The train to Weimar isn’t full, but I stand in the aisle because there are no empty seats next to my friends and we’re in the midst of a giggly conversation.
We speak in hushed English, lest we perpetuate the stereotype of the loud and obnoxious Americans. I glance around the car and notice a gang of four kids, probably my age, smirking and staring in our direction.
They probably think I’m an idiot. Is it the fact that I’m standing in the aisle in a car that’s only half-full or is it the monstrous zit that’s forming on my nose? I wonder. The embarrassment is minute and I begin to shrug it off until one of them says something loud enough to betray their furtive giggling.
“Konichiwa! ” he snickers.
I turn to them with a raised eyebrow. They look at me with those smug grins still plastered onto their faces. I’m not even Japanese. If they’re going to make fun of me, they should at least get the right ethnicity.
“Ich komme aus Amerika,” I sneer, and I walk into a different car.
I’m Asian and nobody wants me to forget it. If the wannabe-gangster walking past me down the street doesn’t mutter “ching chong” under his breath when he walks by me, if some drunk doesn’t shout “hey, Chiney” as I walk home at 3 AM, if my friends don’t tell me that I’m a bad driver for a reason, I might not remember what I am.
Other times, people mean well enough but still toe the line between curiosity and offensiveness.
“Wow! Your dad must’ve been in the service!” an older gentleman once remarked upon seeing me.
These conversations about my racial heritage always begin the same way.
“Where are you from?” asks a curious stranger.
“I’m from Seattle,” I reveal. If I’m lucky, that line of questioning ends there and they ask instead if I’ve ever been to Forks or if I live near Bill Gates. Usually, I’m not that fortunate and I’ve learned to expect the next question before it comes.
“No, where are you really from?”
I answer facetiously, “Damn, you got me. I’m not really from Seattle. I’m from Kent. It’s a suburb of Seattle but no one outside South King County knows where that is so I lie about it.”
“That’s not what I meant. I mean, where is it that your parents are from? It’s just that you look, well, Asian.”
Of course I know what they meant. They want to know what exactly I am. Well, if I look Asian, it’s because I am Asian. To be more specific, I’m Filipino, and if you want to get more precise, my family uprooted to the states when I was seven. In theory, people aren’t wrong when they ask me where I came from originally. Technically, I’m not from Seattle. If we were to argue semantics, I really did come from somewhere else. So why do I cringe when someone asks me where I’m from or what I am?
In a deli in Maastricht, I ask, in English, the woman behind the counter about cheese. She points at a block of feta and I nod. As she slices pieces for me, she looks at me and grins, “China?”
I grimace and shake my head. This contradiction doesn’t register with her. She repeats the question and I smile without answering. The counterwoman won’t stop beaming at me.
“That’s all I want. Thanks,” I say politely. She hands me a plastic bag and I stalk away.
I am perfectly content with my Asian background, but it has no relevance when I’m buying a brick of cheese. My heritage is a part of my identity in the same ways that being left-handed and enjoying baking are also parts of my identity. It is not a source of shame nor is it something that I advertise at every opportunity. The problem lies in the constant “other-ing” wherein onlookers look at me and see a novelty rather than a multi-faceted person.
At a party, someone asks where I live. The address is Dutch and still unaware of when vowels should be long or short, I mangle the pronunciation of “Adelbert van Scharnlaan.”
The questioner chuckles, “I don’t know what you said. It sounded really Asian.”
I ask what kind of Asian he means. He grins at me, not sure how to answer.
I continue, “There’s more than one kind of Asian so which one did you mean?”
After a long silence, I add, “Most people think I say everything with an American accent.”
Anything I do becomes a Rorschach test of Asian behavior. I barely passed driver’s education because the instructor made me nervous. The unlucky boy partnered with me for the freeway drive raised an eyebrow and cracked a joke about me perpetuating stereotypes. In high school, I got good grades and it was attributed to innate Asian intelligence instead of sleepless nights hunched over textbooks. The assumption is that I am how I am because of my race and not because I’m an individual with specific neuroses and behaviors.
Math is my worst subject. I don’t know karate. I use chopsticks to stab at my food because I can’t get them to work otherwise. I’m not an ambassador for my people. My habits are not indicative of the habits of others who happen to share the same race as me or look similar to me.
