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Where are you from? Part 4

Chally

Previously: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Where are you now? Is it home? Is it a place you can’t see your way to it being a home?

Sometimes identifying a place as where you’re from isn’t just about your personal history there, your associations, and memories, and how well you know it, and how much time you’ve spent there. It can be about whether other people accept you as being from there.

And that’s something particularly fraught when you’re tossing racism into the mix.

There’s a place I used to go to a lot as a kid. Every time we’d walk into a shop and get chatting with the staff, there’d be this question: ‘Are you a local?’ It was as though everyone there knew each other, and everyone else had a big sign above their heads saying ‘Not One of Us’. I ended up living there for a few months last year, and, as the people who have lived there for thirty years or more got used to the sight of this odd curly-haired lady around, the question stopped coming.

Communities can be insular, and it’s often hard to break into the accepted circle if you haven’t been in a place for long, or ever if you weren’t born there, or if you’re not part of the dominant ethical or racial groupings for an area. I was not the tanned white girl just come back from the local beach. I had to make my presence and my legitimacy evident. It was an area so dominated by the blonde, tanned, beachgoing variety that I’d often be surprised to find non-white people on my bus into the city every day, even though I’m one of them. It’s amazing what can get into your head as being proper to a place, even to the exclusion of yourself.

On that last, I want to return to the ‘but where are your parents from?’ question I mentioned in the last post. In a lot of white-dominated cultures, at any rate, there’s the assumption that if you’re not one of the dominant set, you must be an immigrant, or your parents must be. There’s no room for the assumption that your family might have been where you are for generations. There’s no room for the “where” in where you’re from being right where you’re having that conversation.

Are you a local? Never.

The crux of it is this. Only certain people, oftentimes, get to be locals. And those people are the arbiters of where you can be from. Even if it means messing with your own head about where you belong.

24 thoughts on Where are you from? Part 4

  1. In the last thread, we had a problem with white people coming in and dominating a discussion about racism with their own experiences. I want you to keep in mind, white folks, that your experiences are valuable in this discussion and I appreciate you sharing them. However, please keep in mind to not do so at the expense of non-white experiences. If I see this thread become all about white people again, I will shut it down. On the last thread, non-white people got shut out, and, when pushing back on that, I was asked (in comments still there and deleted by commenter request) if white people’s experiences weren’t important, too. Well, yes, yes they are. The first two posts in this series were open-ended to that end, and, just a few weeks ago, I ran a series about the constructedness of whiteness. Also, there is a whole planet aligned with your interests. It’s all about you, all the time. Please respect that non-white people need our conversations, too. In essence: please structure the conversation around experiences of non-white people and step back if you are white and find whiteness is being centred. I don’t want to provide more solid guidelines than that, because I have some faith in this commentariat’s ability to assess when your privilege is showing. Thanks.

  2. If I was one of the offenders last time around, I do apologize. In an ideal world, POC would not believe that their views were unimportant or not worth sharing. I would gladly stand aside to let POC speak, if this is what it takes. I’ve never once believed that it was all about me, but I have very much believed that I had some role in achieving the solution.

    But I would much rather we see that shared experience, regardless of skin color or how we are characterized, is often more powerful than distinctions unfairly imposed on anyone. If this thread is meant specifically to highlight non-white experiences to make a greater point, then again, I will refrain from sharing anecdotes from my own life here.

    1. It’s not that non-white people believed that our views weren’t worth sharing in that thread so much as we were actively crowded out. That racialised experience isn’t shared with white people, and people characterising the fact that they have brown hair or whatever as equivalent was just… amazing. Yes, it is specifically meant to highlight non-white experiences, no, not as a greater point; it is valuable in and of itself.

      No more meta comments, please.

  3. I get asked where my parents are from. It’s frustrating for two reasons: (1) I’m usually asked this after I tell the person I don’t identify with a race so I know they’ve just ignored my answer and are attempting to get information around it and (2) I only have one parent–my mother. The latter is a different story, but as for the former, I feel really invisible and disrespected in a way when the person continues to interrogate me on my background after I’ve made it clear that I don’t feel race is an important part of my identity. I feel that, because I’m not not white, I have to be categorized somewhere, into something, for the comfort of everyone else.

