to, admittedly, but she also has grown up in a new sort of American culture where hiphop and Anime and a lot of Latino cultural influences are mainstream or becoming so. I was 7 years old before MTV allowed music videos from non-white artists. How fucked up is that? I am really glad my daughter is growing up in an environment where non-white people at the very least have a significant presence in the media and culture she consumes.
yea, change (read progress, another GOP pejorative) might move along slower than we would like, but it is inevitable, as long as there are people to carry it on. in some ways i'm glad i got to witness people whine and stomp their feet over black little mermaid. guess i'm not too "mature" for the occasional delicious schadenfreude-- i say make ALL the disney princesses POC
I loved that one. People insisting that mermaids must be white. You know, like the real actual living half-fish ladies.
So, from your answer the question "Are you from around here?" would be fine or would it sound to close to "where are you from?" ? I've had similar thoughts about ancestry as to @FlyingSquid, but don't ask. Usually best not to ask if there is a high chance of offending someone.
Honestly don't like terms like "black-Americans", "asian-Americans or "mexican-Americans". I rarely here "white-Americans", they are just Americans. Feels like a way to segregate verbally.
I think "Are you from around here?" has a totally different vibe. It presupposes they might be and that you'll take that as an answer rather than going "no, but where are you really from?"
again speaking only for myself, both "where are you from" and "are you from around here" are similar in that they're not "bad" in and of themselves, unless you're looking for an answer that those questions aren't asking for. the thing that's irksome is not people wanting to know "what kind of asian" i am, but saying "where are you from" with the assumption that the answer will be some asian country ("obviously you're not american" is the implication). just say "what's your family's background" or something similar.
also pro tip, it's not the case for me, but some people get mad when someone assumes "what kind of asian" they are. my dad, who's full japanese, hates it when people just assume he's chinese or korean or anything else. i'm glad i didn't inherit whatever that's all about
I think I know how your dad feels. Growing up in West Coast US I didn't understand why central Americans had such animosity towards being compared or mistaken as Mexican. Then I moved to the south. To my co workers every brown person was Mexican. "hey go ask your little amigo xy or z" was common. "what little amigo?" " The Mexican who's got the keys to the gate" "I don't know that guy. Also, he's Guatemalan. See that flag hanging from his car? It's a Guatemalan flag" I didn't piss me off, but it made me feel a way I haven't felt before and it's not positive. I now get triggered when people just assume I'm Mexican. It says a lot about them and it's not good.
for myself, if someone's going to lump an entire ethnic background into one nationality, then i can already assume they're racist and that's all i need to know. but i never really felt like it's an "insult" to be mistaken for chinese or korean or whatever--those people are people too, and we're all seeing the same racism
Yep, I completely agree. It's not so much an insult because you think less of the people you're being mistaken for. It's an insult that someone would be so ignorant? Racist? That to them color was the only distinguishing characteristic. I found it offensive when they would call the Guatemalans Mexican or literally any brown person. I'm Mexican btw. When I pointed it out it was always dismissed too.
As a full Asian, asking "What's your ethnic background?" is far better than "where are you from?"
It's so fucking annoying when people ask me "where are you from?" Because I'll answer "Oh, I live just a few miles away." And then they go, "no, I mean where are you really from?" And then I'll answer, "I'm from a few miles away you fucking racist."
Btw, at a funeral I got this line of questioning one too many times and actually said that.
It's also contextual. Asking this after a few beers and some light conversation, asking about my background is cool. But it being the first or second question makes it weird.
Thanks for asking FlyingSquid.
Amen to that! As your South Asian brother I feel exactly the same, and do the same, just without the cursing.
So, @[email protected], if you ask me where I'm from, accept the first answer. If you want to know my ethnicity, you can ask that. Or you can just take your time getting to know me and I might share how I identify ethnically on my own when it makes sense in our relationship.
Just to clarify, I would not ask a mixed race person with an American accent where they were from unless it was pretty obvious I literally wanted to know where in the U.S. they were from (as in Alabama vs. North Dakota). It was more about whether or not asking about family history was a sensitive subject.
I'm not mixed race. However I am a born and raised New Yorker, and I sound it. Mixed background or not, first generation folks like me sometimes struggle with identity. It took me a while to come to grips with how Indian I am vs. how American I am. What those two terms even mean. And how I want to present myself to the world.
I almost think of it like sexual orientation. There are times when it's important or okay to ask, and there are times to let it come up naturally in time. And no matter what, however someone identifies you really just need to accept it.
I hope it was obvious that I would accept it, but I don't feel like it's the same question. One is about family history (I apparently didn't explain very well that this is not just asking where someone is from, but where their ancestors are from) and the other is about personal sexuality.
I'm rereading up the thread now and I see what you meant ♥️
"Ancestors" seems like a clumsy term. Has some icky feelings for me - I think because of the white power types.
"What's your ethnic background?" still sounds better to me. Awkward, but less so.
I guess to me, "ancestors" could be a lot more informative. If you look like you have a South Asian parent, that could mean that parent was born in Vermont, but their parent was born in Scotland, and their parent was born in England and their parent was born in Chennai. And those are the stories I love to hear about because they're kind of like my own ancestry. For example, my great-grandfather was the son of a Polish emigre to England, moved to Germany, had a child with a German woman, he married a woman from England with parents who were from Russian and Poland and he emigrated to London, and they had my father, who emigrated to America and married a woman from New York.