When I was 14, I considered bleaching my black hair and coloring the peroxide-fried mess a chestnut brown. My best friend discouraged me, protesting that if I did, I wouldn’t look Asian anymore. That was the point. It was the year I got my American citizenship and seven years after I arrived in the States. I wanted to look like I belonged in the place I was growing up.
At 1 AM, I sit on a curb and wait for an empty cab to drive by. A guy sits next to me and asks me where I’m from. He doesn’t want to know what my name is or why I’m sitting on a desolate sidewalk in the middle of the night. Before I can mention the Emerald City, his friend bellows, “Hey, I know Chinese! Ni hao! Ni hao!”
Cold and frustrated, I scream, “Screw you! I’m from Washington!”
He laughs and asks me where I’m really from. I repeat the previous answer. He explains what he meant and I say I got it the first time.
“Seattle,” I reiterate. “Take it or leave it.”
Stephanie you’re wonderful (never forget it) and I want you to come back to Birmingham.
xxxxx
The silly thing about all this is that if I went to Europe and told people I was American, that would probably be enough for them. With the exception of Native Americans, is an immigrant or descended from an immigrant. You’re from the Philippines, and my ancestors were Irish, English, German, Dutch, Roma, and more. I even have an infinitesimal amount of Native American blood. But perhaps to them, European-Americans are “normal,” since we’re the majority, and the most represented in our media. You’d think a European would be more interested in my ancestry. Wouldn’t a German find it cool that I am, distantly, German too? Perhaps Americans aren’t the only people who don’t know much about other countries. Or perhaps Stephanie is good at meeting the less informed ones. This is all speculation, though, and I must go to Europe myself to see if this is true.
I can’t tell you my reaction when I read this. Let me just say, I know exactly how you feel. Have you ever read Yellow? There’s a chapter about the “perpetual foreigner,” that we are somehow construed and questioned as foreigners on others’ land no matter where we go. I have had this problem not only in growing up in the Midwest but as I have continued to travel through Central and South America. I hear people say “ching chang chong” as I pass, tell me I can be their Yoko Ono, ask me where I’m really from, that i have eyes like a cat or ask if i can see out of my eyes, and I’ve had people refuse to believe that I could be American. It is a trying thing, to have to constantly try to prove or show that the only place you call home is in fact your home. I’ve also found the, perhaps odd, phenomenon of strangers feeling they have an innate right to know the deepest things about you. I have to explain adoption, explain that I am American, that my first language is English, then they ask me if I ever want to meet my birth parents, a question I find hard to answer and also very personal. It is a tangled web filled with contradicting emotions, while I know that many of the people I meet are genuinely asking out of ignorance and not trying to be subtly racist by placing me in an Asian stereotype, I find myself fed up with consistently having to identify myself. I could go on and on, but I suppose I shall end it here. I just wanted to say, I’m so glad you wrote this and I know how you feel.
Consider yourself lucky. People look at me and can’t figure out why I would say I am Filipino when I don’t look like one. I would ask them what they think I am, they would say I look European or anything but Asian. I would ask, ” How do you think a Filipino looks like?”. Short with dark skin and straight hair. Then again, I would start talking and they would doubt me even more. Are you sure you are Filipino? Are you sure you are Asian? Incredulous that I speak English and I use fancy words.
I don’t mind who I am or what I am. I love who I am and what I am. It makes me unique. Not only because of my heritage but what I have evolved to be a singular individual.
Don’t take any of that BS to heart. It will most likely occur your whole life. I have been dating a lovely Asian lady for a number years. She is from the Philippines and is an M.D., but the minute I tell my co-workers she is from the PI, they immediately assume she is some bar girl I meet when I was in the “service”. This is not only annoying but insulting. Especially considering some of my co-workers. But I guess in their defense, even stereotypes are based in a sliver of reality. Yes, asians cant drive, and yes I cant dance, nor can I jump. Who cares?! Hey its not like I have a ring in your nose or a shaved head…..