  4. I feel this does apply to more insular communities. In contrast, there is no ‘local’ where I live. I barely know my neighbors; it is not assumed that anyone has lived here for generations. The community itself was built in 1969, before which this entire area was a split between woodlands and farmlands. The idea of the urban or suburban “neighborhood” has been eroding for some time, which is quite unfortunate.

  5. As someone who passes for a member of the Canadian majority racially (and is basically a member of that majority culturally), I personally haven’t had the legitimacy of my residence questioned by others. But I frequently go through periods of pretty extreme self-doubt, since my family has relocated so much and I feel very…rootless, particularly in terms of my lack of connection to Métis culture.

    This is a wonderful post.

  6. Where I live, most (though not all) people of color have immigrated within the last 15 years from a different country, and most (though not all) white people have lived in the same general area (if not the same city) for at least two generations. So on the surface, it’s inoffensive to assume that any given person of color hasn’t been “from” here for more than one generation.

    The problem, of course, is that if you’re perceived – however correctly or incorrectly – as not being “from” here, you’re actually treated as less important and deserving, like you have less of a right to a job or healthcare or shelter or whatever. You might be a full citizen but there’s this attitude that you ought to earn your rights, while it’s tacitly understood that a long-time resident either already has earned their rights or shouldn’t have to.

    It’s never quite clear what you have to do to “earn” your rights – speaking English exclusively and fluently is definitely one thing, saying that you’re grateful for the opportunity to build a life here is another, working significantly harder at a more dangerous and laborious job than the “locals” is another…but even then, if you “mess up” you’re liable to be considered ungrateful for “our” “generosity” towards you, like you’re trying to take advantage of us…you shouldn’t try to avail yourself of the privileges we get; you should feel grateful for them – not entitled to them. We’re entitled; what you get is through our tolerance and mercy alone.

    Anyway, does this mean that Aboriginal people who were born in the region and have lived here as long as, if not much much longer than “local” whites, are treated well? Of course not, because “lived here a long time” is just a mental euphemism for “fits the national image” which is just another mental euphemism for white.

    And that’s the whole crux of it: it’s just another sockpuppet for the enforcement of white hegemony. It’s like saying, “We have to speak so carefully nowadays” instead of “Saying racist things is less okay nowadays”. The constructed “local” is laden with racist implications.

    In any case, assumptions cause erasure, which is never a good thing – but it’s the attitudes that follow those assumptions that really frighten me. You can go about your life, and suddenly one person suspects you of getting it a little too good and then you’d better hope you have documentation so they can grudgingly admit that you’re allowed to have the life you’ve got, even if they think you don’t deserve it. Because you’re not white, although they certainly won’t phrase it that way.

    And if you’re undocumented, well…

  7. Another great post, Chally.

    ‘Where are you now? Is it home? Is it a place you can’t see your way to it being a home?’

    As I said in my comment on your last post (though, perhaps not explicitly), London is home to me.
    I imagine it always will be, no matter where I go. I love seeing all the different faces around me, I love hearing different languages being spoken, different English accents. It makes me feel at home because my reality is one in which my looks are different to those of the rest of my family and so is my accent (I was born in London my parents were born in Colombia).

    Whilst I have encounted the alienating question ‘where are you from?’ and have had racist epithets shouted at me in the street as well as on public transport, I still feel that the barriers that are usually erected as part of the creation of a community, though they still exist, aren’t as impossibly high.

    In my opinion, a Londoner is someone who lives/has lived in London and identifies as such. Whether you’ve been here a year or 38 (like my madre), or if you consider yourself Colombian, Nigerian, Irish,..etc, it in no way conflicts with being a Londoner.

    (Also, I’ve been to other parts of England, and boy do I stick out like a non-white thumb.)

