The Subtle Xenophobia of Asking 'Where Are You From?'
Anjali Enjeti
On a recent walk through a local park, I came upon a fisherman. The way he gripped the pole, the way his hands quaked, I could tell he'd caught something sizable. A young boy abandoned the monkey bars on a nearby playground and approached the edge of the pond to get a closer look. A grandfather wandered over with his three grandchildren, and a middle aged white man wearing red shorts rose from a picnic bench to join our small group of spectators.
The fisherman struggled to reel in the fish. I wondered out loud whether it was caught on something.
The man in the red shorts turned toward me and looked me right in the eye.
"Where are you from?" he asked.
Like every brown person in the U.S., I've been asked this question hundreds if not thousands of times. I don't mind answering it if it comes up organically in conversations with people I share a community with, like work colleagues or parents with kids at the same school. I don't even mind answering it for complete strangers, as long as we're in the midst of a bona fide conversation.