I was in a market in Hawaii once and got to talking with a Vietnamese kid. I’m from Seattle, too, but Eastern European descent. He was a first generation immigrant. He wasn’t satisfied with my answer of “I’m from Seattle, I’m American,” but for really different reasons. There’s something about Hawaii’s crazy awesome melting pot that changes the nature of the “Where are you from?” question. Reading this reminded me of that funny conversation — it was very good natured — and how where you ARE changes the context of the question about where you’re FROM.
I definitely relate to this experience! I am half-Chinese, half-American and US raised. I have had some very similar experiences in my time in Cuba… right down to the constant street calls of “China!”, people squinting their eyes at me, yelling “Ni hao!” and asking me if I know kung fu. I have had to remind myself so many times that cultural norms are different and sometimes people are generally interested in my background… but I was still sometimes shocked. And regardless of cultural norms and the “accepted” ways we talk about race in different cultures (for instance many of my Cuban friends would remind me that China is a term of endearment), I think it’s important to question why certain exotifying attitudes towards Asian peoples exist in Cuba, or the Netherlands for example. I would be interested in more discussion on this topic, thanks for the article and sharing your experiences!
Great story! I think it’s something a lot of people can relate too. I’m not Asian, but having lived in both Germany and France, where I speak both languages with a bizarre accent, I can definitely relate to the feeling of constantly being “othered”: because you talk differently, or dress differently, or do something as seemingly trivial as hold your fork with the wrong hand.
I’m reminded of a talk I hear recently by author Nancy Huston, an anglophone Canadian living in Paris. She said she wished for a world where everyone spoke with an accent.
Stephanie,
Is it your experience that the “bad” kind of where-are-you-from question happens more outside the U.S. than inside? My experience with talking with people is that many other countries are more ethnocentric/monoracial than the U.S., therefore, a different racial profile in Germany or the Netherlands would garner more curiosity/attention than, say, in Canada or Singapore, where multiracial populations are more commonplace.
I’m used to having small brown or black children reach out to touch my Scandinavian-American-pasty skin on other continents, but I expect “more” from the adults there. For the record, if I ask you (or others) where you’re from, it’s only so I can compare weather/culture/food with my native Michigan. If you don’t
“go there” with regard to ethnicity, I won’t either.
Good luck in fending off the nosy and insensitive,
Alan
Brilliant. Thanks Stephanie sharing your story, it resonates with way too many people. Canadians of Asian ancestry have encountered similar experiences. Check out the stories in http://www.schemamag.ca/indepth/ and http://www.schemamag.ca/indepth/release-1_1.php . My favourite is from http://www.schemamag.ca/indepth/2010/09/feature-mtsoy.php . The gal is of Korean ethnicity, third-generation “born in Russia” (that’s fourth-generation Russian). She came to North America as a teenager, speaks fluent Russian and American English but no Korean. She wrote about the “But where are you really from?” scene at a bus stop where she was questioned by a stranger because she was talking with a friend in Russian.
Check out the amazing support for your article: http://ffeimo.tumblr.com/post/5391483738/no-really-im-from-seattle
Thank you Stephanie.
Great article, Stephanie. I can only imagine how frustrating it is to have ignorant remarks shouted at you. I’ve only experienced this on the side of being a woman / batteling that “American-women-are-easy” stereotype, but seriously? How can anyone not figure out that a continent as big as Asia is incredibly diverse?
One (white) traveler I met in Tanzania was once told “this must be so different, you don’t have black people in America”. For all the our-country-is-diverse we’re taught in school, it doesn’t seem like too much of it has leaked outside our borders…
Half-Japanese, half-U.S. (German ancestry) college student, female, and I’ve gone through all the same things: in the U.S., Japan, and Central America. China represents Asia everywhere apparently, because more than anything I get called Chinese, or “china/chinita” here in Costa Rica. And yes, the “Where are you from?” question. I have received the same one, the interrogator peering into my face, trying to get some hook on the ethnicity.
“I am from Kentucky,” knowing that they want more.
“Yeah, but… what are you?”
Sometimes I give them the satisfaction because I know the latter answer is what they want. This question always makes me think though, and the more I travel and connect myself to other cultures, the more complicated the answer feels.