  8. Reading this post, I’m reminded of a statistic I ran across recently: a third of ethnically Turkish academics in Germany want to leave Germany. Don’t know the statistics for the general population but it’s probably significant of a larger trend. (There’s an excellent article about this but it’s in German.) Because even if they were born in Germany, their parents were born in Germany, they’ve never set foot out of the country in their whole lives, etc., their surroundings won’t let them forget that they’re not allowed to “be from here”. To the point where a third of them want to leave the country entirely.

    I find this depressing and enraging in equal measures.

  9. This is something that really hits home for me. My family was the only Hispanic family in my little town in the eastern US. When I was in high school I highlighted my hair and was generally oblivious to prejudice because I wasn’t as aware and my mom shielded us from a lot of things. Now I keep my hair a natural black and wear jewelry that is read as ‘ethnic’. I find that when I go back to the town I grew up in I get the side eye from everyone. It feels like I have to justify my presence to white people who are not even from there but think they have more of a right to be there, no matter how many years I lived there before them. This really became clear to me when I went in a country store with my brother one day and the lady there (who was at least 50 years old) looked at us like we had three heads and said “I have never seen hair so black in my life.”

  10. I live in a particular part of the GTA (greater Toronto area, in Ontario, Canada) that is particularly homogenous in its racial make up; that is, it is the only city in the area that has managed to stay over 90% white. How, I don’t know. Word travels, I guess, because POC are often treated like… how do I describe it… like they are outsiders, and must be identified as such. “Where are you from?” “Do you do that back home?” “No, where are you REALLY from?” I’ve never been comfortable with these exchanges, not that I’ve ever had to have them, since I’m white, blond, fair, and have a generic english sounding name. There is a degree of hostility and aggression behind them, like they can’t converse with you as if you are any other human being they might encounter because they can’t get past the fact that you have dark skin. In my experience, if a person is interested in sharing their family background/heritage with you, they will. Some people have great stories and like to share them. But they’re personal; why should a complete stranger feel entitled to know them, to know your “heritage” or “where you’re REALLY from”? I think that there’s a fear that a lot of white people have of soon being “outnumbered”, of other racial minorities becoming the new “standard” or “identity”, so these attempts at othering POC are a way of asserting dominance, of making it known that they are still the “normal” ones, that they are still the default human.

  11. I find myself in a strange position since we moved. The DC area was much more diverse so while I was not welcome everywhere I didn’t feel uncomfortable.

    Arizona has been a more difficult transition than I expected. In some respects it is closer to “home” for me, climate, food, family. So part of me wants to settle down here. In other respects its completely dislocating. The racial divisions seem more deeply entrenched. I likely wouldn’t notice it but for Kristen. When I’m out on my own, no one seems to notice me one way or the other which is perfect in my book. But when we’re together, people stare or show other signs of discomfort. They address her only. They expect that she will pay for everything. Etc. Its a constant reminder that in their minds I don’t belong, not just in this location, but also in my wife’s life.

  12. My little cousin is mixed race–her mother is a very dark Peruvian-American woman, and her father is a very white American. She’s grown up in a small, rural illinois town (all-white). She doesn’t know any other place, and people ask her all the time where she’s from. It’s a small town, they MUST have seen her around the last 16 years! She also has her father’s distinctive surname, which is very well-known in this area.

    I, on the other hand, have only lived in this town for 3 years and bounced in and out of visiting relatives. But I’m a “townee”. I’m clearly a member of the *distinctive name* family!!

    Seriously people, wtf? She’s a third-generation townsperson. I DON’T LIVE HERE. But I *look* like I live there, soo…

  13. I live in Saudi Arabia. I was born here, and spent my whole life here, just like both of my parents did. All of my family, extended included, has lived here for over 60 years.

    But I am an American of European descent.

    I have never felt at home in the US (I spent my grad school years there), and I only feel marginally more at home in Europe and the UK (undergrad years).

    Bahrain is where I went to high-school, and lived for a few years after I was finished with grad school, so that place feels like home, a bit.

    I’ve traveled extensively in more than 40 countries, found pieces of home in them all.

    I consider myself a global citizen. False lines in the sand don’t define me.

