Last Monday, I attended the Intergroup Dialogue’s session on microaggressions. It began with a skit in which a white person repeatedly asked a person of color where they were from and congratulated them on being able to speak English well. It was a pretty familiar scene for me as I think it is for most Americans who are either immigrants themselves or come from immigrant families. This past summer, both of my jobs required a lot of public interaction so I was dealing with a lot of people every day. At least a few times a day someone this awkward scenario would occur and it always followed the same dialogue.
White Person: So where you from?
Me: Oh, I’m from Seattle.
White Person: Oh….but where are you really from? Like where did your parents come from?
Me: Well my family is Somali—
White Person: Oh yeah, I thought you might have been Ethiopian or something.
And this is usually where the conversation ends because said person wasn’t interested in anything about me besides figuring out my ethnicity. Most already had an idea of where I was from and were too afraid to actually ask, but they had the idea and basically wanted to confirm it. A few brave souls would ask outright if I was Ethiopian, which I’m not. While I don’t really mind the interaction that much, it’s still an annoying, repetitive occurrence and I wonder if it will ever stop.
The leaders of the dialogue dubbed this process as “Other-ing”. Once I confirm my ethnicity, the person I am speaking with immediately sees me as foreign despite the fact that I was born and raised in the United States. While this is a pretty harmless interaction, asking where I’m “really” from does insinuate that I am not truly American as if there are other qualifications for being American besides being born and raised here (i.e. whiteness).
Although sometimes, these interactions can become more harmful as they reveal fixations on “exotic” backgrounds and even the fetishizing other cultures. I remember one instance in particular that occurred this summer in which an older white man followed me in his car to ask where I was from and proceeded to tell me about how he collected his previous wives from “all over the world”.
One topic that came up in our discussion was whether we considered microaggressions to be on the same level as overt racism. I personally believe that overt racism is worse just because I think there is a difference between lynching, for example, and someone asking where I’m “really” from. However, microaggressions reveal persistent damaging prejudiced attitudes that are not socially acceptable to fully display anymore. So it’s important to have these conversations because these instances that may not seem like that big of a deal often reflect prejudiced ideas and it’s important to create spaces where people of color can safely raise such concerns.
I think it most be hard to constantly have this happening to you and having people ask where you are “really” from as if you aren’t an American citizen, which is ridiculous. However, I can relate to the white person, which in itself I find offensive as a white person. We aren’t all the same and it would be equally offensive if I wrote black person to stand in for any person who has that skin color, since we’re talking about micraggressions. Something I have also experienced a lot here at Cornell. Even though I’m white, I’m also Latina and native american which no one can believe. Perhaps assuming that I’m just white and not something more is just as hurtful as assuming because you’re not white that you’re not American. And as someone who is interested in traveling the world and learning about different cultures, I don’t see what’s wrong with any person asking where their family is from. Clearly your upbringing was different than mine and mine is different from the next person. My of my friend’s family if from Ghana and another from Israel, another from China, and another from Canada and the story goes on and on. Each one of those friends was raised differently than I. And their ethnicity and where there family came from plays an important role in that. But I would like to make clear that I’m also not just interested in where they come from but also who they are as people, hence why they are my friends. I think asking someone where they “really” come from is wrong but being curious about someone’s background not so much. And combating microaggression with microaggression just spread hate.
“And this is usually where the conversation ends because said person wasn’t interested in anything about me besides figuring out my ethnicity.” This particularly sentence of yours really resonated with me. It’s weird because on some level, maybe it’s their way of trying to make small talk, by asking you about yourself, but it is weird. Sometimes, I meet people and their goal is to determine “what type of asian” I am, and it’s really unsettling because it’s not about trying to learn about or identify with another culture, in some ways, it seems like they treat it as a guessing game for themselves.
I also agree with how you described microagressions, as not blatant racism, but indicative of underlying prejudice. I don’t think it’s fair to deem someone racist because of something small that they said, but I also don’t think it should just be ignored. Like you said, we should encourage conversations that help people realize how what they are doing can affect others, because sometimes they just don’t know any different.