I’m from Canada so everyone except for the indigenous originally came from somewhere else. I love it when people ask my about my roots, but someone told me it was rude.
Eh it depends on the person and how much they identify with their roots. For some people ancestry is a fun hobby. For others it is something that they are trying to escape because throughout their lives people have judged them via stereotypes associated with it. So the easiest way is to ask: do you identify with your ancestory? Probably not that directly, you can allude to your interest.
There’s sort of a racist undertone to that kind of question that can put people on guard. I think you just need to be cognizant of that when you frame a question.
The annoying version goes like this:
White person: Where are you from?
Brown person: Calgary
White person, squinting at their skin: Ok, but where are you from?
Brown person: Still Calgary.
White person: visibly frustrated
The annoying/racist part being that white people are assumed to originate from North America, but literally everyone else (including indigenous people, lol) are immigrants.
The basic question is fine and I’ve never seen someone upset about being asked. But if you go into more detailed questions, keep in mind they might mispercieve what you’re asking.
ROOTS, BLOODY ROOTS
🤘
So much is contexts dependent.
If it is obvious that you are asking because someone is different, it can feel icky regardless of the asker’s intentions. For example, if the one brown person at the front desk always gets asked this by customers, but no one seems to ask their coworkers. No follow up questions necessary, just the fact of being singled out feels bad.
I think it is less about being from North America and more about being in the ingroup or outgroup depending on ancestry.
Compare this to the context of travelers hanging out at a youth hostel. Everyone is curious about where everyone else is from and it is fun to talk about it.
A friend of mine gets asked that all the time, cause he’s brown-skinned with dark, curly hair in Germany. There’s the implication that although he’s a German citizen and was born and lived in Germany all his life, his “roots” are somewhere else, and therefore he isn’t a “real German”.
If you get asked that question constantly due to your looks, it gets annoying quickly, cause it implies the question whether you fully belong in this country, so keep that in mind.
If we just met, yes it is rude. We’re strangers, my life story is none of your business. If we’re more than acquaintances, I expect it would come up naturally at some point in conversation so not rude (hopefully).
I’m a visible minority so I have to weed out the people who are just trying to satisfy their curiosity about why I’m not white. Those people don’t ever accept the answer that I’m from Vancouver, or that my parents are from Winnipeg. I will never be Canadian enough for those people because of how I look.
Nobody ever asks my white spouse out of nowhere whether he speaks X language even though he’s given no indication that he does, and nobody ever asks him where he’s really from.
The way I do it is I ask “Are you from [city we are currently in]?” The immigrants and visitors say no and I get to ask where they’re from. The locals say yes and don’t get offended. There’s no presumption, no implication.
I need to use this because I’m always awkward trying to figure out ways to get people to open up. I work with a couple of Asian guys at work, and one of the guys is VERY open about his background. I could write an essay on his life from age 13 to 60. The other guy is a complete mystery. I’ve worked closely with him for 3 years and I still have no idea about his background. A few years ago he told me he was taking two weeks off “to go back home” and I thought that this was my chance to find out more, I asked “where’s home?”. And he replied “L.A.”.
“We are all African.” — Richard Dawkins
“You are a fungal organism.” - Paul Stamets
“We’re made of starstuff.” - Carl Sagan
So here’s the thing. I wouldn’t view it as impolite in all cases. It just… depends on the context a lot.
I have no love for my cultural heritage at all. The reason I came to Canada was to get away from… all that, right? So if you’d ask me excitedly about my “roots”, I would give exceedingly one worded answers hoping that you’d drop the topic. I don’t want to glorify the culture I grew up in, because there’s nothing to glorify. Ah, now if you wanted to have a sociological discussion about it, I would be very interested in talking with you. So as I said, “context”, right?
Often, racist white folk also tend to ask about “culture” as a sly way to remind non white folks that they “aren’t really Canadian” or whatever. Yeah, it makes no logical sense to do that, but well… It happens. So you know… It depends.
Yeah I honestly think its best to just let people offer up that information if they’re interested in sharing it, which they often do after talking to them a few times. I don’t get asked questions like that but I do get questions about other peoples ethnicity which I find pretty annoying, like “are they from China” or something like that. I’m like I have no idea they’ve never mentioned it
The way you write this makes me really curious about what cultural background you have that you do not like. But I can tell it is not a pleasant subject for you!
Yeah, it’s stupid. I hate it when people ask me question like this. I am not from anywhere, I am from here.
Usually some drunk idiot I meet though insist that I need to tell them the origin country of my great great grandparents. I want to punch them.
I’ve encountered this, as if it’s somehow a problem to be disconnected from your ancestors’ country.
Guess what? I visited Scotland (where 2/4 of my grandparents are from) a few years back. Had a great time at my favourite whisky distillery. Zero strong feelings for the place otherwise though.
I don’t have ancestors. I barely know anything about my grand parents other than that they existed
I have a job where I meet the general public, and I ask about peoples’ heritages all the time. I have never been accused of being racist or insensitive because I’m truly interested for the right reasons. I love to know where people are from, what it’s like there, their story of coming to America, etc.
I think moving your entire life to a new country with a different language and culture is about one of the bravest things a person can do. I genuinely want to hear about that, and people don’t mind sharing under those circumstances.
It’s when they get the side eye, along with, “So where are YOU from?” that gets the defenses up.
It heavily depends on context. I love to chat about mine but I won’t if I sense that there’s a risk of discrimination. The amount of information I divulge depends heavily on how close we are. If you ask it out of the blue and you’re not someone I trust well, it comes off as rude.
Hello from Ontario
Fellow Ontarian. Go Raptors.
As a man, I’ve learned to never say anything about a woman’s hair, beyond “Love it!”, or “Looks great!”
Fashionable hair is difficult to maintain and long hair changes daily depending on all sorts of conditions
After arriving to a new country and seeing different ppl (I.e. non-white) asked the question “Ok, but where are you really from?”, I realised asking about roots could be seen as rude by association.
I defaulted to asking, if the conversation heads that way, “Did you grow up around here?” As I see this question assumes you’re a local, and at the same time it’s broad enough for others to respond however they want.
It is all in how you do it. I ask people about their family history all the time.
You mean strangers, or people you’re well acquainted with?
People i establish a rapport with and again situational.
On a bus or a train… no. In a setting where we are all their to socialize, yes.
Reasonable. I still view it as beyond my own boundaries.
It depends on the context. Some people might consider their family information to be private and not want to share that with random strangers.
As a Chinese American, I don’t find it offensive. I mean at this point I kinda just embraced my background, I mean I still have a Chinese name as my legal name and I still speak Cantonese and Mandarin (with very basic fluency tho)
Unless you say it like: “Oh, your English is very good! Where are you from?” and the person clearly has a native-accent 🙄 (don’t do it like this)
(hasn’t happened yet, usually people are either much more overt like using racial slurs, or just not display racism at all)
I think you should just ask something like: “What is your ancestral background?” more direct and IMO sounds a lot better. But I think the context is key, you need to feel the vibe in the room is good before you ask that, don’t just walk up to someone and ask that as the first question.
But I was born in China, so I am technically speaking not “from” here, but if you are in the US and ask an Asian person born and grew up in the US that question, they might not like it. You should probably frame it like: “Hey I’m just curious, what is your ancestral background?”