  14. @ Kaz, I am a white immigrant to Germany, and I am now almost always automatically considered a “local”. When people ask me “Where are you from?” most of them are surprised not to hear a German city. My colleagues at work were recently shocked that I was stressing out about needing to get my visa renewed soon – “oh really? You are here on a visa?” even though they know very well I wasn’t born here and only came here less than a decade ago. Because I pass for local, I’m also privy to the wonderful ways some who consider themselves liberal or leftist talk about immigrants when they think none are around. It’s always a joy to declare I am an immigrant and immediately be “reassured” that I’m not one of those immigrants.

    When I contrast my experience with that of POC who were born and raised here – second or third generation immigrants – it makes me impotently furious on their behalf. There is no jus soli citizenship here, so many people born in Germany are living here conditionally, as permanent residents or temporarily, despite having contributed to this society their entire lives. Not only that, but versions of the “where are you from” question are always coming up . The worst act I’ve witnessed on this front was probably a random acquaintance drunkenly asking my Afro-German friend (who was born in Germany) “So have you learned to like beer and potatoes yet?” – This was the first sentence that stupid motherfucker had ever spoken to my friend.

    I also do some volunteer work in a part of town that’s the most diverse, and youngest, area in my city. That involves a lot of contact with teenagers who have an immigrant background (as the phrase goes in Germany…) As I listen to their worries and plans for the future, and share mine with them, it’s so striking how they are able to open up about the constant low-level stress of knowing they live in their own hometown conditionally. So many youth will never be able to vote for their own city government, or have the satisfaction of never waiting in an endless line to get their visas renewed, unless they jump through the many, many hoops required to get EU citizenship. And they are the future of this country!

    And even if they do that, or if they were born citizens… “where are you from” will always be waiting for them. There will always be someone about to ask “How come you speak such good German?” or “So is it weird to live somewhere where women don’t have to wear headscarves all the time?”

    Personally I escape that due to white privilege, something I feel so clearly every time I walk into the immigration office. Not really one of those immigrants… it’s sickening.

    (I hope this comment is ok, it’s so long!)

  15. This series reminded me of my first job out of college – in the States. I went in to sign some paperwork, and brought along my certificate of naturalization. The HR lady haughtily mentioned how she doesn’t have “one of those” herself, because she is, I quote, “a REAL American.” A part of me still wishes I had said something in response – but I was broke and way too desperate to risk that job. That’s what some people do on a daily basis – swallow the humiliation, because there is no choice.

    In the last thread, what it means to be Russian was touched upon. It’s something that I want to mention here – because I didn’t want to bring up some stuff at the risk of sounding melodramatic. But in many parts of Russia today, whether or not you’re read as “one of us” can mean the difference between life and death. When there were white power riots in Moscow, I had to beg my husband not to take the metro (a lot of the violence was concentrated there). He’s not always read as ethnically Russian – what that can mean in today’s world is terrifying. Or imagine getting read as ethnically Russian by the wrong sort of crowd in a republic such as Kabardino-Balkaria. Some people on a skiing trip were just shot to death there recently – their “crime” was being obviously from Moscow. And people who have lived their entire lives in a certain city or region are not only denied the right to be locals, they’re denied the right to exist.

    I was at a theater production here in Moscow recently, and during the discussion that followed, some guy stood up and started loudly berating the playwrights for having a character of Armenian descent stand up for the rights of a group of ethnically Russian villagers. The play was based on real events and dialogues, even the names are all real. Imagine – you’re out there, protecting your land and your neighbours’ land, and you’re told, “could we replace you with a blond-haired dude, please? Otherwise, it’s bad for PR!” To their credit, the playwrights would never go for that, but just the fact that someone felt *justified* to speak this way in an open forum is disgusting.

