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I ask because I am honestly curious. I love learning about someone's history and culture. My grandparents moved here from Italy and I constantly ask my mom and uncle questions about how they got here, what it was like in Sicily, etc. etc.
I do ask most everyone. I have moved all over the states and love to relate to other people and where they have lived. What their favorite place they have lived.
Not being in the shoes of the person being asked I must respect that is the way someone feels. However I think it is general curiosity. To me it seems that the OP is being overly sensitive and over thinking the question.
I have a thick Appalachian accent. When I lived in the Midwest, many people asked me this question, largely because they had not heard as heavy an accent as I have. A lot of people relate a heavy accent to stupidity. To me, it seemed pejorative, but plenty of people are honestly curious.
The only time it'll make me raise my eyebrow is if a compliment is followed by the "are you mixed/biracial?" question. Or if it was meant as a back handed compliment.
Location: New Albany, Indiana (Greater Louisville)
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Originally Posted by Serious Conversation
I have a thick Appalachian accent. When I lived in the Midwest, many people asked me this question, largely because they had not heard as heavy an accent as I have. A lot of people relate a heavy accent to stupidity. To me, it seemed pejorative, but plenty of people are honestly curious.
If you're from a dominant group it is rarely an offensive question. If you are from some sort of a marginalized group (such as White Southerners, African American, Eastern European immigrant in the UK, etc) it can be seem like a put down depending on how it's asked. The tone can change the question to "You're not really from here, are you?".
Tell them you are from wherever you are living now. I am sorry you think this question is offensive. Americans really like to hear where others come from. I am not aware that Americans look down on Eastern Europeans though.
If an American was born and raised in city A, and then moves several hundred miles away to city B, he or she will be asked where they come from. Often their accents give them away as not natives. People are curious. It isn't considered impolite to ask.
I volunteer in the tourism industry and interact with people visiting my hometown on a regular basis. Since they're all tourists, I'm curious as to how far they've come. I also wonder if I've ever visited there. Almost nobody gets offended by the question, "Where are you from?" I did get one really bizarre answer recently, though, from a man who clearly thought I was asking a question that was none of my business. His answer: "I'm from the warmth and bliss of my mother's womb."
I think in many instances the question "Where Are You From?" is loaded. I have seen the way Western Europeans treat me before and after they get this "vital" information. As an Eastern European apparently I am not enough to be an equal to the French, Italians and the British (most xenophobes I've met were of those national identities). I have decided that instead of answering this question, I will lecture them that it is potentially offensive and should be avoided as it might be used for racial or cultural profiling. It is not politically correct and I get offended as I don't want to be put a label.
I am me, I am not some stereotype of a Macedonian/Eastern European. I am not a label.
I mean if I live, work, and pay taxes in my host country and call it my home, who cares where I was born and grew up? The past is irrelevant anyway. And who decides that 5 years in the Netherlands are less than more, but less eventful years in my home country? I met more people and did more things in those 5 years than in my whole life prior to that and I became very Westernized.
We are who we are not only due to our original countries, but also due to all the other countries we have been visited and lived in. Therefore, I no longer fully identify as "Macedonian", I am more of a 90% Macedonian and 10% Dutch, not by blood but culturally speaking.
Unlike some people I embrace the culture from my host countries and I think this is right. I think I no longer fully fit in the Balkans and their mentality (I never really fit there to be honest...). It is high time some liberals from the USA come to Europe and fix the faux-liberal European societies by teaching them that some things many people in them do are actually discriminatory in nature and promoting inequality.
Traditional Dutch upbringing includes a belief that, in marriage, it is important to look for someone who has similar religious, educational, economic, and cultural values. You may not like the fact that you are asked about your nationality, and you may feel that after five years you have adopted those values from your host country, but you cannot expect the people in your host country to overlook the fact that when push comes to shove, you (as with everyone) will revert to the values that you learned as a child. When raising children, you will gravitate to what you know, not what is practiced in your adopted country.
I understand that today a male adult can claim to be a female, and a new immigrant can claim to have the same values as those in the country of residence. Everyone must publicly accept this, but old school beliefs suggest that: when all else is stripped away, we do revert to what we know best, and that is what we learned as children.
Should people abandon societal understandings that have evolved over centuries simply because new immigrants claim that they have the same as those in their host country?
If you're from a dominant group it is rarely an offensive question. If you are from some sort of a marginalized group (such as White Southerners, African American, Eastern European immigrant in the UK, etc) it can be seem like a put down depending on how it's asked. The tone can change the question to "You're not really from here, are you?".
Exactly, or like the questioner looks at you like a freak show.
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