From: jpak@oakhill.sps.mot.com (Jim Pak)
Subject: Re: Asking someone his "nationality" (Today's "Dear Abby")
Reply-To: jpak@manute.sps.mot.com
Organization: Motorola Inc.  Austin, Tx.
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 19:13:32 GMT

In article <yuan1.711896952@husc9> yuan1@husc9.harvard.edu (Nina Yuan) writes:
>But to many people, someone who LOOKS Asian must BE Asian (i.e. an immigrant);
>I think many times the questions "where are you from" means really that;
>where are you from, since you can't be "from" America.

Well, I think you're right, but then again, many other times that question
doesn't presuppose that you're not American.  It's just a lazy way of asking
your ethnicity.  And if so, I won't get too offended.  (Like I said before,
all bets are off if they ask it like an a**hole.)

>This may be an overly sensitive interpretation, but when people ask me where
>I'm from, I see no reason to tell them anything but the truth, which is that
>I'm from New York.

Hmm.  This is interesting.  Maybe there's something to being an Nth-generation
American of Asian descent (where N >= 2) that causes that extra "sensitivity."
See, I'm a generation or two or three closer to my Asian heritage than you
probably are.  Therefore, it's not surprising we might look a bit differently
on something like this.

>If you were, say, Italian-American, and didn't speak with an accent, and
>someone came up to you and said "where are you from," wouldn't you say your
>hometown?

Probably would.

>I don't think I'm trying to be coy, and I certainly have no desire to lecture
>strangers on the semantics of their questions, I'm just answering their
>question with the truth.

See my above comments.  Perhaps this is something that I, since I'm still
first-generation (or 1.5), can't quite fully grasp like you.

>Certainly, people with accents are a different case, both for European-
>Americans and Asian-Americans.  Note also that you asked "where are you from
>ORIGINALLY," the assumption being that since this person has accent, her
>or she must not be a native-born American.  A perfectly valid assumption,
>IMHO.

OK, BUT... Native-born or not, they're still just as "American" as anybody
else, no?  I mean, who says you have to be born here to be a True American(tm)?
And if so, they have the same "right" to get offended as someone who merely
looks "foreign," right?  I mean, why wouldn't they?  Maybe they don't feel
like talking about their ethnicity any more than you do.

See, in both cases, something stands out to make both of you "unique."  In
your case and mine, it's the look but not the accent.  In the European-
American's case, it's the accent but not the look.  (In some people's cases, 
of course, it's both.  In Henry Cho's case...  :-) )  Why single out being
asked that question soley because of your *look* while ignoring that people
also get asked that question solely because of their *voice*?  They're both
rather superficial qualities in people, no?

>Granted, this is not an earth-shaking problem.  But lots of the problems
>faced by Asian-Americans today can be traced back to a confusion on the
>part of everyone else over the difference between "Asian" and "Asian-American"
>(i.e. Japan bashing and similar incidents).  What disappoints me is that
>Abby, who has succeeded in many ways in educating people though her column,
>has also failed to make this distinction.

That's a nice point.

Jim