  16. The idea of being a “local” of anywhere has always seemed kind of abstract to me. In the town where I grew up (suburb of NYC), there were a few people who’d had family who’d been in the area for generations, but mostly not. I remember, in fifth grade, when we were learning about immigration, we had an assignment to interview an immigrant, and nearly all of us interviewed our own parent or grandparent. I also remember that, in third grade, we had an end-of-year party where we were given instructions kind of like “Bring in a food from your culture,” and nearly every kid in the class did in fact identify with some culture other than American. It probably wasn’t until I was in college that I realized that most of the US isn’t like this.

  17. Ruchama:
    in third grade, we had an end-of-year party where we were given instructions kind of like “Bring in a food from your culture,” and nearly every kid in the class did in fact identify with some culture other than American.It probably wasn’t until I was in college that I realized that most of the US isn’t like this.

    As an African American, (my ancestors were slaves to clarify as there are other African Americans who chose to come here), being Southern, this sort of thing probably would have embarrassed me. I feel like people would be expecting me to bring in chicken and watermelon. I think this is a wonderful idea, but after reading it, I keep thinking of something I would bring that wouldn’t be stereotypical of me. It seems like food from African American culture has bad connotations.

    After reading this thread, I do realize I have some privilege. Like I said, I am African American so most people in this town don’t assume I am not from here. This town is supposedly “diverse” ( 90% White, 6% African American 4% includes various groups such as Chinese, Mexican, Indian, etc.) so I can definitely see how other African Americans may not feel a part of their town, especially if they are one of the only Black families. But I have definitely see this “othering” to the other groups of people such as the Chinese and the Mexicans here, even though some of my friends were born here.

  18. Mechelle – I was thinking of that as I typed it. This elementary school had almost no black students. (I went there from kindergarten through sixth grade, and I can remember two black students, total, attending the school in any grade during the entire time I was there.) Lots of immigrants and children of immigrants, but almost entirely white and Asian, with a few Hispanic kids (mostly Cuban or Puerto Rican.)

    (The party where we were supposed to bring in those foods was at the end of a year that we’d spent studying different cities and towns around the world — at the beginning of the year, we talked about things that all communities have, like “places where people live” and “places where people learn” and “jobs that people do” and “foods that people eat” and “things that people buy or trade” and “songs that people play or sing” and then we spent a few weeks each on a bunch of different places — I remember Hong Kong, Nairobi, a Hopi village, and Honolulu, but I’m sure there were more — and identified how those general categories are done in each place, and then we finished by looking at our own town in the same way.)

  19. I guess I’ll start with the comment that I wanted to leave on the last thread but didn’t get around to posting in time:

    “where are you from?”
    “where are you really from?”
    “Where are your parents from?”
    “Where were you born?”
    “where were your parents born?”
    “Where are your people from?”
    “Where did you use to live?”
    “Where did your parents use to live?”

    I have gotten all these questions. I’m an Arab immigrant living in the United States. I don’t know that anyone has ever guessed I was an Arab; I am ambiguously ethnic to most people, I gather, and “what are you?” is seemingly the first thing people want to know when they meet me. To say that I find it hostile is an understatement. It’s often explicitly hostile if I play dumb and say something like “California.”

    Sometimes there’s the best of intentions behind it, when it’s not a question of what my ethnicity is in a need to categorize me, but the first step into a conversation about different experiences of culture and life. Or something else that might be innocuous and not at all racist. But they don’t recognize that well has long been poisoned. “Where are you from?” can mean a lot of things, and I can never tell what the person thinks they’re asking me.

    But though I’m an immigrant, I don’t have an easy answer to this. I have lived in the US for half my life so far. I am “from” here more than I am from anywhere, if by that you mean which cultural mores I’ve internalized. People are most satisfied when I name an Arab country I am “from,” but which am I supposed to pick? Or do I list every Arab country I’ve ever lived in? How do I answer this in a way that says “I am Arab” when I speak an Arabic that is a pidgin of several dialects mixed with Modern Standard Arabic, and other Arabs ask me this question just as much as anyone else? When there is no culture or locality on earth that would consider me a native?

    I’m in the US. I feel like I just live here, and I don’t see it becoming “home”. I’ve lived in too many places for anywhere to become “home,” by now. I might have liked to consider myself an American at some point, but it’s hard to sustain that sense of belonging when I hear “Where are you from?” three minutes everytime I meet someone new.

