"Where Are You From?"

There's been a big of talk going about around the question, "Where are you from?"


It's ordinarily asked by well-meaning folks, usually to PoC, and when the PoC replies with a relatively mundane answer, such as, "from Detroit" to another American, they are queried further, "Where are you really from?" and if that answer doesn't satisfy the (usually white) querant, they are asked, "where is your family from?"

Perhaps it is to Halifax's credit that I rarely get asked that question. Most Canadians I meet tend to assume I'm from Canada - often due to the way I speak (that is to say, flawless Queen's English punctuated with Americanisms) - so I don't get the question very often. Even when I do, it's often with the air of "New Glasgow maybe?" that I've seen them ask each other.

I'm not sure about this phenomenon here and why I don't get it. I used to get it more, though, especially in my early university days, but not so much. It's curious.

Then again, back home, I always used to be labelled "ang mo" by my grandmother. It's either that, or sheer luck my side.

I'll go with luck.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Pidgin Does Not Signify Lack Of Intellect

I recently received in my inbox an email from my father, who likes to forward me a lot of things that he thinks will interest me. Except of course, he never really realizes just how easily antsy I can get, and how willing I am to pick apart an article. (I used to hit Reply to All whenever he'd send me an email to let all and sundry know what I thought and all the problems with whatever he sent me, so now he wisely BCCs people instead.) This article was about Miss Singapore, and I can't find the original article, but hree's another one about the same issue . While at the Miss World pageant in South Africa, she inadvertently slipped into speaking Singlish, the Singaporean creole that mixes English, Malay, Chinese and god knows what else. And this was a huge fucking deal because apparently, all beauty queens must be able to speak perfect English, the standard of which is probably set by the English-speaking world that is the UK and North America, I guess. And because Miss S
Read more

Race in Cartoons

So I was moseying on to work this morning when I started hearing the theme song to 6teen in my head, and I was reminiscing on the time I used to have cable TV and I watched cartoons and the SciFi channel just about incessantly (okay, I also watched TLC). 6teen was an interesting show to me. The basic premise is that of six teens who hang out at a fancy lemonade stall one of them works at, and it follows their trials and travails as they figure out how to get by on their own, holding their jobs (or not) and how they work through their problems. It also happens to follow a very smart comedy formula, with multiple storyarcs within a single episode. The creators did a good job realizing that yes, a younger audience could indeed appreciate smart shows. The characters, being cartoon characters in themselves, are not exactly what one might call nuanced, but the creators certainly did try to explore different aspects of their characters. Jen, for example, works in the sporting goods store. She
Read more

May 13 Blogswarm Links Post

This is where all Malaysians and residents of Malaysia are welcome to leave links to their participation in the May 13 Blogswarm. For more information, check out LiveJournal and Facebook . Comments Policy:  Please note that moderation is turned on for comments older than 7 days. I try to check in regularly, but this may be hard as I will be traveling. Do not use this place to debate what others have said. If you do and you crash my site in due process, I'll get very irritated at you. That shit is rude. Don't do it. 
Read more