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AIBU?

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Original poster

...to find it peculiar when white people ask me where I come from 'originally'...

262 replies

MrsMerryHenry · 06/09/2009 22:40

...but haven't got a bleeding clue about their own ethnic origins?

Classic convo:Person: Hi, blah blah blah

Me: Hi, blah blah blah

Person: So where are you from? Originally, I mean?

Me: I'll tell you that if you can tell me first where you come from.

Person: Oh, er...London. (I am not exaggerating here, I have been told this at least twice )

and double-

The best any of them can do is 'England and Scotland' or something like that. Still a double-.

I heard Jamie Oliver on Friday saying that he's recently discovered that his family origins go back to some Sudanese people eons ago. Surely that's an exciting thing to know about oneself, right?

OP posts:
Ripeberry · 07/09/2009 18:08

I'm white british and I get asked 'Where were you from originaly', Well I just tell them I come from Wales but came via Switzerland on my way back to Wales then to live in England .
I don't have a strong accent but use the Cardiff lingo, so I confuse people.

CatherineofMumbles · 07/09/2009 18:13

I just make someting up, like Croatia, which totally confuses them - why make such a big deal of it?

MamaLazarou · 07/09/2009 18:15

I get this question ALL the time. I live in London and am originally from Milton Keynes, but people never seem to believe me. or they say, 'Yes, yes, but where are your PARENTS from?'. They never seem satisfied with the reply 'Ilford'. I am white with a Home Counties accent, so it really baffles me.

2rebecca · 07/09/2009 22:59

If someone is interested in me as a person though why don't they ask me about my family, my hobbies or my job. These are much more relevent to the person I am than which bit of the UK I spent my time in when and where exactly my parents were born.
Saying "Croatia" sounds like a good idea to shut up the people who are never happy when I just give the town where I live. If they keep on about it I can spin them a nice story about my Croatian roots to make me appear more "interesting".
Not quite sure why coming from "abroad" makes you more interesting. I'm sure there are boring people in outer Mongolia as well.

Iggi999 · 07/09/2009 23:21

How often does one white person ask another white person, who has just said they come from Manchester or wherever, "oh but where are you from originally?" Never, I would wager. The person who described this as colonial earlier in the thread has it spot on, I think. You're different from the norm, so you have to give an explanation for yourself - why?

LyraSilvertongue · 07/09/2009 23:21

I'll try the Croatia thing too. Could be quite amusing

Prunerz · 07/09/2009 23:56

Iggi, I just had dinner with a few Scottish friends and at least three of us had stories of saying we came from a town, and people hearing our accents and saying "No, but where do you come from originally?" (with a beady stare, perhaps).

People are nosey. They hear accents or whatever and want to know. I can't comment on what that's like if you're non-white but it does happen with white people too.

mathanxiety · 08/09/2009 05:25

In the US people tell you where their ancestors are from, at length and in great detail, without ever being asked.

I do think there's a colonial thing here; the assumption that the OP couldn't be British because of her appearance..

TheDMshouldbeRivened · 08/09/2009 07:34

they don't just tell you, they claim to be german or scottish. Not being aware of this phenomena when I moved there I couldn't figure out why some guy was telling me he was German. Espcially when he couldn't speak German (I addressed him in german). Turns out his gt gt gt grandfather moved from germany. Well, he's not flipping german then is he. He's american with one german ancestor!
It was actually fascinating the mix of euroepan ancestors but claiming to be german etc annoyed me irrationally.

Thunderduck · 08/09/2009 08:32

That annoys me too Riven.

Maveta · 08/09/2009 08:59

Iggi999 - I am white and I get asked this from other white people all the time. I find it boring and intrusive but that is my problem, they are being polite and aren't to know I feel assaulted for my family history every time I meet a new person.

My 'problem' is that we moved a lot when I was a child but my accent never changed and has always been the tending-towards-plummy tones of my mum who was brought up in Kenya and then england by ex-colonial parents (which makes us all sound extremely posh which could not be further from the truth). So when people say "where are you from?" I say 'Scotland' as that is where I lived from 11yrs-25yrs and where I most identify with being from. But my accent does not support my claim which only piques their interest.

I have tried but failed to find an answer that is polite but gets me off the hook. If pushed I would say more than anything I feel 'british' and this satisfies foreigners but not surprisingly not other british people!