    I didn’t always mind the question. I love talking about how life here is different from elsewhere, but the more time I spent in the US the less relevant my time before that became, and when I realized the question was very often a way of figuring out what ethnicity I am, it took on a very different flavour. Moreso When I realized that I’d be getting the question even if I’d been born in the US and lived here my entire life.

    And I have an identity as an immigrant to fall back onto. I can’t imagine how gut wrenching it must be to be ousted from a place that one does have an identification with.

    I did think of Saudi Arabia as my home, once. It was the first place that I lived, but I left when I was a child; time has worn away at what I’ve kept from there and, as a lesbian with no desire whatsoever to go back into the closet, I have little interest in moving back.

  20. I grew up with this question so much that I didn’t realize my uncomfortable feelings from it *meant* anything until I got older. I was raised one of the only people of color in a nearly all-White town. It was very isolating. While I do feel like a “local,” whatever that means to people, when I go back to that town, I don’t feel comfortable. My father’s a town dentist, so we are actually fairly well known, but it’s not the comfort I feel some days in my new home, DC. Even DC isn’t always comfortable. I dream of living in a city with more people of East Asian descent around, as we’re thin on the ground in DC.

  21. This is a question that I might ask myself in the coming months or in the next year. I was supposed to go to Japan to study during the spring, but the recent events have prevented me from pushing through. Still, I’m working to still make it there in the future.

    If ever I get to go, I bet I’ll get a taste of what it feels to be a Filipino immigrant, or an OFW (overseas Filipino worker). There are literally millions of us around the world, working different jobs in different places: an engineer in Canada, a nurse in Libya, a sailor in the Pacific or a driver in Saudi, for example. In my case, I’ll get to be a student in Japan.

    I used to tell myself as a kid that I’ll never leave home for another nation. But what if I end up as one of those Filipinos who end up loving their adopted country more than the Philippines? What if I tell myself, one day: “I’d rather have winter, cherry blossoms and ramen, than the heat, the pavement and adobo”?

    Time will tell.

  22. On my small college campus in the Appalachians, it is common for people to ask “Where are you from?” as an opener to conversation, to anyone and everyone. It is generally assumed, even about people like myself who are visible minorities, that almost everyone is a local. Unlike everywhere else I’ve lived, this question is for once in my life not about the texture of my hair or the fullness of my lips. People here have the idea that knowing whether someone is from Saltville or Meadowview will help them connect, because of the ties between local families, most people’s broad local knowledge, and so on.

    As much as I am enjoying my time here, I will never be able to answer this question in a way that will allow me to make the connection that these people want. I am not from anywhere. I am a 19-year-old Chocktaw-Japanese-Irish-Liberian woman with no permanent home. My father is an immigrant. My mother is Colored, as she says. They met in the military. I have never lived in any one place–not even in any one country–for more than three years. I have spent only seven years in the United States, and only the most recent five consecutively, though I was born here. My parents did not allow me to watch or read the news until I was fourteen. I have never completed a grade in one place. I have even been lied to about what country I was living in. I will never know how to answer this question.

    But I do. I say, “lots of places”, or “my parents were military”. They press, almost always. I say, “I live in D.C. now”. The “now” tips them off. It is not what they want. Slowly, they realize I am not one of them. They have noticed my strange placeless accent. The discussion is closed. They know that their telling me they’re from Marion means nothing to me, though I will ask to be polite. I am a permanent foreigner everywhere.

    I wish that people would not ask me this question. I hate it more than stupid questions like “what’s your Indian name?”, “do you have Black in your family?” and “are you albino?” and statements like “you’re so exotic”, “I bet you dance really well”, and “Wow, it’s great that your parents’ marriage worked out”. I hate it more than “you fucking Jap whore” and “don’t wear that goddamn headscarf around me”. I hate it. I don’t know where I’m from. How could I know where I’m from?

    I wish that people would not ask me this question.

  23. Pingback: Elsewhere I’ve been « Zero at the Bone

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