There are ignorant people across the globe, and the more I travel the more I meet. At the moment I live in South Korea. I’m white British, and to the native English speaking world it’s easy to pin down where I’m from. BUT for Koreans? If I had a pound for every time I’ve been called American I could fund my travels around the world. Not every white person is American. A few people have commented here about being an Asian abroad and having people shout ‘Ni Hao’ or ‘China’ at them. Well when I lived in China people shouted ‘HELLO’or ‘Laowei’, which is actually a derogatory term for foreigner, at me no matter where we were. Yes I do infact speak English, but for other nationalities, the Hello thing would no doubt get rather irritating.
Stephanie, you’re describing how annoying it is and how ignorant people are towards you, having been brought up in the states. Well, for my British-born Chinese friends, the ignorance of some of the Americans we have met out here in Korea leaves me speechless. They get the ineviable ‘Where are you from?’ or ‘Are you Korean?’ But what’s frustrating, even for me, is the lack of belief ‘Yeah but where are you from originally?” Well they were born in England, they have a British passport by birth and they are British. How is it that people from a nation as multicultural as the US can have trouble with the concept that their parents are from another country but moved before my friends were born.
I probably shouldn’t even get started on the Canadian guy who sat in disbelief opposite a friend of mine from Leicester (UK) who is black and then muttered ‘So there are black people in England too?’
So basically, it’s not just Asians this happens to, and the only way to tackle this is by calling people out on their ignorance and educating them, cutting down the lack of knowledge and experience of mixed cultures/ethnicities/nationalities.
At the age of 41, my experiences haven’t changed from what you are describing above. One of my best friends thought it would be apropos to buy me a t-shirt that says: “I’m not squinting, I’m just Korean”. When I found out she wasn’t joking, I did not hesitate to tell her I found it offensive and asked her what possessed her to buy me a tshirt like that?! She was dumbfounded and embarrassed. We changed the subject quickly and continued with our lunch date. Ugh.
Oh, and my chosen responses to the following are:
If someone says, “Ni Hao” or “Konichiwa” to me, I say “What the fuck does that mean?”, or I say “Jain Do Bre” which is hello in Polish, and tell them I assumed they were Polish.
If someone asks me where I’m from, I say “Let me guess what you are, a little French with some English mixed in, a splash of German and a touch of Swedish. Am I right?” and keep guessing so they don’t get a chance to ask you again.
I have also been known to say, “I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you’re saying because I don’t fucking speak English” (said in perfect English, if you can throw in a Brooklyn or Southern accent, even better).
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I think it is fine to ask where y0u are from etc if you’re really curious and want to make a good conversation. Otherwise, it is simply annoying. I am from Myanmar. Last night I was traveling and a German guy was on the same bus. He somehow started the conversation and I asked him whether he was French. I asked that question because I thought I noticed him utter some French words when the conductor asked him a question. He didn’t seem to be bothered. He went onto talking about his trips to some other countries in Asia. Sometimes, people ask those questions just to be friendly. It is not necessarily meant to be a sarcasm. When I ask questions like “where are you from?”, I do so to relate to what the person is saying and what I already know about the place. People’s prejudices are understandable. I don’t mind being asked where I am from. I only get annoyed when people expect me to be stupid because of the relative underdevelopment of my country.
I’m going the same thing, in reverse… I’m 35 and have spent much of my growing-up years & my working years here in China, and China is basically my home. My problem – I’m white. It doesn’t matter if I speak with the accent of my city (Qingdao); it doesn’t matter that I work as a regular employee in a Chinese company; it doesn’t matter that I don’t know any non-Chinese people in my city (I really don’t); it doesn’t matter… it just doesn’t matter. In everyone’s eyes (1.3 billion Chinese), I must be an English teacher from the US, and I couldn’t possibly speak anything other than English (I’m actually Canadian, I wouldn’t know how to even teach a dog to sit, let alone a child, and much of my life was in French before moving to China). It’s fine for the grocery clerk try to utter in English that the total comes to 300rmb, but I’m asking for trouble [LOTS of trouble] if I tell her Domo Agato (thank-you) in Japanese (just to make a point). So ignorance exists everywhere. I’m slowly trying to chip away at the bitterness and replace what I perceive as racism or prejudice with “false expectations based on individual experiences”. That last phrase somehow makes things easier to swallow (even if it doesn’t completely fix the problem).