Debs75 · 08/09/2009 09:23

I am white British Maternal GGM was a druid and a few generations before one of them came from Germany. On the Paternal side we have Spanish ancestors.
I wopuld consider myself as white british tho as these ancestors are way back but I like knowing that I have some diversity way back.

I think the Q 'where are you from' doesn't convey what you really want to know. It suggest to me that it is where you live or where you were brought up.
When you ask a black person that Q I think you are really asking what country was they or their ancestors born in

Takver · 08/09/2009 09:41

I think the opposite can be true - ie assuming that all white people are of English heritage (talking about other white people mostly making this assumption here). As someone with not an (or at least not very many) English bone in her body (Irish/Italian) I do not want to be lumped in with the sins of the upper class English in the late 19th C.
The last person do to this has an Irish father and should damn well have been able to decode my very obviously Northern Irish Catholic name!

MaggieVirgo · 08/09/2009 20:06

I'm from the south of Ireland I think that it's a good thing that people are losing their previously inbuilt radar ability to decode names as being northern/southern irish and catholic/protestant. jmo

MaggieVirgo · 08/09/2009 20:10

I never knew cackhanded meant left-handed. I just thought it meant poor fine motor skills!

oneopinionatedmother · 08/09/2009 21:17

the american assumption of a single ancestors nationality is annoying. Fact.

pigletmania · 08/09/2009 21:26

I am half Armenian, when i first went to mums and tots i saw someone with a non English accent, I assumed that she might be Turkish/Greek, I asked her where she was from and she told me that she was from Armenia which was fantastic, even though I am only half Armenian it was nice to meet someone from that Country. I am so glad i asked as we are really good friends now. If i did not ask, i would hae never known and never made a good friend.

Takver · 09/09/2009 09:25

Well, that is very true MaggieVirgo. I was just pissed off because it was in the course of an argument and the bloke concerned was IIRC shouting something along the lines of 'bloody english land-grabbing bastards' (for the record, he owns 40 acres, we rent 1/3 acre, we asked him to move his tractor parked on a piece we had been employed to cut). This isn't in Ireland, btw.

ginormoboobs · 09/09/2009 10:04

I am white. Born in Scotland. I have lived in different parts of Scotland so my accent is unusual.
I am often asked where I am from originally.
I don't find it offensive.
Maybe they are not asking "...because you is black" but because your accent is different.
My family have reasearched our history. Dad - Spanish then Scottish islanders , then mainland Scotland.
Mum - Scottish.
When asked the question , I don't tend to rattle off my family history. I just say I lived in X until I was 10 , Y until I was 18 , and X again until 21. Now I live here.
I will have to remember to rattle off a family history going back 200 years the next time I am asked LOL

Original poster
MrsMerryHenry · 09/09/2009 11:58

I think the main thing that's bizarre to me is when I ask the askee the same question back and they do this: . It's as if they don't expect that they ought to be asked the same question.

Imagine:

Them: What do you do for a living?

Me: I'm a molecular astrophycist. How about you?

Them: Oh, er, I'm a hemidemisemiquaver analyst.

Bit silly when you're asking any other question, isn't it?

Ginormo, if I ever have anyone rattle off 200 years of their family history I will know it's you!

I honestly didn't know that most people in the UK have trouble tracing their family roots past a certain point (what was it - 500 years?); there are so many records in this country dating back to God knows when that it didn't occur to me at all. However, when, as some bloke once said to me, someone claims that their family 'originates in Hackney because that's where my parents were born', you do have to doubt.

I like the Croatia thing, too - I might start saying that. Or maybe I'll say Liechtenstein - the only person I've ever met from there was black, so why not?

OP posts:
Original poster
MrsMerryHenry · 09/09/2009 12:01

MillyR - coming back to your statement about ethnicity, it occured to me that we're talking about two different things: I use the word instead of 'race', which leading geneticists say is a meaningless construct in genetic terms.

I think that's different from what you're talking about, which sounds like it's a mixture of both genetic inheritance and social/ emotional/ national identification.

OP posts:
BigGitDad · 09/09/2009 12:02

Anyone with an accent I ask where are they from because I find it interesting and I like to learn things about people.

MichKit · 09/09/2009 12:03

Well, DH is Canadian, and always gets asked if he's American... now that goes down like a lead balloon :-)

Original poster
MrsMerryHenry · 09/09/2009 12:07

Poor Canadian DH! I always listen carefully for how North Americans say 'out' before guessing which country they're from. So far so good and no lead balloons!

OP posts:
MichKit · 09/09/2009 12:14

Oot... eh... aboot