Permanent foreigner

Asking where someone is from during small talk can be alienating

by Emily Liu opinions staff

Where are you from?” is a question we commonly ask and get asked when struggling to navigate the cataclysm that is small talk. At first, it seems noninvasive, inviting the other person to share how they came to be standing before you. However, such a question, while often asked out of curiosity, could uproot something much deeper within us: our sense of belonging. For many, including people of color, this harmless intent can read much more like alienation.

Despite being normalized in spaces such as work or school, inquiring on one’s identity is often a microaggression or an everyday statement or action that results in subtle or unintentional discrimination. It is no coincidence that the group confronted the most on where they come from are people of color, people that look visually different from the light-skinned white “norm.” For these individuals who may already view them- selves as different, the question feels much more like a racial or ethnic call-out, as if to say, “you don’t belong here.”

Asking where someone is from can also have damaging psychological effects on an individual already struggling to understand their own culture and identity. For a person of color born and raised in America, or someone of mixed race, it can signal that they aren’t “American” enough, despite being American from birth and being raised as such. Especially if they do not currently identify strongly with their racial heritage, this may lead to feelings of isolation, or can negatively affect their self-image. This is the problem with microaggressions; individually they may seem harmless, but taken as an aggregate, they can make you feel disrespected or uncomfortable.

These questions have wider societal harms as well. They carry bias and assumption that only serve to validate surface-level beliefs on ethnicity and culture. It intrinsically ties each individual to their race and ethnicity, and can reduce their complex and lifestyle to mere stereotypes, closing the door to further conversation on who they really are, aside from where their roots come from. This is particularly reductive as none of us identify singularly with a culture or lifestyle and can each belong to multiple different ethnicities, cultures and identities at once. Any indication otherwise merely reinforces the implication that we ought to label ourselves or fit into wider stereotypes.

As we continue to operate under the shadow of decades of racial separation and exclusion, we must be more cautious of the questions we ask along with the manner in which we ask them. Your response and tone are crucial when inquiring about one’s origin, as there is a stark difference between responding with respect and acceptance versus the all too common “Where are you really from?” No one should have to prove their identity, or even conform to its standards, and being aware of the privilege of looking like the “standard” may hold us accountable and help us better navigate the divide between curiosity and microaggression.