And if I just ask their ethnicity, I don't get the story, which could be far more interesting than the ethnicity.
Just with Kamala Harris- knowing her father is black is a lot less informative and interesting than knowing that her father is from Jamaica, which itself is less interesting than knowing her father himself is multiracial because his father had a European parent (and, of course, knowing that he's a world-renowned economist is very informative too). And that's why I would like to know about family history much more than just ethnicity. But those can get mixed together.
I've gotten "dude, what the fuck are you?!" you before, which I thought was a hilarious way to breach the subject.
I'm tall, had very long (black) hair at the time and had a dark tan. I could pass as part native, black, Hispanic, Asian, pretty much anything.
It was a fair question.
Assuming the context is appropriate I think an acceptable way to ask is "what's your heritage" - imo the important thing is not to sound like you're assuming they're a foreigner just because their ethnicity / appearance. I think asking about someone's family story or where their family is from is also a good way to ask because it's clear you're asking about their family and not assuming that it has bearing on the person's upbringing.
It also can be really confusing when you're a mixed and natural born citizen and you have no idea if "where are you from" is just smalltalk and they want to know where you grew up or if they're assuming based on your appearance that you immigrated and assuming that the answers to "where did you grow up" and "where are your ancestors from" are 1 and the same. So personally I like when people are more specific because when asked where I'm from I'm just going to ask if they mean where I grew up or where my parents are from.
I would definitely make it clear I was asking about their family history, not them personally. I told the other person who replied that the only two times I could envision asking someone where they were from were if they had an unusual accent or if I found out we were both from the same state. I just didn't know if it would be touching upon a sensitive topic that they get asked about way too much and it's just not something that should be broached until you know someone pretty well.
Gotcha in that case it sounds like you probably don't have anything to worry about. People who are weird about asking where people are from without any nuance don't seem to put that much thought into it and whether it sounds like they're assuming immigrant status based on appearance (which is where wording can be important).
My personal fall back to get others to open up in any type of conversation is to start talking about food. Comfort food, junk food, family recipes/traditions; it's all good because people can't help but share when it comes to food. I've learned so much about different cultures and some damn good recipes just talking about food with everyone.
I like that idea. It's really interesting.
Yeah, that’s how I wound up mistakenly assuming my girlfriend was Latina for our first year together. Nah turns out she was just a white lady of Mediterranean descent who was raised alongside a bunch of migrant farm workers in Tennessee and so she finds Mexican culture comfortable and grew up with a ton of Spanish.
And I’m not saying that as a bad thing. I didn’t call her Latina because she didn’t and I just asked when she started getting into genealogy and talking about her ancestors. As far as I’m concerned the fact that she likes to decorate her home like a tacky taqueria and that she speaks Spanish when she’s too drunk are far more important than her ethnicity
Hi! Coming from another half asian, I personally find it more tasteful to ask "what is your ethnicity".
I'd suggest it would be best if someone's racial background wasn't made to be an important part of the conversation at all.
At least not unless it happens to have some relevance like in relation to places they have personally experienced or languages they speak or something like that.
Where a person's grandparents came from isn't (or shouldn't be) a big deal compared to most other things about that person.
It isn't a big deal, but family histories really interest me and I guess I'm trying to find a way to ask a multiracial person about their family history without trying to make it sound like it's about race.
Like I said to someone else, it's much more informative to know that Kamala Harris' father was not just black, but Jamaican. But if you do want to introduce race as well, it's also more informative to know that he was also multiracial, having a parent who had a European parent. I think that can show you where a person comes from in the sense of what they consider their heritage to be. Which is not so much about race as it is about where people's ancestors have lived in the past and what sort of cultures have been passed down through the generations.
Does that make sense?
The unfortunate problem is that it is such a big deal for far too many Americans. Makes the whole topic a much more complex minefield.
I disagree with this. A person's heritage can be important. Racists attitudes can grow out of not understand a person's culture. of course, a person's heritage can also NOT be important. People do lose connections to the homeland and this seems to be more common in America.
Heritage isn't necessarily the same as the colour of your skin, though.
It's different for everyone. For me, I don't like it when strangers ask so I don't ask when I'm the one who is curious. If it's friends or someone getting to know me, it doesn't matter how it's asked. I do not mind. If I'm handing you a beer and say " that'll be x dollars." And you respond by asking where I'm from, it bothers me. It's the difference between getting to know someone and trying to fit them in a box. I get that sometimes people are curious but not every curiosity has to be satisfied. When I tell them that I'm from US it's common to be followed by "fine! Where are your parents from?" That's just weird. I'd never approach a stranger and ask about their parents.
Yeah, sorry, I meant when getting to know someone not just asking a random stranger. I didn't know if it was something I should hold off on until I knew them really well.
asking about ancestry is a good way. I've been asked during the first conversation and it hasn't bothered me. It helped that it was a deep conversation and the topic was somewhat relevant. It makes all the difference if someone is trying to get to know you. I understand I look ethnically ambiguous and if I were trying to get to know me I'd be curious too.
Or “what ethnicity are you”?
That seems to me to be almost as bad as "where are you from?" It's not something white people are usually asked after all.
Neither would a black person who doesn’t have an accent. And white person is most likely not going to be asked “where are your ancestors from either”. But is it really so bad to be curious about a person’s ancestral background? Definitely tacky to have it be one of the first questions you ask though.
I wasn't suggesting it being an introductory question.
Of course. In that case, I don’t see anything wrong with being curious about their cultural/ethnic background.